Eurogamer, digital foundry article about AA

[chris1515]

Eurogamer, digital foundry article about harware AA and custom AA

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/the-anti-aliasing-effect-article

Very interesting.

 

[TheWretched]

I still have a question about Saboteur...

I mean, it is clear that the AA they used destroys detail in the HUD... but why not filter before you apply the HUD? It can't be that hard to do... I mean, many games upscale before they add the HUD (i.e. GT5P), so you should be able to do the AA in between too.

 

[homerdog]

Good article, though mostly it was a summation of our discussion here at B3D.

 

[dogmaan]

I still have a question about Saboteur...

I mean, it is clear that the AA they used destroys detail in the HUD... but why not filter before you apply the HUD? It can't be that hard to do... I mean, many games upscale before they add the HUD (i.e. GT5P), so you should be able to do the AA in between too.

i'm taking a guess here but:

the final framebuffer may reside in XDR, in order to draw the GUI to it after antialiasing, they would have to copy the frame back to GDDR, Overlay the GUI, then output the image

so:

XDR+CPU/SPU(geometry + Gui Overlay)->GPU+GDDR(shading etc)->SPU+XDR(antialiasing)->Out

vs

XDR+CPU/SPU(geometry)->GPU+GDDR(shading etc)->GPU/SPU+XDR(antialiasing + GUI Overlay)->GPU+GDDR(Overlay GUI)->Out

although the above probably wouldn't be to big of a performance hit if your engine was designed around it, for a multi platform game it may be 0.x ms too much

 

[Billy Idol]

What I am wondering:

Is the post processing AA (as used in this article for the BF 2 movies) 'expensive'?

If it is passable, why not let the customer decide: it would be cool, if I had an option in BF2 settings to switch this AA post processing on or not...if I don't like the artefacts I simple don't have to switch on this effect (if I remember correctly, in Mass Effect you could switch on/off a grain filter for instance).

In my opinion, the post processed videos (BF2 and ME) look far better than the original most of the time (btw. Mirrors Edge is one of the best games I have played!!!!).

 

[TheWretched]

i'm taking a guess here but:

the final framebuffer may reside in XDR, in order to draw the GUI to it after antialiasing, they would have to copy the frame back to GDDR, Overlay the GUI, then output the image

so:

XDR+CPU/SPU(geometry + Gui Overlay)->GPU+GDDR(shading etc)->SPU+XDR(antialiasing)->Out

vs

XDR+CPU/SPU(geometry)->GPU+GDDR(shading etc)->GPU/SPU+XDR(antialiasing + GUI Overlay)->GPU+GDDR(Overlay GUI)->Out

although the above probably wouldn't be to big of a performance hit if your engine was designed around it, for a multi platform game it may be 0.x ms too much

Well, then why would you want to have the GPU overlay the HUD anyways? I mean, this isn't complex at all, so CELL should be more than capable to do it.

EDIT: My guess is, that the engine was set up already and ther AA method was though of afterwards... thus they could only touch the finalized framebuffer without too much work.

 

[assen]

If it is passable, why not let the customer decide: it would be cool, if I had an option in BF2 settings to switch this AA post processing on or not...if I don't like the artefacts I simple don't have to switch on this effect (if I remember correctly, in Mass Effect you could switch on/off a grain filter for instance).

It's not economically sound; anything that is optional has exactly the same cost to develop, integrate, optimize, test, document, localize etc..., but only some of the users benefit from it.

 

[brain_stew]

It's not economically sound; anything that is optional has exactly the same cost to develop, integrate, optimize, test, document, localize etc..., but only some of the users benefit from it.

You could make the same argument about support for HD rendering/output.

 

[assen]

You could make the same argument about support for HD rendering/output.

Yep, and that's why so many games are really playable/readable only on HDTV's, not on SDTV.

On the PC, the huge difference between high-end and low-end makes necessary having features that can be turned on and off; on consoles, they simply don't make sense; better spend the same resources on something that will benefit all players.

 

[Billy Idol]

On the PC, the huge difference between high-end and low-end makes necessary having features that can be turned on and off; on consoles, they simply don't make sense; better spend the same resources on something that will benefit all players.

Thanks for the answer (damn I forgot the curse of money )