For anyone with questions as to why AA wasn't turned on in the videos...

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qckbeam

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I wrote an e-mail to Valve asking why they decided to keep AA off for the videos and here is what they had to say:

There are problems with the way that current hardware implements FSAA. If you enable it, you will see a lot of artifacts on polygon boundaries due to the way that they sample texture subrects with FSAA enabled. We are working with the harware companies and the DirectX team to make sure that future hardware doesn't have this problem.
Gary

I guess this means that Half-Life 2 looks bad with AA enabled
 
I alllllways play with 6x FSAA and 8x AF...i cant play without it!

(ATI powha :))
 
Could it be a DX9 issue? I know Splinter Cell doesnt even work with AA enable so that could be it.
 
purhaps it has trouble with the LOD system, who knows eh. Still looks fantastic though. :D
 
I don't think it will matter much if you play in a higher resolution anyway. 1024 x 768 is kind of the absolute minimum.
 
I think that by the time HL2 releases, AA will work fine.

If not, who cares, I didn't even notice it was off.
 
He made it sound like it was a problem with hardware, not software, so there would be no real way to fix it.
 
Uh, I'm sure it'll be fixed for the release of the game. Not being able to use AA properly would dissapoint alot of people, one of them being me.
 
Yeah I would be hugely disappointed, I just bought a $400 video card so I can run 6x AA and 8x AF.
 
Yeah if its a hardware issue I dont think its going to be fixed. Hopefully a new driver will fix it but I doubt it, It sounds like a serious issue.
 
6X AA makes little difference when your running a game in high resolutions.. it's more for when your running in 800x600 or 1024x768... and what's up with when I try running in 4X AF or better, my games seem to run choppy? I have a Geforce 4TI 4680 and every game does this.. I usually run in 1280x720 (widescreen looks so much better) , with 4x AA and 2x AF but would like 4xAF or better.. Stupid AF, why the hell did they introduce that crap... Everything looks like crap with it off and it never before.
 
Splinter Cell works with AA if you download the latest patch.
 
Hmm, I never seem to have slowdown with AF on. What's the rest of your system like Taz?
 
Originally posted by qckbeam
I wrote an e-mail to Valve asking why they decided to keep AA off for the videos and here is what they had to say:

There are problems with the way that current hardware implements FSAA. If you enable it, you will see a lot of artifacts on polygon boundaries due to the way that they sample texture subrects with FSAA enabled. We are working with the harware companies and the DirectX team to make sure that future hardware doesn't have this problem.
Gary

I guess this means that Half-Life 2 looks bad with AA enabled
Click to expand...
Thats just a stupid claim! I use FSAA in EVERY single application (I have a 9700 Pro) that can be played with it without crashing. The only error I am aware of is that it cant do FSAA on alpha textures. I have tried DX9 demos with FSAA on without seeing any kind of error.

Edit: Of course it could be true, I just dont see why it hasnt been brought up earlier then, you'd think SOME game developers would notice.
 
Maybe it's a conflict between curent hardware and the source engine. He also never said it would crash, it creates artifacts around the outer edges of polygons.
 
Re: Re: For anyone with questions as to why AA wasn't turned on in the videos...

Originally posted by dawdler
Thats just a stupid claim! I use FSAA in EVERY single application (I have a 9700 Pro) that can be played with it without crashing. The only error I am aware of is that it cant do FSAA on alpha textures. I have tried DX9 demos with FSAA on without seeing any kind of error.

Edit: Of course it could be true, I just dont see why it hasnt been brought up earlier then, you'd think SOME game developers would notice.
Click to expand...

Maybe it is an issue that only affects Source. FSAA is nice but i personally can live without it. Usually when a game is moving around fast and smooth enough i never really notice or pay attention to the jaggies.
 
Ok, I e-mailed Gary again and asked him if he was trying to say that Half-Life 2 would look bad with AA on, here is what he said:

At the present, you wouldn't want to run the game with AA enabled. . you'd see some pretty bad artifacts. We may come up with some way to work around the hardware problems in the future though so that you can use AA.
Gary

I hope they figure out a way around the hardware problems before Sept. 30.
 
