Upcoming AMD 12.4 drivers to give large performance boost using MLAA2.0!

I just saw this test of the upcoming AMD 12.4 drivers:

http://translate.google.com/translat...-7000-serie%2F

It seems image quality and performance have both been improved over MLAA. For HD7000 series users,the BF3 improvements look huge!!

It seems the 12.3 Beta already has MLAA2.0:

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=...6&postcount=29

Confused now.
MLAA = Post AA ? So this driver is increasing the performance of the Post AA ?
Or
MLAA = AA in game ?

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Originally Posted by Phage

Confused now.
MLAA = Post AA ? So this driver is increasing the performance of the Post AA ?
Or
MLAA = AA in game ?

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MLAA explanation:

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/technol...ogical-aa.aspx

http://blogs.amd.com/play/2011/03/31...erator-part-2/

Thanks for that.
So, in summary MLAA is a downstream AA processing that can replace MSAA to some extent when it is not supported.

In BF3 then I have MSAA, the in-game version, with it's performance hit, and Post AA which is sometimes referred to as FXAA. Now we have MLAA. For best performance we should disable MSAA and use high FXAA and check the box for MLAA ?

The thing is it looks like MLAA2 has better image quality and performance than MSAA and MLAA, and the increase in BF3 framerates seems to be around on third or thereabouts.

But am I correct ?

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Originally Posted by Phage

But am I correct ?

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Give it a try when the drivers have support. I would try MLAA2.0 with FXAA on and off,and observe the changes in performance and image quality.

Fair enough. I will.
TBH the new card is running at 60-100 FPS with high FXAA now, I'm not sure my eyes are good enough over that level. We shall see.

(No, my old CF5870s couldn't do that)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

Give it a try when the drivers have support. I would try MLAA2.0 with FXAA on and off,and observe the changes in performance and image quality.

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Thr last thing you'd want to do is apply a post-processing effect on a post-processed image.

FWIW: MSAA > MLAA in all out quality.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Phage

Fair enough. I will.
TBH the new card is running at 60-100 FPS with high FXAA now, I'm not sure my eyes are good enough over that level. We shall see.

(No, my old CF5870s couldn't do that)

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Surely you can run the game on full wack (sans SS/HBAO) with MSAA x4? I pretty much a consistent 60FPS with a 480 with those settings so surely you must do better?

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Originally Posted by Terbinator

Surely you can run the game on full wack (sans SS/HBAO) with MSAA x4? I pretty much a consistent 60FPS with a 480 with those settings so surely you must do better?

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Indeed I can. I've been trying to find the best combo of options that give me the best image quality with the best mininmum framerates, which is where my 5870s used to die in the 4rse.
It's proving to be a bit of trial and error, hence my interest in a possible improvement with little overhead.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Terbinator

Thr last thing you'd want to do is apply a post-processing effect on a post-processed image.

FWIW: MSAA > MLAA in all out quality.

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I was referring to the question Phage was asking - I wouldn't know as I don't play BF3.

Moreover,is MSAA>MLAA2.0 though??

HardOCP is going to do an article on it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Terbinator

FWIW: MSAA > MLAA in all out quality.

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If you like jaggies, yes.

MSAA cannot anti-alias non-geometric objects. Any jaggies in textures, or on boundaries affected by post-process effects and some deferred rendered effects will not be resolved by MSAA. There are a number of cludges around this such as transparency AA etc. but they still have their limitations.

A post process shader AA theroetically can work on everything - it's working on the final, completed, buffer. But as opposed to MSAA etc., it does not know what are geometric edges, so has to use contrast detection to guess where the edges are in a 2D image - this is the same sort of thing that photoshop etc. already does. These things are relatively new in the graphics card world, so the algorithms are improving quite quickly. At the same time, these are very cheap methods computationally, because a 2D image is actually a very tiny amount of information to process compared to 3D, and because good old fashioned shader power has been in abundance for graphics cards for years now.

It seems even HD4000 series users will benefit from MLAA2.0 it seems and image quality is better than an FXAA:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon...w-32392-2.html

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Originally Posted by kalniel

If you like jaggies, yes.

