FXAA comes to all PS3 and 360 titles

A user on the NeoGAF forums has found a way to enable FXAA for any 360 or PS3 game, there is a catch though, you will need a HD capture card and a decent computer.

[Peaceful_Jelly]

What an incredible waste of time. >_>

[SilentNegotiator]

Post-processing anti-aliasing?
http://thmg.photobucket.com...

[Ranshak]

Lol why not just play on the PC instead of going through all the hassle and not even ending up with real AA.

95% games released are out on PC anyways and cheaper. So again remind me why go through the hassle?

Most console exclusives like Uncharted, Gow 3 dont really need more AA then they already come with anyways. So why would anyone want to go through all this hassle for a multiplat and then still be limited to 720p or below with 30fps, not to mention need a PC to do this stuff to begin with, seems kind of stupid to me. Better to just game on the PC lol.

[FriedGoat]

Might try this as I have the goods.

[ATiElite]

Screw FXAA
Screw MLAA
MSAA or SSAA

consoles are supposed to be next Gen well get some real next gen AA for crying out loud. It's been 6 years and consoles are just figuring out some half ass AA instead of implementing the real thing.

Sure God of War 3 looks brilliant but it's a semi corridor game with a linear path = not a lot or rendering. Uncharted would be a better example cause of it's vertical and horizontal game play.

UC2 looking smooth with no or low jaggies is impressive.

I think they need to focus on lowering the blur in MLAA (which some Devs have) or just move on to PS4/x720 and make sure they can handle 1080p and 2xMSAA.

MLAA > FXAA

http://www.facebook.com/pag...

[PirosThe4th]

Well... I dislike MLAA, SSAA is WAY BEtter...
Then again it requires rendering the scene multiple times... while MSAA has to do with Edges more than anything.

The problem is that "NextGen" consoles have really weak GPUs that bottleneck the entire system and not much RAM. I don't mind graphics taht much but some games will never go multiplatform unfortunately and thats why i end up playing some games on consoles.

Well Like u said next consoles will be better!

[WildArmed]

lol.. I don't think people understand the term 'Next-gen'
It means next-gen.
PS3/360 were 'next-gen' when we were playing ps2 / xbox.
Just like PCs, console standards change. 'Next-gen' consoles havn't hit the stores yet.

I'mma PC gamer, I just choose not to be ignorant.

[BeastlyRig]

MSAA > MLAA..

MSAA is part of what makes BF3 on pc look so good!

According to the devs..

By ur logic I would have to say blurry ftw!

[50Terabytespersec]

LOL WASTE OF TIME AGREED!. I threw up in my mouth over this article!
sad that some idiot would waste their precious time to write or waste time trying to come up with something so useless.
Get a FUJKING life a girlfriend or something!!!
Sad how how panzied we have all become are we this addicted to technology to go in this direction!

[M2-]

cool?

[lazertroy]

WTF is FXAA and is it free?

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

It's a post processing method that has sucky AA. MLAA produces a better picture.

[evrfighter]

MLAA has its drawbacks also.

one being the game turns into a blurry mess.

[Iroquois_Pliskin]

lol evrfighter u mad?

[SilentNegotiator]

Are playstation haters still telling themselves that MLAA looks horrible?

Yes, God of War and Killzone 3 are very blurry. Thanks for bringing me to the LIGHT!

Oh but let me guess, it doesn't compare to your 16xAA? No duh. But "blurry mess"? PLEASE.

[Pandamobile]

MLAA does look horrible when you're used to MSAA.

FXAA is just a refinement of MLAA, for when MSAA isn't supported, or the GPU is already too busy with other stuff.

[MaxXAttaxX]

God of War III was hardly blurry.

MLAA uses an edge-detection algorithm to reduce aliasing. There is a possibility that it may falsely recognize an edge within a texture BUT it does not blur the entire image.

@PC fanboys
We're sorry MLAA isn't up to par with your superior 16xMSAA. But MLAA is hardly a "blurry mess" or "horrible".

And again, GOWIII looked great. MLAA was implemented well with very little artifacting.

[radphil]

"Are playstation haters still telling themselves that MLAA looks horrible? "

What does that have to do with playstation exactly?

[fullmetal297]

I've tried MLAA already it isn't as nowhere as good as MSAA. I had MLAA forced under my CCC settings and it does nothing but blur the details of my games. I'd take x4 MSAA and take the performance hit rather than be forced to decipher what was already legible in the beginning.

http://sites.amd.com/us/gam...

