Crysis 3 - Return of real PC Anti-Aliasing (MSAA)

[Fx1]

2x AA HALVES my FPS! lol from 80 to 40 on High. With 2x AA on Very high im getting 30fps and 20fps with 4xAA

FxAA on Very High 50-70 FPS looks to be a winner.

AA is nice but its not worth 40fps in 2x

This is with 7970 1125/1800

 

[imaheadcase]

I don't notice a difference in any of them.

 

[SomeoneSimple]

[...] the other post-AA options (SMAA/TXAA) [...]

TXAA isn't Post-AA.

TXAA High is outright horrible, [...] performs worse than 4xMSAA ?

Obviously, ...... since TXAA High combines a wide-tent filter, 4xMSAA and a 'temporal-sampling' method based on motion- or camera vectors, using pixel-samples from current and previous frames to significantly decease temporal aliasing. It shouldn't be a surprise, that this has a larger performance impact, than 4xMSAA alone.

 

[SirPauly]

Crysis 3 Beta-Test: Erste PCGH-Grafikkarten-Benchmarks zeigen zwiespältiges Bild

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Crysis-3-PC-235317/Tests/Crysis-3-Beta-Test-Erste-Benchmarks-1046328/

 

[blackened23]

Should be a pretty good month for gaming. Dead Space 3 (definite buy for me, loved 1 and 2), Crysis 3, Aliens: Colonial Marines, and then Starcraft March 12th.

I really really hope crysis 3 returns to the semi-open world playstyle of crysis 1 and warhead. A closed world straight line start to finish shooter isn't what I want, crysis 2 was so disappointing.

 

[DiogoDX]

New beta:

AMD Catalyst 13.2 Beta 3 is now available, and includes the following updates:

Improves performance up to 15% in high MSAA cases for the Crysis 3 beta release
Significantly improves latency performance in Skyrim, Boderlands 2, and Guild Wars 2
Improves single GPU performance up to 50% for DmC Devil May Cry
Improves CrossFire performance up to 10% for Crysis 2
Resolves Texture flickering seen in DirectX9.0c applications.

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst132BetaDriver.aspx

 

[Grooveriding]

TXAA isn't Post-AA.



Obviously, ...... since TXAA High combines a wide-tent filter, 4xMSAA and a 'temporal-sampling' method based on motion- or camera vectors, using pixel-samples from current and previous frames to significantly decease temporal aliasing. It shouldn't be a surprise, that this has a larger performance impact, than 4xMSAA alone.

TXAA uses the same sort of post filtering technique to blur edges that MLAA, FXAA & SMAA use, the difference is that it also uses I believe SSAA in tandem with the post filter to achieve its effect.

While it's not fair to label it purely post-aa, it's not, it does use post-AA. The irony is that it blurs the image even more than pure post-AA methods and comes with a bigger performance impact than MSAA, which looks much cleaner and delivers a vastly better image.

I understand why its a performance hog using SSAA as part of its routine, just don't see the sense in having an IQ decreasing, performance penalizing AA method. Crytek works closely with nvidia and no doubt that is why nvidia was able to get them to put it in there.

The SMAA modes, particularly the multi-gpu one, is what is interesting. I haven't seen a post-AA mode so clean until the SMAA used in Crysis 3.

Should be a pretty good month for gaming. Dead Space 3 (definite buy for me, loved 1 and 2), Crysis 3, Aliens: Colonial Marines, and then Starcraft March 12th.

I really really hope crysis 3 returns to the semi-open world playstyle of crysis 1 and warhead. A closed world straight line start to finish shooter isn't what I want, crysis 2 was so disappointing.

Crysis 3 feels just like Crysis 2 so far, at least the beta. I would guess with it being a cross-platform game that there will be the same linear level design. Sprawling open areas don't work on console's limited memory.

Aliens: Colonial Marines is one I'm really looking forward to. Would of got the SC2 xpac as well, but I stopped buying Blizzard after Diablow 3.

 

[mikk]

TXAA uses the same sort of post filtering technique to blur edges that MLAA, FXAA & SMAA use, the difference is that it also uses I believe SSAA in tandem with the post filter to achieve its effect.

While it's not fair to label it purely post-aa, it's not, it does use post-AA. The irony is that it blurs the image even more than pure post-AA methods and comes with a bigger performance impact than MSAA, which looks much cleaner and delivers a vastly better image.

You are incorrect. There is no Post-AA involved in TXAA. It uses a custom MSAA resolve with a custom downfilter (similar to Gaussian).

 

[SomeoneSimple]

TXAA uses the same sort of post filtering technique to blur edges that MLAA, FXAA & SMAA use, the difference is that it also uses I believe SSAA in tandem with the post filter to achieve its effect.

While it's not fair to label it purely post-aa, it's not, it does use post-AA. The irony is that it blurs the image even more than pure post-AA methods and comes with a bigger performance impact than MSAA, which looks much cleaner and delivers a vastly better image.

