New D3D FSAA Viewer

[mozmo]

The old fact that MSAA doesn't do alpha textures is why the fence looks all jaggy to you. This is why i find MSAA isn't very good for games with lots of vegitation in the environment, because vegetitation often uses a lot of alpha'd textures and you still get aliasing in a lot of the environment because of it and MSAA just kills you fps and doesn't remove a lot of the aliasing in the scene.

BTW i'm not very impressed with this new AA technique, one thing i love about pc's is their stable progressive image, this new AA technique almost gives an interlacing like flicker to things which imo makes the image quality worse. Plus the effect gets worse when framerates fall. Maybe for consoles this is acceptable since most games on console have very stable frames ie constant 60fps, but as we know pc games fluctuate quite a lot in framerates so the flicker jumps aroung with the fps. Besides if games can run 1600x1200 with 4x AA i see no reason to go any higher with these hacks, on my 21inch trinitron crt it's extremely clean and these next gen cards seem pretty capable at doing that.

 

[MuFu]

Ok, I tried to capture this properly. Just for 60Hz monitors at the moment (and stationary in-game shots):

2x2T

6x2T

UT2004 4x2T

UT2004 6x2T

If the video doesn't playback smoothly, toggle the window in and out of focus a couple of times. The positions aren't ideal, sorry - I'm just trying to see how practical it is to capture.

One thing I found when testing this that's quite interesting - T-AA looks better on LCDs.

MuFu.

 

[Dave Baumann]

It partially relies on the persistence of the display, and LCD is longer than CRT.

 

[MuFu]

Indeed (well technically it has less persistence; it's just the discrete switching ability that makes the difference).

Not doing the ATi marketing dept any favours with those vids at the moment. Hmm... :?

 

[mozmo]

it probably works better on LCD's due to their poor pixel response time, the lcd would probably blur the pixel turning on and off at 30hz like they are at 60fps with this technique. Where as crt's are extremely good with their pixel response times, so a pixel turning off and on at 30hz would be seen as flicker on a crt on not blurred like on lcds.

 

[MuFu]

For 85Hz refresh rate:

2x2T

6x2T

UT2004 4x2T

UT2004 6x2T

Any ideas how to get overlayed Bink video to sync to the refresh rate? I thought it did by default. :-\

MuFu.

 

[PaulS]

Can't wait for the inevitable refresh rate requests to arrive

 

[DemoCoder]

Maybe my LCD is different, but it looks worse on mine. I get a shimmering ghost-like effect on edges.

 

[KimB]

It partially relies on the persistence of the display, and LCD is longer than CRT.

That's only true if you're not moving.

If each individual AA pattern were better than they are now, I would argue that the temporal AA algorithm should look better for both stationary and moving scenes.

Right now I'm not sure: with each individual AA pattern being worse than a static pattern, this "temporal AA" relies upon multiple frames per scene for optimal image quality. But most images are in motion, so this means you don't get the obvious blurring between frames (this may be why DemoCoder thinks it looks worse on an LCD: the edges that are moving and jagged for one of the temporal AA patterns will stick around and become more noticeable...were you looking at images in motion or static images, DemoCoder?).

 

[DemoCoder]

Chalnoth, I looked at both. I can see flicker in both. I tried Counter-Strike 1.6, Call of Duty, and Far Cry.

UT2004 4x2T

UT2004 6x2T

MuFu.

In particular, this one, which bink claims played back at 85fps, looks jaggied on the edge of the box, but the only difference is, the jaggies flicker big time. Now, my LCD is at 60Hz and the playback speed does not may the refresh rate, but even if I stand back from the monitor, I can still see the jaggies and flicker. The temporal AA did nothing to hide them.

Far Cry definately looks bad, in particular, because no way do I get a stable 60Hz in it.

I'm gonna try and record it with my video camera using 1/60th second exposures to see if I can accurately capture the effect.

 

[DemoCoder]

It supports two patterns: ordered grid and rotated grid, which can be switched every other frame for "2T" in the parlance being used here.

But moreover, programmable sampling positions are not required. The effect can also be achieved via pixel center offset.

How do you know other IHVs already didn't implement this along time ago but decided against exposing it because it didn't really improve IQ in most cases, but made it worse?

They might be tempted to impliment it now ?

Maybe they were tempted to implement in the past, did so, and didn't like the result? :?

 

[ERP]

Didn't NVidia do something similar on there low end cards at one point using 2x Quincunx alternating the pattern.

I vaguely remember someone doing a report on it in the GF2 era, since it was advertised as a 4x mode.

 

[DemoCoder]

I'm still wondering how the people claiming it rocks with FarCry are getting anywhere close to stable 60fps at 1024x768 or 1280x1024 with AA enabled and even medium settings. I can barely reach 60fps if I dial settings way down. And if I run with temporal AA (I just tried again), it looks very crappy.

 

[MuFu]

I'm still wondering how the people claiming it rocks with FarCry are getting anywhere close to stable 60fps at 1024x768 or 1280x1024 with AA enabled and even medium settings.

Me too.

Done some 2x2T, in-game shots:

2x2T 60Hz

2x2T 85Hz

Definitely the most dramatic in terms of improvement over the normal mode (when stationary), IMHO - I'd like to see it at 120Hz+.

 

[digitalwanderer]

What are your sys specs DemoC? And what kind of monitor?

 

[MuFu]

So when TemporalAAThreshold is working (still can't get it to work, grr), does it switch back to a sparse sampled pattern below the critical FPS, or just to one of the component patterns?

MuFu.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Thanks for the videos MuFu.

I suspect this AA format might work nicely for xbox2.

 

[WaltC]

The Dig hands the Baron a fresh change of undergarments.

Did you get wind of something?

A scene truly fitting for Smell-O-Vision, if ever there was one.

Heh...

 

[DemoCoder]

Finally, something that doesn't look craptastic. The 2x2T 60Hz Rallisport bink finally stops shimmering after a period of time and comes to "sync up" with the display. But in real games, it still doesn't do it for me. I guess there is a problem getting games to verticle sync up exactly with the monitor and maintain a steady 60fps. I thought if anything could do it, Counter-Strike could. If I set "developer 1", I can easily maintain way over 100fps. But for some reason, if I lock to 60fps, the framerate rapidly fluctuates between 59fps and 60fps.

 

[3dilettante]

This definitely has the makings of a good study on the variability in graphics perception. Aside from the very noticeable flicker in the vids with the lamp in the background, the effect is subtle at least for me.

In fact, depending on whatever factors influence my eyes the most, a line I know is flickering will intermittently stop flickering, then start again. It's like my visual cortex tends to fix on only certain frames, accentuating their effect on the overall look.

The higher settings don't strike my eyes as flickering all that bad on most angles, but I can usually pick out the flicker on areas of high contrast. It's like the method somewhat reduces the number of stair steps, but makes them more noticeable.

In some cases, it seems like the pixels do have better gradations in color and brightness, but the effected areas seem to extend further beyond the edges than they should, making them more obvious.