MFAA: Transparency Anti-Aliasing?

Discussion in 'Videocards - NVIDIA GeForce Drivers Section' started by heymian, Dec 2, 2014.

  1. heymian

    heymian Guest

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    I was reading this article when I came across this tidbit:

    "One cool aspect of MFAA is that similar to TXAA, it has the ability to help remove jaggies on transparent textures and not just on polygon edges."

    Has anyone tested to see how much of a difference MFAA makes on transparent textures? It would be nice for games like BF4 where there's trees and foliage everywhere (BF4 is a MFAA compatible game).
     
  2. Cyberdyne

    Cyberdyne Guest

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    You have a 980, right? Why not try it out and come back and tell us.
     
  3. TaskMaster

    TaskMaster Ancient Guru

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    I have a 980 with latest drivers. MFAA option is not appearing in the NVCP.
     
  4. Bradders684

    Bradders684 Maha Guru

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    I don't believe MFAA currently support's SLI, try disabling one of your cards.
     

  5. GoldenTiger

    GoldenTiger Master Guru

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    Hoping it does soon, at 4k the extra performance of 4x (effective) MFAA would be really nice to have to say the least, and I'm running 2x GTX 970 in SLI oc'd heavily :).
     
  6. Yecnot

    Yecnot Guest

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    You need antialising? :3eyes:
     
  7. MrBonk

    MrBonk Guest

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    People thought they didn't need Anti Aliasing when 1080p was new either. :stewpid:
     
  8. GoldenTiger

    GoldenTiger Master Guru

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    They sure did, :bang: . Moire patterning (which is why you really notice jagged edges) affects edges very readily, though at a reduced effect, far higher resolutions than just 4K and below. People tend to be fairly uninformed, unfortunately :(, unlike yourself :). (Here's some science... http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/lum_hyperacuity/ ).

    In BF4 64-player I can manage 2x MSAA framerate-wise but 4x is just too far on the minimums on some maps... being able to bump that up to almost 4x quality for around the same performance cost would be great since I'd love the extra antialiasing. Plus, MFAA hits a lot of alpha textures as well according to the reviews which is a big bonus.

    With MFAA providing close quality to its equivalent MSAA method but at a drastically lower performance cost, it's basically a big performance boost outright which is a great advantage for Maxwell 2.0. For people driving top-end resolutions, that's a particular need even moreso than lower ones.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2014
  9. slickric21

    slickric21 Guest

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    In BF4 there isn't a massive difference from x2MSAA to x4MSAA, its just crap in this game.

    x2MSAA with MFAA does give slightly better AA than x2MSAA alone (just like x4MSAA alone does) - but its not earth shattering in this game.
    Its still looks s**t unless you use SMAA (imo)
    I run DSR 1323p (native 1080p), x2ingame MSAA with MFAA on. Still jaggies everywhere.

    (Still need SMAA for this game imo.
    Sadly I cant get it to work anymore via Radeonpro, think its not liking MFAA or DSR being on. Not got round to troubleshooting it yet)

    Bottom line, MFAA is ok for x4MSAA like IQ for x2 like performance hit. Game engine will determine how effective MSAA is in that game.
     
  10. Yecnot

    Yecnot Guest

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    And they call me pretentious :eyes:
     

  11. Keesberenburg

    Keesberenburg Master Guru

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    MFAA adds AA on other objects, vs 4x MSAA
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbyM5yYi-3c
     
  12. slickric21

    slickric21 Guest

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    Yeah saw that.

    Its still not great. It had a tiny barley noticeable advantage on some objects.

    However I like to judge with my own eyes and tests rather than some BS nvidia presentation.

    For me all MFAA does in BF4 is free up some performance to run higher resolution scale.

    As reviews have shown from an IQ stance, x2MSAA with MFAA is slightly inferior to x4MSAA (but with much better perf obviously)
     
  13. Anarion

    Anarion Ancient Guru

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    Hmm... Last time I checked it in BF4 did absolutely nothing for textures with alpha channel.

    I must say that MFAA has one deal breaker: it's pretty much impossible to capture it in screenshots or in video (unless you use shadowplay).
     
  14. Keesberenburg

    Keesberenburg Master Guru

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    I use 125% reolution scale, 2xsmaa +mfaa postprocessing off works great for me.
     
  15. ceesay

    ceesay Master Guru

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    still waiting not working with sli ..
     

  16. Cyberdyne

    Cyberdyne Guest

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    He's not being pretentious, that was one of the reactions to 1080p when it was new.
    In reality, what you need to look for is DPI and how far away you are from the monitor. A 1024x768 monitor can get rid of aliasing if you make the screen small enough.
     
  17. Yecnot

    Yecnot Guest

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    Yeah, I read somewhere (probably here) that you need a DPI of 280+ or something like that, and figured that 4k would come close on an average sized monitor.
     
  18. GoldenTiger

    GoldenTiger Master Guru

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    Yeah, it doesn't at all :eek:. I'm using an Acer 32" B326HK 60hz IPS 4K monitor, and while it looks amazing and in some games I don't really see a huge need for AA, it definitely makes some difference still. The same was true but a little less so on my Dell UP2414Q back when I bought it in May (4k 23.8" screen) and used up until recently.

    Anyone hear any news on MFAA in SLI?
     
  19. milamber

    milamber Maha Guru

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    MFAA is useless for me because the latest games (like FC4 and Unity) can't run at 60fps with MSAA. Maybe in the future it will be a nice option to have.
     
  20. heymian

    heymian Guest

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    Been testing out MFAA with 347.09 WHQL and BF4. So far, my results are mixed. These are just my observations based off my perception of things. They are in no way definitive.

    Good: The picture looks sharper and more refined (less aliasing) compared to 4xMSAA alone. I attribute this to MFAA's built-in alpha blending technique. Here is another article I found that illustrates this:

    "MSAA is on the left, MFAA is on the right. Tiny as this image is, it accurately captures one of Nvidia’s chief points on the advantages of MFAA: it creates better blending between color gradients, in some cases, than MSAA can. One of the reasons that aliased lines appear aliased is because of sharp color differences between the line and the rest of the scene behind it. MFAA can improve that contrast by using shades that MSAA doesn’t."

    Bad: While the picture looks better standing still, things change once in motion. Before I explain, here is a small snippet from this article:

    "Images in extreme motion, or very quick changes could result in visible aliasing. There might be situations where the filter cannot compensate for what a real hardware sampled MSAA can do."

    On top of noticing this, my screen will stutter slightly while making quick turns. Overall, the game does not feel as smooth as before. One cause may be because using MFAA has increased my maximum FPS. So now I get bigger FPS swings (going from 140 to 60), which can make things feel stuttery and less smooth. Until I stare at my FPS counter some more, I will leave this open to debate.

    A couple things to consider. I'm using new drivers, which could attribute to performance changes and other factors. I have also used FXAA for months to filter out alpha texture aliasing. Since I have turned FXAA off, my eyes may still be adjusting to the more raw image. I also believe I'm hyper-sensitive to changes, that others may not notice.

    Again, these are just my observations. I would encourage anyone with a 900 series card to try MFAA for yourself and report back here.
     
    Last edited: Dec 28, 2014

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