MLAA? No thanks, FXAA please

MLAA used to kicked in for every application that uses hardware acceleration. MLAA affect every hardware accelerated application at first (it was annoying since not only the browser but some apps that use hardware acceleration are also affected) but they fixed the bug since then I think.

 

@Eastcoasthandle
Here's the thing with FXAA : its IQ isn't absolute, even for the same game.
Just by tweaking the shader file, you can trade-off between speed, sharpness and anti-aliasing.
So, yes, if you don't like a game being too blurry, you can tweak the shader file to apply more sharpening (at the cost of speed).

Also, I don't think the OP thought FXAA runs better on AMD cards compared to NV cards.
He only said that FXAA runs better on AMD cards compared to MLAA, and by 'better' it's most likely in terms of speed.

And if you've searched a bit on [H]ardOCP, the site which forum you referred to, you can also find this article :
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/07/18/nvidias_new_fxaa_antialiasing_technology/
...which basically would answer most questions regarding FXAA.

At the moment, FXAA is much more interesting than MLAA.
You could say MLAA is a bit of a brute force generic approach while FXAA is a custom fit design.

And with the injector from here :
http://www.forum-3dcenter.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=510658
...you can test which shader tweaks suit your game best.

 

Hey nice screen shots.

But MLAA looks bad (kinda blocky pixelated kinda visuals) when the camera is moving, for static shots yeah MLAA looks great; but for motion -> naaa..bad, it looks are jittery (unstably to my eyes).

Currently I am using FXAA DLL wrapper by [Some_Body], I gotta say..its really awesome. Why?, because we can tune the code (by TIM, TY bro) individually for each games. On top of that, the processing (GPU LOAD) is very little compared to MLAA.

After everthing, if AMD doesn't tune MLAA to remove that blocky pixelated effect and add certain options to tweak..I'll stick with FXAA DLL wrapper as for Post Processing AA option.

(FXAA post processing also works great on some games, after setting In-GAME AA or even SSAA...with MLAA the performance hit is either tooooooo great or the quality just degrades existing scenes)

Yeah, I gotta hand it to Timothy Lottes for the FXAA introduction..a small part(of thanks) to Nvidia for encouraging his development and a good deal to [Some_Body] for making the DLL Wrapper thereby bringing FXAA into spotlight_else it will be just hidden behind blogs or Nvidia for many years_even Nvidia didn't shout it aloud like AMD did with MLAA (which isn't that great)..

-Edited-

 

The thing about FXAA is that it's literally a direct offshoot as MLAA.
http://www.geeks3d.com/20110405/fxa...liasing-demo-glsl-opengl-test-radeon-geforce/

Apparently, Jimenez's MLAA requires less bandwidth than FXAA, which implies that both MLAA and FXAA are tweakable.
http://nolimitsdesigns.com/game-design/fxaa-vs-mlaa/

 

The original MLAA implementation by Intel, really mentions good quality. But implementation on ATI/AMD side, really hungers for more power(because it uses compute!!!) or degrades visual quality against the code mentioned FXAA wrapper by [Some_Body] (by default FXAA settings is set at high quality preset_39).

And yes, more or less FXAA is offshoot as MLAA, As Tim has mentioned that he developed the code (in my case, I believe it to be a lean algorithm) taking many AA techniques and putting forth which is the best_fastest way to get a bit more quality with less processing.

(the reference AA materiel has been quoted by him in the FXAA documents)

 

The thing about FXAA is that it's more flexible and faster, and that's all it counts.

Did you bother to read the comments?
There's actually one from Timothy Lottes himself.
Here's the quote :

 

MLAA has changed throughout the period that AMD has had it implemented in it's drivers. While that does not clearly demonstrate how flexible MLAA is by comparison to FXAA, it does demonstrate that MLAA is tweakable to some extent. Also, a 40ms difference between the high 200's and low 300's likely would not yield much difference in actual performance.

Since FXAA is an offshoot of MLAA implementation, the real question is how long will it be until FXAA and MLAA are near identical?

 

Nop i have the latest drivers and when i have MLAA on it applies to my msn messenger window.

 

Since both implementations are work in progress, its safe to assume both will improve over time.

You AMD guys are the lucky ones, as you can compare the two, not sure why people are arguing about it though.

