Wait, does Ambient Occlusion turn off Antialising?
By
Cardiff_Giant,
Posted on: 2010-05-02 13:00 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I don't think it turns it off, exactly, but I think you're right in that it might diminish the effect of AA.
I don't know what setting you're currently running Ambient Occlusion at, Sam, but from what I can tell, there's very little FPS drop if you just set it to the lowerest setting that isn't off. (I think it's called Super Performance or something).
It looks much nicer than not having it on at all, and it's not that much worse than other levels of AO, so I think it's a happy medium.
What card do you have? It's possible that your card might not support both at the same time.
Much older cards for instance couldn't support both AA and HDR, it could be possible that this is similar.
What resolution do you play the game at? At higher resolutions having AA off shouldn't be too much of a problem.
My card shouldn't be the problem. It's a GTX 285, so it ought to support all the features. And while I am seeing some slowdown, the slowdown itself isn't my problem. Graphical quality is. Any option for Ambient Occlusion that isn't off seriously degrades Antialise quality at long distances.
Actually, upon reviewing this a little further, I discovered something interesting. I have my Ambient Occlusion set to Medium, but it only really affects geometry that is close to me. Geometry that it affects is actually highly antialised and very smooth-looking. However, it does NOT affect geometry father away, and geometry that it does not affect is jagged and pixellated, as though it isn't being antialised almost at all. Since I spend about half my time travelling through the city where most of the world is out of Ambient Occlusion range, this is bad. Worse than it was before, in fact.
I'll keep my eye on this, but these two do not seem to play together well.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Someone on the tech support forums was mentioning that they don't seem to play well together(AO and AA). I dropped mine to the medium setting and got better framerate but I did notice aliasing where there wasn't any before.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
My card shouldn't be the problem. It's a GTX 285, so it ought to support all the features. And while I am seeing some slowdown, the slowdown itself isn't my problem. Graphical quality is. Any option for Ambient Occlusion that isn't off seriously degrades Antialise quality at long distances.
Actually, upon reviewing this a little further, I discovered something interesting. I have my Ambient Occlusion set to Medium, but it only really affects geometry that is close to me. Geometry that it affects is actually highly antialised and very smooth-looking. However, it does NOT affect geometry father away, and geometry that it does not affect is jagged and pixellated, as though it isn't being antialised almost at all. Since I spend about half my time travelling through the city where most of the world is out of Ambient Occlusion range, this is bad. Worse than it was before, in fact. I'll keep my eye on this, but these two do not seem to play together well. |
I'd say that Ultramode still needs some additional time baking in the oven before it can eat. Even with all this new stuff, this game should not be this taxing graphically when I can run pretty much every game on the market with everything turned up nice and high and have no serious performance issues.
FSAA controls anti-aliasing
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I know. The thing is, I have it set to x4, and what I'm seeing is NOT x4. It's between nothing and x2 at a stretch. That's at long distance. At close distance, it actually looks like MORE than x4.|
Originally Posted by PownUnoobs
FSAA controls anti-aliasing
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Here's the thing - I was looking at an extremely jagged light post in St. Martial the other day, think to myself that antialising wasn't working. Turning Ambient Occlusion OFF actually made that fairly-distant pole look a LOT better, at the cost of occlusion shading. I'm still trying to figure out if I want distance smoothness more than shadows I'm finding I barely see.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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You shouldn't really have to choose. Especially with a GTX 285. It's crazy that I can run Fallout 3 and Borderlands with everything up but get problems with a game this old. I'm running a GTX 260.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I know. The thing is, I have it set to x4, and what I'm seeing is NOT x4. It's between nothing and x2 at a stretch. That's at long distance. At close distance, it actually looks like MORE than x4.
Here's the thing - I was looking at an extremely jagged light post in St. Martial the other day, think to myself that antialising wasn't working. Turning Ambient Occlusion OFF actually made that fairly-distant pole look a LOT better, at the cost of occlusion shading. I'm still trying to figure out if I want distance smoothness more than shadows I'm finding I barely see. |
I turned the shadows to the lowest ultramode will give. The reflections are fine and water is great. AO seems to be the biggest culprit.
I'm also getting some infrequent moments of horrendous slowdown. They clear up in a few seconds but it's pretty noticeable when it happens.
I still say this issue needed to be baked in the oven for a couple more weeks.
I'm now a bit reluctant to find out what kind of performance I will get in Preatoria.
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I'd say they probably broke out Ultra Mode out now to get any issues out of the way before GR and Praetoria hit, so that release will be more smooth. So hopefully things will be smoothed over a bit in the upcoming month or so.
