HDR, alpha textures, and AA in next generation consoles?

[Nite_Hawk]

Hi guys,

So after looking over the reviews of the G70 today, I am left with somewhat mixed emotions. On one hand, the AA really isn't substantially improved over the NV40 except for the addition of AA on alpha textures (Though this is a very very nice feature!). The most notably lacking thing is AA on floating point blended targets. If this is the case with the RSX as well, It really is going to dampen my enthusiasm for the graphics potential of the PS3. On one hand, they'll have AA on alpha textures which should be very nice (which I think ATI would be insane not to expose on the xbox360 as well given their recent cheerleading!). On the other hand, it means that HDR on the PS3 may end up being a bust if they don't want to appear behind ATI/Microsoft. On the third hand, how much will people notice/care if they are running at a very high resolution (like 1080p)?

I think I would have been a lot happier seeing a default resolution of 720p, 4xAA (with supersampled alpha textures) and support for AA'd floating point targets. It really doesn't sound like either console will have them though.

Nite_Hawk

 

[ralexand]

Is that alpha AA hardware accelerated with devoted silicon meaning its propietary to Nvidia?

 

[Inane_Dork]

Personally, I'd rather have AA supported for HDR with MSAA on alpha than no AA for HDR and SSAA on alpha. Though, I have to admit, SSAA on alpha is one highly appealing feature.

 

[EasyRaider]

I think I would have been a lot happier seeing a default resolution of 720p, 4xAA (with supersampled alpha textures) and support for AA'd floating point targets. It really doesn't sound like either console will have them though.

Ditto.

For sure, a lot of PS3 games will use HDR. It tends to be very noticeable in screenshots and not having it would seem inferior. I suspect 1080p without AA will be default (downsampled as needed). I doubt RSX will be capable of AA+HDR, unfortunately.

 

[Rockster]

I think I would have been a lot happier seeing a default resolution of 720p, 4xAA (with supersampled alpha textures) and support for AA'd floating point targets.

Its technically possible on Xenos, since it supports both "alpha to mask" and MSAA on HDR framebuffers. But would have a high tile requirement (4 or 5). Some games may try it, but I suspect the majority will end up at 720p, 4xAA, and FP10 or 720p, 2xAA, and FP16. It will be interesting to see.

 

[dukmahsik]

do we know which features at this time the xenos will have and rsx won't and vice versa?

 

[ralexand]

I think I would have been a lot happier seeing a default resolution of 720p, 4xAA (with supersampled alpha textures) and support for AA'd floating point targets.

Its technically possible on Xenos, since it supports both "alpha to mask" and MSAA on HDR framebuffers. But would have a high tile requirement (4 or 5). Some games may try it, but I suspect the majority will end up at 720p, 4xAA, and FP10 or 720p, 2xAA, and FP16. It will be interesting to see.

Is there big qualitative difference between fp10 and fp16?

 

[Thowllly]

I think I would have been a lot happier seeing a default resolution of 720p, 4xAA (with supersampled alpha textures) and support for AA'd floating point targets.

Its technically possible on Xenos, since it supports both "alpha to mask" and MSAA on HDR framebuffers. But would have a high tile requirement (4 or 5). Some games may try it, but I suspect the majority will end up at 720p, 4xAA, and FP10 or 720p, 2xAA, and FP16. It will be interesting to see.

Is there big qualitative difference between fp10 and fp16?

Assuming fp16 is s10e5 and fp10 is s6e3, both normalized with denorm support.

fp16 has much higher precision, 11b vs. 7b. That means fp16 can represent numbers that are only 1/2048 apart, while fp10 can only represent numbers that are 1/128 apart. fp16 has much, much larger range. fp10 has range like a 14b signed integer, fp16 has range like a 42b signed integer. Will this actually make a big difference on the screen? I doubt it.

 

[Acert93]

Still shocked G70 (and RSX?) wont have MSAA with FP16. And because of the performance hit with SSAA, devs are basically told:

Choose: AA or HDR

:?

On the bright side this means devs wont have to worry about the performance issues of AA + HDR.

 

[jvd]

Perhaps the rsx will have this modified . If not this may be a nice place to balance the systems out . The x360 will be in a lower res with hdr and 4x fsaa and the ps3 will be at 1080p with hdr or with fsaa .

