EastCoasthandle
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- Joined
- Apr 21, 2005
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| System Name | MY PC |
|---|---|
| Processor | E8400 @ 3.80Ghz > Q9650 3.60Ghz |
| Motherboard | Maximus Formula |
| Cooling | D5, 7/16" ID Tubing, Maze4 with Fuzion CPU WB |
| Memory | XMS 8500C5D @ 1066MHz |
| Video Card(s) | HD 2900 XT 858/900 to 4870 to 5870 (Keep Vreg area clean) |
| Storage | 2 |
| Display(s) | 24" |
| Case | P180 |
| Audio Device(s) | X-fi Plantinum |
| Power Supply | Silencer 750 |
| Software | XP Pro SP3 to Windows 7 |
| Benchmark Scores | This varies from one driver to another. |
There are several different types of AA that can be used in games. Below are a few:
Examples:
Quincunx vs MSAA
SSAA (scroll down) - Super Sampled AA
Analytical AA - It's found in Metro2033
Transparent AA (mid-way down) - NVIDIA for Alpha textures, etc
Nvidia's CSAA - Coverage sampled AA. Used to increase frame rate by using a reduce number of coverage samples normally found in MSAA. This is typically mistaken by some as MSAA when infact it is not. IE: "I can use 8xAA in games" can be misleading when in fact that person is using 8x CSAA. If they were using true 8x MSAA it should read 8xQ (or whatever they are using now). CSAA is found in some games along with MSAA.
CSAA in Color, Z and Coverage
AMD
Adaptive AA (mid-way down)- AMD for Alpha textures, etc
Both TrAA and AdAA can improve the image of transparent textures using specific Antialiasing techniques.
ATI's CFAA - Custom-Filter Anti-Aliasing takes samples from outside the pixel boundary. It provides more samples per pixel than MSAA with little impact on the memory footprint. They can work alongside floating-point blending based High Dynamic Range rendering and anti-aliasing stencil shadows. The draw back to Narrow and Wide Tent is blurring. Edge Detect performs a pass to discover any edges on the rendered scene, resolving those edges only (if I recall correctly). This is done by using AA while the rest of the image is AA'd using a standard box filter and a lower number of samples. If my memory recalls correctly you want to use either 8xAA (or higher) or Edge Detect you want to overclock the GPU in order to increase the Shader Clock to reduce the additional performance penalty using them.
Filter Modes
Enhanced Quality Anti-Aliasing is a newer filter that is only available in the cayman series video cards. What this does is provides extra coverage samples per color sample. For example:
2xEQAA provides 4 coverage samples. 2xAA only has 2 coverage samples.
4xEQAA provides 8 coverage samples. 4xAA only has 4 coverage samples.
8xEQAA provides 16 coverage samples. 8xAA only has 8 coverage samples.
I've come across another AA method called Practical Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA by Jorge Jimenez, etc). There is also a CPU version of MLAA from Intel (Alexander Reshetov) according to this article and pdf. MLAA can be found in GOW III, KillZone 3, etc. The quality of MLAA is between 4xAA and 8xAA MSAA at a fraction of the memory and time consumption. Because this process works as a post-processing it should work with any game. How it works is by detecting specific patterns in color or depth information of boarders and anti-aliasing them by blending pixels of those borders according to the type of pattern and position they belong to within the pattern.
MLAA
8xAA
1xAA
Take notice of the railing in the upper right corner. And here is another article another article about MLAA.
Directionally Localized Anti-Aliasing
This will be found in DLAA in Force Unleashed II (link demonstrates DLAA vs no AA). DLAA is similar to MLAA but little is explained as to how it works at this time. Current execution times for DLAA are:
"Xbox 360: 2.2 +/- 0.2ms @ 1280x720
"PlayStation3 (5 SPUs): 1.6 +/- 0.3ms @ 1280x720"
Below are some examples of DLAA vs no AA.
IQ comparison of Force Unleashed 2 using DLAA VS FXAA.
To me, the FXAA pics looks a little blurry.
