TXAA Anti-Aliasing Makes Its Debut In Latest Update For The Secret World

[SirPauly]

It would be neat to see super-sampled AA -- multi-sampling AA with transparency -- TXAA comparison screenshots if possible, with frame-rate.

 

[RussianSensation]

Seeing how NV doesn't care about Fermi owners, I won't be promoting TXAA either.

Ya, I am not promoting 8xMSAA over say 4xMSAA. I am just saying I am disappointed in TXAA as it's now a 2nd game that shows TXAA reduces significant detail in textures. I was also under impression that Fermi cards will get TXAA. Did NV make TXAA Kepler exclusive?

 

[MrK6]

TXAA in BO2 is horrendous** It's like putting on a wrong set of prescription glasses** It washes out details, making the game look like a console game (that's exactly what you don't want after you spent $400+ on a modern GPU )** I noted this major deficiency of TXAA in TSW and it's even more clear in BO2 because that game has very simplistic textures/low-polygon models, which makes it even easier to see the blur city of TXAA**

TXAA is so bad, it's worse than MLAA/FXAA** I can't believe some people think MSAA is outdated tech and TXAA is supposed to the future? The current implementation of TXAA = the quickest way to "consolize" PC gaming graphics**

Excellent comparison** Here we are 3 months later with the next "big update" and TXAA still sucks** It's amazing what the marketing kool aid is able to spin though**

 

[SirPauly]

At least the title has multi-sampling or TXAA to choose from -- having another choice doesn't suck! What's the big deal here? Like to see this title in motion before I form an objective view -- not as gifted as the static image experts.

 

[DiogoDX]

At least the title has multi-sampling or TXAA to choose from -- having another choice doesn't suck! What's the big deal here? Like to see this title in motion before I form an objective view -- not as gifted as the static image experts.

The big deal is the waste of marketing and resourses to implement a feature that degrades IQ. I would prefer an implementation of SSAA since the game is showing many FPS.

 

[omeds]

Yeh I'm pretty disappointed with TXAA. It might be ok when playing on a HDTV sitting back on the couch, giving it a more cinematic like quality, but up close on a PC display its just too blurry.

 

[SirPauly]

The big deal is the waste of marketing and resourses to implement a feature that degrades IQ. I would prefer an implementation of SSAA since the game is showing many FPS.

And why I would like to get an objective view with movement with SSAA, multi-sampling with transparency and TXAA, screenshots, too, and performance attributes.

Sorry, see static screenshot - make blanket view is not my style.

 

[ViRGE]

TXAA in BO2 is horrendous. It's like putting on a wrong set of prescription glasses. It washes out details, making the game look like a console game (that's exactly what you don't want after you spent $400+ on a modern GPU ). I noted this major deficiency of TXAA in TSW and it's even more clear in BO2 because that game has very simplistic textures/low-polygon models, which makes it even easier to see the blur city of TXAA.

8X MSAA

4x TXAA

TXAA is so bad, it's worse than MLAA/FXAA. I can't believe some people think MSAA is outdated tech and TXAA is supposed to the future? The current implementation of TXAA = the quickest way to "consolize" PC gaming graphics.

Yikes! I won't fault NVIDIA for trying, but they need to try harder. I think even FXAA would be less blurry (and that doesn't have the luxury of geometry samples).

 

[AnandThenMan]

Yeh I'm pretty disappointed with TXAA. It might be ok when playing on a HDTV sitting back on the couch, giving it a more cinematic like quality, but up close on a PC display its just too blurry.

I've tried it, still looks terrible to me.

 

[DiogoDX]

And why I would like to get an objective view with movement with SSAA, multi-sampling with transparency and TXAA, screenshots, too, and performance attributes.

Sorry, see static screenshot - make blanket view is not my style.

I was not able to understand how anyone could defend a filter that reduces image quality. Then I read the topic from the beginning and now it all makes sense.

 

[SirPauly]

Quite easy actually! Because it is an attempt of tackling temporal aliasing while bringing levels of efficiency! Desire this to mature, evolve and improve.

 

[SirPauly]

Some screen shots and comments:

Cod:BO2 4xTXAA+4xSGSSAA

http://timothylottes.blogspot.com/2012/11/codbo2-4xtxaa4xsgssaa.html

 

[DiogoDX]

Some screen shots and comments:

Cod:BO2 4xTXAA+4xSGSSAA

http://timothylottes.blogspot.com/2012/11/codbo2-4xtxaa4xsgssaa.html

This post confirms my previous comment. The filter itself is completely useless since the author have to use SGSSAA to make the image less blurry. And the blur still persists.

If this is the future of anti aliasing I will stay in the past where the image has definition.

 

[ViRGE]

Some screen shots and comments:

Cod:BO2 4xTXAA+4xSGSSAA

http://timothylottes.blogspot.com/2012/11/codbo2-4xtxaa4xsgssaa.html

You have SSAA, and then you go and ruin it with TXAA?

