ATi does not honor their claims?

[AnteP]

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33658932

mirrors for the contect if rage3d decides to remove the post:
http://w1.461.telia.com/~u46115110/
http://w1.461.telia.com/~u46115957/

[StealthHawk]

is there some official or speculated news that ATI indeed won't add any type of SSAA support? because it's been promised from the getgo and has yet to materialize AFAIK.

[AnteP]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
is there some official or speculated news that ATI indeed won't add any type of SSAA support? because it's been promised from the getgo and has yet to materialize AFAIK.

did you look at the links? =)

The Vice President of software just said that it won't be implemented
and the driver guys roaming the forums around the net have on many ocasions stated that there are no plans to implement it

suckage
well they also said that they would take heed to users demands so I'm trying to cause some ruckus here :)

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by AnteP
did you look at the links? =)

The Vice President of software just said that it won't be implemented
and the driver guys roaming the forums around the net have on many ocasions stated that there are no plans to implement it

suckage
well they also said that they would take heed to users demands so I'm trying to cause some ruckus here :)

hmm, no, i must have missed the quote cuz i looked at screenshots and then delved deeper and deeper into the thread, but did not see anything.

BTW, the link at Rage3d no longer works, imagine that ;)

[ASCI Blue]

That link doesn't work, but there is a new topic about this. And similarly to what I posted there I'll post here.

Who cares? The people who use SSAA, MSAA, etc are the guys who get new hardware every 6 months so they have the latest and greatest.

[AnteP]

Originally posted by ASCI Blue
people who use SSAA, MSAA, etc are the guys who get new hardware every 6 months so they have the latest and greatest.

So basically you're saying that the users who want to use the features of the card shouldn't be able to since they will upgrade "too soon"?

Yeah, that makes sense.

It's especially those users that deserve and extra amount of respect since they are the frist to jump on new products and pay premium prices.

And since when does a knowledgable user equal a wealthy user?

And let's say I upgrade to another ATi card, so I don't deserve the features of that card either since I'm going to upgrade to another ATi card in 6 months anyway, but I don't deserve to utilize the advertised features of that card either since I'm going to upgrade after 6 months ... etc. etc.
"infinite loop" just got a new meaning :rolleyes:

[gravioli]

At this point in time, why do we need SSAA? The 9700's MSAA works fine and looks great. Don't get me wrong, SSAA would be a neat feature to play around with, but is it necessary?

[Lezmaka]

If you want to be able to AA everything, then you need SSAA. Then there's also the point about giving the user choice of which kind of AA to use. Some games might look like crap with MSAA, so SSAA would be of use. I think why some are mad is because ATI said it can do both, and the users would like to be able to choose. Considering how much bandwidth the 9700 has, a SSAA+MSAA combo wouldn't be much of a problem.

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by ASCI Blue
Who cares? The people who use SSAA, MSAA, etc are the guys who get new hardware every 6 months so they have the latest and greatest.

you know what? i don't care myself. i think that SSAA is dead.

however, other people DO want SSAA features, because they prefer SSAA over MSAA. and ATI has said that the r9700 would support both forms. if you looked at the original thread they mentioned super sampling support all over the place(it was on the ATI website i guess). and now ATI is saying there will be no support. they advertised it, they said it would be put in later, and now it won't be. that alone is an issue to me. retracting promises, misquoting features, all big no-no's.

now, if i were in the market for a new high end 3d card would this affect my decision? no, it wouldn't.

[Kruno]

MS (multi sampling)
SS (super sampling)
US (urine sampling)
GS (god sampling)


Why can't there be 1 ultimate mode of AA?

[legion88]

haha. Some of responses by people who don't get the point. (And according to the poll at Rage3D--see link below--, they make up about 18% of the voters. Not a majority obviously.)

I'll keep it simple--two words: false advertising.

