Could there be any PS3 games with no AA?

[superguy]

Since supposedly AA would be a hit on this system?

Would they just look too bad? Or could you get by? How big a factor are jaggies at 720P no AA?

Also as a follow up, is 2X AA more likely to be common on PS3 than 4XAA?

 

[weaksauce]

Personally I prefer 60fps over AA.

As long as it won't get crappy EA ports from this gen, it'll probably have at least AA.

For launch I'd guess:
Motorstorm AAA
Lair AAA
Warhawk AAA
Fatal intertia AA

 

[doob]

I'd rather see games without AA and lightmaps(or near to 0 lightmaps), and all using real-time environmental lightning with several(4or+) light sources & selfshadowing with 8x anisotropic filtering.

 

[Titanio]

Of course it's possible. There were a number of games at E3 not using AA (HS at the time, though it now is..MGS4, at TGS, didn't seem to be using AA).

 

[London Geezer]

Like there are X360 games without AA or even AF, there will be games on PS3 without those features.

 

[Megadrive1988]

since PS3 GPU only has a 128-bit bus and no EDRAM to back it up, I expect a lot of PS3 games will sacrifice AA so that they can have HDR and other effects at decent framerates at 720p / 1080i.

 

[weaksauce]

Oh s**t I totally misread the post.

 

[liverkick]

Of course it's possible. There were a number of games at E3 not using AA (HS at the time, though it now is..MGS4, at TGS, didn't seem to be using AA).

I was curious about MGS4. Are we sure it wasnt using AA (HDR usage aside)? The IQ on the 720p trailer is remarkably smooth looking, particularly Snake's character model. I think the only time I noticed any jaggies whatsoever were on some powerlines in the background, but even 2xAA wouldn't clean that up.

 

[London Geezer]

I was curious about MGS4. Are we sure it wasnt using AA (HDR usage aside)? The IQ on the 720p trailer is remarkably smooth looking, particularly Snake's character model. I think the only time I noticed any jaggies whatsoever were on some powerlines in the background, but even 2xAA wouldn't clean that up.

Heh, that's the reason lots of people aren't really bothered with AA, sometimes it doesn't really rids the screen of jaggies, and sometimes you don't see aliasing anyway... Personally, i always do, but i understand that people might not be as picky as i am.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Like there are X360 games without AA or even AF, there will be games on PS3 without those features.

Name one. There are no 360 games without AA to my knowldege.

I think games can get away with no AA at 1080i resolution, at that resolution jaggies are so small it's not really a problem. At 720p it's an absolute must IMO, having big jarring jaggies absolutely drags the GFX down and shatters the illusion of the gameworld.

 

[joebloggs]

Name one. There are no 360 games without AA to my knowldege.

I think games can get away with no AA at 1080i resolution, at that resolution jaggies are so small it's not really a problem. At 720p it's an absolute must IMO, having big jarring jaggies absolutely drags the GFX down and shatters the illusion of the gameworld.

PDZ does not have AA - I think they mentioned using motion blur instead because AA was "not entirely free" in their words.

 

[liverkick]

Heh, that's the reason lots of people aren't really bothered with AA, sometimes it doesn't really rids the screen of jaggies, and sometimes you don't see aliasing anyway... Personally, i always do, but i understand that people might not be as picky as i am.

Im usually pretty sensitive to aliasing as well. Even games at 1600x1200 res on PC I still notice a lack of AA right away. Thats why the MSG4 trailer caught me off guard, if there was no AA I hardly noticed it. Maybe the filmic filtering they used blunted the effect or something.

 

[!eVo!-X Ant UK]

joebloggs - I remember them saying that aswel about the AA in perfect dark, it was from a video posted on these forums i beleive.

As the for the AA for PS3, as said by many id would sooner have loverly HDR and all the fancy lighting than AA.

Was'nt it mensioned some were in an article about Software AA??? is that Cell??

I meen it was able to handle AA on that terain demo while doing alot of other graphics stuff, so could it handle AA on PS3?

 

[AlNom]

Im usually pretty sensitive to aliasing as well. Even games at 1600x1200 res on PC I still notice a lack of AA right away.

I notice it a little bit @1600x1200 on my 19" CRT when I stop to look, but even then, I don't really see it. I just turn on 2xAA and things look a little better. I guess it also depends on the game.

 

[drpepper]

Could there be any PS3 games with no AA?

Yes. But as many people here point out, the preference is a solid 60 fps with HDR, which I agree. After playing God of War and Gran Turismo 4, I think i'm now very spoiled.

 

[Titanio]

I was curious about MGS4. Are we sure it wasnt using AA (HDR usage aside)?

Can't be sure, but it looked like it wasn't in screenshots. Since they're using HDR that might increase the chances that they weren't using AA also, short of in-shader trickery ala HS (which is possible, I guess).

The IQ on the 720p trailer is remarkably smooth looking, particularly Snake's character model. I think the only time I noticed any jaggies whatsoever were on some powerlines in the background, but even 2xAA wouldn't clean that up.

The thing about aliasing next gen is that

a) it's not going to be as bad without AA as it was last gen, given a HD resolution. Aliasing is fundamentally a problem with resolution. You improve resolution, you improve the aliasing situation. More resolution actually introduces more jaggies, technically, but they are smaller - more and smaller jaggies is visually more desireable than fewer that are bigger. Resolution isn't so high that the problem is solved, but it should be a good deal better.

b) lots of other things are going on in engines now that can help alleviate aliasing. Various types of blur (motion, dof), hdr even, camera models, post-processing. MGS4 happens to have a lot of those things, coincidentally or otherwise.

 

[zidane1strife]

Would they just look too bad? Or could you get by? How big a factor are jaggies at 720P no AA?

x360 launch

 

[scooby_dooby]

PDZ does not have AA - I think they mentioned using motion blur instead because AA was "not entirely free" in their words.

PD0 has AA, it has software AA, it doesn't do the full screen but anything up close is fully AA'ed. The guns for example are flawless, anything you walk up to will be very clean. The jaggies in PD0 are all in the distance, everything up close is clean.

It's not nearly as good as the 4xAA seen in Kameo or Condemned which is pretty much perfect, but I would say it's at least as good as the 2xAA MSAA in COD2. As far as jaggies, objects in COD2 looks better farther away, but PD0 looks better up close.

 

[Mr. Hanky]

If the component output is in 4:2:2 colorspace, that may then to mask the aliasing effect, somewhat, vs. running with VGA output. The reduced color bandwidth will tend to "fill-in" the aliasing of the luminance, somewhat in 4:2:2 (at the expense of ultimate resolution performance, of course).

 

[Lazy8s]

Anti-aliasing will probably be the most recognizable difference between the performance of the two systems. The other differences won't be as easy to pin down because of how much more dependent they are on the game's design and its production value.