A good attempt at clarifying FSAA for the masses

[Neeyik]

www.xbitlabs.com/video/antialiasing/

Although I don't like X-bit Labs' habit of putting an entire article on one page, I though this was a pretty decent effort. Not overly clear in parts, and links to larger pictures would have been nice, but good nonetheless.

Edit: Oh and check out their little FSAA demo proggie too:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/video/antialiasing/fsaademo.rar

 

[SlmDnk]

That FSAA Demo was really cool. Excellent little program.

 

[demalion]

Oh my goodness, that FSAA program is terrific! Now to just find out if it works properly...

 

[demalion]

Hmm...unless ATi has added support for Quincunx and other nVidia AA modes to my 8500 when I wasn't looking, it is just a demo of the author's analysis of the AA methods, not a tool for you to prove the analysis on your own machine.

 

[Bambers]

Unfortunately the programs simulation doesn't produce the correct results for these modes on a 8500 (assuming 9xxx/6xxx drivers) : 2xp, 3xp, 6xp, 2xq (most of the time this is just ordered grid and when it is jittered its not 45 degrees) and 5xq (correct for the top left half but the bottom right uses something different ).

The 8500s FSAA still continues to be a mystery, any ati person out there like to tell us what it is actually doing and if it'll ever work anything like they said in their whitepaper/r300 techdemos?

EDIT: The 2xp, 3xp and 6xp modes are almost correct but the program takes eg 2 samples for half the pixels and 1 for the rest, the 8500 would take 1.5 samples for each pixel.