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Originally Posted by Slashman
You shouldn't really have to choose. Especially with a GTX 285. It's crazy that I can run Fallout 3 and Borderlands with everything up but get problems with a game this old. I'm running a GTX 260.
I turned the shadows to the lowest ultramode will give. The reflections are fine and water is great. AO seems to be the biggest culprit. I'm also getting some infrequent moments of horrendous slowdown. They clear up in a few seconds but it's pretty noticeable when it happens. I still say this issue needed to be baked in the oven for a couple more weeks. I'm now a bit reluctant to find out what kind of performance I will get in Preatoria. |
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Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
I'd say they probably broke out Ultra Mode out now to get any issues out of the way before GR and Praetoria hit, so that release will be more smooth. So hopefully things will be smoothed over a bit in the upcoming month or so.
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I don't think it's turning off anti-aliasing. If it was off, the whole scene and every edge near or far would look jagged. AO is just interacting with FSAA and producing demonic offspring it seems. When I turn both on with my 5850 I don't suffer any framerate loss but I do see the weird "swimming" edge artifacts and off-colored polygons inside of things like overhead power lines. I play on a relatively low resolution (720p) so FSAA being off isn't an option for me. Can't stand the jaggies. I've been playing without AO.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I know. The thing is, I have it set to x4, and what I'm seeing is NOT x4. It's between nothing and x2 at a stretch. That's at long distance. At close distance, it actually looks like MORE than x4.
Here's the thing - I was looking at an extremely jagged light post in St. Martial the other day, think to myself that antialising wasn't working. Turning Ambient Occlusion OFF actually made that fairly-distant pole look a LOT better, at the cost of occlusion shading. I'm still trying to figure out if I want distance smoothness more than shadows I'm finding I barely see. |
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This is kind of what I was thinking. AO seems to be interfering with AA in such a way that AA works close up, but doesn't really work farther away. I'm not really familiar with how AA actually works on a mechanical level, nor what AO actually does, mathematically, but this is what I'm seeing as the end result. Objects close enough to display strong Occlusion shadows also see very strong AA effects and are very smooth. Objects far into the distance beyond the draw range of Occlusion shadows receive almost no antilailisng whatsoever. I don't know if it's some kind of stencil effect that only works where Occlusion shadows exist or if the AA option is somehow suppressed where shadows aren't present, but the result is not pretty, especially since I'm running medium occlusion settings anyway.|
Originally Posted by Zem
I don't think it's turning off anti-aliasing. If it was off, the whole scene and every edge near or far would look jagged. AO is just interacting with FSAA and producing demonic offspring it seems. When I turn both on with my 5850 I don't suffer any framerate loss but I do see the weird "swimming" edge artifacts and off-colored polygons inside of things like overhead power lines. I play on a relatively low resolution (720p) so FSAA being off isn't an option for me. Can't stand the jaggies. I've been playing without AO.
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And, yeah, I'm running a low-ish resolution, myself. 1280x1024 (I don't know what DPI this is, but my screen is 17''), so I really do NOT want to play without AA turned on to at least x4. I can see the pixels from a mile away.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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One thing that I noticed is that the aliasing of shadows is determined by the shadow quality slider regardless of AA settings. While I get better performance when I lower the slider, the jagglies from the shading can have a deleterious effect on other textures.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
This is kind of what I was thinking. AO seems to be interfering with AA in such a way that AA works close up, but doesn't really work farther away. I'm not really familiar with how AA actually works on a mechanical level, nor what AO actually does, mathematically, but this is what I'm seeing as the end result. Objects close enough to display strong Occlusion shadows also see very strong AA effects and are very smooth. Objects far into the distance beyond the draw range of Occlusion shadows receive almost no antilailisng whatsoever. I don't know if it's some kind of stencil effect that only works where Occlusion shadows exist or if the AA option is somehow suppressed where shadows aren't present, but the result is not pretty, especially since I'm running medium occlusion settings anyway.
And, yeah, I'm running a low-ish resolution, myself. 1280x1024 (I don't know what DPI this is, but my screen is 17''), so I really do NOT want to play without AA turned on to at least x4. I can see the pixels from a mile away. |
So I'm wondering if maybe the lowered AA you're experiencing is an artifact of sub-par shading performance?
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I actually have shadows turned off (that is, I'm using Stencil Shadows), so I have no access to the Shadow Shader detail slider. And I don't think it's shadow-related, really, because it's more along the edges of objects, specifically where things like buildings and powerlines and and the backdrop of the sky begins. I actually did a little mock-up:|
Originally Posted by Starjammer
One thing that I noticed is that the aliasing of shadows is determined by the shadow quality slider regardless of AA settings. While I get better performance when I lower the slider, the jagglies from the shading can have a deleterious effect on other textures.
