Nvidia GeForce 344.75 WHQL driver, MFAA support on Maxwell GM20x GPUs

[nvgpu]

http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/79891/en-us

http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/79893/en-us

The latest GeForce Game Ready driver, release 344.75 WHQL, provides support for Maxwell’s new Multi-Frame Sampled Anti-Aliasing (MFAA) mode. In addition, this Game Ready WHQL driver ensures you'll have the best possible gaming experience for Far Cry 4, Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Crew, and World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor

 

[CakeMonster]

If MSAA performance is as unacceptable as some claime in DAI, MFAA might be the thing it needs. I won't even consider the other crappy postprocessing alternatives.

 

[KaRLiToS]

[ Guru3D ] MFAA Multi-Frame Samples AA Explored - Guide - Introduction

How to enable:

Now in the image below we simply cropped a piece of the wall ceiling. This is 2560x1440 cropped - 100% thus no resizing or zooming in is going on here (this is a 24-bit PNG thus there is no quality loss either). That's as good as it gets with MFAA. If you look at the brightest line you can see the 4xMSAA is a notch better as the edges are a hint softer, but it's pretty darn close (but no sigar).

Nvidia's new MFAA mode is interesting as it offers a rather superior AA mode that doesn't blur like FXAA, there are very few compromises made with Multi-Frame Antialiasing. The benefit is that AA stays very close in terms of quality towards MSAA whilst giving you the benefit of better performance. And yeah, as such another AA mode been born. Worst case you will not see huge perf benefits like 10%, but with some titles it can run up-to 30% over say 4xMSAA, and at such perf increases, the differences are definitely substantial enough. It might bring good AA on a hefty title at little extra cost in your framerate budget - or you simply get the quality benefit of a higher AA level at little cost in your framerate budget. MFAA as such is also very interesting for Ultra HD gamers where say 20% extra performance could be the difference from annoyance to making a game playable with say nice AA at 4x MFAA

Concluding


Today Nvidia will release its new driver that allows you to fool around with MFAA. Give it a try and let us know what you think about it in our forums. And sure there are downsides with MFAA, currently broad wide spread game support is lacking, only a dozen or so triple A titles will work with this new AA mode. As such it is also profile dependant and last but not least, I have to state it; it is very close but not as good as the actual MSAA equivalent. Would you ever notice the difference visually in-between MSAA and MFAA ? We doubt it and as such MFAA is the logical way to go.

 

[SirPauly]

It's nice to see that MFAA also works with x8 MSAA --- for equivalent x16

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/mfaa_multi_frame_sample_aa_guide_review,7.html

 

[f1sherman]

I wanted to say that I had expected bigger gains, but then I noticed this:

The first batch of games supported are:

Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag
DiRT Showdown
Hitman: Absolution
Assassin's Creed: Unity
F1 2013
Just Cause 2
Battlefield 4
F1 2014
Saints Row IV
Civilization V
Far Cry 3
Splinter Cell: Blacklist
Civilization: Beyond Earth
Far Cry: Blood Dragon
Titanfall
Crysis 3
GRID 2
Wargame: European Escalation
DiRT 3
GRID Autosport

 

[NickelPlate]

So do you just turn it on in the global control panel and that's it? And it overrides whatever in game MSAA settings you have turned on? I was under the impression there would be per game, control panel settings kind of like forced AA settings.

 

[Granseth]

Is MFAA hardware related or will it come to Kepler later?

 

[f1sherman]

bloody hell am I glad I don't own Kepler... I would be raging, same as with TXAA :biggrin:

DSR backward compatibility was shocking enough

 

[kasakka]

Is MFAA hardware related or will it come to Kepler later?

That's what I'd like to know as well. Or is it just "Maxwell exclusive so we can sell more GPUs" thing.

 

[xthetenth]

Pretty sure they mentioned actual changes in things involving hardware, so likely Maxwell exclusive because it works there. Something like moving the sampling patterns into RAM.

 

[Grooveriding]

Why wouldn't they include straight 2x MSAA images and performance as well ? Seems like a broken review without having that point of comparison.

