No Hardware Anti-Aliasing under DirectX 11?

[Solaria_Luna]

You're thinking that it's that they didn't bother.

Since they originally planned HW for may, and had to push it to june, and are still struggling to actually meet the june release date, I'm thinking it's that they didn't have time to do it properly.
I can't remember where I read it, but afaik it's been said that there come more graphical options after HW launches, with nothing specific about what and in what timeframe.

The benchmark should also only be taken as including the minimum of what we can expect from the options in the actual HW client.

I agree with that last part...I'm gonna wait til the actual client before saying they gave up.

[hikariinu124]

I really is disappointing to see that Even with a DX11 client the dev team didn't bother with doing anything about aliasing issues in the game. All the wonderful work of the graphic artists seem somewhat wasted.

It'd be really nice to know how much they explored new AA methods if at all, and if so what prevented it, a little communication would go a long way.

[Elendil_Voronda]

Calling FXAA software AA is not entirely accurate. FXAA is done by your GPU Cores, it is just implemented at shader level and applied to the complete rendered scene (just like you explained) but is still done by your GPU. Calling it "Software" would imply that's being done by the CPU and that's not the case.

Now back to topic. MSAA is not only expensive, but it only "filter" polygon edges. So transparent textures used in tress bushes, look totally aliased and horrible. This is one of the advantages of FXAA, that because it works on the final scene (like a photoshop filter) it filters aliasing everywhere it finds it.

Really, the only good AA Tech that I would like to see on FFXIV, is one that applies also temporal filtering, as this is the only method that can greatly diminish the crawling/shimmering artifacts that you mention (as moving and far away).

So I would love to see, either TXAA or SMAA 2Tx implemented. TXAA is nvidia only, so that would leave us only with SMAA 2Tx.

[Gieff]

MSAA is not only expensive, but it only "filter" polygon edges. So transparent textures used in tress bushes, look totally aliased and horrible.

In DX11, there are MSAA techniques that are already proven that address texture alpha just fine in deferred engines (Crysis 3 among others). That said, I agree with you that SMAA 2Tx should also be available.

CryEngine games have the option to use FXAA, SMAA (1x, 2Sx, 2Tx, 4x), TXAA 2x-4x, and MSAA 2x-8x (with alpha coverage). THAT is what should be held as the standard for PC games. A ton of options for a ton of different hardware configurations, with their own strengths, weaknesses, and varying degrees of performance impact. It won't hurt if the OPTION is there for people who invested in their hardware to use them.

I don't want to read the excuse that SE had to leave them out so the game could work with lower end hardware. YOU CAN TURN AA AND OTHER FEATURES OFF IN THE OPTIONS FOR MORE FPS!!!

[Anty]

Calling FXAA software AA is not entirely accurate. FXAA is done by your GPU Cores, it is just implemented at shader level and applied to the complete rendered scene (just like you explained) but is still done by your GPU. Calling it "Software" would imply that's being done by the CPU and that's not the case.
Now back to topic. MSAA is not only expensive, but it only "filter" polygon edges. So transparent textures used in tress bushes, look totally aliased and horrible. This is one of the advantages of FXAA, that because it works on the final scene (like a photoshop filter) it filters aliasing everywhere it finds it.

Really, the only good AA Tech that I would like to see on FFXIV, is one that applies also temporal filtering, as this is the only method that can greatly diminish the crawling/shimmering artifacts that you mention (as moving and far away).

So I would love to see, either TXAA or SMAA 2Tx implemented. TXAA is nvidia only, so that would leave us only with SMAA 2Tx.

most games don't use it anymore but i remember in 1.0 of FFXIV i used MSAA and supersampling for transparency and it looked amazing. It still was a lot softer on the hardware then full supersampling.
Right now ofc i could force SGSSAA X4 - i did that and its extremely beautiful but... well, the performance is getting a big hit, especially in raids.

[Edellis]

I can see AA being one of the things they didn't put too much work into because it's resource expensive.

Honestly, i'm not one to talk because i've never been much of a PC gamer, but i've never really been a fan of Antialiasing. Half because my computers have never been able to maintain it at a decent framerate, but another because i'm kind of a fan of the sharpness of the jaggies sometimes.

Antialiasing always felt like it removed detail, and i've never really minded things like aliased trees or aliased shadows.

Not to say it doesn't look good when its done RIGHT (overblown AA really looks shitty), but for my shitty rigs (or on PS4 console) i'll take aliasing over a shaky framerate any day of the week.

[Marveth]

Just want to throw in my support for better AA.
It's a gripe that I've had with the game since 2.0 started and I started playing.

[Qooo]

Since the beta testing of 2.0, damn sad there is no proper AA.
I thought dx11 is finally the answer, in the end still the same....

[Nadirah]

Wouldn't surprise me if its because of engine limitations for platform compatibility.

[Onikimaru]

No it has nothing to do with platform limitations.