Crysis 3 - Return of real PC Anti-Aliasing (MSAA)

[Pottuvoi]

The problem with deferred rendering (DR) is that it brings a list of cons in the form of heavier performance hit when handling multiple materials, and because it usually discards the geometry data it can't really apply proper MultiSampling antialiasing.

It doesn't discard subsamples for the pixels, so the samples needed for 'MSAA' can be found.
Multimaterial problem is not as bad nowadays either as developers have found ways to deal with it.
http://bps12.idav.ucdavis.edu/talks/03_lauritzenIntersectingLights_bps2012.pdf

I do agree that with forward renderers problems are elsewhere.

It's pretty obvious why NV isn't promoting forward+ lighting game engines with developers. Their existing GK104 GPU generation tanks when Compute shaders need to do any work.

AMD isn't the only one or even first one to try forward+ and much of the research has been done on nvidia GPUs, which work just fine with compute.
(IE. battlefield3 does quite decently.)
There are certain things which work better on AMD or vice versa.

Forward+ lighting model + compute shaders allow you to bring back the traditional MSAA approach, and you minimize the performance hit at the same time.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=33832466&postcount=5

It has it's own problems when compared to deferred approaches, like inefficiency of quad shading.

IMO instead of trying to come up with some hybrid AA filters, they should just revamp how the engines are coded for in the first place and traditional MSAA can be properly applied to the entire scene. When you have a situation where a 2013 game suffers from a 33-52% performance hit when forcing just 4xMSAA, it is a problem.

TXAA is superset of MSAA, not a simple post AA and needs MSAA to be working on game engine before it can be applied.
It also aims to reduce roping artifacts and thus filter width needs to be wider than a pixel.

While TXAA reduces pixel crawl, it blurs the entire picture and thus reduces details. TXAA, without tweaks in SweetFX, has atrocious native IQ filter quality.

SweetFX ruins the image quality with a post sharpening blur, not really an improvement.

A clear example of why TXAA is inferior to MSAA is Black Ops 2 or the Secret World on the PC:

COD BO2 8xMSAA
COD BO2 4xTXAA

Get rid of the SSAO, it doesn't play nice with TXAA in COD BO2 and blurs the image. (more than intended.)

 

[moonbogg]

So 670SLI good to go for max at 1080p then?

 

[VulgarDisplay]

If only people stopped being so simple minded, turning everything into AMD vs Nvidia. If only.

This x1000.

We were talking about AA modes, now it's hardware vendor conspiracy time.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Few things that you are forgetting:

• game is still in BETA
  
• AMD driver (the thing that usually needs 6 months or so to mature) is BETA.
  Early BETA when it comes to C3, because by their own admission AMD hasn't been in touch with Crytek and Crysis 3 for very long.
  
• NV driver is BETA

Your own benchmark link suggests that GTX 680 at 1080p, VHQ, 4xMSAA, runs the game at 43fps avg and 33fps minimum.

Regarding the game looks. Suffice to say pretty much everyone out there is still Crytek's bitch, when it comes to engine capabilities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp5bSZmaQto

I'm almost positive most of these benches aren't using the latest beta drivers from either side.

Either way, what the screenshots show does not justify the performance numbers for either side.

 

[Grooveriding]

Who is championing though? Anymore than the text blurring morphological AA that AMD introduced. It's there for some to use. Maybe those without, 2 or 3 current gen, Halo cards.

Just to be clear. TXAA is the most performance intensive out of all the AA offered in Crysis 3, and it look likes crap. Haven't read every post in the thread, but that was where I was coming from when I said it's doing nothing to make its self relevant. Maybe 8xMSAA is more demanding, the only mode I didn't try. SMAA is the mode for hardware that can't handle the other AA offered in the game.

 

[BFG10K]

You are incorrect. There is no Post-AA involved in TXAA. It uses a custom MSAA resolve with a custom downfilter (similar to Gaussian).

This is entirely incorrect.

