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

[qckbeam]

Well, I don't think that Valve is feeding us lies or anything like that. It wasn't like they officially released this information, a programmer at Valve just told me this in an e-mail. I believe him, everything he said made sense. Nvidia's core is not anything like the core for ATI's current generation of cards, and their methods for implementing FSAA are totally different.

 

[LoneDeranger]

Originally posted by Apos
Do NOT buy at 400$- you can get a 340$ one at newegg.com right now, and it's sure to get even cheaper in the next few months (I bet that prices will plummet two weeks after the 9900 hits the streets).

Now how about this:

ATI's current hardware does it right, but it's not exposed properly in DX9. It may get fixed.

So it turns to be Billy G's fault. No surprise here.

When is 9900 being released BTW?

 

[Doobz]

what is this talk of a 9900?

as far as i know, for ATI and Nvidia, it is common practice for them to release the initial opening high end version of their new card, in this case a 9700 and 5800, then release the mainstream (9500s, 5200s, 9600s, 5600s, so on and so forth) and then release the ultra versions, the 9800 and the 5900 and there they stop and move on to developing the next generation of cards.

i've never heard of them developing beyond the ultra set.

 

[Apos]

9900 is the N360 core, supposedly their last before the true next gen card the Loki. I don't think it's been confirmed as coming out for sure, but it was definately in development for early this fall. It isn't an ultra card- it's another high end opening, essentially, with possible lower end cards to show up late in the fall. Essentially a stop-gap move between this gen of cards and the Loki upgrades.

So it turns to be Billy G's fault. No surprise here.

Darn Direct X!!! Wouldn't this involve an update to Direct X9? That means everyone's at the mercies of buerecratic Redmond.

 

[droper]

DIRECT X being the problem is GOOD NEWS that mean the cards can do it an its just a soft issue so its FIXABLE. If it was the cards themselves then there is no chance.

 

[LoneDeranger]

Originally posted by Apos

Darn Direct X!!! Wouldn't this involve an update to Direct X9? That means everyone's at the mercies of buerecratic Redmond.

I think Valve can put enough pressure on M$ to fix it. Afterall, Gabe is a former Microsoft product manager. And HL2 is THE game of the year, so it is important to get it right for everyone involved.

I just hope Valve undesrtands how important the feature is to us and will do whatever is possible to make it work.

 

[Northwood83]

I just shot off an email to gabe that goes into extensive detail to get the bottom of all this so expect a post tommorow.

 

[Doobz]

Wouldn't this involve an update to Direct X9?

you would have to install directx 9 to play the game anyway...

 

[urseus]

Originally posted by Apos
Essentially a stop-gap move between this gen of cards and the Loki upgrades.

Can you tell me more or give me a link to these LOKI cards?


I have a g4600 128, and am looking at my upgrade options for the future. Ill definatly be getting an ATI, but id rather get the next gen stuff when i do upgrade. Money is no problem.

 

[droper]

card that will come after 9800 is the 360 core will be here around sept earliest.

 

[dscowboy]

Originally posted by Apos
9900 is the N360 core, supposedly their last before the true next gen card the Loki. I don't think it's been confirmed as coming out for sure, but it was definately in development for early this fall. It isn't an ultra card- it's another high end opening, essentially, with possible lower end cards to show up late in the fall. Essentially a stop-gap move between this gen of cards and the Loki upgrades.

Rumors say that the R360 is scheduled to go into production in Sept:

http://www.rage3d.com/#1058503343

Just in time!

 

[Piddy]

I'm getting a new machine in September but without a graphics card. I'm waiting until after the game comes out and proper benchmarks for HL2 are made public before committing one way or the other. For the inbetween time I'll use my trusty geForce4.

I found some info one the next ATI card here

 

[dawdler]

Originally posted by qckbeam
Sorry to have to report this to you:

1) 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?

Drivers aren't likely to fix the problem, with the exception of the ATI 9500-9800. There's hope there for being able to use FSAA properly. You are out of luck on NVidia unless either NVidia or us come up with some clever way of solving this problem.

2) Is this a problem unique to hardware + Source?

It's a problem for any app that packs small textures into larger textures. The small textures will bleed into each other if you have multisample FSAA enabled. The best thing to do right now is either buy an ATI card in the hopes that it will be solved there, or wait until the next generation of cards come out.

So this is why Valve keeps pushing ATI.