 

[Acert93]

I think I would have been a lot happier seeing a default resolution of 720p, 4xAA (with supersampled alpha textures) and support for AA'd floating point targets.

Its technically possible on Xenos, since it supports both "alpha to mask" and MSAA on HDR framebuffers. But would have a high tile requirement (4 or 5). Some games may try it, but I suspect the majority will end up at 720p, 4xAA, and FP10 or 720p, 2xAA, and FP16. It will be interesting to see.

FP16 w/ 2x AA is better than FP16 w/o AA at this point

FP10 does not sound too bad (i.e. it appears it could get the job done in most cases with very little noticable IQ issues), while admittadly I want to see someone do FP16 with 4x MSAA Call me greedy!

On a side note... anyone else remember the ugly bleeding and such in FarCry with FP16? The moon looked like a SUN for crying out loud!

I am excited about HDR in general, but I hope it is not overdone... my bet: HDR = this years bloom effect

 

[Shifty Geezer]

jvd : But at 1080p.,downscaled to 720p there's about 2x SSAA available, so on the smaller display rendering to 1080p and downscaling offers probably the same degree of IQ. If XB360 could do 1080p with AA+HDR, then there'd be a difference, but it seems both are comparable, just with RSX offering an extra option.

 

[jvd]

jvd : But at 1080p.,downscaled to 720p there's about 2x SSAA available, so on the smaller display rendering to 1080p and downscaling offers probably the same degree of IQ. If XB360 could do 1080p with AA+HDR, then there'd be a difference, but it seems both are comparable, just with RSX offering an extra option.

Yes you would get about 2x ssaa . However untill we see both its hard to make a judgement on which one is actualy better and the xenos should be able to do alpha mask msaa _ hdr which may still give it the image quality edge

 

[zidane1strife]

I'd like to see 16xEdge AA, and HDR AA available on RSX, let us hope.

 

[marconelly!]

If you look at Nvidia's Luna demo, it features HDR and it pretty obviously has AA. How is that done?

Personally, I'd rather have AA supported for HDR with MSAA on alpha than no AA for HDR and SSAA on alpha. Though, I have to admit, SSAA on alpha is one highly appealing feature.

MSAA on alpha seems like it's not doing anything, if you look at the test pictures at some of the sites that tested 7800. SSAA on alpha is another story though.

 

[Acert93]

If you look at Nvidia's Luna demo, it features HDR and it pretty obviously has AA. How is that done?

SLI 7800GTX w/ SSAA?

From what I have read G70 does not support FP16 with MSAA, so that would be my guess. I guess we will know more in the next 3-6months.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Personally I don't care what AA system is used as long as it works well!

 

[Acert93]

Personally I don't care what AA system is used as long as it works well!

That is always the catch: performance. There is a reason why sites are mainly using SSAA on older games or on some newer games with the SLI.

It is like the 30fps vs 60fps issue. Do you go for 30fps with prettier graphics or 60fps and smoother? But with HDR + SSAA it is kind of a double whammy as both are pretty intensive.

And then there is the resolution issue (720p/1080i at ~1M pixels/frame or 1080p with ~2M pixels/frame).

Options are great, don't get me wrong. But having a balanced approach of some level of HDR + AA + HD Resolutions on ALL AAA+ games would be nice. I cringe at the thought that Tekken may get 4xAA and no HDR while GTA may get HDR but no AA (just random examples of games that may push the system). But then again devs are SMART people. They will pick the technologies that best match their game. AA helps most games, less so than HDR imo in that fewer games benefit from the effect. So it probably is not the end of the world...

But I am greedy

 

[marconelly!]

It is like the 30fps vs 60fps issue. Do you go for 30fps with prettier graphics or 60fps and smoother? But with HDR + SSAA it is kind of a double whammy as both are pretty intensive.

Isnb't HDR supposed to be performance free on G70? Or what exactly does their 'full speed HDR' comment mean?

SLI 7800GTX w/ SSAA?

Oh, I see. Could it be just one 7800 with SSAA? That means SSAA can be used, but MSAA can't, right?


I would really like DeanoC to comment on this, as his game features HDR in huge quantities, it seems. What does he plan to do with FSAA in his game?

 

[DeanoC]

I would really like DeanoC to comment on this, as his game features HDR in huge quantities, it seems. What does he plan to do with FSAA in his game?

Don't know yet, lets see how much fillrate we have to spare...