New D3D FSAA Viewer

because nvidia cards don't support programmable alias maps or something (i know its something along those lines lol) :?

and yes it works on r3xx chips, not sure about anything before this.

try it yourself - its very easy to put on, enough guides here how to do it.

for figures? heres some benchies i ran using the 2 modes. no fps difference at all basically - but better IQ.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dr3amz/tempaa.htm

fps limited at 100 (due to vsync on @ 100hz) but basically farcry etc etc do not play any different using tempaa - the frame rates are the same again.

and kombatant! cool - that means we get more funky stuff!

 

I see thanks for clearing that up.

 

btw - Quincux was crap - it basically turned your textures into blurrly blobs (ok thats exagerated but you get the idea) it was nothing as in an inbetween 2/4x aliasing.. the IQ suffered greatly.

this however, just rox - you will get basically 4xAA at 2xTempAA with no blurring etc. and flickering only seems to happen when using 3xT.

i've dropped hz down to 60 using 2xT and have still not seen it, even with farcry kicking 40fps, no flickering.

 

Doesn't support programmable sample patterns.

Quincunx was crap because of the terrible pattern and tiny number of samples. The idea works when you have a decent sample pattern and plenty of samples (just like every other AA implementation), and it will be back in future generations of NV cards with a vengeance.

And damnit. This wasn't the surprise? I thought this was the surprise. Awwwwww.

 

Yeah i know. I had a geforce 3. Quincux was good for older games with crappy textures.

 

surely it just made them look even worse?

Baron - this is good news, tempaa is NOT the surprise - so we get ANOTHER surprise woohoo!

gotta love ATi

for what it's worth i've heard from a very very good source that the R420 will NOT disapoint - and this person has first hand usage of the product.

say no more i know thats a bit like a fart in the wind to some people, but remember what I said when the benchies are out 8)

 

maybe they'll have a better way to enable and disable IQ options, because I wish I could give the current interface four thumbs down. too many clicks, not enough chicks.

or something like that. yes, application profiles are almost enough to make me a rabid NVIDIA f*nb*y... but not quite.

 

no they haven't

^^ you can see how it works for those who are too scared to try it just yet or disbelieve that it does work

in the xT modes you can see as colourless says that xT aliasing uses proper 4x6x alias `maps`

and from http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dr3amz/tempaa.htm you can see that this happens at no performance cost, ie:

2XT (equiv to 4xAA) = same performance, higher IQ than 2XAA
4XT (equiv to 8xAA) = same performance, higher IQ than 4XAA
6XT (equiv to 16xAA) = same performance, higher IQ than 6XAA

but don't quote me on that, i'm no developer/programmer

 

woah, im guessing you really dislike Nvidia a lot.

 

Killua .. watch those forum steppings .. Dave is gonna ban you.

btw. PaulS .. Did you make those slides or did you get them from some yet to be released(leaked) slide.

US

 

It does have only SSAA.
Those terms come from DirectX9, which allows the application to set antialiasing modes. They're a bit misleading because in fact, MULTISAMPLE_NONMASKABLE can mean supersampling, multisampling, FAA, or other forms of antialiasing.
When an app sets MULTISAMPLE_NONMASKABLE with a multisample quality n > 0, it just means the app requests the graphics card to perform one of the available antialiasing modes (higher n meaning higher quality), but doesn't care about how it's done.


btw, I wouldn't completely rule out the possibility of NVidia doing temporal antialiasing as well. Programmable sampling patterns are an advantage, but probably not a necessity. They might even jitter the geometry, and through this, achieve temporal supersampling. I did some experiments with that modifying the DX SDK demos and using multisample masking on my GF3Ti200. It didn't work out quite well, but the framerates were a bit low and I was using a slightly slowish TFT screen.

 

The bottom line is, Temporal AA is another performance / quality twaek available to us. Options are good.

You can approach AA quality that is nearly double what you normally get, with no performance hit, and as far as I can tell, no compatibility issues beyond what "normal" MSAA has.

The downside is primarily that there are restrictions upon which you can use it effectively. Your FPS should be higher than your refresh rate, and the higher your refresh rate, the more effective it is.

Some people like to run with v-sync off....so it won't really be for them. Though, if they run with v-sync off and therefore don't mind the tearing, they're probably not big AA fans to begin with.

I have to disagree with DC....I think 2T modes will be a big win for most LCD users, who generally are capped at 60-75 hz refresh rates. I never run games with v-sync off, as the tearing is horrendous. With the pure fill-rate power of the R420, this should turn out to be a very nice option.

That being said, I would have still liked to see a true 8X MSAA mode as an additional option.

 

Just for S&G's I thought I'd mention that the transparent texture problem in GTA:VC isn't fixed with this, but it IS improved a bit.

Still get some blue framing the invisible transparancies, but no where near as much and at some angles it actually seems to work!

 

nah Kuilla - I dislike Nvidias PR - a LOT. but at the end of the day, as a company if you have a bad employee, mis-representing the company - you do something about it.

Nvidia don't hence the authorisation to BS comes straight from the top.

but lets not go into ati/nv etc because you'll attract the fanboys

and this is a nice thread 8)

Joe wouldn't a 8xFSAA be pointless if this tech is available? i mean just run at 4xT for near the same quality that 8xAA would give or 6xT to surpass it?

I guess if you wanna run with vsync off then its a good idea (unless this can be fixed to work without vsync - but i dont think it can because of the way it works).

 

This is one I am very impressed with, my jaw dropped off when I used 8xTAA or what ever it is called 4xAA with x2 mult in 3dMark2000 demo at 640x480x32 resolution ! I couldn't believe it. I also played around with Angel of Darkness and having excellent results. This is a sure winner from what I've have seen. IQ wise way beyond what I expected from my Radeon 9700 Pro.

 

No, it wouldn't be pointless, because "true" 8X MSAA does not comprimise quality or applicableness. In other words, there are situations where you would use 8X MSAA, where you couldn't use 4X-2T MSAA. For example...in a game that's getting 30 FPS due to CPU restrictions.

That being said, there are also times when you could use 4X-2T MSAA, where 8X MSAA would not be usable, due to performance limitations.

So again, it's a matter of trade-offs. 8X MSAA isn't pointless...just applicable in different situations.

Correct...Temporall AA requires that every different AA pattern repeat at more or less exact intervals, in order to prevent "flickering." V-Sync will be required for this. Triple buffering would also be helpful (but not necessary), to maintain the frame rate.

On that note...it is my understanding that triple buffering can NOT be forced via drivers in D3D, it must be supported by the app. (Is that correct?) In GL, on the other hand, it is possible for the driver to force triple buffering.

 

Why is this a hiden option though, does anybdy have any comments from Ati about it?

 

I'm sure we won't get any official comments on it until Tuesday. (R420 launch).