Is there an FSAA mode...

[Dooby]

... that can be applied to alpha textures. I take it that ATi doesnt do this, and now nVidia wont/cant do it either.

This is a pain as Lineage 2 uses LOTS of alpha textures, and so does Farcry. These are the two main games Im playing atm.

Is there anything I can do to force this, I want to make my games look good again.

 

[gokickrocks]

supersampling

 

[Dooby]

Aye Super but most do multi now dont they.

I take it that ATi still hasnt enabled SSAA? I remember they said the the R300 could do it. Oh well

 

[Ante P]

nVidia exposes super sampling + multi sampling combinations on their boards, that'll do the trick for you

beware fo the 6800's though as they only expose an 8x mode which ruins performance totally (perhaps not the new one though, haven't seen any tests today come to think of it)

 

[Bambers]

beware fo the 6800's though as they only expose an 8x mode which ruins performance totally (perhaps not the new one though, haven't seen any tests today come to think of it)

3dcenter had some tests of it and while it was better than the driver mode it was still pretty slow.



Of course you can always install a tweaker program and run 4xS mode on the 6800 instead.

 

[Kaotik]

ATi R3x0's and presumably 420 too can apparently do SSAA too, but it's not enabled in (PC) drivers (some rumros said once that MAC drivers expose support for it?)

nVidia has had modes with SSAA+MSAA as long as I can remember (and as long as they've supported MSAA too).

Anyway - the cruel fact is that SSAA kills performance, as can be seen from 6800 Ultra for example - 4xSSAA + 2xMSAA mode drops it's performance under 9800XT & 6xMSAA

 

[Bambers]

(some rumros said once that MAC drivers expose support for it?)

no rumour, it's fact. There's no mixed mode afaik but mac users can have supersampling on their r300s.

 

[ChrisRay]

nVidia exposes super sampling + multi sampling combinations on their boards, that'll do the trick for you

beware fo the 6800's though as they only expose an 8x mode which ruins performance totally (perhaps not the new one though, haven't seen any tests today come to think of it)

The 6800 Can still force pure Super Sampling Modes within D3d Afaik, (2x1, 1x2 and 2x2)

 

[Dooby]

Is the Hexus review correct, where the X800XT blows the 6800U away at high res high FSAA options?

Cos otherwise NVDA would have got my money this time round grrr

 

[Eronarn]

Is the Hexus review correct, where the X800XT blows the 6800U away at high res high FSAA options?

Very true. And nevermind TempAA... 8)

 

[Ante P]

Of course you can always install a tweaker program and run 4xS mode on the 6800 instead.

I can't, the ones I've tried have either not worked or they just crashed. :/

 

[Kaotik]

Of course you can always install a tweaker program and run 4xS mode on the 6800 instead.

I can't, the ones I've tried have either not worked or they just crashed. :/

Perhaps the tweakers need some updates too?

 

[Xmas]

There are basically four ways to "fix" alpha test edges. Each one has its pros & cons.

alpha blending
+ very smooth edges
+ available on all HW
- requires sorting & back-to-front rendering of affected surfaces
- must be done by application
- needs high-res textures or edges will blur close-up
- minor artifacts in some special cases of overlapping edges

supersampling (or a mixed MSAA/SSAA mode)
+ improves overall texture and edge quality, not only alpha test edges
+ can be forced by the driver
+ available on all HW (ordered grid only)
- tremendous performance hit
- needs hardware support for an efficient grid

alpha to coverage
+ no additional performance hit
+ could be forced by the driver
- only works on top of multisampling
- possibly not available on all HW (GF3 does it, but I couldn't get it to work on my Radeon 9800), some HW does dithering to increase the number of levels (GF3)
- OpenGL only (when application controlled)
- needs high-res textures or edges will blur close-up
- minor artifacts with overlapping edges

selective supersampling
+ improves texture and edge quality of affected surfaces
+ any grid possible
+ could be forced by the driver
- only works on top of multisampling
- texture and geometry sampling positions may differ which might result in an inefficient grid
- application needs to know the HW multisampling pattern to get the best results.
- very tricky to do in OpenGL (when application controlled)
- significant performance hit