hoak 0 Posted May 6, 2006 Static screen shots are proof of nothing; alias distortion and artifacting is most conspicuous and uniquely at it's worst in a 3D render environment. Â Moreover how a screen shot was taken, the resolution it was taken at and in turn displayaed or reduced can easily obviate and obscure the presence of alias distortion as can post processing; though I'm not suggesting shots of the game have been processed. The fact of the matter is there is no "of course" answer; depending on how Armed Assault's new render back-plane is coded Anti Alias may be impossible or even if available as an option cause a severe performance hit even on state-of-the-art video hardware making the option in essence useless. If Anti Alias is in fact available in Armed Assault for a fact and able to offer render performance what possible reason can there be for the Developers to not have not cleared up valid doubts in advance? As I said these doubts are valid for two obvious reasons: (1) Most armed assault screen shots conspicuously show visible alias distortion. (2) HDR and AA are not compatible render paths on Nvidia hardware. It's an important question that remains unanswered, about render technologies that are important to serious realism gaming -- and regardless of the answer it should be answered to remove a source of doubt and disappointment. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dwarden 1125 Posted May 6, 2006 You think this SS click here is scaled down from e.g. 2048x1536 to 1600x1200 to give AA 2x like feeling ? as for point nr.2 blame NVIDIA to not offer hardware with top image quality feature support not game developers ... but i agree some sort of final word from devs or Place will "end" these questions Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
aus_twisted 0 Posted May 6, 2006 Theres no Antialiasing on that pic, the edges are slightly blured from the JPEG compression. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dwarden 1125 Posted May 6, 2006 Theres no Antialiasing on that pic, the edges are slightly blured from the JPEG compression. really? it's quite similar to low quality 2xAA ... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NeMeSiS 11 Posted May 6, 2006 Theres no Antialiasing on that pic, the edges are slightly blured from the JPEG compression. That pic is 300kb, and altough i can see some small .jpg artifacts around the edges, it looks more like 2xAA to me. But i cna be wrong ofcourse, tell us BIS! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hoak 0 Posted May 6, 2006 Again, if you read the facts of the situation for meaning, and evaluate them honestly -- rather then through wishful thinking, or hopeful conjecture; we know absolutely nothing about Armed Assault's practical render capabilities with regard to Anti Alias support. To reiterate: a static screenshot is evidence of nothing, you don't know the game's settings, if they are even practical or playable, or what was done to the image after it was taken... Criticizing the Nvidia render path is ridiculous on several counts, not the least of which is the fact that more then half of the people that are potential customers for this gam own Nvidia hardware. Â Suggesting that the inability to render HDR and AA concurrently is some sort of defect is equally ridiculous as there are several light render methods besides HDR that are equally valid, don't offer as much of a performance hit and are every bit or even more realistic at emulating a realistic luminance ratio on computer video hardware -- which is all HDR does. Even if the screenshot was taken with 2x AA as you might believe or hope; even that raises the question of why only 2x and is the game even capable of rendering that at playable frame rates... Bottom line is the question is not answered till BI answers.... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dwarden 1125 Posted May 6, 2006 bottom line is ... You can't deny that actual NVIDIA hardware simple don't support most advanced versions of HDR to run together with AA ... again that's not developer fault depends on way HDR rendering is done, so far only Valve's path works on all DX9 cards (AA+HDR) yet some consider that to not be "full" HDR ... and if they choose different path then developer must made game to be able run w/o HDR and allow AA, with HDR but w/o AA and HDR and AA together all depending on hardware used ... must be easy life to decide that Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Warden 0 Posted May 7, 2006 Christ, Most if not all gmaes that have been out in the past 3 years support AA, hell even games that dont. My Nvidia card has a built in option to force AA, We can asume unless the Devs in there infinte wisdom have decided to not include a industry Standard will have AA support. And HDR Whilst it looks good unless you have a Rig that is top of the line you will suffer severe FPS Drop, i mean That latest comps run DoD:S on a low Frame rate with HDR on imagine that on Arma's islands! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hoak 0 Posted May 7, 2006 <span style='color:pink'>bottom line is ...You can't deny that actual NVIDIA hardware simple don't support most advanced versions of HDR to run together with AA...</span> Both of your statements and their premise are incorrect, so I don't have to "deny" anything: (1) The 'bottom line', topic, and premise of this thread is the question as to whether Armed Assault supports Anti Aliasing, and can render playable performance with that feature enabled and on what hardware. (2) DirectX HDR ia far from 'the most advanced version of HDR', or even a high fidelity way to render compressed contrast ratios in a 3D engine, it's just what's available via the DirecX renderer that Microsoft offers.  