Why does Nvidia brag about FXAA? It makes most of my games look like crap...

[Phusius]

Just got my GTX 660 today, tried 8 different games with FXAA forced through control panel... awful... had to turn it off and use MSAA anyway...

So why does Nvidia brag about this feature again? Also, why does it brag about TXAA that only supports 1 game which is an already failed MMO The Secret World...

[newtekie1]

FXAA looks great to most people, most can't tell the difference between FXAA and MSAA, but FXAA gives next to no performance hit, that is why they brag.

[Phusius]

Hmm, I don't think it looks better at all. /shrug

[radrok]

As newtekie said it brings an improvement at the cost of little performance, I personally prefer SSAA but that's soooooo taxing that sometimes it isn't a viable option.

I never use FXAA though, I really hate it that much, it makes games blurry for me.

I tend to use SSAA when I can and if it is too taxing (at 2560x1600 any AA is taxing) I'll just use MSAA, honestly at 1600p more than 4x AA is just redundant, it shows little to no gain in IQ.

[silapakorn]

I applaud FXAA in Max Payne 3. Looks almost like MSAA but no performance trade-off.

[Frag Maniac]

Maybe you should describe what "look like crap" means. It's not going to be as high quality as their other more advanced forms of AA, but as mentioned, it's pretty efficient FPS wise. If you want really good edges with moderate GPU power, I would suggest balancing settings so you can run fairly high res and textures, instead of expecting it to work like a horse and clean up a huge mess.

For instance I have a mere GTS 250 1GB, but I can run Sleeping Dogs at 1600x900 with the HD texture DLC, which gives the minimal AA I apply (FXAA only) a fighting chance. Part of what allows me to do this while maintaining good frame rates is I disable Vsync, but I also have my GPU OCed about 13% on the core.

Oh, and btw, I'm talking about a game that has an FXAA option IN the game menu. I know many don't, but that is a more efficient way to enable it if there is one. So if you enable it in the NCP, I wouldn't do it globally, but per game instead, and only on the ones that don't show it as an option in game.

You'll get different results with each game, but balancing settings really matters too. The ratio between the res and size of display you have matters too, because that is what determines pixel size. The smaller the pixels, the less jagged edges you get.

[entropy13]

What games?

[Phusius]

I shouldn't say crap, it just isn't my flavor, I am used to playing all my games with 8x MSAA and 16x AA... so yeah nothing against Nvidia, I guess I just am to used to what my 7970 gave me. /shrug

[entropy13]

Why did you downgrade? Because it isn't really your own money anyway?

[Frag Maniac]

Yeah I'm having a hard time grasping why one would go from a 7970 to a 660 in the first place. Serious step backwards there.

I hope you didn't beg, borrow and steal to buy that 7970, because it's looking like it caught up with you.

[Flibolito]

FXAA, Morphological AA, so on always ruins the point for me. Whether its 1080p or 1440p, the fact it blurs the entire scene makes high res textures look like bawls. At first I thought OMG BF3 looks alot less sharp than BC2, until I turned of that terrible post processing AA. I guess if you are used to gaming at low res and low GPU power its better than nothing but it still cant even touch a real algorithm AA for quality. Multi-sampling and Super-sampling are still kind, to me that one of the main reasons to buy a high end card is to be able to use those features at reasonable frame times.

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Flibolito

FXAA, Morphological AA, so on always ruins the point for me. Whether its 1080p or 1440p, the fact it blurs the entire scene makes high res textures look like bawls. At first I thought OMG BF3 looks alot less sharp than BC2, until I turned of that terrible post processing AA. I guess if you are used to gaming at low res and low GPU power its better than nothing but it still cant even touch a real algorithm AA for quality. Multi-sampling and Super-sampling are still kind, to me that one of the main reasons to buy a high end card is to be able to use those features at reasonable frame times.

Any time you force AA, no matter the method, it is going to blur pretty much everything on the screen. That is just what AA naturally does.

Games really need to be optimized for AA for AA to really look good without blurring the entire screen. In the games that are actually designed to use FXAA it looks amazing, but just forcing it through the control panel makes most games blurry. But so does forcing MSAA through the control panel, or CSAA.

[Phusius]

Originally Posted by entropy13

Why did you downgrade? Because it isn't really your own money anyway?

Originally Posted by Frag Maniac

Yeah I'm having a hard time grasping why one would go from a 7970 to a 660 in the first place. Serious step backwards there.

I hope you didn't beg, borrow and steal to buy that 7970, because it's looking like it caught up with you.

My 7970 VRM temps were hitting 114 Celsius with no voltage increase, faulty VRM's, and Msi is saying since I used an Arctic cooler on it, they are not obliged to fix it. So I am out the however much money.