Like I said before, TXAA isn't post AA, and neither is there any SSAA involved. I am sure that I described TXAA's functionality fairly accurate in my previous post, but if that wasn't clear, look up the posts made by Timothy Lottes in these forums.

Actually TXAA has post-filter elements because it samples from adjacent pixels, similar to AMD's tent filters.

Then there's the multi-frame blend for the "temporal" part.

 

[BFG10K]

Even if you look at the in-game options menus, it's nearly a carbon copy of Crysis 2. Crysis 3 is just another console port with minor tweaks I listed regarding Crytek adding a high rez texture option & native AF/AA modes.

Those native AA modes are kind of a huge deal given Crysis 2 didn't support any real AA, and had no menu options to properly control the fake ones.

With Crysis 3 we get a swath of menu AA options like the first game.

 

[BFG10K]

It doesn't discard subsamples for the pixels, so the samples needed for 'MSAA' can be found.

You mean when put into a G-buffer? Because by default, geometry samples have been discarded by the time your lighting pass is being applied.

 

[SomeoneSimple]

Actually TXAA has post-filter elements because it samples from adjacent pixels, similar to AMD's tent filters.

Then there's the multi-frame blend for the "temporal" part.

Wide-tent filters aren't "post", it simply means it samples outside a pixel's edge. There isn't any more processing involved than there would be in SGSSAA or MSAA with a traditional box-filter.

 

[f1sherman]

Either way, what the screenshots show does not justify the performance numbers for either side.

Yeah, same old Crytek. What can you do about it

Spoiler

Other than getting better glasses

 

[BFG10K]

There isn't any more processing involved than there would be in SGSSAA or MSAA with a traditional box-filter.

That's not true. MSAA/SSAA uses the hardware resolve in the ROPs while the custom filter part of TXAA uses a software pixel shader resolve.

Additionally, all SSAA/MSAA sub-samples come from inside the pixel's boundary.

 

[Grooveriding]

Yeah, same old Crytek. What can you do about it

Spoiler

Other than getting better glasses

What are we supposed to be seeing there ? I can fire up the five year old Crysis 1 and see better images than that.

 

[PowerK]

Crysis 3 CVar Configurator from Crytek
http://www.mycrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=56955&sid=01edb09cb91cd92311ddc0289a3e39d0

 

[Grooveriding]

Crysis 3 CVar Configurator from Crytek
http://www.mycrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=56955&sid=01edb09cb91cd92311ddc0289a3e39d0

It's really nice to see Crytek putting forth this effort to support PC gaming. They obviously took some feedback about the lack of good support in Crysis 2 to heart.

 

[Fx1]

Name a game on PC that looks better than Crysis 3. I have yet to see it.

Crysis 1 suffers from nostalgia and is also a sun drenched tropical island which like Far Cry 3 makes a game look "better"

 

[Pottuvoi]

You mean when put into a G-buffer? Because by default, geometry samples have been discarded by the time your lighting pass is being applied.

Meaning that when using MSAA on deferred renderer you have all MSAA subsamples stored until you are done with the rendering/lighting.
You find which subsamples are important and calculate lighting to them, then resolve subsamples to pixels.
http://software.intel.com/sites/def.../lauritzen_deferred_shading_siggraph_2010.pdf

 

[SirPauly]

Ok, can you please explain why do people spend hundreds of dollars on 2560x1440/1600 displays, buy $800-1000 GPUs and install high resolution mods/texture packs if level of detail and clarity were not some the most important aspects of achieving crisp graphics on the PC?

You mean, enthusiasts tweak? Use mods? Third party tools?

One can add level of detail and clarity with a simple tweak! That's why the clarity and blur point is utterly ridiculous to me.

If one doesn't like the cinematic, softening of TXAA, do what enthusiasts do -- tweak, use a mod from a third party source. I agree.

I'm vocal about sweetfx because I personally desire something like this officially.

TXAA is about temporal and motion -- these are its strengths.

