AA on the DS?

[Iron Tiger]

I've heard mention that the DS supports anti-aliasing in hardware, but I've still yet to see a pic or diagram of an actual 3D accelerator chip that's supposedly in the DS. Now I don't see jagged edges in DS games, but it could be due to the size of the pixels or it could be because it's actually doing something to blur those edges.

I've noticed tearing in some games when there is a quick dramatic change in contrast in a scene, like in Mario Kart DS when somebody zaps you with the lightning. Could it be that some (or all) DS games are using field rendering for increased throughput and a flicker filter (the supposed AA people talk about)? Aside from the aforementioned instances of tearing, it seems like a sensible solution for a portable device using an LCD screen. Or am I missing something (or just way off base)?

 

[Goragoth]

If the DS is capable of AA then either nobody is using it or it is near useless. I certainly see a lot of edge aliasing in games. The screens probably have a high enough dot pitch to hide the aliasing a bit but coming from playing games at 1600x1200 with 4xAA on my PC the aliasing on the DS is readily apparent.

I would also be curious as to the graphics chip in the DS though. Is it an in-house developed solution? Does anybody know anything (other than the theoretical polygon throughput)?

 

[Fox5]

If the DS is capable of AA then either nobody is using it or it is near useless. I certainly see a lot of edge aliasing in games. The screens probably have a high enough dot pitch to hide the aliasing a bit but coming from playing games at 1600x1200 with 4xAA on my PC the aliasing on the DS is readily apparent.

I would also be curious as to the graphics chip in the DS though. Is it an in-house developed solution? Does anybody know anything (other than the theoretical polygon throughput)?

I doubt in-house, I don't think Nintendo (or Apple for that matter) has a dedicated chip design team.

Oh, and I think a flicker filter would be horrible on an LCD screen, flicker filters only make sense on an interlaced display.

 

[Apoc]

I would also be curious as to the graphics chip in the DS though. Is it an in-house developed solution? Does anybody know anything (other than the theoretical polygon throughput)?

A very-easy-to-reach limit of 120.000 polys/s, after culling.

 

[fearsomepirate]

There is some AA on the DS, as you can see on the edges of this girl's arms in the Sims. However, it doesn't seem to affect texture aliasing at all.

http://dsmedia.ign.com/ds/image/article/614/614616/the-sims-2-20050516035941524.jpg

1600x1200 with 4x AA is why I just really don't think of 1280x720 with 2x AA as something to get super-pumped about. ;-)

 

[Teasy]

A very-easy-to-reach limit of 120.000 polys/s, after culling.

Yeah that's the display limit after culling as you say. Just to add some extra info the theoretical maximum throughput is 4 million polys/s.

 

[Fox5]

There is some AA on the DS, as you can see on the edges of this girl's arms in the Sims. However, it doesn't seem to affect texture aliasing at all.

http://dsmedia.ign.com/ds/image/article/614/614616/the-sims-2-20050516035941524.jpg

1600x1200 with 4x AA is why I just really don't think of 1280x720 with 2x AA as something to get super-pumped about. ;-)

Her arms are almost straight up and down...
Plus, jpg compression artifacts, or maybe just the dev kit adds AA because it is used to output to televisions?

 

[fearsomepirate]

Her arms are almost straight up and down...
Plus, jpg compression artifacts, or maybe just the dev kit adds AA because it is used to output to televisions?

Click on the screenshot in your browser. That's not a small JPEG I blew up; that's the original resolution the screenshot was taken at. You can clearly see AA along the edge of the girl's blouse, the edge of her jeans, and the edges of her shoulders in the hairstyle selection menu. And that's not what JPEG compression artifacts look like, anyway.

 

[Hardknock]

Why AA on such a small screen instead of a texture filter? Textures on the DS are horribly pixelated.

 

[Karamazov]

Why AA on such a small screen instead of a texture filter? Textures on the DS are horribly pixelated.

only on screenshots, games look much better in real when playing.

 

[Xmas]

Click on the screenshot in your browser. That's not a small JPEG I blew up; that's the original resolution the screenshot was taken at. You can clearly see AA along the edge of the girl's blouse, the edge of her jeans, and the edges of her shoulders in the hairstyle selection menu. And that's not what JPEG compression artifacts look like, anyway.

If this is a screenshot, who added the high-resolution antialiased text to it?