*spinoff* Quality of Edge AA... stuff

[Globalisateur]

I don't remember seeing any research showing Forward+ performing better than Deferred at 1xMSAA.
At higher MSAA perhaps, but let's be honest, Titanfall might be the only game using MSAA on Xbox One (and might not be for long if they patch in FXAA).
MSAA just doesn't make a lot of sense given the limited ESRAM.
One can argue for "tiling" of course, but we all know how popular that was on X360 where MSAA was really for free.

I disagree. MSAA brings image quality + sharpness and it means a lot for a twitch shooter. 792p + 2xMSAA was the best decision they could have for this game. For many people it looks "next gen" enough. It wouldn't if they had used FXAA (Thief at 900p-1080p + FXAA, does it look "next gen"?, does COD + FXAA look next-gen?)

Because I guess that even without AA (and even if Respawn told us it would) 1080p would be too much for the GPU (not the VRam). And the image at 900p with FXAA is washed out, you have the double vaseline filter punishment (upscaling + FXAA); perceived resolution of the textures looks like sub-700p and geometry sub-details are literally destroyed (as it should when you understand how a strong FXAA blurs every assets without distinction) according to the Eurogamer comparison.

Even if 10% of people will complain that they can "see the jaggies" with 2xMSAA, the rest will appreciate the added sharpness and clarity in the game and this sharpness will contribute to the success of the game like it did for the first CODs games.

 

[Scott_Arm]

FXAA isn't that bad. If 2x MSAA makes games look next-gen, then we've already been at that point since the early 2000s. I'd personally trade the MSAA for FXAA and a better framerate, not even worrying about a resolution bump.

 

[Globalisateur]

FXAA isn't that bad. If 2x MSAA makes games look next-gen, then we've already been at that point since the early 2000s. I'd personally trade the MSAA for FXAA and a better framerate, not even worrying about a resolution bump.

For many people it's enough "next gen" for them. I have seen many XB1 Titanfall (gfx) praises in this forum and elsewhere (and not only from Microsoft supporters).

What's important for many people is the perceived resolution of the game (mainly textures and sub-details resolution) and in that logic, and objectively 792p 2xMSAA > 900p FXAA.

 

[Boxercide]

For many people it's enough "next gen" for them. I have seen many XB1 Titanfall (gfx) praises in this forum and elsewhere (and not only from Microsoft supporters).

What's important for many people is the perceived resolution of the game (mainly textures and sub-details resolution) and in that logic, and objectively 792p 2xMSAA > 900p FXAA.

I don't think you understand the meaning of the word 'objective'. You seem to be confusing it with 'subjective'.

 

[HTupolev]

What's important for many people is the perceived resolution of the game (mainly textures and sub-details resolution) and in that logic, and objectively 792p 2xMSAA > 900p FXAA.

That's a tough one. 900p is going to offer 29% increased sampling in everything except geometry (where it's beaten by 54%), and it uses a higher base resolution to ensure that that extra sampling can be resolved not just as stability but also increased clarity/sharpness. Obviously FXAA is going to decrease that clarity to some extent, but there are a lot of different "FXAA" implementations (some less destructive than others).

I like MSAA, but it's not obvious to me that 792p2xMSAA is always going to come across as visually superior to 900pFXAA. Geometry will be much more stable, but otherwise the higher-resolution image might win out. At least for some games. It'll probably depend on a combination of the game's visual makeup, implementation details, and who the viewer is.

 

[Globalisateur]

I don't think you understand the meaning of the word 'objective'. You seem to be confusing it with 'subjective'.

Evidence of geometry sub-details (the grass) wrecked:

Evidence of texture at 900p slightly blurrier than at 792p (XB1 pic taken without sharpening filter, and those ground textures are medium res because the higher the res, the more FXAA blurs them!):

I meant this kind of "objective argument".

@HTupolev

but there are a lot of different "FXAA" implementations (some less destructive than others).

I agree, like the one used in TRDE which is really great. In those posts I am talking only about the "bad" FXAA (used in COD Ghosts, BF4, Knack, Thief, DarkSouls2 and the one they would have used with Titanfall because it's the cheaper).

 

[zed]

I meant this kind of "objective argument".

horrible graphics, instead of using an old game use a game from this century to showcase your point

in both pictures Im sure 90+% ppl will agree the 1080p images look the best, so I'll ignore those and just compare 720p vs 900p

in the top one, yes the grass looks better in the 720p one
bottom one, the shadows in the 900p one look better, the AA in the building in the bottom right also looks better

so I'ld say draw somethings the 720@2xMSAA is better than 900pFXAA, and somethings not
both look worse than 1080p

 

[Ike Turner]

horrible graphics, instead of using an old game use a game from this century to showcase your point

WtH are you talking about? This "Old Game" was released 4 days ago.

 

[HTupolev]

horrible graphics, instead of using an old game use a game from this century to showcase your point

Yikes.



(Closeup objects and random areas on the ground are going to look like that in most modern games.)

