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

[ViRGE]

It would be nice if things were ideal for all. Gaming has always been about trade-offs. Personally don't allow idealism to be the enemy of good. A softer image isn't for everyone.

The trade off should be a performance tradeoff. There should never be a quality tradeoff. SSAA is as slow as hell, but it solves all forms of aliasing without introducing blurring. To solve aliasing but to introduce significant blurring is not a good tradeoff, IMHO.

 

[SirPauly]

I don't agree with significant.

 

[Gordon Freemen]

The trade off should be a performance tradeoff. There should never be a quality tradeoff. SSAA is as slow as hell, but it solves all forms of aliasing without introducing blurring. To solve aliasing but to introduce significant blurring is not a good tradeoff, IMHO.

Agreed with what he said ^ "There should never be a quality tradeoff."
Blurring and softer images sucks.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

The trade off should be a performance tradeoff. There should never be a quality tradeoff. SSAA is as slow as hell, but it solves all forms of aliasing without introducing blurring. To solve aliasing but to introduce significant blurring is not a good tradeoff, IMHO.

I can't be the only one who notices the blatant "blurring" caused by 8xSGSSAA.

Pretty hard to miss that performance impact though.

 

[SirPauly]

You can try to add some negative lod to that; to help improve the clarity. There was a petition to have lod adjustments for DirectX 10+ content on nVidia hardware for SGSSAA as well -- AMD has some differentiation by having DirectX 10+ lod adjustments for SGSSAA.

Hopefully as TXAA matures --- maybe they can improve upon the clarity of the image but the key is the feature does indeed bode well in moving space -- was wonderful to see the potential.

 

[Gordon Freemen]

I can't be the only one who notices the blatant "blurring" caused by 8xSGSSAA.

Pretty hard to miss that performance impact though.

LOL looks like the bottom image is running a much lower resolution than the top image.

 

[Gordon Freemen]

You can try to add some negative lod to that; to help improve the clarity. There was a petition to have lod adjustments for DirectX 10+ content on nVidia hardware for SGSSAA as well -- AMD has some differentiation by having DirectX 10+ lod adjustments for SGSSAA.

Hopefully as TXAA matures --- maybe they can improve upon the clarity of the image but the key is the feature does indeed bode well in moving space -- was wonderful to see the potential.

There's really know why to dance around it FXAA/TXAA both look like crap compared to other more tried and true AA methods and that is regardless of whether or not FXAA/TXAA even heals jaggy images when in motion or stationary or both. On the other hand if TXAA/FXAA offer less of a performance hit on your hardware over traditional superior AA methods and you are not bothered by less jaggies at the cost of a softer less defined image then power to you.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

LoD+SGSSAA = Hardware Destruction

I'm glad to hear it has a good foundation though, but yes Nvidia needs to add LoD to DX10+ and bring out some actual GPU power so you can enable it.


Edit: My point was only to address the assertion some people had made about advanced AA methods and the IQ they present at face value. Some seem to discredit this new approach while praising the old way and shooting down the new way at the same time when they both have the same blurring effect.

This method works very well it seems, the IQ is at levels I'd expect, you said it reacted well to moving images which is a big plus, and it doesn't have near the performance impact of the older methods.

I think it's a step in the right direction, but we need a way to get the detail back in DX10+ as well as the gpu power to handle it all.

 

[Arzachel]

People who want the best IQ are going to use MSAA whenever possible, people like me who don't mind slight blur if that means killing off most jaggies with minimal performance impact, are going to use FXAA/MLAA. The target audience for TXAA seems pretty limited.

As for TSW, seems like the things it does would've worked better in single player and the game being an MMO only detracts from the experience. I'd rather wait for GW2.

 

[pandemonium]

Here's some more I just took:

FXAA HQ


TXAA x2


TXAA x4


--------------

FXAA HQ


TXAA 2


TXAA x4



TXAA x2 has a weird effect on my lighting that's intermittent.

Mmm, lower framerates and lower image quality. That's a win. Why even bother releasing it at this point? >.<

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Definitely looked like the smoothness came at the cost of sharpness. TXAA produced a more noticeably blurred image.

 

[Gordon Freemen]

Definitely looked like the smoothness came at the cost of sharpness. TXAA produced a more noticeably blurred image.

Not only that TXAA produces a milky wash over the whole screen talk about low quality.

 

[motsm]

I can't be the only one who notices the blatant "blurring" caused by 8xSGSSAA.

Depends on the game and the compatibility bits used, you can see comparison shots of Max Payne 3, and Mass Effect 3 below and the blurring is almost non existent. Use a .DLL injection post sharpen filter, and the blurring is gone to the naked eye. Of course as I said before, the performance isn't comparable (and the image quality isn't either) so I don't think TXAA should be compared to any form of super sampling.

http://www.geforce.com/Optimize/Guides/mass-effect-3-tweak-guide/#8
http://www.geforce.com/optimize/guides/max-payne-3-tweak-guide/#11

 

[boxleitnerb]

Why is it custom FXAA inject are so crisp and clear, ie. Diablo 3/Skyrim.. but devs keep on making rubbish AA modes that make high-res textures and filtering (the whole progression in the past decade has been about texture resolution, mapping and filtering) looking like low end crap, washed out and jaded. It's proven possible with custom inject... is it because game devs are lazy or do they get pushed to force terrible AA on us?