[Kaynar]

Phusius I remember you post about your faulty 7970 with high VRM temps a few days ago, however I didn't see that you are actually using a different aftermarket cooler. The artic cooler has had some bad reviews for the 7970 because it is NOT cooling VRMs! Get your card back if you sent it to MSI and put some of these on the VRMs (make sure they are the proper size).

http://www.amazon.com/Enzotech-MOS-C...s=vrm+heatsink

I'm pretty sure the above model wont suit you but you can certainly find the right ones to use for this card.

As long as your 7970 works - even hot - why not use it?

[v12dock]

smaa > fxaa

[DeoDomuique]

It's not only the blurriness, for me it's mostly when you're moving it does absolutely nothing. It's like many objects are blinking/flickering.

For instance, do you like BF3 only with post-AA? I can't play without at least 2xMSAA on some maps ( and post-AA only on Low because BF3 is made to use both ). I prefer to turn off other features to afford MSAA.

TXAA isn't a combination of MSAA and FXAA? You get the blurriness of FXAA and the performance hit of MSAA?...

[Wrigleyvillain]

I only use it for Tribes: Ascend as it is my only option for less jaggies. It does blur somewhat but not as bad as ATI's Morphological or the Post Processing AA in BF3, for example.

[manofthem]

Originally Posted by Phusius

My 7970 VRM temps were hitting 114 Celsius with no voltage increase, faulty VRM's, and Msi is saying since I used an Arctic cooler on it, they are not obliged to fix it. So I am out the however much money.

I don't remember which 7970 you had, but if a waterblock is made for your model, time to watercool! Slap that baby in a loop and your vrms will be down to the 40s

Can I get an "Amen?"

[phanbuey]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

Any time you force AA, no matter the method, it is going to blur pretty much everything on the screen. That is just what AA naturally does.

Games really need to be optimized for AA for AA to really look good without blurring the entire screen. In the games that are actually designed to use FXAA it looks amazing, but just forcing it through the control panel makes most games blurry. But so does forcing MSAA through the control panel, or CSAA.

yeah but it is not even close to the same amount of blur for other AA modes... CSAA vs FXAA is immediately noticeable how much blurrier FXAA is.

I agree with the OP, FXAA makes everything look blurry, even in the side by side screenshots of Max Payne on review sites (i.e. not my system), it is unacceptably blurry, and much worse than any other AA form, it doesn't seem like FXAA can tell the difference between the edge of an object and a sharp line on a texture so it makes everything look blurred...

[Recus]

Originally Posted by phanbuey

yeah but it is not even close to the same amount of blur for other AA modes... CSAA vs FXAA is immediately noticeable how much blurrier FXAA is.

I agree with the OP, FXAA makes everything look blurry, even in the side by side screenshots of Max Payne on review sites (i.e. not my system), it is unacceptably blurry, and much worse than any other AA form, it doesn't seem like FXAA can tell the difference between the edge of an object and a sharp line on a texture so it makes everything look blurred...

Not even close. Hardcop and Geforce has screens.

[swaaye]

Screenshots don't show all of the problems of FXAA and MLAA. There is also a temporal aspect, from frame to frame, where it is very weak compared to MSAA/SSAA. So you absolutely need to see it in motion to properly judge it.

I find post-process AA to be beneficial in some cases. Particularly when the graphics aren't going for photorealism (ie cartoon/cell shading). But most of the time it is a serious tradeoff. You get some anti-aliasing but you also lose a lot of fine detail. It's much worse than the softening that SSAA does.

[Phusius]

o lord, please just close this topic, I did not mean to open this can of worms. I just like MSAA better and was rather surprised FXAA didn't meet my expectations, Nvidia seems to hype it up quite a bit, which was I was so surprised when I tried it myself, and hence made this topic.

no fighting please

[radrok]

Originally Posted by Phusius

o lord, please just close this topic, I did not mean to open this can of worms. I just like MSAA better and was rather surprised FXAA didn't meet my expectations, Nvidia seems to hype it up quite a bit, which was I was so surprised when I tried it myself, and hence made this topic.

no fighting please

It just seems a civil discussion to me

[Slizzo]

Originally Posted by Phusius

o lord, please just close this topic, I did not mean to open this can of worms. I just like MSAA better and was rather surprised FXAA didn't meet my expectations, Nvidia seems to hype it up quite a bit, which was I was so surprised when I tried it myself, and hence made this topic.

no fighting please

I think it's more people want to help you get your 7970 working so that you have a nice beastly card to use instead of that 660. The 660 is a good card, just not near what you had in the 7970.

[Phusius]

eh, thanks Slizzo, I don't mind the 660 so far, i mean shogun 2 maxes out, bf3 maxes out, i have very little to complain about so far. even metro 2033 i'm hitting 60 fps in on med settings, and i'm fine with med to high settings, i don't care to much about maxing out, as long as black ops 2 maxes out, i dont care lol