 

[RussianSensation]

Quite easy actually! Because it is an attempt of tackling temporal aliasing while bringing levels of efficiency! Desire this to mature, evolve and improve.

Efficiency wouldn't be a problem if developers ditched the deferred rendering model and moved to forward rendering lighting path like was done in the Leo demo. Then we could use MSAA without the 30-40% performance hit it currently incurs under deferred rendering path.

Thus far FXAA/MLAA/TXAA have all failed to improve visuals over MSAA overall. While they deal with anti-aliasing better in some instances (Max Payne 3), this benefit is marginalized because they blur the entire picture, in the process losing details in the image, making it look more console like. It's like 1 step forward, 2 steps back.

There is nothing wrong with new AA modes, but right now TXAA is clearly not ready to replace MSAA or even FXAA.

Some screen shots and comments:

Cod:BO2 4xTXAA+4xSGSSAA

http://timothylottes.blogspot.com/2012/11/codbo2-4xtxaa4xsgssaa.html

To each his own. I hate the blurry console look. If I wanted these types of visuals, I'd get a PS4/Xbox 720 for my next generation games. The crisp textures completely disappear with this TXAA mode, which makes it worthless to me as textures are probably the area that needs the most improvement in PC games right now and this filter makes what already substandard textures look even more blurry.

 

[SirPauly]

I think its great to see flexibility with TXAA with multi-sampling and super-sampling -- need to see in motion.

 

[SirPauly]

Efficiency wouldn't be a problem if developers ditched the deferred rendering model and moved to forward rendering lighting path like was done in the Leo demo. Then we could use MSAA without the 30-40% performance hit it currently incurs under deferred rendering path.

Thus far FXAA/MLAA/TXAA have all failed to improve visuals over MSAA overall. While they deal with anti-aliasing better in some instances (Max Payne 3), this benefit is marginalized because they blur the entire picture, in the process losing details in the image, making it look more console like. It's like 1 step forward, 2 steps back.

There is nothing wrong with new AA modes, but right now TXAA is clearly not ready to replace MSAA or even FXAA.

We look at things differently - you seem to think MLAA, FXAA or TXAA are suppose to replace MSAA but for me, the features have different strengths -- flexible choices based on subjective tastes and tolerances for a specific title. MLAA, FXAA, MSAA, SGSSAA, TXAA are simply more choices for gamers to decide to use. I see nothing but more flexible choice to consider -- not replacements. If one doesn't like TXAA -- no one is forcing anyone to use it but the key to image quality, for me, is about movement. That is the major battle to me, for others, obviously, static images.

 

[TimothyLottes]

Given how much I used to enjoy being a forum troll on BBSes before the internet was commercialized, I'll take the flame bait here for entertainment purposes...


(1.) TXAA WAS NEVER DESIGNED TO REPLACE MSAA

If you like the look of MSAA, just use MSAA. It really is that simple.

TXAA isn't attempting to increase the quality of MSAA, if you want higher quality MSAA use 8xMSAA instead of 4xMSAA. If you want higher quality alpha-test (shrubs, fences, etc), enable TrSSAA in the driver. If you want more samples/pixel for shading with the MSAA box filter, enable SGSSAA in the driver.


(2.) TXAA WAS NEVER DESIGNED TO REPLACE FXAA

FXAA exists as a fast and dirty way to attempt to post filter to remove aliasing when a game cannot afford better methods.


(3.) CLEARLY TXAA LOOKS NOTHING LIKE PS3/360 GAMES

Console titles typically lack MSAA, and are mostly up-sampled by either the 360 or the HDTV (PS3), both of which employ a filter which is better than bilinear filtering. This up-sampling filter when applied to content which contains aliasing (console games) simply doesn't work well, and this roughly defines the "console" look.

Take 4xTXAA with 4xSGSSAA at 720p and up-sample that on your HDTV to 1080p and it looks completely different.


(4.) TXAA+SGSSAA IS NOT TO INCREASE SHARPNESS

If I wanted increased sharpness with TXAA, I'd mix TXAA with OGSSAA (down-sampling), or better yet run at a higher DPI screen and higher resolution.

The reason I play with 4xTXAA and 4xSGSSAA isn't to increase sharpness, but rather provide more shaded samples/pixel for higher quality filtering and an increased reduction of temporal aliasing. If anything SGSSAA decreases "sharpness" as the added samples/pixel filter out edges which would otherwise be created by aliasing caused by under-sampling shading at 1 sample/pixel.

 

[ViRGE]

(4.) TXAA+SGSSAA IS NOT TO INCREASE SHARPNESS

If I wanted increased sharpness with TXAA, I'd mix TXAA with OGSSAA (down-sampling), or better yet run at a higher DPI screen and higher resolution.