MSAA cannot anti-alias non-geometric objects. Any jaggies in textures, or on boundaries affected by post-process effects and some deferred rendered effects will not be resolved by MSAA. There are a number of cludges around this such as transparency AA etc. but they still have their limitations.

...

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Usually i'd roll with various SS/TR modes but BF3 is a bit of a turd in that light and is definitely the worst offender in terms of jaggies from foliage (to be expected) and AFAIK, *can't* be SS'd/TR'd because of its inherent rendering process.

I'm not completely against MLAA/FXAA but if you have the leg-room to support MSAA i'd always go with that. Maybe I've spent too much time in the NeoGaf hi-res screenshot thread. :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

It seems even HD4000 series users will benefit from MLAA2.0

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Yay. Though as usual Tom's is completely inaccurate :p Foliage aliasing is easily corrected with traditional AA methods, just not the quick MSAA method.

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Originally Posted by Terbinator

Usually i'd roll with various SS/TR modes but BF3 is a bit of a turd in that light and is definitely the worst offender in terms of jaggies from foliage (to be expected) and AFAIK, *can't* be SS'd/TR'd because of its inherent rendering process.

I'm not completely against MLAA/FXAA but if you have the leg-room to support MSAA i'd always go with that. Maybe I've spent too much time in the NeoGaf hi-res screenshot thread. :(

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Well BF3 is out for me anyway (not that it's my kind of game), but I tend to agree with you in general - for DX9 games at least, I'm absolutely rocking with MSAA+CFAA(edge)+adAA(transparency) along with AF. Skyrim looks gorgeous, and I'm currently playing through Mass Effect 1 & 2 and they look much better with these enhancements as well. And it's all smooth on the 4870 (damnit.. I wanted a reason to get a 7950 :p). But I'd struggle with BF3 as you say because of the deferred rendering and amount of post process.

OKaaaay.
You lot lost me there, are you just making this up now ?

"Usually i'd roll with various SS/TR modes..."
"MSAA+CFAA(edge)+adAA(transparency) along with AF..."

Always happy to admit my ignorance. :) Can anyone shed some light on this ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Phage

OKaaaay.
You lot lost me there, are you just making this up now ?

"Usually i'd roll with various SS/TR modes..."
"MSAA+CFAA(edge)+adAA(transparency) along with AF..."

Always happy to admit my ignorance. :) Can anyone shed some light on this ?

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MSAA = the 'standard' AA method. It's relatively expensive, but not as expensive as more intensive methods like SSAA. It works on 3d geometry only but has no cost on image degradation.

CFAA = AMD shader powered AA method which can quickly emulate higher levels of MSAA, at possible cost to image quality elsewhere. Hence need to use edge detection methods which bump up the computational cost again. CFAA(edge) is therefore CFAA applied to edges only - this ends up looking the same as much higher MSAA levels with little cost to memory bandwidth, but some cost to shader power (which is in abundance usually).

adAA = adaptive AA - AMDs method of using a blend of MSAA and SSAA depending on which bit of the scene it's looking at. SSAA is a high quality method that costs a lot, but allows AA in alpha textures, so that you can AA the edges of foliage etc. which are otherwise ignored by MSAA. This also uses CFAA if enabled, and the blending means it's only used on parts of the scene that aren't well handed by MSAA already.

More info:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2008/...filtering_aa/1

End result - nice jaggy reduction even in transparencies (foliage, hair etc.), nice sharp textures, while not overloading memory, so I can run smoothly at 1080p on a 512mb card.

I think you're covered well in terms of AA options on the red side at least. ;)

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Originally Posted by Terbinator

I think you're covered well in terms of AA options on the red side at least. ;)

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Pretty sure there are nVidia equivalents for most of those - they both use different methods with varying success, but while you might be able to spot differences, it'd be hard to say one was always better than the other. But yes, having had both AMD and nVidia cards, I do slightly prefer AMDs image quality options.

I think we have CSAA & QCSAA, but trying to force them in driver page can be laborious sometimes.

The 12.3 Beta drivers are now available:

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles...07Support.aspx

Edit!!

It only mentioned HD7000 support for the newer MLAA version. I wonder if the 12.4 drivers will support more cards??