TES Skyrim 0.143

[DaemonWhite]

25 january 2013
Many users don't use reflection and ssao/ssil effects, so i'll restore hardware antialiasing in next version for TES Skyrim.

Wait, why? Okay, I don't use Reflections... but that's because of my video card. I'd use them if I could as they add that extra little visual to set everything right. I still, however use SSAO / SSIL (Not complex SSIL though. Same reason as Reflections)

As for an AA solution, I'm perfectly fine with SMAA (Via AMD Graphics). I know you have an Edge AA solution, and was wondering if it's possible to use other AA techniques? (MLAA or maybe even Analytical AA (Metro 2033 as an example) comes to mind)

I'd rather use those compared to being able to use MSAA. Just PLEASE!!!! Don't remove SSAO / SSIL.

Off Topic: I still have ENBs for Burnout Paradise and Resident Evil 4 as well. Hell, I use the RE4 one in CoD 2. I tried using one for Gmod, but the new Gmod 13 broke them I think...

Who else here has an ENB for other games besides Skyrim / Fallout / GTA?

[DaemonWhite]

Umm.... was just wondering about possible effects and how difficult they would be to add + performance impact.

1: Raytraced Shadows (If possible at all)
2: Complex Sun Shafts (S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series as an example, not dependent on viewing angle of the sun)
3: Analytical Anti-Aliasing (AAA), or Morphological Anti Aliasing (MLAA) instead of Edge Anti Aliasing (As mentioned in my previous post)
4: Tesselation (Not sure if the models / textures themselves have to be made for that or not)

[evok99]

Thank you so much for the fix mindflux!

[Hedin]

4: Tesselation

It works only with DX11 in-game support.

[Wolfstryder]

This may be a stupid question but what is supposed to be better? Edge AA or SMAA?

[DigitalPrinceX]

This may be a stupid question but what is supposed to be better? Edge AA or SMAA?

Two are very different. Just from seeing, SMAA is like a blurry AA type. EdgeAA is sharper.
Using both together is useless. Personally i like EdgeAA because it is comfortable for my eyes, and does not require a extra dll to function.

[mindflux]

SMAA is basically a more advanced MLAA. I'm not really sure what's the difference between EdgeAA and SMAA since obviously SMAA also employs edge-detection methods, but I agree, SMAA looks to be more blurry, although the softness also leads to a somewhat more consistent image in some sense. I guess it's really a matter of preference and/or used resolution. One problem with using other antialiasing techniques is that they're likely mostly copyrighted and thus unusable.

Skyrim already has the necessary displacement data for tessellation, but native DX9 implementation would be very difficult especially without access to the game source code. Other than that I don't quite see how tessellation would increase the graphical fidelity especially given that there's already parallax support for most objects that would benefit from tessellation.

[jonwd7]

@mindflux

They're very different. It's called Edge AA because it uses geometric information, such as a depth buffer, to only apply the AA to geometric edges. SMAA and FXAA are essentially a fullscreen blur, because every pixel is tested for aliasing. I actually like SMAA at super high resolutions (2560x1440) because it gives a bit of softness, and can also work on things like specular aliasing (e.g. how the standing stones in the load screens shimmer badly), and texture aliasing (i.e. high anisotropic filtering without a proper negative LOD bias)

I think it was you who said you "couldn't live without 2xMSAA", and I was a bit confused by this because Edge AA is almost the same thing. 2xMSAA can have a pretty sizeable hit to performance on some GPUs as well. The only downside of Edge AA is that it cannot do much for "inner" or "interior" edges. It mostly only works on silhouettes of objects. I would always choose Edge AA over MSAA. Also, I did a comparison of 2xMSAA and Edge AA. I actually preferred the silhouettes with Edge AA; it did a better job.

I also tested out forcing 4xMSAA and 4xSGSSAA, and although my framerate was killed (at 2560x1440) there was no aliasing to be found. Turning on Edge AA at that point simply mottled the edges. SGSSAA was essentially a bug in Nvidia's drivers that they decided to keep, which supersampled the whole scene instead of just transparency. Notice in this comparison how much better SGSSAA is compared to 4xMSAA & MSTRAA. It does blur SOME small texture details but nothing like FXAA. I much prefer the softness; it looks more "filmic".

That's why I was excited that Boris said he was possibly implementing temporal AA (like TXAA). It won't improve screenshots, but in motion it will look really good, and be more "filmic".

[mindflux]

jonwd7
It was a joke of course...

Thanks for chiming in, very good info that everyone interested in antialiasing techniques over here should read. So indeed EdgeAA is in a way a more advanced method, or at least it sounds like that, as I think SMAA only uses luma for edge detection. But why then, given that EdgeAA uses depth buffer, it still often exhibits quite a hefty amount of aliasing on, say, parallel edges of stairs, or on a top of a gateway against the sky? Or is it that the accuracy is not sufficient?

Agree with you on SGSSAA versus MSTRAA. I also prefer the softness as it kind of brings everything together in a pleasing way. Reminds me a lot of when Killzone 3 came out and how everyone was so excited on how filmic the game looked with MLAA. Sure, if you're a pixel-peeper you could say that some texture detail is also lost in the process, but I guess that will always be the Damoclean Sword when it comes to antialiasing - it's a sort of trade-off, at least until we're all using super-high resolutions and antialiasing will be a paradox of past.

TXAA would be god-send, agreed.

[Oyama]

Just from seeing, SMAA is like a blurry AA type.

Hmmmm, not sure about this. All depends on its settings and the resolution you're running.