*spin-off* Personal Preferences on IQ (Part Umpteenth Time)

Are we sure it's using 2xAA? It could be a mistake as both Resistance games use QAA, it seems unlikely that Insomniac would change the tech.

And R&C is probably the blurriest looking PS3 game i've played.

You need to play some more ps3 games then, because its far from blurry.
 
I have downloaded & played over 30 PS3 demo's, and R&C's lack of definition really stands out. It's not a bad looking game at all, just blurry.

I don't know what game you're talking about. I can see individual hairs on characters from a fair camera distance. And there are very clean textures all over. Definitely not QAA as I understand it.
 
Wow I can't believe QAA has fans.
I never liked it on the PC, because you have to go into the drivers and adjust the LOD bias to fight the blur, and it's counter-productive, because if you lower it enough to remove the blurring, the aliasing becomes as prominent as 2xMSAA. So for PC, you might as well use 2xAA if you want a 2xAA framerate hit and sharp textures, or 4xAA if you want that quality of AA, sharp textures, and don't mind a framerate hit.

On a console, the final image quality is in the hands of the developer, and if things like motion blur, smoke particles, DoF, etc. are going to blur the image, a little QAA on top of that isn't gonna hurt. Especially considering how all those effects can make an image look more believable, and aliasing has the opposite effect. Again, in certain instances where texture clarity is important, the developer should be able to script adjustments to the LOD bias as necessary.
 
Wow I can't believe QAA has fans.

Are you a fan of texture and edge aliasing? I'd much rather games look more like KZ2 and R&C than Halo 3 and PDZ. I'm guessing the developers weighed the pros and cons and made the decision that most helped the IQ, it's not like they want to hurt their game.
 
Are you a fan of texture and edge aliasing? I'd much rather games look more like KZ2 and R&C than Halo 3 and PDZ. I'm guessing the developers weighed the pros and cons and made the decision that most helped the IQ, it's not like they want to hurt their game.

Well, obviously QAA and 720p resolutions will look better than 600/640p and no AA.

A fairer comparison would be 720p with 2xAA.
 
Are you a fan of texture and edge aliasing? I'd much rather games look more like KZ2 and R&C than Halo 3 and PDZ. I'm guessing the developers weighed the pros and cons and made the decision that most helped the IQ, it's not like they want to hurt their game.
I would prefer MSAA. To me QAA in a videogame is like having DNR in a movie.

btw I'm not console wars hating I infinitely prefer the PS3 over the 360 primarily because I'm fanatically against having to pay for online.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
This thread is nuts, QAA is always just a proxy for the console war. The opinions here are just over the top hyperbole IMO.

Are you a fan of texture and edge aliasing? I'd much rather games look more like KZ2 and R&C than Halo 3 and PDZ. I'm guessing the developers weighed the pros and cons and made the decision that most helped the IQ, it's not like they want to hurt their game.

The reality is QAA has some nasty side effects and if not mitigated can be extremely detrimental to screen IQ. Game design and designer care can mitigate the effects and make it an overall win, but that doesn't negate the fact QAA has gotchas that MSAA has.

As for developers hurting their own game, it happens. There have been a substantial number of games this gen where decisions were made that had a negative effect. Some hings are subjective as well, especially when you are weighing texture resolution, low filtering, and the potential benefit of obscuring some of these limitations while also cleaning up edges.

rockthra.jpg


glass_house-709724.jpg
 
btw I'm not console wars hating I infinitely prefer the PS3 over the 360 primarily because I'm fanatically against having to pay for online.

You don't need to defend yourself. The passive-aggressive posts of some with strong insinuation is pretty typical among certain posters here. Obviously if they cannot respond based on the merits of the discussion without stooping to the very behavior they are accusing others they aren't even worth the effort.
 
In the sticky, it says R&C uses 2xAA, so I'm assuming that means it's not using QAA.

R&C don't use QAA, R&C use a singular merge AA sample method. they merge 2x960x702 MSAA sample in a 1280x702 buffer with a more complex blend pattern than others devs that use this trick for avoid artefacts
 
The reality is QAA has some nasty side effects and if not mitigated can be extremely detrimental to screen IQ.

That's your opinion. The fact that it is used in some of this gens best looking games shows that the pros (better edge anti-aliasing) can outway the cons (texture smoothing).
 
If you know you work with QAA , you can also sharpen a little your textures ( obviously no multiplateform dev would do that).
As a plus QAA do wonders on alpha test materials like vegetation ,grass ,...
I wouldn't trade QAA for traditional AA.Never
 
If you know you work with QAA , you can also sharpen a little your textures ( obviously no multiplateform dev would do that).
I think they shouldn't use QAA on multiplatform games. It's those comparisons that are giving the PS3 a bum rap, because everyone sees sharp textures on the Xbox and blurry mess on the PS3 and sometimes just draw the wrong conclusions. If both platforms are using the same textures, we should get the same clarity, at least up close. I'd suffer some more aliasing in tradeoff for texture clarity, if only to know I'm not being gypped out of what the Xbox version has.

I don't even think of QAA as a cure for shader aliasing, because of its horrible effects on the rest of the scene. Maybe next gen we'll have enough power to render this gen's graphics with SSAA.
 
It's true.. Many people do cite QAA as being "Proof of inferior textures" on PS3- when in fact it's merely the by product of the technique..

I actually like QAA to be honest, I like that "Soft look".. Then again, I'm the guy who boots up CS3\GIMP and loves to apply "Smart Blur" to stuff to achieve that kind of look.

Lol.
 
I don't mind QAA at all. It may look a little worse in a screen shot comparison, but as soon as things get moving the difference is hardly noticeable. You probably get just as much blur because your LC display isn't 100% top of the line. Then there's games like KZ2 which are hardly ever sharp looking to begin with. (depth of field, velocity based motion blur, a little bit of post-grain etc.)

Tomb Raider Underworld is one of the best looking PS3 games in terms of IQ imo, and that uses QAA as well. I definitely take QAA over aliasing any day of the week.
 
I really don't like the stochastic dither in a lot of N64 games. That's my least favorite IQ option. Also, CGA graphics. Magenta/White/Cyan? What were they thinking?
 
Back
Top