 

It's been long since MLAA has been out (almost a year; wasn't it along with 10.10e release?), while FXAA hasn't even been around for 2 months and look what the community had brought.

There's "some dude" making the injector for DX9 and DX10/11.
The GTAIV enhancement mod, ENBseries, already got an FXAA support just by editing its effects.txt file.
Even gabest (of MPC and a few other things fame) has implemented FXAA in GSdx, PCSX2's (a PS2 emulator) GS engine.

And yet you still used said article to claim MLAA has lesser bandwidth than FXAA; double standard much?
My point was FXAA isn't more expensive than MLAA, not necessarily way lesser, and there you go.
Besides, you're forgetting the point that Scott was testing it on a GTX295, while Timothy was on a 560 Ti; dual GPU vs single GPU.

All I know is that MLAA has been around long enough, and the recent speed boost (via driver update) was only because FXAA starts gaining traction.
I don't know what AMD would (or wouldn't?) do if Timothy didn't publicize FXAA on his blog.

Personally, I just can't stand people downplaying FXAA right off the bat.

Both technique has its own merits, but as it stands, FXAA is the dark horse right now.
If MLAA can keep up, more power to AMD then.
Either way, still a win for the users for the availability of choices.

 

This is based on an old version and it depends on the settings used. FXAA can be optimized in different ways, from blurry to sharp. I compared the newest FXAA version (Inject FXAA) with my own settings and MLAA. FXAA is faster and looks better to me.

 

Agreed, i tried it when they started it, and hated it, everything just looked a blury mess, but now on the 11.7's, its fine, so they have done something to it.

 

Nope, performance is better but IQ is not changed since first MLAA driver.

 

FXAA and MLAA are both post processing AA filters. So post processing aa isn't an absolute. The idea that you have to tweak the FXAA depending on the game clearly shows that post processing aa works best if developed for the game. Which is something that I stated earlier. You would have a different file tweaked for different games which is not ideal. Therefore doesn't make FXAA better.

I'm not sure why you found it necessary to type this but lets go back to the op for clarity:
"This FXAA without the benefit of DX11 has quality equal to or better than MLAA but runs so much faster."
He didn't say it runs better but thought it was faster as well. Something I've already addressed in my earlier post(s). IE: FXAA Console, FXAA Quality, the need to tweak the file for different games, etc.

You don't benchmark in game AA vs driver level AA. That's an apple to orange comparison when you want to know performance and IQ. Because MLAA, FXAA, etc are post processing aa filters they can be custom tweaked for a game. I have no idea why you think MLAA can't be "custom fit" for a game. It's still post processing aa filter .

Perhaps you are tad to sensitive to the subject as you seem to take it way to personal. Nothing I've said suggested or implied that one post processing aa filter is overall better then another.

I've seen pics of the "tweaked" version and IMO the IQ doesn't look any better and certainly doesn't look better then MSAA. Therefore I found those comparisons I posted earlier valid. People want AA to just work, they don't want to tweak a file in order to get IQ just below MSAA with performance all over the map from lower to higher then MSAA. Currently, tweaking that file now maybe "fun" as it's something new. But over time it can be a chore with different games. Also with newer games using post processing aa people will be hard pressed to tweak it further IMO.

 

Can you link me the pictures? I didn't say it looks better than MSAA.

 

I've already done so in my earlier post. The implications you are referring to with FXAA merit me reminding you that MSAA is still overall better with IQ. So, if you have a high end PC and are able to use MSAA and still have good frames rates use that. If you PC isn't able to handle your native resolution you could trade off a few frame rates to increase IQ. Or, just get better frame rates with the same IQ then post processing is a good alternative when MSAA is already an option for the game.

 

Nope, there is no link from you in this thread which refers to Inject FXAA screenhots. That's why I ask.

 

Oh, you want internet arguing, lol. The link to that thread has already been discussed and is found in another forum on this website. No need for me to repeat it

 

But not from you. Searched only for your postings. No wonder I didn't found it.

http://www.forum-3dcenter.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=510658

This is the thread you are talking about?

 

Most likely because developers would be able to test MLAA rigorously on their own game, so it makes sense that it would work a lot better on a game to game basis than to enable it on the driver level.

deltatux