Directionally Adaptive Edge AA
I've seen this one but haven't found it in games yet.
Nvidia's Version
SRAA
FXAA (by Timothy Lottes)- Fear 3 uses FXAA below are examples of what FXAA looks like vs 4x MSAA.
FXAA example vs 4xMSAA
Take notice of the grating on the crate.
MLAA vs FXAA article
What I got out of it is:
MLAA - Doesn't apply as much blurring to edges leaving a slightly sharper image quality. However it can find false edges which can be the result of a noisy texture. This causes the texture to not look as AA'd as it should be.
FXAA - Does well with noisy textures and high frequency images. Background images seem to be slightly more blurry. There is FXAA console and FXAA Quality
Currently there are no benchmark tests that show:
-Both FXAA and MLAA used from the control panel/drivers in games to see which is faster and compare IQ at the driver level.
-Both FXAA and MLAA implemented in PC games to see which is faster and compare IQ. IE: Games that have both MLAA and FXAA as a selectable AA option in it's menu.
8-3-2011
There is a FXAA DLL hook out that is at beta 4. This program allows you to use FXAA in certain games by placing it's files in the same directory as the .exe of the game. Once in game you use the Insert key to toggle FXAA on or off and use the Delete key to take screenshots. Currently this does not work in all games. Be careful when using dll hooks with online games using anti-cheating software. There is also reports of issues using this with other programs that use the original D3D9.dll file. For example, the OSD for afterburner is said to no longer work when using this program.
FXAA beta 5
Original Post
Results so far are encouraging as there is less impact on text and other on screen digits. Lets see what MLAA offers in it's update.
Update:
Jorge Jimenez and his team appear to have evolved from MLAA and developed SMAA. SMAA, Subpixel Morphological Antialiasing, improves on MLAA.
SMAA has the following options:
Pic of SMAA in use.
SMAA Injector
Older and Current AA Methods
Quincunx AA - Sometimes used on PS3 instead of MSAA. Uses 2 geometry sample points just like 2xMSAA, but it also uses 3 samples belonging to neighboring pixels. This results in blurring. Examples:
Quincunx vs MSAA
SSAA (scroll down) - Super Sampled AA
Analytical AA - It's found in Metro2033
IHV specific AA techniques
NvidiaTransparent AA (mid-way down) - NVIDIA for Alpha textures, etc
Nvidia's CSAA - Coverage sampled AA. Used to increase frame rate by using a reduce number of coverage samples normally found in MSAA. This is typically mistaken by some as MSAA when infact it is not. IE: "I can use 8xAA in games" can be misleading when in fact that person is using 8x CSAA. If they were using true 8x MSAA it should read 8xQ (or whatever they are using now). CSAA is found in some games along with MSAA.
CSAA in Color, Z and Coverage
- 2x....= MSAA (1, 2, 2)
- 4x....= MSAA (1, 4, 4)
..... - 8x...= CSAA (1, 4, 8)
- 8xQ = MSAA (1,8, 8)
..... - 16x..= CSAA (1, 4, 16)
- 16xQ = CSAA (1, 8, 16)
AMD
Adaptive AA (mid-way down)- AMD for Alpha textures, etc
Both TrAA and AdAA can improve the image of transparent textures using specific Antialiasing techniques.
ATI's CFAA - Custom-Filter Anti-Aliasing takes samples from outside the pixel boundary. It provides more samples per pixel than MSAA with little impact on the memory footprint. They can work alongside floating-point blending based High Dynamic Range rendering and anti-aliasing stencil shadows. The draw back to Narrow and Wide Tent is blurring. Edge Detect performs a pass to discover any edges on the rendered scene, resolving those edges only (if I recall correctly). This is done by using AA while the rest of the image is AA'd using a standard box filter and a lower number of samples. If my memory recalls correctly you want to use either 8xAA (or higher) or Edge Detect you want to overclock the GPU in order to increase the Shader Clock to reduce the additional performance penalty using them.