Your argument is apparently ignorant of render technology as ATi doesn't for example support deferred lighting with concurrent HDR with AA any better then Nvidia... Does that make ATi hardware woefully inadequate as well? <span style='color:pink'>again that's not developer fault</span> Fault? The point here is not "fault" it's choice -- any game engine Developer has a choice as to how they will support various render technologies, there are in fact ways to offer concurrent HDR lgiht and AA on both Nvidia and ATi. A more valid premise is that BI should choose to make the game look as good as possible on the most popular and ubiquitous hardware in the realism gaming channel... <span style='color:pink'>depends on way HDR rendering is done, so far only Valve's path works on all DX9 cards (AA+HDR) yet some consider that to not be "full" HDR ...</span> Incorrect; several other games and engines support concurrent HDR and AA on Nvidia and ATi, any argument about "Full" HDR is simply ridiculous as HDR is simply a lighting hack not a scale render technology... <span style='color:pink'>...if they choose different path then developer must made game to be able run w/o HDR and allow AA, with HDR but w/o AA and HDR and AA together all depending on hardware used ...</span> This is nonsequitar -- BI has many options besides using DirectX HDR and AA...  Ever hear of OpenGL, or a game incorporating render technology directly in the game's back plane -- it's been done by literally hundreds of game engine developers. It's pretty obvious you either don't understand scale render technology, or have zero undersanding or empathy for the reality of the gaming marketplace -- which is well and fine, but your points simply lack merit with regard to fact. With regard to scale tactical realism or simulation render, Anti Alias is vastly more important the HDR for a bevy of reasons that are fairly simple to understand; explained simply: Without Anti Alias you will not be able to see a man size target at even a small fraction of the real distance you could clearly see and identify a man size target (and even identify an individual) in the real world...  Even though this is an issue  regardless due to pixil resolution; lack of Anti Alias multiplies the problem making the range of visible engagement ridiculously close. Moreover in the real world we do not see stair step edges, pixilation distortion, and wiggling shimmering anomolies... HDR is not an 'advanced' or scale render technology and is not to scale with anything in the real world. Neither does HDR fix the limitations of contrast ratio the way Anti Alias fixes Alias distortion, and pixilation anomalies. HDR only dynamically creates fake contrast ratios within the limited envelope of what your LCD or CRT display can deliver. By way of some simple comparison the typical LDC or CRT is only capable of a contrast ratio of 300-400:1, even the best 70mm Film can only achieve 1000:1 in a pitch black movie theater, where as our eye and real world light delivers contrast ratios over 1000000:1... HDR can not make your display deliver lignt over a million times brighter and it's dynamic effect is actually less realistic in absolute terms. HDR doesn't and in fact can't increase contrast ratio, it's a hack that technically offers lower light fidelity in order to dynamically render compressed difference lighting contrast at opposite ends of the luminosity range, your display can't reproduce.  There are many better, higher fidelity, lower resource ways to do this then to use Microsoft's DirectX path... Moreover, DirectX HDR has little to offer in a serious scale, ranged combat, tactical realism game and is IMHO is of questionable value at best, and of no value if it means sacraficing more important scale render technology like AA on more than half the hardware in the marketplace that will be rendering this game... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
thrush213 0 Posted May 7, 2006 what's with anti aliasing? it's not that great. i'd rather play the game on a higher res than i normally do, then turn on laggy ass aa Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mr burns 132 Posted May 7, 2006 what's with anti aliasing? it's not that great. i'd rather play the game on a higher res than i normally do, then turn on laggy ass aa Depends on your gfx card imho. Some may run 2xaa & 4xaf in 1024x768 much better than a 1600x1200 resolution, higher resolution also has higher impact on the cpu iirc...so aslong as not everybody owns an über-rig there´ll be a point for AA. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Ti0n3r Posted May 7, 2006 Indeed. 2x AA + 2xAF in 1024x768 gives me a better FPS than the higher resolutions without AA & AF (OFP). So AA is great for some of us. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dwarden 1125 Posted May 8, 2006 Hoak ... i'm aware of what You wrote already so no need go offense mode ... i was just hinting what's possible on actual available hw (it's waste of time to discuss about HDR techniques not deployed yet in hardware for game going to be out THIS year, maybe topic for Game2) ... sorry if it looks like i tried to bring this to some NVIDIA vs ATI war , wasn't my point again Valve approach to HDR was example not gunna to name all games with HDR or methods they use ... plus it's like You said the best HDR method isn't yet out ... btw. there are already display devices capable of contrast ratios over 100k:1 to 1mil:1 and higher but off price range of normal human ... for now and close future ... same You will need much wider range of color levels displayed (definitely not on usual 16.7mil color 8bit LCDs at least 14bit with over 4000bil colors ... anyway i'm fully backing up use of AA so i cut myself off Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