 

[blackened23]

Even though i'm not the biggest fan of TXAA, at least you have a ton of choices with crysis 3. You can use whatever you want really, it's cool that they're giving PC gamers more options instead of less. Personally when I see an advanced graphics configuration menu with 20 options on it, I love that -- I applaud crytek for giving PC gamers more tweaking options.

That said, AA isn't even my biggest concern with the game; it's pretty far down my priority list. I'm crossing my fingers that this isn't a return to the boxed in "straight line start to finish" level design of crysis 2....Let's all hope this delivers on gameplay!

 

[SirPauly]

Few things that you are forgetting:

• game is still in BETA
  
• AMD driver (the thing that usually needs 6 months or so to mature) is BETA.
  Early BETA when it comes to C3, because by their own admission AMD hasn't been in touch with Crytek and Crysis 3 for very long.
  
• NV driver is BETA

Your own benchmark link suggests that GTX 680 at 1080p, VHQ, 4xMSAA, runs the game at 43fps avg and 33fps minimum.

Regarding the game looks. Suffice to say pretty much everyone out there is still Crytek's bitch, when it comes to engine capabilities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp5bSZmaQto

Thanks for the video -- like the particle lighting, cloth and vegetation simulation, pixel accurate displacement mapping, vegetation tessellation and the others, especially the Top Secret Tessellated Toad Tech, hehe!

 

[SirPauly]

Crysis 3 CVar Configurator from Crytek
http://www.mycrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=56955&sid=01edb09cb91cd92311ddc0289a3e39d0

HI powerK -- thanks!

 

[7970]

mini review with three 680
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2299062

 

[SirPauly]

Thanks for that and shared some TXAA data, too!

 

[Grooveriding]

Name a game on PC that looks better than Crysis 3. I have yet to see it.

Crysis 1 suffers from nostalgia and is also a sun drenched tropical island which like Far Cry 3 makes a game look "better"

I've heard the tropical island theory before. It's not the case of a tropical island somehow making the visuals better. I'll include a shot of Cryengine 3 (Crysis 2) in a tropical island setting.

These are uncompressed 2560x1600 shots.

This is where we were before Crysis for high end visuals, Oblivion (2006), and this is modded Oblivion as well :

Then we get Crysis (2007), this is a massive leap in gaming visuals over where we were prior :

Then, Crysis 2 (2011) :

Then, Battlefield 3 (2012) :

Today, Crysis 3 (2013) :

Then back to, Crysis Warhead (2008) :

There are arguments to be made between small differences from one to another and where one may be better than the other, but overall we've gone nowhere; image quality wise, or performance wise. If I had to pick one though, it wouldn't be Crysis 3. It suffers from the same low view distance, low-resolution textures and lack of sharpness that Crysis 2 did. You can tell the game is multi-platform and consoles were taken into account. I'd pick the Battlefield 3 shot out of all them, or maybe the Warhead shot. Toss-up for me.

The three Crysis games all perform about the same on my rig, Crysis 1/Warhead a bit worse than the others, but that is mostly a lack of memory bandwidth on GTX 680. Although the MSAA anti-aliasing performance hit is a lot lower in Crysis 1 because it's DX10 and not having to deal with a deferred engine.

Gaming visuals have gone stagnant since 2007.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Name a game on PC that looks better than Crysis 3. I have yet to see it.

Crysis 1 suffers from nostalgia and is also a sun drenched tropical island which like Far Cry 3 makes a game look "better"

Crysis 2 with Maldo's HD textures looks way better, and you can actually run it.

Crytek has to be part of some conspiracy to sell GPU's because the performance penalties for their games are just stupid.

I think DICE could easily push Frostbite 2.0 harder on the PC and get it to look better than Cryengine 3, and still keep framerates playable.

 

[SirPauly]

FarCry, to me, was the biggest jump graphically but it also was a poster child for craving innovation to combat aliasing from shader, specular and alphas.