Filter Modes
- 2x, 4x, 8x Box = Normal AA
- 4x CFAA 2x + Narrow tent
- 6x CFAA 2x + Wide tent / 4x + Narrow tent
- 8x CFAA 4x + Wide tent
- 12x CFAA 8x + Narrow tent / 4x + Edge detect
- 16x CFAA 8x + Wide tent
- 24x CFAA 8x + Edge detect
Enhanced Quality Anti-Aliasing is a newer filter that is only available in the cayman series video cards. What this does is provides extra coverage samples per color sample. For example:
2xEQAA provides 4 coverage samples. 2xAA only has 2 coverage samples.
4xEQAA provides 8 coverage samples. 4xAA only has 4 coverage samples.
8xEQAA provides 16 coverage samples. 8xAA only has 8 coverage samples.
Newer Post-Processing Filters
Practical Morphological Anti-Aliasing (by I've come across another AA method called Practical Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA by Jorge Jimenez, etc). There is also a CPU version of MLAA from Intel (Alexander Reshetov) according to this article and pdf. MLAA can be found in GOW III, KillZone 3, etc. The quality of MLAA is between 4xAA and 8xAA MSAA at a fraction of the memory and time consumption. Because this process works as a post-processing it should work with any game. How it works is by detecting specific patterns in color or depth information of boarders and anti-aliasing them by blending pixels of those borders according to the type of pattern and position they belong to within the pattern.
MLAA
8xAA
1xAA
Take notice of the railing in the upper right corner. And here is another article another article about MLAA.
Directionally Localized Anti-Aliasing
This will be found in DLAA in Force Unleashed II (link demonstrates DLAA vs no AA). DLAA is similar to MLAA but little is explained as to how it works at this time. Current execution times for DLAA are:
"Xbox 360: 2.2 +/- 0.2ms @ 1280x720
"PlayStation3 (5 SPUs): 1.6 +/- 0.3ms @ 1280x720"
Below are some examples of DLAA vs no AA.
IQ comparison of Force Unleashed 2 using DLAA VS FXAA.
To me, the FXAA pics looks a little blurry.
Directionally Adaptive Edge AA
I've seen this one but haven't found it in games yet.
Nvidia's Version
SRAA
FXAA (by Timothy Lottes)- Fear 3 uses FXAA below are examples of what FXAA looks like vs 4x MSAA.
FXAA example vs 4xMSAA
Take notice of the grating on the crate.
MLAA vs FXAA article
What I got out of it is:
MLAA - Doesn't apply as much blurring to edges leaving a slightly sharper image quality. However it can find false edges which can be the result of a noisy texture. This causes the texture to not look as AA'd as it should be.
FXAA - Does well with noisy textures and high frequency images. Background images seem to be slightly more blurry. There is FXAA console and FXAA Quality
Currently there are no benchmark tests that show:
-Both FXAA and MLAA used from the control panel/drivers in games to see which is faster and compare IQ at the driver level.
-Both FXAA and MLAA implemented in PC games to see which is faster and compare IQ. IE: Games that have both MLAA and FXAA as a selectable AA option in it's menu.
8-3-2011
There is a FXAA DLL hook out that is at beta 4. This program allows you to use FXAA in certain games by placing it's files in the same directory as the .exe of the game. Once in game you use the Insert key to toggle FXAA on or off and use the Delete key to take screenshots. Currently this does not work in all games. Be careful when using dll hooks with online games using anti-cheating software. There is also reports of issues using this with other programs that use the original D3D9.dll file. For example, the OSD for afterburner is said to no longer work when using this program.
FXAA beta 5
Original Post
Results so far are encouraging as there is less impact on text and other on screen digits. Lets see what MLAA offers in it's update.
Update:
Jorge Jimenez and his team appear to have evolved from MLAA and developed SMAA. SMAA, Subpixel Morphological Antialiasing, improves on MLAA.
SMAA has the following options:
Pic of SMAA in use.
SMAA Injector
Last edited:
blows ass is just that! It sucks! It looks horrible looking.
