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

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chimaxi83

Diamond Member
May 18, 2003
5,457
63
101
People using stills to jugde TXAA are funny...but a waste of time..as they don not graps what they are looking at... *shrugs*

Pretty sure we have a grasp on that, the drones are repeating temporal AA after all. Still or motion doesn't fix the blur fest. Grasp that.
 

SomeoneSimple

Member
Aug 15, 2012
63
0
0
You're a weird one. Coming to TXAA thread saying "lets us enjoy our MSAA" o_O
But fear not!
That is exactly what I've already suggested you lot

Totally agree with that. NV pushing TXAA is a good thing, even if you dislike the current state of TXAA, as used in TSW, since it means the engine has to support MSAA. Win-win for everybody.

Sadly, the lazyness of game-developers keeps surprising me. The Secret World's engine does 'true' MSAA just fine (else TXAA wouldn't be possible, and its even shown with the TXAA-override by Mr. Lottes), but they be damned if someone actually cared to implemented it in the options. :thumbsdown:

I do wonder though, what 4xTXAA would look like without the wide-tent sampling, if that's even possible without having visual artifacts from the temporal sampling.
 
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SirPauly

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2009
5,187
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Pretty sure we have a grasp on that, the drones are repeating temporal AA after all. Still or motion doesn't fix the blur fest. Grasp that.

Because its a trade-off -- blur, softening, loss of detail for exceptional anti-aliasing while moving for a cinematic look. At least this drone had the common decency to investigate first hand and tried to offer pros and cons before I blanketed the feature over-all.
 

SirPauly

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2009
5,187
1
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Totally agree with that. NV pushing TXAA is a good thing, even if you dislike the current state of TXAA, as used in TSW, since it means the engine has to support MSAA. Win-win for everybody.

Sadly, the lazyness of game-developers keeps surprising me. The Secret World's engine does 'true' MSAA just fine (else TXAA wouldn't be possible, and its even shown with the TXAA-override by Mr. Lottes), but they be damned if someone actually cared to implemented it in the options. :thumbsdown:

I do wonder though, what 4xTXAA would look like without the wide-tent sampling, if that's even possible without having visual artifacts from the temporal sampling.

Great point! Nice post! It would be wonderful to see FXAAHQ, multi-sampling with transparency, and TXAA options -- TXAA for the gamers that desire the cinematic look and mutli-sampling that desire more sharper and willing to sacrifice some temporal aliasing in the title, while offering more quality than FXAAHQ.
 

Grooveriding

Diamond Member
Dec 25, 2008
9,147
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Blurry in still = blurry in motion. The purpose of anti-aliasing is to clean up the edges of objects in your field of view, to improve IQ. This TXAA is doing that at the cost of blurring everything up.

As mentioned in the thread there are other solutions that do this much better, including handling aliasing in motion, without the blur. Can go ahead and attempt to expound the virtues of this, but it's pretty clear apart from some regulars, most people see the blur and think it looks awful.
 

motsm

Golden Member
Jan 20, 2010
1,822
2
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People using stills to jugde TXAA are funny...but a waste of time..as they don not graps what they are looking at... *shrugs*
TXAA looks just as blurry in the videos I've seen as it does in stills, so I don't see what your point is.
 

SirPauly

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2009
5,187
1
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Blurry in still = blurry in motion. The purpose of anti-aliasing is to clean up the edges of objects in your field of view, to improve IQ. This TXAA is doing that at the cost of blurring everything up.

As mentioned in the thread there are other solutions that do this much better, including handling aliasing in motion, without the blur. Can go ahead and attempt to expound the virtues of this, but it's pretty clear apart from some regulars, most people see the blur and think it looks awful.

Sure, super-sampled would, but at what performance cost?
 

f1sherman

Platinum Member
Apr 5, 2011
2,243
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:thumbsup: Thanks for the link!
It really is refreshing to see rage free IQ discussion.

Over at Hothardware everybody loves TXAA
runawaypdyqn.gif


These image aficionados really dig balanced game image without trees, antennas, wires and whatnot sticking through ones eyeballs.
 

The|Hunter

Member
Dec 5, 2011
145
1
81
...

