I see no difference with anti-aliasing vs without...is this normal?

Discussion in 'General Hardware' started by Question2, Apr 8, 2017.

  1. Question2

    Question2 Guest

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    Ive read up on the different forms of AA and seen the usual comparison screenshots. But in one particular source engine game that I play, I see no difference at all between no AA vs 8x MSAA. I can tell that 8x MSAA drops my FPS by about 5 while my character is standing still in town, but i see the same jagged edges and everything looks exactly the same. Is this normal?

    I also tried using SMAA (with high/ultra settings) via radeon pro, and while the performance hit is worse than the game's MSAA for some reason (isnt SMAA supposed to be LESS performance intensive?), there is barely any difference. I tried toggling it on/off ingame via the radeon pro hotkey, and I only noticed two differences with SMAA on : ropes on a boat being "sleeker" and some blurring of textures on wooden posts.

    But all the jagged edges around my character is still there, which is the main thing i was hoping AA would remove.

    Here are two screenshots that i took :

    No AA : http://i.imgur.com/hzHijnb.png

    8x MSAA : http://i.imgur.com/OCoXbha.png

    Can anyone tell the difference? I definately cant.

    Edit : Woops, not sure if this belongs in the hardware forum. If not, can someone move it to the correct forum please?
     
  2. AsiJu

    AsiJu Ancient Guru

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    MSAA doesn't clearly work at all, not sure but engines which use deferred rendering (meaning almost all modern ones, including afaik Source) are usually not compatible with MSAA unless it's specifically programmed in by the developer.

    Also RadeonPro SMAA injection is a hit and miss situation, used to have a Radeon GPU before. It may or may not work (the injector it uses is very outdated).

    Try injecting FXAA instead with RP or alternatively use ReShade to inject SMAA.
     
  3. Question2

    Question2 Guest

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    Im confused, isnt MSAA the "default" AA that is used if the game settings doesnt specify what kind of AA it is? The game settings for this one just says "anti-aliasing". Its probably the default one for source engine, whatever that is.

    I thought radeon pro uses API hooking, or something like that? Sweetfx is definately working properly through it. DLL injectors do not work as the game is a MMO and those block DLL injectors.

    FXAA via radeon pro does work, but even on the lowest setting it makes everything really blurry, especially the text. This is even with luma sharpen in sweetfx set to 1.0 strength. Is there a way to get FXAA for jagged edges, but not have it turn everything into a blurry mess?
     
  4. AsiJu

    AsiJu Ancient Guru

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    Yeah if the game actually has an AA setting it's likely MSAA. Not sure why it's not working then, have you tried other settings than 8x? Maybe the highest setting doesn't kick in or something.

    FXAA will blur the image but you can try setting subpixel antialiasing to 0 in SFX/RP settings to reduce blurring.

    Or try tweaking SMAA settings, set threshold to 0.08...0.05 and set the search radius to 32 or higher and diagonal search radius to 16.

    (Btw ReShade should be whitelisted for most games so you should be able to use it. Plus SfX/RP use a similar hooking method anyhow)
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2017

  5. Question2

    Question2 Guest

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    Yea, 2x and 4x AA settings also do nothing.

    I don't see sub pixel antialiasing anywhere in radeon pro. Where is it?

    Even SMAA on the ultra setting seems to do almost nothing (except reduce my FPS)...the only difference that I have seen with it on is some mild blurring on wooden posts.

    Reshade definately isnt white listed for this game as the devs are super paranoid about security. IIRC, reshade requires you to put dlls in the game directory, and that causes the game's cheat detection to disconnect you.
     
  6. Question2

    Question2 Guest

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    NVCP is set to use application settings.
     
  7. Barry J

    Barry J Ancient Guru

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    I tried so many different ways to improve image quality. In the end I realised it was me I had an eye test I now wear glasses and I can now see the improved image quality.
     
  8. De-M-oN

    De-M-oN Guest

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    Yes it is visible. Top left the spikes of the ceptor have much less aliasing at 8x MSAA.
     
  9. Margalus

    Margalus Master Guru

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    They are identical to me, both have a lot of aliasing
     
  10. Uncle Dude

    Uncle Dude Ancient Guru

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    Are you in fullscreen or windowed mode? I've experienced non-functioning AA in windowed mode in certain games.
     

  11. De-M-oN

    De-M-oN Guest

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    hm yes. At full view of the images they're both very aliased. indeed.
     
    Last edited: Jun 4, 2017
  12. Undying

    Undying Ancient Guru

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    Not a good example. Maybe the AA implementation is crap.

    What game is that anyway?
     
  13. teleguy

    teleguy Maha Guru

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    Yes, it's always great when people want help with a problem but post neither what games are affected nor what hardware they're using.

    Anyway I looked at a few Source engine games and think it might be Vindictus.



    The ingame AA doesn't seem to do a very good job but there are ways to improve upon that.

    No AA
    [​IMG]

    8x ingame AA
    [​IMG]

    Downsampling No AA
    [​IMG]

    Downsampling + 8x AA
    [​IMG]

    8x ingame AA enhanced to SSAA
    [​IMG]

    4x ingame AA enhanced to SSAA
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2017
  14. BuildeR2

    BuildeR2 Ancient Guru

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    Yeah, those both look terrible. The AA is obviously not working, nor is the AF. Count the stair steps on her hair in both screenshots to verify the AA isn't working. We can only suggest so much without knowing your hardware or what the game is. For an NV GPU you can look up some of the AA master bits posts around here, not sure if AMD has a similar type of thing.
     
  15. Question2

    Question2 Guest

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    The game is Vindictus, and screenshots were taken in windowed mode i think, although I couldnt see the difference in full screen mode either. GPU used was GTX 770m.
     

  16. Hammie

    Hammie Banned

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    This is confusing. So do we use FXAA ? Isn't that a bit of a performance hit. ? While FXAA is on,, can you still use 16x CSAA and 2x multsample. thx
     

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