Originally posted by qckbeam
Maybe it's a conflict between curent hardware and the source engine. He also never said it would crash, it creates artifacts around the outer edges of polygons.
Click to expand...
Yes, and that's what I meant I havent seen.
Question is, is it an engine problem due to hardware or a hardware problem due to the engine? He noted it was a hardware problem, but I got the feeling the DX9 demos (with FAR more advanced stuff than HL2) that run flawlessly with FSAA on is a show on where the error lies :dozey:
 
Well, he said they may be able to find a fix for the AA problem so it can't lie totally in Hardware, unless they are planning to write their own custom FSAA routines instead of using the ones provided by Nvidia and ATI.
 
Originally posted by Claws
Splinter Cell works with AA if you download the latest patch.
Click to expand...

the 1.2 patch? if so, then no it doesnt fix AA. you can run it with AA with any version, but the lights will show through walls, through characters, through everything.
 
frankly AA doesent matter to me, at high reses you can see the jaggies, thats why god invented the 9800 pro
 
nVidia and ATI are probably goin nuts trying to get drivers (before the other) to allow AA to work properly. That fact alone could boost sales. :p
 
damn, this is bad news in my book...i'm a fsaa junkie. i couldn't have it on for Raven Shield either, and that was annoying as hell. I will certainly play HL2 without AA, but not happily. (Joke! Joke! relax!)

I'm guessing AF will work, and to look on the bright side, this means that there will be no question about whether or not to take the performance hit. we just won't take the hit! :)
 
no, they didn't if you look through the valve info thread, you'll see that there was never any AA on. also, all the screenshots had no AA.

EDIT: Except for a couple, which i surmise were reduced to half-size to improve image quality, and make the files manageable.
 
There is still hope guys, and we can always just bump up the resolution. The E3 videos were playing at 60 fps at 1024 x 768 with no AA or AF and they still looked damn good. Imagine that at 1600 x 1200.
 
Originally posted by yeggz


If not, who cares, I didn't even notice it was off.
Click to expand...

I did. ;(

I was saying: damn, too overbright and I see they don't have AA on ;(
 
Originally posted by qckbeam
There is still hope guys, and we can always just bump up the resolution. The E3 videos were playing at 60 fps at 1024 x 768 with no AA or AF and they still looked damn good. Imagine that at 1600 x 1200.
Click to expand...

it looked that good because it was taking with a shaking cam.

then you can't see the difference between AA on or off. And too overbright levels might be just normal. believe me! :dozey:
 
wow

This is ridiculous.

There are a lot of people, like me, who paid a hefty sum for video cards so I can take away that jaggies (among other things). ANd for those who say it does not make a difference......maybe get some new glasses.

I do not see how they could run into such a stumbling block......I just am going to hope and hope that it gets fixed soon.
 
i dunno, this is really disappointing, and frankly, a little disturbing. No other next-gen engine has reported having this problem, and AA is pretty much a high-end standard. Granted, Doom3 does use OpenGl, which may involve an entirely different way of accessing the hardware. Still, AA is a HUGE feature for many gamers, even if it's only at 2A. They need to be MUCH more forthcoming on this issue, and let us know if there are any cards out there which will likely support a decent AA implementation. If the 9900 or something is the only one possible, I'm going to be very steamed. I don't have that sort of cash but I really expected AA.
 
They probably built their engine according to Direct X specs that are not fully implemented in current hardware, or are improperly implemented. Hopefully they can play Nvidia and ATI off each other. "Just think of how many people will buy your card if it does FSAA on our game and the competitor doesn't!"

I wonder if it can be fixed in drivers or not though.
 
The E3 videos were playing at 60 fps at 1024 x 768 with no AA or AF
Click to expand...

Actually, they were playing at something like 1300x740 or something and that's even better.
 
This doesn't mean the release of HL2 will have the AA problem, this is why HL2 is coming in October(there's almost always a delay of 1 or 2 days with release dates, we've confirmed HL2 will have one)
 
qckbeam, could you try asking Gary to be more specific about

a) is this a problem that can be fixed with new drivers, or would we have to buy a whole new card to recitify it? If so, are there any cards on the horizon that would offer it?

b) Is this a problem unique to hardware + Source?
 
Originally posted by Apos
a) is this a problem that can be fixed with new drivers, or would we have to buy a whole new card to recitify it? If so, are there any cards on the horizon that would offer it?

b) Is this a problem unique to hardware + Source?
Click to expand...
These are the same questions I wanted to ask as well. Hopefully new drivers will eventually be the solution :dozey:
 
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