No word about supersampling? How would the Nvidia methods for that work? Though once again we are shown the R3x0 complete technological domination over its competition

 

[Forbidden Donut]

To further this, I had a little email exchange with Gary McTaggart yesterday, and it would seem the specific feature that is supported in ATI's hardware and not in NVidia's hardware is called Centroid Sampling. He made it sound like the feature is simply there with ATI's hardware, but he wasn't sure where it was being used.


On a sidenote, Half Life 2 aside, I really feel the 9800 pro is a far superior card to anything NVidia has on the market right now. The only times that the NVidia cards are faster is when their drivers are automatically disabling things that the user wants (like trilinear filtering) in certain games. On top of that, ATI's FSAA looks better at lower levels than NVidia's looks at higher levels. For example, ATI's 2xAA looks smoother than NVidia's 4xAA and so on down the line.

 

[alehm]

Sounds like a hardware issue to me.

It would be nice if all card companies agreed on a single way to implement FSAA in games so we won't run into this issue again in a game. Right now it is not even worth comparing FSAA in benchmarks since they do it differently and the effect varies greatly (see above post).

Even the R8500 did FSAA differently than the newer Ati 9x00 cards.

IMO, all the cards on the market today can not touch the way outdated Voodoo 5's FSAA looked in games. The card was way too slow back then to really use it. However since NVIDIA owns the 3dfz tech if they implemented 3dfx's FSAA into the FX cards the image quality would leave ATI's in the dust.

 

[qckbeam]

As technology improves the methods for executing features like FSAA improve also, that's why the R8500 and the new ATI cards use seperate methods. Nvidias FX line of cards don't really impress me with their image quality, my ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (IMO) beats out the 5900 Ultra with better AA.

 

[Kamakazie]

Originally posted by dawdler
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:

errr "FAR MORE ADVANCED STUFF" please explain in what way? HL2 scales all the way up to push even the fastest graphics cards around today to the limit........ gd one

Kam

 

[dawdler]

Originally posted by Kamakazie
errr "FAR MORE ADVANCED STUFF" please explain in what way? HL2 scales all the way up to push even the fastest graphics cards around today to the limit........ gd one

Kam

Yes, but you dont see every single DX9 feature employed in the game, do you? Meaning, far more advanced stuff. Contrary to what many thinks, HL2 doesnt have a THAT advanced graphics engine, its really sweet and will be top of the line for a game, but in no way is it the worst it could be (mainly cause many things you want to be faster in game, thus take shortcuts and remove stuff you dont need or wont notice).

 

[Radea]

Originally posted by alehm
IMO, all the cards on the market today can not touch the way outdated Voodoo 5's FSAA looked in games. The card was way too slow back then to really use it. However since NVIDIA owns the 3dfz tech if they implemented 3dfx's FSAA into the FX cards the image quality would leave ATI's in the dust.

Wrong. 3dfx's AA was supperior in the sense that it AA'd alpha textures (thanks to super sampling). It also left fine-print text unreadable, and its edge anti-aliasing is _VASTLY_ inferrior to that of the R3x0 because of the lack of gamma corrected AA, and a maximum of 4 samples.

 

[[NST]Cifu]

The problem is: and what i do, if my monitor can't capable of the higher resolutions with ergonomic refresh rate (my one can do the 1600x1200 only 75Hz, and the 100Hz (wich are best to me) only can in 1024x768 and lower)?

The FSAA did a great job so far, and i like to use it onward...

 

[qckbeam]

You don't have to run it in 1600 x 1200, anything aboye 1024 x 768 will imporve the AA problem. The Hz issue is a mtter of personal taste, I can't see the difference between 100Hz and 75Hz myseld. Also, what kind of video card do you have?

 

[[NST]Cifu]

ATI Radeon 8500, but i look forward to buy a Radeon 9800 (non-pro).

 

[qckbeam]

Your ok then, as long as you have an ATI card in the 9500-9800 series or a non DX9 card your probably set. The only cards you should avoid are the DX9 Nvidia cards.

 

[X-Vector]

Originally posted by qckbeam
Your ok then, as long as you have an ATI card in the 9500-9800 series or a non DX9 card your probably set.

From the info given out by Valve (as reported in this thread) I don't get the impression that non-DX9 cards such as my GF3 Ti500 will be exempt from the FSAA problem.

Even if I don't upgrade for HL2 (a very slim chance), I will still have to run under DX9 and the FSAA bug will still crop up, right?

 

[droper]

eyes see on average around 60 frames but not in sink with screen so you want at least 70 to make up for it.

