PS3 Antialiasing

[JF060392]

there has not yet been one game i have played on the ps3 that doesn't have jaggies. I know for a fact its not the tv and i know for a fact it is the PS3. i compared COD5 on the xbox with COD5 on the PS3 and i noticed the serious lack of AA on the PS3. i again tried this with the Lost planet 2 demo. same results. same thing goes with grid and every other game i have played. so does the PS3 even support AA?

 

[brblx]

to be honest, i havn't noticed antialiasing on ANY console game. GoW, mass effect, GTA, whatever, all have plenty of jagged edges on my xbox, which is particularly noticable when playing at native res on an LCD monitor (less so on my 720p TV).

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: brblx
to be honest, i havn't noticed antialiasing on ANY console game. GoW, mass effect, GTA, whatever, all have plenty of jagged edges on my xbox, which is particularly noticable when playing at native res on an LCD monitor (less so on my 720p TV).

Same. Compared to PC games, every game I've played on my 360 is full of jaggies. The only exception is Castle Crashers.

 

[purbeast0]

AA is "free" on xbox360 i believe, with 1 of the cores being 100% dedicated to doing it and i believe it is fairly easy to implement as well, and if you don't use that core, it can't be used for anything else. not 100% on that though i just remember hearing that when 360 first came out, but it also could be sales talk.

ps3 on the other hand has nothing like that, and it has to be manually added and uses up resources that could be used elsewhere.

 

[VashHT]

Originally posted by: purbeast0
AA is "free" on xbox360 i believe, with 1 of the cores being 100% dedicated to doing it and i believe it is fairly easy to implement as well, and if you don't use that core, it can't be used for anything else. not 100% on that though i just remember hearing that when 360 first came out, but it also could be sales talk.

ps3 on the other hand has nothing like that, and it has to be manually added and uses up resources that could be used elsewhere.

It is virtually free, but it's not the cpu that is doing it, it is a small amount of fast RAM dedicated to it. I forget how much it applies though, I've heard 4x or 2x mostly, maybe it differs from game to game.

 

[purbeast0]

Originally posted by: VashHT

Originally posted by: purbeast0
AA is "free" on xbox360 i believe, with 1 of the cores being 100% dedicated to doing it and i believe it is fairly easy to implement as well, and if you don't use that core, it can't be used for anything else. not 100% on that though i just remember hearing that when 360 first came out, but it also could be sales talk.

ps3 on the other hand has nothing like that, and it has to be manually added and uses up resources that could be used elsewhere.

It is virtually free, but it's not the cpu that is doing it, it is a small amount of fast RAM dedicated to it. I forget how much it applies though, I've heard 4x or 2x mostly, maybe it differs from game to game.

ah ok, that is what it is then.

yea i am PRETTY sure it is free 2x AA and not 4x, but again i could be wrong about that too

 

[Qbah]

If my Xbox has any AA I must be totally blind, cause it's jaggy-fest in every game I have played. Well, the 2D XBLA titles look nice and sharp... But regular games? Yeah right...

 

[erwos]

"AA" isn't some magical solution that makes every polygon and line super-smooth.

IIRC, the "free" anti-aliasing that the 360 gives is only if you can fit your frame buffer within the 10mb EDRAM buffer... which probably explains why some games are rendering below 720p.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: erwos
"AA" isn't some magical solution that makes every polygon and line super-smooth.

IIRC, the "free" anti-aliasing that the 360 gives is only if you can fit your frame buffer within the 10mb EDRAM buffer... which probably explains why some games are rendering below 720p.

this.

The 360 allows for free 2x AA if the frame buffer is sized appropriately.

2xAA even at 720p isn't going to be a very noticeable difference. Only on certain surfaces will it really help.
There are other techniques, and sometimes other performance is sacrificed for more AA that isn't "free". Some PS3 games have AA, not sure how much. But again, low amount of AA is hardly noticeable except very specific circumstances.

 

[coreyb]

This is the reason I can't stand playing console games. I'm so used to cranking up the AA+AF that seeing jaggies makes me cringe!

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: coreyb
This is the reason I can't stand playing console games. I'm so used to cranking up the AA+AF that seeing jaggies makes me cringe!

no kidding! honestly, if it werent for the damn "exclusive" games, i wouldnt own any console...but i do anwyay

 

[hans030390]

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't seem to notice a lack of AA/AF unless I'm actually looking for it...which I never do while playing a game.

 

[gorcorps]

*shrugs* it depends on the game really. On the 360, for me CoD4 looks fine but Halo 3 has jaggies all over the place. Even the gun models right in front of your face don't look sharp.

 

[zerocool84]

I'd rather take a game at a higher rez than have it be able to use AA. The higher the rez a game is the crisper it'll look and the less need for AA .

 

[TheUnk]

Fight Night is the only game I've played that doesn't have noticeable jaggies.

 

[totalnoob]

OP, are you playing with an HDMI cable? The default PS3 cables guarantee super jagginess since they only play in a max of 480i.