So I'm wondering if maybe the lowered AA you're experiencing is an artifact of sub-par shading performance? |
Have a look at the lower-left edges of both pictures, because that's where this is the most prominent, just above and below the spike. You can clearly see the stepped pattern of on the edge in the left one, but in the right one it's much, much smoother. I DID NOT TOUCH my AA settings between the two screenshots. All I did was turn Ambient Occlusion on and off. It's on in the left picture, off in the right picture, and the right one looks decidedly better to me. You can actually see a bit of the problem in the antenna at the top, as well, but I goofed up and got the beacon flash in the first pic.
For the curious: This is the top of Ghost Widow's tower in Fort Cerberus. I'm just on my way out after warning her.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Didn't quote because I didn't want to dupe the images needlessly.
It's probably the edge detection from AO, then. I would try setting for customizable AO settings and cycling through the settings.
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I did. Everything other than "Off" on Occlusion Strength produces this artefact.
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Originally Posted by Starjammer
It's probably the edge detection from AO, then. I would try setting for customizable AO settings and cycling through the settings.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Well, I'm having a similar issue Anti-Aliasing now looks borked on my PC even without Ambient Occlusion on, I have a couple plausible ideas why - But, I really just want to get my pre-I17 graphics back.
I have an old card = a 6800 GT, with an OLD driver. And, despite what Nvidia always claims, their "new drivers" - that are allegedly supposed to work my card, usually don't = based on my past experience.
The driver I'm running now is old but the last time I tried to update it - NONE of the newer Drivers, from the (at that point "current" driver) nor any of the other recommended "stable" drivers worked. So I ran it back to what I'm using now and haven't had any trouble since... Suffice it to say "updating to the newest driver" is something I'm REALLY leery about doing.
I haven't played any "new" games in a very long time - due to my now ancient system (I couldn't get past the character gen. screen in Aion without my video card overheating.) Which is fine - I can't afford a new PC and can't put any more Ram in this one to meet the suggested amounts for most anything new or even recent.
My main problem is, I can't risk fiddling with drivers and having to possibly re-install XP. My disk burning software went wonky on me awhile back - to the point I had to uninstall it - (its old as well, so there's no fix for it I can find) = So... trying to making an up to date "slipstream" install disk would be difficult at best - on top of the fact that My XP disk is the "SP0" version. (Yes, I should've made a 'current' slipstream disk long ago.)
At this point it looks like I may be stuck with jaggies - until I can afford a new PC, which could be a while...
On the positive side, my system is running a bit cooler, I've got some stuff turned of that I might be able to turn up or on - butI've had water effects at tha lowest level for a long time, And not worried about new eye-candy - I just wish I had less jaggies.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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Then that's the ballgame. Sorry. Bug it and hope for a future patch.
i also get the same issue with AA at distance seemingly not working with AO on.
AA x4
AO Strong with Color Bleeding, Quality, Tri
GTX260, i7 920, 1920x1200.
i love UM, and i look forward to further optimization.
I can't talk about what everyone's used to with high FSAA on, but I figured since I was mucking with the settings that I'd bump it from the usual Off to x2 to see what it'd do. I also had AO on and it made the jaggies so I turned it back off. If I had to guess, I'd say for the time being, FSAA has an inverse effect with AO on, so setting it to Off should fix things.
Until they fix it, that is. Which should've been today. Why isn't there a patch today?
OK, I'll try to keep this short. Is it just me, or does Ambient Occlusion set to any setting other than "Off" turn off or greatly diminish the effect of Antialising? It didn't seem to in Beta, but then I didn't think it did on Live. It's been how long and only NOW does it occur to me that something is amiss. I used to play with x4 Antialising all the time, so I'm kind of used to it, but for some time I started seeing jagged polygons and "swimming" textures when they have lots of parallel lines. At first I thought it was because Antialising was moved to the main graphics menu and something got change to it, but...
Right now, I did a little test. I turned off Ambient Occlusion just to see if it doesn't have an effect, because I kept hearing it interferes with AA, and lo and behold! My graphics got instantly smoother. MUCH smoother, in fact, like I logged into a brand new game. This is... Wow. This is not good.
Here's my actual question, then: Do I need to choose between Ambient Occlusion and Antialising? I was under the impression that I could run both at some framerate loss, but it didn't occur to me that one would prevent the other from working. Does that mean I have to pick either Ambient Occlusion or Antialising? Because I'd pick Antialising in a heartbeat. But isn't there some way to get them to work at the same time?