Interesting LOD and Texture Filtering with 8.97 Betas and SSAA/AdaptiveAA

Discussion in 'Videocards - AMD Radeon Drivers Section' started by Bat_Zonko, Apr 30, 2012.

  1. Bat_Zonko

    Bat_Zonko Guest

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    In my quest to figure out why my AA settings no longer took in Kingdom of Amalur with the newest driver sets, I discover some wild LOD and texture filtering going when forcing AdaptiveAA (and would assume SSAA) on my 7950.

    I did most all my testing in Ettinmere on KoA because it hit the hardest with all the foliage and shadows.

    • FXAA is disabled for all shots. I am running the 8.97 Betas.
    • Running RadeonPro and turned my normal LOD settings off (Set to Zero).
    • AF is forced to 16x in RadeonPro
    • Texture Filtering and MipMap are at High Quality
    • FlipQueue at 1
    • Surface Format Optimizations are disabled.
    • The AA Compatibility on RadeonPro is set to SingleGPU Only (that was the only way I could get forced AA to work with the title).
    • Straight Multisampling, No Edge Detect.

    All are 1920x1080 on Win7 with a Sapphire 7950 OC (1050/1450) with a I7-2600k (My sig machine is my current machine)

    1) No AA. Set to Use Application AA
    [​IMG]
    http://i.minus.com/ibyin3bHOSbpzx.png

    2) Straight 4x AA.
    [​IMG]
    http://i.minus.com/iONcFtFG5MqbA.png


    3) 2X Eq AA Adaptive. Notice the texture detail on the table legs.
    [​IMG]
    http://i.minus.com/izM5zI1InSHTS.png


    4) 4x AA Adaptive. Again, massive LOD on the textures. In particular, look at the wood texture on the cooking spit to left of the table now.
    [​IMG]
    http://i.minus.com/if7N1BcstRTod.png


    That is some wild texture filtering. Now, is something wrong with the default texture filtering in this game, or in the driver? Or, is the new LOD routine used in the SSAA/Adaptive routine very aggresive?

    If this is new LOD settings that takes effect when I enable Adaptive, then I might just learn to live with 2xAA Adaptive and use SMAA/FXAA to clean up some leftovers. Though it is pretty damn aggressive.

    Pretty massive FPS hit (4xAA Adapt at that same area is 43FPS):) And uses up a bit more memory. For the heck of it I did a 8x EqAA Adapt and had 90%+ GPU usage. That is about double of normal GPU in that area. Good way to test my overclock, I guess :nerd:

    Bats
     
  2. slickric21

    slickric21 Guest

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    Ahhhhh..............

    I wondered why my IQ had gone down in BF3 with these drivers.
    Looks like it was the same texture flickering and LOD problems.

    I use ingame x2MSAA with Adaptive AA on in RadeonPro in this game.
    Worked well for all drivers 8.96 onwards, untill these 8.97 where I noticed flickering and loss of detail.

    Now using the 12.4 WHQL's and they don't have this problem

    No I don't think its intentional, 15Th Mar Betas and 18th April WHQL dont have these problems in BF3 DX11 w Adapative AA on.
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2012
  3. Raiga

    Raiga Maha Guru

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    I am missing the part, where you mentioned '..LOD and Texture Filtering...' against the screen grabs you have posted.
     
  4. Bat_Zonko

    Bat_Zonko Guest

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    Compare the table (and to an extent the rocks on the right) from the No AA to the 4xAA to the 2EqAA with Adapt and 4xAA with Adapt.
    The best example is the table legs and the spit. You can also see it somewhat on the rocks (very apparent in Maid of Windemere's area with the red cliffs).

    On the ones where I had Adaptive AA enabled, the textures have the same type of "look" they can have when you drastically alter the LOD values in the drivers and/or run them through a sharpening filter in the FXAA injector.

    That is why I specifically metioned disabling the FXAA injector. When I first saw it I though something had gone bonkers with my injector settings. But, no. This is just a side-effect of Adaptive AA in this game.

    I do need to check some other games and see if it is that extreme (or happens at all) in them.