As stated earlier, custom FXAA still incurs a slight blur. And in motion, I would bet a 100 bucks that it falls flat on its face compared to TXAA regarding the antialiasing effect.

So you have:
Bad AA but comparably little blur: FXAA
Excellent AA but bad blur: TXAA

Regarding SGSSAA and blur:
Lack of LOD adjustment is only one part. As far as I know, the negative LOD adds detail, it doesn't bring back originally lost detail. The provided screenshot in Path of Exile with SGSSAA are probably blurry because the SGSSAA collides with some pp-effect. This can be possibly be solved by applying compatibility bits, for example the most common "0x000010C1". This is true for many games where blur occurs without those bits. So if you do it right, SGSSAA doesn't blur.

 

[SirPauly]

so I don't think TXAA should be compared to any form of super sampling.

Doesn't TXAA have a super-sampled component?

 

[SirPauly]

I would bet a 100 bucks that it falls flat on its face compared to TXAA regarding the antialiasing effect.

You would easily win this bet!

 

[boxleitnerb]

You would easily win this bet!

Yeah, but I would also bet that one would easily notice the lack of detail even in motion. I know that motion is the great strength of TXAA, but after seeing the video, I too consider the blur to be too severe.

Btw it was theorized elsewhere that (because TXAA contains an MSAA part) TXAA could be upgraded to SGSSAA. And that because more information was included, the blur would be less severe. Could you maybe test that, please? Just have TXAA on and enhance SGSSAA through NV Inspector.

 

[motsm]

Doesn't TXAA have a super-sampled component?

I believe it does as part of it's post process, which is an entirely different thing.

 

[SirPauly]

Wait a minute -- it is done differently but still super-sampled.

WHAT TO EXPECT VISUALLY
(1.) TXAA will look better in motion than on stills. In motion TXAA super-samples using samples from prior frames, on stills the number of samples is limited.

The key here it uses samples from different frames while moving -- the key to its small performance hit, while providing higher quality to me. The key is how does this super-sampled quality compare to conventional or more traditional methods while moving?

 

[Silverforce11]

The trade off should be a performance tradeoff. There should never be a quality tradeoff. SSAA is as slow as hell, but it solves all forms of aliasing without introducing blurring. To solve aliasing but to introduce significant blurring is not a good tradeoff, IMHO.

Bingo.

We're supposed to be innovating and improving, here you get AA but at a signifcant trade off in performance AND IQ. No thanks, its trash.

Oh, and don't compare TXAA vs none or FXAA, compare it to what if they had included proper MSAA support, or if you have any FPS with full MSAA support play that? Notice "temporal aliasing"? Sif.

With these blur-AA on, why even bother running your games on max details? The textures look washed out low-res, and everything looks like you view it through a dirty pair of glasses. Innovation? Gimme a break.

 

[SirPauly]

Hehe, I can't do that! Offer such strong opinions without having the common decency to actually investigate and test first hand!

 

[Silverforce11]

As stated earlier, custom FXAA still incurs a slight blur. And in motion, I would bet a 100 bucks that it falls flat on its face compared to TXAA regarding the antialiasing effect.

So you have:
Bad AA but comparably little blur: FXAA
Excellent AA but bad blur: TXAA

Custom FXAA inject gives good AA with little blur. I've been running it on my games which don't have MSAA. Then i thought to myself, this is 2012, why is there no MSAA?? It's a sad joke that users have to download non-legit "hacks" to make the game look good. Even sadder is that its so easy to implement decent FXAA and devs don't bother.

 

[Silverforce11]

Hehe, I can't do that! Offer such strong opinions without having the common decency to actually investigate and test first hand!

I've seen the video and the screenshots, if it looks like crap in both its not going to change if i folk out $50 for the game, buy a gtx670 just so i can view crap on my screen which i've already seen. Bias? Maybe, i am biased against crap-AA.

At least you're not those types who say AA is not necessary.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Custom FXAA inject gives good AA with little blur. I've been running it on my games which don't have MSAA. Then i thought to myself, this is 2012, why is there no MSAA?? It's a sad joke that users have to download non-legit "hacks" to make the game look good. Even sadder is that its so easy to implement decent FXAA and devs don't bother.

Good AA? No, not by my standards. At least if the content is "crawly". GTA4 with FXAA still looks like shit for example.

Take a look at this SW screenshot with FXAA HQ and note the marked areas. This aliasing will crawl in motion.

 

[motsm]

Wait a minute -- it is done differently but still super-sampled.



The key here it uses samples from different frames while moving -- the key to its small performance hit, while providing higher quality to me. The key is how does this super-sampled quality compare to conventional or more traditional methods while moving?

As I said, all of the super sampled elements are part of the post process (AFAIK), so it can't be compared to traditional super sampling. It's also why the chain-link fence in the first group of screenshots you posted wasn't helped by TXAA.

http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/1283/thesecretworlddx1120120a.jpg