The reason I play with 4xTXAA and 4xSGSSAA isn't to increase sharpness, but rather provide more shaded samples/pixel for higher quality filtering and an increased reduction of temporal aliasing. If anything SGSSAA decreases "sharpness" as the added samples/pixel filter out edges which would otherwise be created by aliasing caused by under-sampling shading at 1 sample/pixel.

As always, we appreciate your comments Timothy.

I don't suppose you could post a comparison video of SGSSAA vs. TXAA + SGSSAA? I guess I just don't get what benefit TXAA is having in this case; SGSSAA tends to clean up an image extremely well. What temporal aliasing are you experiencing even with SGSSAA?

 

[DiogoDX]

The reason I play with 4xTXAA and 4xSGSSAA isn't to increase sharpness, but rather provide more shaded samples/pixel for higher quality filtering and an increased reduction of temporal aliasing. If anything SGSSAA decreases "sharpness" as the added samples/pixel filter out edges which would otherwise be created by aliasing caused by under-sampling shading at 1 sample/pixel.

If you that is the author can't show the filter alone in your blog makes me think that you want to cherry pick the results to attribute some improvements of SGSSA to TXAA.

By the blog comments i can say that you achieved your goal.

 

[BoFox]

As always, we appreciate your comments Timothy.

I don't suppose you could post a comparison video of SGSSAA vs. TXAA + SGSSAA? I guess I just don't get what benefit TXAA is having in this case; SGSSAA tends to clean up an image extremely well. What temporal aliasing are you experiencing even with SGSSAA?

Took me 1 second to google for it, although it's with TSW:

http://timothylottes.blogspot.com/2012/08/tsw-noaafxaamsaatxaa-video-and-resize.html

Given how much I used to enjoy being a forum troll on BBSes before the internet was commercialized, I'll take the flame bait here for entertainment purposes...

Hey Timothy, AlienbabelTech forum would also very much welcome your participation, and has practically troll-free discussions.

 

[TimothyLottes]

As always, we appreciate your comments Timothy.

I don't suppose you could post a comparison video of SGSSAA vs. TXAA + SGSSAA? I guess I just don't get what benefit TXAA is having in this case; SGSSAA tends to clean up an image extremely well. What temporal aliasing are you experiencing even with SGSSAA?

At some point I'll post another collection of videos, just haven't had the time to do it yet.

SGSSAA (or even TrSSAA) serves the same function with TXAA as it does with MSAA: increasing the number of samples/pixel to increase quality.

Where in-game MSAA simply averages the samples inside a pixel, TXAA adjusts the weight of samples by their position relative to the center of a pixel, and also uses samples outside of the pixel. In this regard TXAA leverages SGSSAA much better than MSAA. For instance, if you have a specular highlight which is the size of one sample on a diffuse background, as that specular highlight moves from the left of the pixel to the right of the pixel, with MSAA, nothing changes inside or around the pixel, as sub-pixel position doesn't matter. When the highlight hits another pixel you see a pop. As the old pixel is diffuse again, and the new pixel now has a sharp specular highlight. This pop is the temporal aliasing.

With TXAA, the neighboring pixels change as the highlight moves. This provides your mind a better description of the sub-pixel position of the highlight. When the highlight crosses a pixel boundry, there is not the sharp pop with TXAA+SGSSAA, but rather a smooth transision. There is a direct trade off between the increased filter kernel size of TXAA and sharpness. You cannot get both ultimate sharpness and ultimate lack of temporal aliasing at the same time.

It ultimately is a question of personal preference.

The thing to remember here is that even if you don't like TXAA, the effort behind TXAA will still result in a better experience for you, the person who likes MSAA and dislikes TXAA, because as TXAA uses MSAA, there is a lot of research and work going on towards just making MSAA faster and better in games (especially with deferred shading).

 

[SirPauly]

there is a lot of research and work going on towards just making MSAA faster and better in games (especially with deferred shading).

Nice to know!

 

[TimothyLottes]

BTW, turns out there is a bug in TXAA in CoD which makes TXAA+SGSSAA much more blurry than it should be. If you turn Ambient Occlusion off, then TXAA+SGSSAA looks like it is supposed to look, like the images below. Note you can also mix negative LOD with TXAA. In fact you can easily max out negative LOD setting in the Inspector, as TXAA can handle a lot of negative LOD due to it's larger filter.

4xTXAA+4xSGSSAA and 960x960 crops from a 1920x1080 frame captured in fraps,

 

[BoFox]

Thanks!!

Guys, Timothy also did some more explaining about TXAA in that wonderful post:
http://alienbabeltech.com/abt/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=25299&start=210#p76053

(To quote a part of it:

Q: TSW why no MSAA?

A: My best guess, risk. It is ok to run an experiment on TXAA and allow bugs that only effect a small percentage of gamers, it is not ok to turn on a feature got added to the engine immediately before shipping, which never got tested, which could effect every user. My advice here, just ask the developer nicely to put the MSAA option in their menu on the next patch. If they say no, get everyone you know to ask, then have their friends ask.

Excellent!!