[Ju]

ATI's MLAA (which runs some sort of sub bar shader algorithm) does not reach the quality of SPU based MLAA in some of the PS3 titles.

MLAA blurs the picture can therefore not be a general statement because it really depends on the implementation.

[QuantumWake]

@lazertroy

Like Exgamer said, FXAA is post-processing AA. It's aimed to reduce the effects of sub-pixel aliasing while getting rid of jagged edges at a relatively low performance cost. FXAA has an advantage over MLAA as it handles sub-pixel edges and it's pretty quick for GPU rendering. But as a trade-off, the overall quality of the image gets blurred.

MLAA does not blur the quality of the image as it does not have access to sub-pixel information as FXAA does. But again, with MLAA you will have sub-pixel aliasing and shimmering while FXAA does not.

Timothy lottes, the creator of FXAA said the blurriness of the image can be fixed by tweaking the sharp settings. But by doing so, sub-pixel AA gets toned down. Pretty much defeating the whole purpose of FXAA.

[Ju]

Eurogamer has an article for the ones interested: http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

[QuantumWake]

@Ju

Ah, thank you for adding more to my post. Have a helpful bubble. ;]

[TABSF]

MLAA is really bad, just blurs the image.

MSAA, FSAA, SSAA and soon SRAA all product better image quality with no jaggies, 16xAA with a crisp image.

[one2thr]

Well God of War 3, said hi buddy ole pale......

[one2thr]

Why the disagrees?...... Just go play God of War 3 for yourselves and tell me where do you see any blurr in that game?......
S.n. I think the Cronos boss fight is one of the best boss fights ever!!! Yeah I said it

[death2smoochie]

You are correct in your statement, however MLAA does not always work in most games it is implemented on.
In most cases other than KZ3 or GOD3, most of the images are blurred.

[El_Colombiano]

Do you even know what MLAA is? Or are you talking trash? Quncunix blurs the image. MLAA isn't so much a blurring technique.

[Boletarian]

MLAA uses an edge-detection algorithm to reduce aliasing whenever it finds an edge. Unfortunately it sometimes finds edges within textures and can create blurring within the image.

I assure you, MLAA can create blurs whenever the algorithm finds a false edge.

[duplissi]

so it has the possibility to blur the image a little here and there.... oh noes...

[iamgoatman]

No idea why Boletarian got a load of disagrees, he's 100% correct in that MLAA can blur textures due to it being and edge detect post processing effect, it's inevitable that hard edges in textures will be mistaken for actual aliasing, the algorithm will then attempt to remove aliasing and blur the image.

But I forgot, this is N4G where the ignorance reign supreme. To the muppets above, no matter how many times you tell yourselves that MLAA doesn't blur the image won't make it true, because it's an fact that is does.

[Ju]

The point is, it "can" blur textures if it wrongly detects an non-edge as such. Now, the first question is, why would there be a hard contrast edge in a texture? Texture filtering is applied before MLAA kicks in. And secondly, well, one could use geometry to assist in edge detection (with a Z buffer). No more edges within textures.

So, yes, if you use MLAA as a pure post processing effect on a full screen image pass, I can see a high level of potential error sources, but integrated within the render pipeline, possibly not so much. Obviously some PS3 games implement that later.

[mastiffchild]

@iamgoatman-point is MLAA CAN be used really well and had been on a few games on PS3 so a lot of folk used to awful use of Quincux(which can also be used WELL-look at the recent EDF PS3 version for an example of a cheap game doing it well because it's not complex backdrops and in those cases it CAN be cool)did see it as a saviour.

GOW3,KZ3 and The Saboteur all use MLAA pretty well on PS3 and the classic example of unwanted blur WAs the HUD on Sab sometimes artifacting due to MLAA thinking the edges of THAT needed blur blending! Thing si , is a good tool to use but one that needs watching. People just over estimated it's usefulness-that's all.

It doesn't HAVE to be fooled by these things, though, and KZ3 uses it more impressively than either set of fanboys would allow us to talk about properly. IDK how they)GG) do it but I fund fewer blurs where they weren't needed than I did EVEN on GOW3 which as a very sl;ick console game visually and all the talk of fixed camera cannot hide the fact it's amazing to look at and that's all that matters. Also people saying "it's all smoke and mirrors" about games? Seriously? Like Crysis was ACTUAL leaves moving, was it? With chlorophyll in them I suppose? no. EVERY game's GFX are "smoke and mirrors" and however they make it look good is tops by me and shouldn't matter to anyone else.