    Bats
     

  5. Raiga

    Raiga Maha Guru

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    I just ran the game with 8xEQ and I see no weird glitches, unless I

    1. Either it didn't force AA correctly
    2. Haven't noticed because I just started the game again (new game) and didn't encounter it during daytime in the game
     
  6. Valagard

    Valagard Guest

    Just looks like a simple graphical glitch to me

    Adaptive AA causes my games to do all sorts of funny things

    Hell, Shoot Many Robots causes all explosions and bullet fire to vanish when adaptive AA is on
     
  7. Bat_Zonko

    Bat_Zonko Guest

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    Yeah, Usually Adaptive AA cause things to blink in and out in a lot of games I've tried it in.

    I thought about that, and did some screen shots to see if it was effecting the objects and the shaders in game. I couldn't find any objects or fancy shaders that did not look the same with Adaptive AA and without any AA.

    But it is weird. I've never had Adaptive AA effect textures like that. If anything, adaptive AA and to greater extent SSAA has always blurred textures.

    I did some quick tests in three different games to see if there was any similiar effect, and as far as I can tell, there isn't. Just this one game, KoA.

    Borderlands it works extremely well (and kills the FPS extremely well also) as a AA. It also seems to effects the overall contrast of the screen (a slightly greater contrast it seems). This has the effect of making the ground textures look more defined, but it does not do anything like it is doing in KoA.
    In Borderlands, it did stop doing one major thing that did before.
    And that is blur out the distant textures. Before, it would mess with anything with a subtle difference in the black levels (kind of like what FXAA and SMAA will do). Overall, it does a great job in Borderlands, but man does it kill the framerate.

    Red Faction Guerilla (DX10 game) it works on the edges and shader edges very well. Bad thing is it destroys the framerate and it also blurs the ever living hell out of distant textures. So, good in Borderlands and crap in RFG.

    Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2011 - Still no workee with AA in this game. I had a slight glimmer of hope the force SingleGPU would be a godsend. But nope. Sigh... The game looked so damn good with AA when I could force it with the 10.10e drivers on my 6950. At least FXAA works well with this game. Kind of like kissing your sister though.

    I'm going to take a quick look at Dragon Age Origins, and then probably call it what it is. A quirk that pertains just to KoA.

    It is a quirk I can live with becuase it does make the game look better overall. Those table legs are the worst case example of that bizarro texture effect I can find. In the rest of the game, it just acts like a aggresive LOD with added in sharpening.

    Bats
     
  8. Valagard

    Valagard Guest

    That's cause Unreal 3.0 and up engine has -ALL- textures use transparency

    So when you have Adaptive AA on, you are basically using super sampling
     
  9. Bat_Zonko

    Bat_Zonko Guest

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    Ooops, forgot to hit post while I was checking the Dragon Age Origins.

    Dragon Age Origins - Adaptive AA is extremely good in this game. Like Borderlands, before Adaptive AA would blur distant textures, especially murky ones (and since most DAO is murky textures, and not high quality to begin with, that was not good). Now, with forcing Adaptive AA the textures look as good, if not better, then normal.
    There were no extreme examples like in KoA. However, like Bordelands it looks like there is just a little bit of contrast correction. The wall and tapestry textures look real good with Adaptive AA, along with cleaning up the pixel crawling on the weapons with magic effects. Nice.

    So, it looks like whatever it is doing, In KoA it is dialing it up to 11 on some textures.

    So far, in the Directx9 based games I've tried, using Adaptive AA improves the IQ of the game. I'll use it in DAO and KoA. Would like to in Borderlands, but AA has always killed the framerate in that game, Adaptive or Normal.

    In the only DX10 game I tested, RFG, it cleaned up the aliasing almost perfectly, but it blurred the textures so bad that there is no way I could use it. Even if it did not kill the framerate. Probably ought to check some other DX10/11 title and see if that holds true or not.

    Of course, I didn't run tests with the Catalyst AI disabled. That may have an effect... but, screw it. Gonna stop messing around and actually play some games.

    Thanks God Radeon Pro still works and works well. If I had to actually use CCC to do any of this, or set my games up, I would have given up.

    Edit: Just ran Dirt3 comparision. No blurring that I can tell. Everything looked great. The IQ was nice and clean. What a great game, except for the Gymcrappa.

    Bat
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2012
  10. GhostXL

    GhostXL Guest

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    Odd guys, this set bumped up my BF3 IQ greatly. Infact it's the same as the WHQL set.
     

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