 

[Globalisateur]

in the top one, yes the grass looks better in the 720p one
bottom one, the shadows in the 900p one look better, the AA in the building in the bottom right also looks better

Yep, you are right . That's the problem with a (strong) FXAA: It deals with 1% of the image nasty stuff (the jaggies) but wreck the other good 99%.

 

[Strange]

Evidence of geometry sub-details (the grass) wrecked:

Evidence of texture at 900p slightly blurrier than at 792p (XB1 pic taken without sharpening filter, and those ground textures are medium res because the higher the res, the more FXAA blurs them!):

I meant this kind of "objective argument".

@HTupolev I agree, like the one used in TRDE which is really great. In those posts I am talking only about the "bad" FXAA (used in COD Ghosts, BF4, Knack, Thief, DarkSouls2 and the one they would have used with Titanfall because it's the cheaper).

What are we supposed to see from this tiny image?

Objectively you can say textures are less blurry in 792p but due to other IQ effects that are blatantly obvious here, I don't think you can say that "792p is better is subjective"

 

[XpiderMX]

What are we supposed to see from this tiny image?

Objectively you can say textures are less blurry in 792p but due to other IQ effects that are blatantly obvious here, I don't think you can say that "792p is better is subjective"

792p >>>>> 1080p, in that image

 

[(((interference)))]

I think 900p with FXAA is the better option, aliasing is far more noticeable (and suspension of disbelief breaking) visual artifact than slightly blurrier textures due to post-process AA and 792p with MSAA has more jaggies.

I was very impressed by post-process AA in the later games of last generation, eg. GTA5 looked fantastic with Rockstar's post-process AA (definitely wasn't a noticeable downgrade from GTA4 or RDR's 2xMSAA) - and this was just at 720p, post-AA works far better as resolution increases.

Games like GTA5 definitely look cleaner than sub-720p games with 2xMSAA as well (eg. COD).
So I think here too 900p with post AA would have been a better option than 792p 2xMSAA.

 

[Globalisateur]

I think 900p with FXAA is the better option, aliasing is far more noticeable (and suspension of disbelief breaking) visual artifact than slightly blurrier textures due to post-process AA and 792p with MSAA has more jaggies.

I was very impressed by post-process AA in the later games of last generation, eg. GTA5 looked fantastic with Rockstar's post-process AA (definitely wasn't a noticeable downgrade from GTA4 or RDR's 2xMSAA) - and this was just at 720p, post-AA works far better as resolution increases.

Games like GTA5 definitely look cleaner than sub-720p games with 2xMSAA as well (eg. COD).
So I think here too 900p with post AA would have been a better option than 792p 2xMSAA.

But GTA5 post AA is not the usual blurry FXAA. Far from it. It's a "refined" post AA (as noted by Digital foundry) which doesn't blur the textures/geometry sub-details, anyway a lot less than FXAA:

On a native screen you can notice the still rough aliased edges and sub-details like the tree branches. It's not a blurry FXAA. It's a sharp and light post AA. Post AAs can be awesome (like SMAA used in Ryse/Infamous), good (like with GTA5/Tomb Raider PS3 (not X360!) or next gen) and can also be awful, like a cheap and strong FXAA used in many not so successful games (what a coincidence!).

 

[HTupolev]

Post AAs can be awesome (like SMAA used in Ryse/Infamous)

Part of why the AA in Ryse and Infamous is awesome is that it's doing a lot more than just a post-process AA pass.

Unless of course you consider temporal supersampling to be "post-process", heh.

 

[Shortbread]

horrible graphics, instead of using an old game use a game from this century to showcase your point

Right and wrong at the same time.

FYI: That's Titanfall...

 

[(((interference)))]

Ok, I wasn't sure whether GTA5 was using FXAA or some bespoke method.
But surely with the increased computing power available on next gen you'd think Respawn could match or better it on XB1.

Then, 900p with post AA would be better than the 792p 2xMSAA they currently have.

 

[Billy Idol]

horrible graphics, instead of using an old game use a game from this century to showcase your point

Ha ha ha...best post ever

 

[Broken Hope]

Ha ha ha...best post ever

It is kinda true though, also makes me wonder why Titanfall runs as bad as it does when it seems to have some textures that wouldn't look out of place on an N64.

 

[sebbbi]

I didn't like post AA that much last generation, because the commonly used sub-HD resolutions (1280x672 in our case) made post AA problems much more apparent. "Vaseline smearing" (blurring) is easy to solve by limiting the AA to pixels that have high enough contrast differences. When done properly, this actually even saves some GPU cycles. So I don't think the blurring is actually a real problem, unless a developer is not willing to customize the AA filter at all (and/or play enough with the parameters).

However now with next gen, I think post AA is a much better solution, at least when used in a 1080p + 60 fps game. Smaller pixels reduce the problems of post AA. Also 60 fps makes (the much reduced) edge crawling even less visible. And you can also use (slightly better) post AA algorithms (because the GPU is faster). I am quite happy with the post AA quality now.