How about some numbers: the majority of the cost associated with TXAA is just the cost of in-game MSAA. To put this in perspective for a game like Battlefield3 which has relatively optimized MSAA support for deferred rendering, on the **mid-range mobile** 650M at 1280x800 I measured a BF3 scene at 18ms/frame with no-AA. Simply turning on 2xMSAA adds 4.4 ms/frame, or using instead 4xMSAA adds 9.2 ms/frame. Other games with deferred rendering are much worse than BF3, and games with forward rendering are much better. The cost of TXAA over just MSAA on this GPU at the same resolution is 0.67 ms/frame for 2x, and 1.34 ms/frame for 4x.
..

Hi, can i ask you a few questions regarding this


I was wondering how did you get a working TXAA in BF3, did you use some kind of injector or did Dice give you the code and then you implemented TXAA in it?

Is this injector even possible - like smaa or strictly game specific?

And why Kepler and not on Fermi? I mean 0.67ms or 1.34ms on a 650m is very fast, a GF110 chip not capable of this is kinda suspicious, it has a fast FP16 too, no? Or is that extra FP16 unit on GK104 sooo special? :sneaky:

Thanks :)
 

chimaxi83

Diamond Member
May 18, 2003
5,457
63
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:thumbsup: Thanks for the link!
It really is refreshing to see other people who think like us, promoting the blur fest of TXAA, innovation!

Over at Hothardware everybody loves TXAA
runawaypdyqn.gif


These image aficionados really dig balanced game image without trees, antennas, wires and whatnot sticking through ones eyeballs.

FTFY

If you read through those comments, sounds like none of those guys have seen this in action :rolleyes: but at least they agree with you guys, right?

Balanced game image = blur?
 

Final8ty

Golden Member
Jun 13, 2007
1,172
13
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FTFY

If you read through those comments, sounds like none of those guys have seen this in action :rolleyes: but at least they agree with you guys, right?

Balanced game image = blur?

Indeed and the size of the screen shots make it look better than what it really is and you cant do side by side quick tab switch comparison.

The FXAA one in the middle would be the best compromise, the TXAA looks blurry.
 
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ocre

Golden Member
Dec 26, 2008
1,594
7
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Indeed and the size of the screen shots make it look better than what it really is and you cant do side by side quick tap switch comparison.

The FXAA one in the middle would be the best compromise, the TXAA looks blurry.

HUH?
 

f1sherman

Platinum Member
Apr 5, 2011
2,243
1
0
Hi, can i ask you a few questions regarding this


I was wondering how did you get a working TXAA in BF3, did you use some kind of injector or did Dice give you the code and then you implemented TXAA in it?

http://timothylottes.blogspot.com/2012/08/tsw-noaafxaamsaatxaa-video-and-resize.html
Since I don't have anything with TXAA integrated into BF3, I just profiled frame rate in BF3 with and without MSAA, then for the same resolutions, I separately profiled the increased cost of TXAA over MSAA (given the same number of samples) in another demo I created. Then just add the numbers.


OP updated :thumbsup:
 

railven

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2010
6,604
561
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So, finally got to see some TXAA in action, not some pixelated compressed Youtube video, but actual game play.

This is definitely going to be one of those subjective things. The blur is very visible, and when moving it is almost like a motion blur (no, not excessive blur like in some games where you turn and everything is out of focus.)

If I had to describe it, it reminds me of back in the day when HDR was all the rage and blooming was every where, jaggies were masked by light sources.

This doesn't affect the light but the edges look...fuzzy. Not jagged, but also not smooth (does that make sense?) I'd even say ghosting, but that would be too strong of a descriptor.

Not sure if it's our settings or not, but the game felt less smooth with TXAA vs FXAA. Sort of goes back to that fuzzy/ghosting/spacey vibe I was trying to describe.

All in all, a decent new feature, if you like it, and quiet impressed with how it handles crawlies, just wish it didn't have a dream feel to it, and for the love of God don't stop moving or the blur will consume you (the blur when not in motion is really really REALLY bad.)

EDIT: Dream sequence - it gives me a vibe like a dream sequence in a movie. The edges are a tad fuzzy but that's probably the blur in motion (who ever says blur is gone when in motion is lying.) Like hazy. But even that is too strong, you'd have to see it person. GOing from No AA to FXAA to TXAAx4 is like getting drowsy, that's the best I can do right now to describe it.
 
