Fixed Function Hardware: Anti Aliasing?

[Goodtwin]

I have recently considered buying this mCable that has a built in processor to apply AA to the image. Being a Nintendo guy I have plenty of games from Gamecube to the Switch that completely lack AA, and Wii games were especially offensive in that regard. The cable seems to do what it says, and has gotten some very positive reviews.

https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/...on-can-no-hdmi-cable-improve-graphics-quality

This got me questioning if this tech is viable option for hardware manufactures to build into the hardware. For example, at a mass market production, would this be rather inexpensive at the OEM level, and reduce the burden on the graphics processor. I would love to see a future revision of the Nintendo Switch dock have something like this built into it. Right now it is completely up to the develop to make resource choices to accommodate AA, and with many example where they simply choose to go without. Fixed function hardware seems like a thing of the past, but is AA perhaps an example where it could make sense? What do you guys think?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You're best doing post-effect AA on the GPU with lots of FB data. If you don't want to spend a lot on it, use simpler algorithms and less GPU. But dedicating silicon to the job is probably a waste as that silicon could be more versatile as just GPU compute.

Perhaps the best funky-hardware option is AI processing that can be given ML AA, denoising, upscaling, etc.

 

[phoenix_chipset]

Resolutions are higher than ever and No AA is sometimes better than having some.

Nintendo's clean colorful aesthetic would be hurt by TAA or heavy fxaa. Fixed hardware for post AA could produce unwanted results.

I would just hope the switch 2 has enough bandwidth and power to accommodate good AF and a basic smaa 1x. Rather just add more CU´s or a wider bus than forced AA

 

[dobwal]

Xbox 360

 

[cheapchips]

Resolutions are higher than ever and No AA is sometimes better than having some.

Nintendo's clean colorful aesthetic would be hurt by TAA or heavy fxaa.

I don't agree with this at all. Good TAA is a benefit at all resolutions. I'd take a slight softening over temporal artifacts any day of the week. Snake Pass is a nice Nintendo style (or at least Rare style) example.

Hardwarw wise, I don't know if you can enhance the Pro's ID buffer to help improve TAA further?

 

[Shortbread]

I have recently considered buying this mCable that has a built in processor to apply AA to the image. Being a Nintendo guy I have plenty of games from Gamecube to the Switch that completely lack AA, and Wii games were especially offensive in that regard. The cable seems to do what it says, and has gotten some very positive reviews.

https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/...on-can-no-hdmi-cable-improve-graphics-quality

I remembered Digital Foundry did a review of that cable.

 

[phoenix_chipset]

I don't agree with this at all. Good TAA is a benefit at all resolutions. I'd take a slight softening over temporal artifacts any day of the week. Snake Pass is a nice Nintendo style (or at least Rare style) example.

Hardwarw wise, I don't know if you can enhance the Pro's ID buffer to help improve TAA further?

Not only does TAA blur but it adds ghosting and other artifacts. A game like doom on switch has no business having TAA with its 600p ish dynamic res. Play that on a 55 incher lol. Some TAA is better than others though... Insomiac's is good. Generally for games that are already soft looking I don't mind it but I don't want it for Nintendo's crisp aesthetic.
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Anyone know what the N64's forced AA is? It uses 512kb so I assume 2x MSAA? There's also a blur pass but that's separate. Back in the day that was a good idea at least when games only had 240p res and no deferred rendering getting in the way.

 

[eastmen]

Resolutions are higher than ever and No AA is sometimes better than having some.

Nintendo's clean colorful aesthetic would be hurt by TAA or heavy fxaa. Fixed hardware for post AA could produce unwanted results.

I would just hope the switch 2 has enough bandwidth and power to accommodate good AF and a basic smaa 1x. Rather just add more CU´s or a wider bus than forced AA

I agree , higher res and fsaa done in hardware on the system looks much better , even emulated

Wind waker at 8k res with 8x fsaa and 16 anistropic filtering. Game looks breath taking

4k breath of the wild

 

[turkey]

If resolution trumps, sebbbi posted some pretty good nural networks that upscaled the image, this could then make an even cripser super sampled image?

 

[milk]

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Anyone know what the N64's forced AA is? It uses 512kb so I assume 2x MSAA? There's also a blur pass but that's separate. Back in the day that was a good idea at least when games only had 240p res and no deferred rendering getting in the way.

Actually, N64 had great analytical edge AA, better results than MSAA while also being cheaper. The reason it lost popularity is it required to render geo back to front to work properly, which is fill-rate ineficient. Maybe its not really cheaper than MSAA when you take THAT into acount, but I don't know. UBI studied replicating that sort of edge AA this gen through compute shaders, but it didn't catch on because it required workarounds the lack of conservative rasterization, something we won't have to worry about next gen, thus I believe we will FINALLY see a resurgence of that techniche.

 

[cheapchips]

Not only does TAA blur but it adds ghosting and other artifacts. A game like doom on switch has no business having TAA with its 600p ish dynamic res. Play that on a 55 incher lol. Some TAA is better than others though... Insomiac's is good. Generally for games that are already soft looking I don't mind it but I don't want it for Nintendo's crisp aesthetic.

I wasn't arguing for Doom Switch levels of resolution on a 55" TV. BotW at 4k would look better using Id's TSSAA or Insomniac's solution.