 

[qckbeam]

From what I have heard it looks like the problem with FSAA is caused by a feature not yet implemented in DX9 and will be released with DX 9.1. So a non-DX9 card should still work with FSAA (not 100% sure of that). There is a good chance that ATI DX9 cards will be able to run the game with FSAA, there is almost no chance that Nvidia DX9 cards will run FSAA and there is a 100% chance that next gen DX 9.1 cards will run FSAA.

 

[BlueSteel]

Not necessarily.
From what I've heared the problem lies within "packing smaller textures into larger ones" which might be a method to make stuff like decals less hardware-hungry since you wouldn't add a new texture layer for the decals. But that's only speculation on my side.

The real problem is that if this method is used throughout the whole game and not just a DX9-feature that kicks in once a DX9-card is detected you would have the FSAA-problems with ANY card, from DX6 to DX9.
And if it WERE a DX9-feature that could be disabled, why wouldn't they just disable it once you want to use FSAA? I think it's an essential part of the engine that cannot be disabled.

If that is the case it seems you NEED that centroid sampling feature to make FSAA work correctly, and since that feature is only available with an updated DX9 and the next-gen (PS 3.0) hardware you would be out of luck with ANY current card, except the newer ATi hardware which COULD - as they said - provide the neccesary means for a workaround. But even that wasn't 100% sure, at least not if they get it to work in time for the release.

-BlueSteel

 

[Apos]

This is exactly what I wanted to ask: will this be a problem in non-DX9 implementations?

 

[Lifthz]

Originally posted by qckbeam
From what I have heard it looks like the problem with FSAA is caused by a feature not yet implemented in DX9 and will be released with DX 9.1. So a non-DX9 card should still work with FSAA (not 100% sure of that). There is a good chance that ATI DX9 cards will be able to run the game with FSAA, there is almost no chance that Nvidia DX9 cards will run FSAA and there is a 100% chance that next gen DX 9.1 cards will run FSAA.

Well what Valve said is completely contradictary to what you're saying. Valve said they're working to fix the problem for future HARDWARE, which means they're blaming the problem on hardware, not software (when in reality I think it's a problem with the Source engine and how it is designed, especially since other developers don't have problems with AA...).

And keep in mind... the problem is not fixed for current ATI cards as well as Nvidia. Valve say that there "hope" for ATI cards though... but not for Nvidia (suspicious?). They never said there's any "good" chance, they said there's "hope". Don't switch around words, you'll end up completely changing the story..

We'll wait and see what happens. That's the only thing that will be certain.

For now we shouldn't be making up stuff about things we have no clue about, you'll just confuse other people as well as yourself.

 

[qckbeam]

I e-mailed Gary again and asked for a specific layout of the problem, exactly what it is and exactly what cards it will affect. Lifthz, as far as my last post saying there was a good chance that the ATI cards would be ok with FSAA I just went by what I thought valve was saying. They keep pushing ATI and Gary told me not to bother upgrading my Radeon 9700 Pro, my other e-mails to Gary made it sound like it was less of serious issue for ATI. I also don't think Valve would let a problem like this go if there was any hope for fixing it, I think that if Valve sees any hope at all for ATI then they will do all they can to fix it before release. So yes I was giving my own opinion, for all I know they won't get FSAA working with ATI or Nvidia, but I think there is a good chance they will fix the problem (for ATI).

 

[Apos]

especially since other developers don't have problems with AA...

After doing a little look around, this isn't exactly true. The other developers that don't have trouble with FSAA are those that aren't doing the sort of detail textures that Valve is doing. Valve seems to have had a choice between a much more complex texture environment or doing FSAA without the hassle. They picked the former.

This IS a known issue with DX9 that both companies are planning on fixing with their next gen cards.

Valve say that there "hope" for ATI cards though... but not for Nvidia (suspicious?).

There's nothing suspicious about that: ATI cards really do have different setup that could potentially support the rendering feature needed.

 

[Lifthz]

Half-Life 2 is using a process of texturing that is different, and that's the cause of this issue. And if it's such a known issue... WHY did they do that? Bad decision= bad programming... does it provide more detailed textures? NO... i've seen better texturing in other games already, and they dont' have a probelm with FSAA on any card.

And yes, the issue IS suspicious that they are hoping to fix it on ATI cards and there's "out of luck" for Nvidia cards, it is indeed suspicious.