I understand why its a performance hog using SSAA as part of its routine, just don't see the sense in having an IQ decreasing, performance penalizing AA method. Crytek works closely with nvidia and no doubt that is why nvidia was able to get them to put it in there.

This is entirely incorrect.

Like I said before, TXAA isn't post AA, and neither is there any SSAA involved. I am sure that I described TXAA's functionality fairly accurate in my previous post, but if that wasn't clear, look up the posts made by Timothy Lottes in these forums.

 

[lopri]

What does SMAA stand for, and where does it stand* compared to MSAA and SSAA?

It looks better than TXAA for sure. It looks to do better job at anti-aliasing vertical lines than horizontal lines, does anyone see the same?

* Technique and performance-cost

 

[RussianSensation]

Crysis 3 Beta-Test: Erste PCGH-Grafikkarten-Benchmarks zeigen zwiespältiges Bild

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Crysis-3-PC-235317/Tests/Crysis-3-Beta-Test-Erste-Benchmarks-1046328/

So this is what the future of PC gaming has come down to then - AA filters:

GTX680 no MSAA = 52 fps
GTX680 w/ MSAA = 34 fps (33% performance drop)

HD7970GE no MSAA = 57 fps
HD7970GE w/ MSAA = 27 fps (52% performance drop)

Let me place a $400 order for another HD7970 so maybe I could run the game with 4xMSAA smoothly at 1080P. "Exciting times" when I we gotta drop $400-500 extra just to go from 0xMSAA to 4xMSAA. Maybe it's just me but I would have preferred 27 fps on an HD7970 with 0xMSAA but jaw dropping level of detail, very high resolution textures and high polygon models. I like MSAA but when the performance hit is 30 fps, maybe it's time the developers consider Forward+ lighting game engines and ditch these deferred MSAA engines, where time and time again the MSAA performance hit is out of this world. ^_^

 

[DiogoDX]

What does SMAA stand for, and where does it stand* compared to MSAA and SSAA?

It looks better than TXAA for sure. It looks to do better job at anti-aliasing vertical lines than horizontal lines, does anyone see the same?

* Technique and performance-cost

SMAA is a post AA like MLAA e FXAA. Quality very close to MSAAx4 and have better performance.

MLAA and FXAA have more performance than SMAA but have a more blurred image.

More about SMAA here: http://www.iryoku.com/smaa/

A topic in this forum with good info: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2266859

 

[mikk]

What does SMAA stand for, and where does it stand* compared to MSAA and SSAA?

It looks better than TXAA for sure. It looks to do better job at anti-aliasing vertical lines than horizontal lines, does anyone see the same?

* Technique and performance-cost

SMAA means Subpixel Morphological Antialiasing. In Crysis 3 SMAA is the best choice overall. TXAA is best in motion but it blurs heavily and performance isn't that good. MSAA is just crap in Crysis 3. SMAA T2x is my preferred choice in Crysis 3.

@DiogoDX

Not only PP-AA, it depends on the SMAA type. T2x uses additionally temporal SSAA component, S2x 2xMSAA, 4x temporal SSAA+2xMSAA (and PP-AA from SMAA 1x of course).

 

[Grooveriding]

You are incorrect. There is no Post-AA involved in TXAA. It uses a custom MSAA resolve with a custom downfilter (similar to Gaussian).

I re-read it and you are correct. He describes it as selective super-sampling, not but traditional SSAA, using MSAA - along with the 'temporal filter'. The issue with TXAA is it the filtering effect applies excessive blur similar, but worse, than the blur from a post-aa filter. I incorrectly lumped them together going on the similar end effect. With the image degradation of TXAA and it having the largest performance hit of all the available modes, it doesn't seem to be doing much to make itself useful.

I am glad to see Crytek is back to providing MSAA in their deferred engine like DICE does in Frostbite 2. While SMAA is probably the best choice because of the good performance and the blurring is very light, it is nice to still have MSAA and the aliasing reduction it provides while leaving the textures crisp and clean.

 

[Grooveriding]

So this is what the future of PC gaming has come down to then - AA filters:

GTX680 no MSAA = 52 fps
GTX680 w/ MSAA = 34 fps (33% performance drop)

HD7970GE no MSAA = 57 fps
HD7970GE w/ MSAA = 27 fps (52% performance drop)

Let me place a $400 order for another HD7970 so maybe I could run the game with 4xMSAA smoothly at 1080P. "Exciting times" when I we gotta drop $400-500 extra just to go from 0xMSAA to 4xMSAA. Maybe it's just me but I would have preferred 27 fps on an HD7970 with 0xMSAA but jaw dropping level of detail, very high resolution textures and high polygon models. I like MSAA but when the performance hit is 30 fps, maybe it's time the developers consider Forward+ lighting game engines and ditch these deferred MSAA engines, where time and time again the MSAA performance hit is out of this world. ^_^

This is similar to when Battlefield 3 released. MSAA in the game laid out a massive performance hit. Over time with driver revisions the performance penalty was reduced by using the feature.