We see reduced IQ with 2xMSAA+MFAA from 4x MSAA but better performance... well.. of course. Why not show the performance of 2xMSAA and its IQ as well so we can see how MFAA slots in and if it is actually beneficial, and if so, just how much. Reducing the image quality of 4x MSAA to 2xMSAA+MFAA and it resulting in better performance is not exactly surprising :ninja:

What was the reviewer thinking not including results with 2xMSAA without MFAA ?

 

[96Firebird]

Interesting quote from an Nvidia Rep...

Needs to be captured with FCAT or Shadowplay. Screenshots will not work.

Source

I guess MFAA doesn't show up in regular screenshots?

 

[f1sherman]

Why wouldn't they include straight 2x MSAA images and performance as well ? Seems like a broken review without having that point of comparison.

We see reduced IQ with 2xMSAA+MFAA from 4x MSAA but better performance... well.. of course. Why not show the performance of 2xMSAA and its IQ as well so we can see how MFAA slots in and if it is actually beneficial, and if so, just how much. Reducing the image quality of 4x MSAA to 2xMSAA+MFAA and it resulting in better performance is not exactly surprising :ninja:

Actually you get increased IQ at the same perf.

4xMFAA(2xMSAA+MFAA) having same perf as 2xMSAA, but near 4xMSAA IQ

Almost 4xMSAA IQ, for near 2xMSAA perf. hit :ninja:

 

[Ed1]

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...ame-Sampled-Anti-Aliasing-MFAA-Tested-GTX-980

 

[CakeMonster]

I enabled MFAA in the control panel but I can't say I notice anything in DAI. Looks crappy and aliased with MSAA turned off, and with MSAA turned on it looks pretty much like MSAA usually does.

 

[96Firebird]

I enabled MFAA in the control panel but I can't say I notice anything in DAI. Looks crappy and aliased with MSAA turned off, and with MSAA turned on it looks pretty much like MSAA usually does.

Not on the list of games supported right now...

 

[KaRLiToS]

Actually you get increased IQ at the same perf.

4xMFAA(2xMSAA+MFAA) having same perf as 2xMSAA, but near 4xMSAA IQ

Almost 4xMSAA IQ, for near 2xMSAA perf. hit :ninja:

Check my post above, it is not what guru3d says. They say lower IQ but not really noticeable and with better performance.

 

[f1sherman]

It is
And Pcper is practically quoting me xD


IQ
2xMSAA << 4xMFAA < 4xMSAA

Performance
4xMSAA << 4xMFAA < 2xMSAA

 

[CakeMonster]

Not on the list of games supported right now...

My bad, I misread the driver notes.

 

[CakeMonster]

It is
And Pcper is practically quoting me xD


IQ
2xMSAA << 4xMFAA < 4xMSAA

Performance
4xMSAA << 4xMFAA < 2xMSAA

4xMFAA basically means choosing 2xMSAA ingame + enabling MFAA in the driver control panel?

They really, really need a better naming scheme.

 

[f1sherman]

4xMFAA basically means choosing 2xMSAA ingame + enabling MFAA in the driver control panel?

They really, really need a better naming scheme.

haha yes it's stupid

it's also why GTX 560 Ti is better name marketing wise than Radeon 8500LE

 

[BFG10K]

The fact that MFAA only works in white-listed games means it's even bigger junk than I originally thought. In that respect it's only marginally better than TXAA, which in itself is largely a failure.

 

[Borealis7]

strange, did TPU misunderstand MFAA?

this driver introduces multi-frame sampled anti-aliasing (MFAA), which can be enabled across GeForce GTX 600, GTX 700, and GTX 900 series graphics cards

while nVidia's site says its Maxwell specific.

 

[ocre]

The fact that MFAA only works in white-listed games means it's even bigger junk than I originally thought. In that respect it's only marginally better than TXAA, which in itself is largely a failure.

What?
It is simply an option. Its there for who ever might find use for it. No one has to use it. I really dont think we havr found the one and only, perfect AA. Its is an important problem to solve and i really see no issues with nvidia taking up the effort. So its not for you, dont ever use it. For others, this is just another option. No matter how hard you try, its not a bad thing. Options are anything but

 

[ViRGE]

strange, did TPU misunderstand MFAA?



while nVidia's site says its Maxwell specific.

Apparently. MFAA requires new ROP functionality introduced in Maxwell 2.