 

[GLMinorThreat]

Well... I already argued this matter on another message board...

I rarely use AA since most games **** it up anyways... Like BF's text looks like crap, and CS 1.6's text got all screwed when I had it on... Jeez. Turn the resolution up. I plan on using the same res as my desktop which is 1280x960.

I don't see the huge deal over AA... :|

Lifthz dude, you are like the anti HL2 everything. I'm sure you're excited for the game and all, but its like anything negative there is about it you put the game down. I mean seriously... What game is perfect?

 

[Apos]

WHY did they do that?

You really are just starting to sound like a hopeless fanboy of some other game out to thoughtlessly bash HL2 at all costs: you jumped right to "bad programming" without even thinking.

You have no idea what texturing features this has to do with. What games have better texturing, and do they use DX9? As far as I can tell, HL2 is definately doing something so as to avoid repeating textures over and over: there are all sorts of different random detail to worry about not to mention the material-based decal system. The fact is, we don't really know why they picked what they picked, why they chose the tradeoffs they did. We'll find out if they made the right choice in September.

And yes, the issue IS suspicious that they are hoping to fix it on ATI cards and there's "out of luck" for Nvidia cards, it is indeed suspicious.

Why? Because you say so? ATI cards really DO have different hardware setups that, unlike NVIDA cards, really DO support centroid sampling.

 

[dawdler]

Why? Because you say so? ATI cards really DO have different hardware setups that, unlike NVIDA cards, really DO support centroid sampling.

And I always thought they where the same!

Anyway, if anyone wants to do a fun experiment to find out how different the core is:
Clock your Nv35 (5900) to a core clockrate of 325mhz and memory clock of 310mhz. Then post your diverse game, 3dmark2k3, and especially that DX9 demo (http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/) benchmarks, then lets compare it to my R300 core benchmarks, and lets see how different they really are :cheese:

 

[HUGEkebab]

Originally posted by TAZ
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.

actually the ti cards are notorious for being laughable at aa and af, it adversly affects performance terribly on them. ive got one. doh! im going to get the most boca card available for when hl2 comes out.

 

[Lifthz]

Originally posted by Apos
You really are just starting to sound like a hopeless fanboy of some other game out to thoughtlessly bash HL2 at all costs: you jumped right to "bad programming" without even thinking.

You have no idea what texturing features this has to do with. What games have better texturing, and do they use DX9? As far as I can tell, HL2 is definately doing something so as to avoid repeating textures over and over: there are all sorts of different random detail to worry about not to mention the material-based decal system. The fact is, we don't really know why they picked what they picked, why they chose the tradeoffs they did. We'll find out if they made the right choice in September.

Doom 3 uses some DX9, S.T.A.L.K.E.R is the first full DX9 game, FarCry also uses some DX9. They all have as impressive and/or more impressive texturing... None of those games have the FSAA issue as far as I can tell.

So that's why I think it was bad decision, which is in turn bad programming if they KNEW this would happen. YOU sound like the fanboy.

If they KNEW this would happen then perhaps they thought "Oh, they'll just upgrade their card, we don't care..."... yeah, ok. Not a smart decision...

Originally posted by Apos
Why? Because you say so? ATI cards really DO have different hardware setups that, unlike NVIDA cards, really DO support centroid sampling.

I know they are designed differently, you don't need to tell me that.

ANd it IS suspicious because they just happen to be partners with ATI, and it so happens that the problem can have HOPE for ATI cards and not for Nvidia cards and they didn't say specifically why.

 

[Lifthz]

Originally posted by GLMinorThreat
Well... I already argued this matter on another message board...

I rarely use AA since most games **** it up anyways... Like BF's text looks like crap, and CS 1.6's text got all screwed when I had it on... Jeez. Turn the resolution up. I plan on using the same res as my desktop which is 1280x960.

I don't see the huge deal over AA... :|

Lifthz dude, you are like the anti HL2 everything. I'm sure you're excited for the game and all, but its like anything negative there is about it you put the game down. I mean seriously... What game is perfect?

No i'm quite pro-Half-Life 2 actually, so watch your mouth. I'm more of an anti-bias person whenever I can. And noone mentioned the perfect game, but if I hear/see something I don't like I will state it especially since the game is coming so soon.

 

[Matrix302]

This game will have the best graphics on ATI. and this is the Sum UP of this long dam thread...:cheers:

 

[Mr.Reak]

Lifthz,did you read ANYTHING that Apos posted about textures?