[Ju]

Saboteur is a good example of a final post processing effect. You'd want to throw in MLAA before you render the 2D HUD overlay and that simply would have had no impact at all. Like I said, depends how you integrate this within the render pipeline.

[mastiffchild]

@ju-well, yes, I'm certainly in agreement there but as I'm no coder(more someone who likes to be honest about what I see and interpret)all I can really do is wonder at people caring about whch effect is used to get the best result. consoles often mean devs making compromises and those compromises often result in industry changing themes and practises and while MLAA isn't THAT it's still the best way in some games and where it IS it's been pretty good at whatever stage it was applied and maybe , when it's not so great, it's because they leant on it too much, too early, or didn't do enough BESIDES.

I just like the fact these things from the lambasted QC to the newer MLAA all have their place if used sensibly and for a reason. We'd all love the same effect as 8xMSAA minimum on console but if that's not possible then the next best thing ROCKS,no? We needn't be so precious, that's all.

[Ninjamonkey82]

Finding more ways of pulling the fps down ;)

[El_Colombiano]

This doesn't effect performance. Read the article.

[wwm0nkey]

Yeah what Colombiano said, does not effect preform at all.

[Lavalamp]

I clicked on this article because there was a screenshot of Nier. This made me happy. And now I'm going.

[kane_1371]

Exactly the same thing for me >_<

[specialguest]

According to this article. See image and zoom in to tree base to see differences.
http://nolimitsdesigns.com/...

[darksied]

Screw all that, MLSFXAA is where it's at. /s

[CrzyFooL]

NTSF:SD:SUV?

[fullmetal297]

Here ya go
http://imageshack.us/g/94/m...

[turgore]

Question: so is this real time or not ?

[Peaceful_Jelly]

nop. The article is about you connecting your console to your PC and adding the AA through Blackmagic. That's why I said that it was a waste of time... But for some reason the comment section became a battlefield for a debate between MLAA vs MSAA vs FXAA. (°ロ°)☝

[Ju]

Oh, understanding fundamental technical principals could help at times.

What they do is actually add a second "render" stage after the output, basically "outsourcing" the FXAA pass to a second machine (the PC).

The debate ended up being "useless" because both, FXAA and MLAA are post processing filters, which for some PC extremists is just not good enough - and was never questioned to compete against things like 16xMSAA.

But, if, like the author suggested, you use a frame grabber to play your PS3/360 games on your desktop anyway, he simply added a FXAA pass into his frame grabber app thus eliminating jaggies for all games if played through the PC.

Some people seem to be offended by other peoples work and time and are outraged by the incredible amount of wasted time - which did not affect them one bit the least.

So, is it real time? Yes, it sure is. It probably will add 2ms latency, but I think that is within the acceptable range.

[Hozi89]

I love how every article turns into a raging flame-bait argument.

[kx11]

Nier FTW

[mastiffchild]

Yup, imagine if they given(SE that is) Cavia more than a budget of thirty brass buttons to back up the idea fest that game was!! A fleshed out word would have taken a quirky but interesting game and turned it into a stone cold classic.

Along with Folklore it's my favourite UNDER rated Japanese game this generation-and they're both equally hard to stick a label on! JRPG or action game? Adventures or wannabe WRPGs? And why does Nier want to be a bullet hell shmup too!

[I_C_PEE]

MLZK BKTL ZZSA. Who the '''' gives a '''' go play some games man. Leave this dirty underwear flinging match alone.

[Braid]

A decent computer? Why would I want to bother myself with all these if I had a decent computer that could run the game?

Exclusives do not usually need AA assist anyway, they look gorgeous as they are.

[Bolts]

Nice trick. But using my gaming PC to add AA to my console games is pointless. All the AA in the world isn't going to address the crap texture quality and lack of native 1080p. It's like giving a 90 years old a facelift.

[NotSoSilentBob]

If done right the style of AA shouldn't matter.

[violents]

So, your telling me if I add like a thousand dollars worth of equiptment and download a bunch of weirdo programs to use I too can get a very mild graphics jump and have a slightly slower display rate? Wow, how come everyone isnt doing this?

[zero_cool]

I think dice made valid points in these slides below on addressing certain issues & which solutions were best for each platform...

http://repi.blogspot.com/

[StarWolf]

i have the capture card... is it automatic or what?

[Incipio]

*yawn*...boring and not worth the time or effort.