Playing Uncharted 2 and Wipeout HD in glorious 1080P using HDMI, I see ZERO jaggies.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: totalnoob
OP, are you playing with an HDMI cable? The default PS3 games guarantee super jaginess since they only play in a max of 480i.

Actually, this leads to a better question: what are the OP's TV settings? Some people do horrible, horrible things to their video quality by not properly calibrating their TVs (and I mean BASIC calibration with the AVSForum disc!).

The other thing to note is that, unlike the 360, the PS3 will change resolution of the video output depending on the source. If your 1080p-native HDTV has a particularly trashy scaler and you're playing Uncharted 2 in 720p, your HDTV's scaler might be doing odd things to the image, too. Not much to be done about that, unfortunately - you could tell your PS3 to _only_ output in 1080p, but that will break a bunch of other games and probably give you performance issues in the ones that don't break.

 

[Juddog]

Originally posted by: erwos

Originally posted by: totalnoob
OP, are you playing with an HDMI cable? The default PS3 games guarantee super jaginess since they only play in a max of 480i.

Actually, this leads to a better question: what are the OP's TV settings? Some people do horrible, horrible things to their video quality by not properly calibrating their TVs (and I mean BASIC calibration with the AVSForum disc!).

The other thing to note is that, unlike the 360, the PS3 will change resolution of the video output depending on the source. If your 1080p-native HDTV has a particularly trashy scaler and you're playing Uncharted 2 in 720p, your HDTV's scaler might be doing odd things to the image, too. Not much to be done about that, unfortunately - you could tell your PS3 to _only_ output in 1080p, but that will break a bunch of other games and probably give you performance issues in the ones that don't break.

^^ This. My Samsung LN46B750 scales the 720p close to flawlessly to 1080p and no matter which game I've played so far it looks fantastic, except MUA:2 which apparently has some issues for everybody. Then again I've spent over 2 hours calibrating my set from the avsforums guidelines, including turning off dimming in the service menu, etc.. I also turned off all the post-processing stuff when playing games, then turn it back on when watching movies. Sometimes that can make a difference as well.

My setup is pretty basic: PS3, HDMI high quality monoprice cable (figured I'd pay the extra $10 and get top of the line, still way cheaper than the cheapest HDMI at Best Buy), and TV.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: zerocool84
I'd rather take a game at a higher rez than have it be able to use AA. The higher the rez a game is the crisper it'll look and the less need for AA .

Depends on pixel pitch really. Your statement was true when people primarily played PC games on CRTs, and would adjust the resolution on a game-to-game basis. With LCDs, a game played at native rez on a 20" 1680x1050 or 24" 1920x1200 LCD will have the same amount of jagged edges because the pixel pitch is similar.

To tie this idea back into the topic at hand... I think the reason all the games look aliased on consoles is because they are being rendered at 1280x720 (or lower) with 2x or 4x AA, so they probably would look fine and crisp on a small 1280x720 LCD (and pre-release screen shots). However, when the console is hooked up to a 42" or larger 1920x1080 HDTV the image is interpolated onto a much higher resolution screen. Couple that with the fact that screen itself is big, you end up with an "enlarged to show detail" scenario that makes the games look like they have 0xAA.

 

[thilanliyan]

Aliasing on the PS3 is so annoying...one of the few things I don't like about the PS3.

 

[ManBearPig]

Originally posted by: Juddog

Originally posted by: erwos

Originally posted by: totalnoob
OP, are you playing with an HDMI cable? The default PS3 games guarantee super jaginess since they only play in a max of 480i.

Actually, this leads to a better question: what are the OP's TV settings? Some people do horrible, horrible things to their video quality by not properly calibrating their TVs (and I mean BASIC calibration with the AVSForum disc!).

The other thing to note is that, unlike the 360, the PS3 will change resolution of the video output depending on the source. If your 1080p-native HDTV has a particularly trashy scaler and you're playing Uncharted 2 in 720p, your HDTV's scaler might be doing odd things to the image, too. Not much to be done about that, unfortunately - you could tell your PS3 to _only_ output in 1080p, but that will break a bunch of other games and probably give you performance issues in the ones that don't break.

^^ This. My Samsung LN46B750 scales the 720p close to flawlessly to 1080p and no matter which game I've played so far it looks fantastic, except MUA:2 which apparently has some issues for everybody. Then again I've spent over 2 hours calibrating my set from the avsforums guidelines, including turning off dimming in the service menu, etc.. I also turned off all the post-processing stuff when playing games, then turn it back on when watching movies. Sometimes that can make a difference as well.

My setup is pretty basic: PS3, HDMI high quality monoprice cable (figured I'd pay the extra $10 and get top of the line, still way cheaper than the cheapest HDMI at Best Buy), and TV.

Err, kinda besides the point, but how do you like the LN46B750?

 

[TheVrolok]

Unfortunately, I've just had to get used to the jaggies on my PS3. It makes PC games look even purtier tho