No matter what it's nice to see it there. Better for MSAA to still be there than for a shift to be made to no longer providing it and using alternative AA methods that kill IQ.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

So this is what the future of PC gaming has come down to then - AA filters:

GTX680 no MSAA = 52 fps
GTX680 w/ MSAA = 34 fps (33% performance drop)

HD7970GE no MSAA = 57 fps
HD7970GE w/ MSAA = 27 fps (52% performance drop)

Let me place a $400 order for another HD7970 so maybe I could run the game with 4xMSAA smoothly at 1080P. "Exciting times" when I we gotta drop $400-500 extra just to go from 0xMSAA to 4xMSAA. Maybe it's just me but I would have preferred 27 fps on an HD7970 with 0xMSAA but jaw dropping level of detail, very high resolution textures and high polygon models. I like MSAA but when the performance hit is 30 fps, maybe it's time the developers consider Forward+ lighting game engines and ditch these deferred MSAA engines, where time and time again the MSAA performance hit is out of this world. ^_^

Why didn't they use the 13.2 beta's that give a 15% increase with MSAA?

You did bring up and interesting thought about Forward+ in the future. With the reports of GCN being in the new consoles we may actually be seeing a whole lot more Forward+ rendering engines. That's something I hadn't really even considered yet.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Because the benchmark was done before 13.2 was released. Let's wait for the final, I guess NV and AMD will both have new drivers out by then.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Because the benchmark was done before 13.2 was released. Let's wait for the final, I guess NV and AMD will both have new drivers out by then.

The date said 1/29/2013, but I wasn't thinking clearly in my sleepy state. Took them days to get those numbers whoops.

 

[boxleitnerb]

It went online yesterday around 5 pm GMT+1, the 13.2 beta came a few hours after that. The C3 Beta wasn't playable until 9am over here that same day

 

[Pottuvoi]

You did bring up and interesting thought about Forward+ in the future. With the reports of GCN being in the new consoles we may actually be seeing a whole lot more Forward+ rendering engines. That's something I hadn't really even considered yet.

Forward+ doesn't really have nothing to do with the underlying architecture, it works on all proper GPUs.
You are right that it should be used quite often on nextgen machines though, CPU/GPU interaction should make it easier to do and quite fast.

In actual topic..
This pretty much shows that traditional MSAA has been surpassed in every way.
SMAA done properly with subsamples and temporal information looks a lot better and so does TXAA especially when in motion. (not really fan of SMAAx1)
BTW, those images are horrible in quality.. (~500kB JPEGS for 2560×1600 images..)

 

[SomeoneSimple]

This pretty much shows that traditional MSAA has been surpassed in every way.
SMAA done properly with subsamples and temporal information looks a lot better and so does TXAA especially when in motion. (not really fan of SMAAx1)

I completely agree with these statements. Current-gen games use a plethora of highly detailed specular maps and shader effects, which can't be anti-aliased with multisampling.
Because of this, SMAA T2x/4x and TXAA are simply far superior, and show us the proper way forward. Both combine MSAA with aliasing-reducing methods that are highly effective in places where MSAA alone would not suffice.

 

[sontin]

I like MSAA but when the performance hit is 30 fps, maybe it's time the developers consider Forward+ lighting game engines and ditch these deferred MSAA engines, where time and time again the MSAA performance hit is out of this world. ^_^

Sure, because then your company can actually win a DX11 benchmark with MSAA when bandwidth is not the limiting factor. :awe:

Forward+ is not resolving the performance problem. In Dirt:Showdown AMD cards lost 40%+ and nVidia cards over 60%. Forward+ is only good to win benchmarks but not to help to make MSAA a lot more useful in the latest game engines.

 

[SirPauly]

So this is what the future of PC gaming has come down to then - AA filters:

GTX680 no MSAA = 52 fps
GTX680 w/ MSAA = 34 fps (33% performance drop)

HD7970GE no MSAA = 57 fps
HD7970GE w/ MSAA = 27 fps (52% performance drop)

Let me place a $400 order for another HD7970 so maybe I could run the game with 4xMSAA smoothly at 1080P. "Exciting times" when I we gotta drop $400-500 extra just to go from 0xMSAA to 4xMSAA. Maybe it's just me but I would have preferred 27 fps on an HD7970 with 0xMSAA but jaw dropping level of detail, very high resolution textures and high polygon models. I like MSAA but when the performance hit is 30 fps, maybe it's time the developers consider Forward+ lighting game engines and ditch these deferred MSAA engines, where time and time again the MSAA performance hit is out of this world. ^_^

I'm interested in the x2 TXAA setting.

 

[Rikard]

I tried the open beta for about 10 min, but it is really not my cup of tea. (Do we really need another generic twitch shooter?) However, I hope this will bring driver improvements for other games running CryEngine3. I have played around with SweetFX in MWO and it really improves the image quality and reduces the need for AA. I am now on the fence whether it is better to run SweetFX+NoAA or SweetFX+SMAA.

 

[SirPauly]

SweetFX is an outstanding, flexible tool for image quality tweakers.