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RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
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There is hardly any texture shimmering in many PS3/360 games because they use a lot of Post-AA anti-aliasing to blur the entire picture. It can be said that PS3/360 games look "cinematic" as a result. If you sit 9-10 feet away from a 60 inch Plasma screen playing console games, it looks like TXAA and you can barely notice any aliasing or details in the textures since it's all just a blur. :)
 

TimothyLottes

Junior Member
Aug 8, 2012
14
0
0
For anyone interested in moving beyond just trolling, you can test your theory and compare TXAA to simply bluring MSAA frames. Just grab some raw captures with FRAPs, then add a -vf option with the proper settings to add a gaussian blur to the near lossless ffmpeg command line I posted on my blog. Note ffmpeg is free, and there is no install.

The|Hunter, no injector will be possible with something like TXAA. Same problem with injecting the better SMAA options. As for some kind of TXAA engineered for Fermi, I'm pushing for this, not sure if I'll get the option to do that or not.

As for a MSAA option in TSW, I'd advise asking nicely in their user forum so they see that there is a demand for the feature.
 

Lonbjerg

Diamond Member
Dec 6, 2009
4,419
0
0
For anyone interested in moving beyond just trolling, you can test your theory and compare TXAA to simply bluring MSAA frames. Just grab some raw captures with FRAPs, then add a -vf option with the proper settings to add a gaussian blur to the near lossless ffmpeg command line I posted on my blog. Note ffmpeg is free, and there is no install.

The|Hunter, no injector will be possible with something like TXAA. Same problem with injecting the better SMAA options. As for some kind of TXAA engineered for Fermi, I'm pushing for this, not sure if I'll get the option to do that or not.

As for a MSAA option in TSW, I'd advise asking nicely in their user forum so they see that there is a demand for the feature.

Thank for clearing that up :thumbsup:
 

The|Hunter

Member
Dec 5, 2011
145
1
81
The|Hunter, no injector will be possible with something like TXAA. Same problem with injecting the better SMAA options. As for some kind of TXAA engineered for Fermi, I'm pushing for this, not sure if I'll get the option to do that or not.

I see, ok thanks

As for some kind of TXAA engineered for Fermi, I'm pushing for this, not sure if I'll get the option to do that or not.

I hope for the best :thumbsup::cool:
 

railven

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2010
6,604
561
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Not sure what can or can't be forced on Radeon hardware, but I don't think SSAA is being applied properly, is it because the game doesn't have proper AA support?

Same FPS with 2x/4x/8x forced through CP. It seems the only thing that does any real difference to FPS is the tessellation slider. This game takes a huge hit for tess, World + Ground == 40-50% FPS drop on my Radeon 7970 (1125/1625) and about the same with the GF's GTX 680 with +50 offset.

Also, this game runs a lot better on her rig versus mine. I got a better overall system, but same settings she gets 40FPS where I get 33 FPS.

TXAA is definitely better than FXAA in this game, and on my Radeon system I can't seem to get anything to force through the driver. I might try this third party App I have.
 

blackened23

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2011
8,548
2
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Not sure what can or can't be forced on Radeon hardware, but I don't think SSAA is being applied properly, is it because the game doesn't have proper AA support?

Same FPS with 2x/4x/8x forced through CP. It seems the only thing that does any real difference to FPS is the tessellation slider. This game takes a huge hit for tess, World + Ground == 40-50% FPS drop on my Radeon 7970 (1125/1625) and about the same with the GF's GTX 680 with +50 offset.

Also, this game runs a lot better on her rig versus mine. I got a better overall system, but same settings she gets 40FPS where I get 33 FPS.

TXAA is definitely better than FXAA in this game, and on my Radeon system I can't seem to get anything to force through the driver. I might try this third party App I have.

SGSSAA only works in games that have native MSAA. Therefore you can't use SGSSAA in TSW regardless of graphics hardware
 

railven

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2010
6,604
561
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SGSSAA only works in games that have native MSAA. Therefore you can't use SGSSAA in TSW regardless of graphics hardware

What I thought but I remember for Diablo 3 before AMD released their driver to support, it only had FXAA through the options, but with a third party tool I was able to get MSAA to work and even then SSAA - Radit was the tool.

But I wouldn't even know what profile to try to force, so I'm not even going to try. My trial ends tomorrow anyways.