ATI clearly stated that Smoothvision 2.0 includes "support" for two forms of antialiasing: supersampling and multisampling. But according to the quote from ATI's VP, only one is actually used, which makes the word "support" a meaningless term.

If ATI decided to not use SSA, fine. Remove the information at their website indicating that SV2.0 supports SSA. It's been months now that the 9700 has been in stores. There's no need to continue advertising something about the product--for months--they know isn't true.

Here's a poll/thread on the same topic at rage3d: http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=33658992&perpage=20&highlight=claims&pagenumber=1

[lagadu]

no need to remove the info, acording to what people @ ati said, they will probably plan on supporting it down the road, but for now it's near the botton on their priority list.
besides there's already a way to AA alpha textures under OGL using MSAA

[Kruno]

I bought my R300 knowing that there maybe no SSAA enabled in the drivers.
Of course it doesn't mean that it cant be forced on in software.

[AnteP]

Originally posted by lagadu
no need to remove the info, acording to what people @ ati said, they will probably plan on supporting it down the road, but for now it's near the botton on their priority list.
besides there's already a way to AA alpha textures under OGL using MSAA

they said they had no plans to include support for it (unless they hear consumers screaming about it: thus my rampage about this on the net: stirring up some noise)

as for aa in open gl that feature doesn't work in all games since some of them already use the functionality for other stuff (HL one of the games that need SSAA the most for an example)
it requires devs to support it and we all know how that ends ;)
it doesn't work in D3D
since it requires support by devs older games that arent patched anymore can't use it
thus most of the games that would actually need it won't have it

well it's a nice feature to have (that mask call) but it's surely not something that we will see much use of

[AnteP]

Originally posted by K.I.L.E.R
I bought my R300 knowing that there maybe no SSAA enabled in the drivers.
Of course it doesn't mean that it cant be forced on in software.

Jittered, rotated grid, compressed super sampling as described in the specifications will not work.

You can force the game to render at a higher res then downfilte rit.
But that's clearly not what the document is talking about.

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by lagadu
besides there's already a way to AA alpha textures under OGL using MSAA

care to elaborate and provide some reference? i've heard this thrown around before, but have not yet seen any proof of it.

[AnteP]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
care to elaborate and provide some reference? i've heard this thrown around before, but have not yet seen any proof of it.

You're able to use an alpha coverage mask call to enable AA on "alpha textures".

But, there's three butts here. ;)

1. If a game uses this functionality for something else it won't work.
2. It requires game dev support thus old games won't be able to use it and we know how lazy devs are so it's not like many new games will use it either.
3. It only works in Open GL.

So in reality only a microscopic fraction of all the games out there will ever use this.

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by AnteP
You're able to use an alpha coverage mask call to enable AA on "alpha textures".

But, there's three butts here. ;)

1. If a game uses this functionality for something else it won't work.
2. It requires game dev support thus old games won't be able to use it and we know how lazy devs are so it's not like many new games will use it either.
3. It only works in Open GL.

So in reality only a microscopic fraction of all the games out there will ever use this.

so are there games that use this? seems kinda outdated as it looks like devs are switching to alpha blends instead of alpha tests.

[AnteP]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
so are there games that use this? seems kinda outdated as it looks like devs are switching to alpha blends instead of alpha tests.

no there's no games that use it

but switching to alpha blends would diminish the need
problem is there's still tons of games coming out with alpha tests, personally I can't really say I've seen any trend where devs move to using blends instead of tests

[vampireuk]

The moment I saw the rage3d link I knew it would not work:rolleyes:

Gotta love those companies who promise something then decide they wont do it....and I will stay quiet about the rage3d thread but everyone knows what to think on that;) :angel2:

[R.Carter]

We have investigated this possibility, however we believe that sample-for-sample, the RADEON 9700 & 9500 series multisampling implementation, provides better performance and image quality than any supersampling method. So we currently have no plans to support supersample anti-aliasing on these products.

Taken from the interview with Ben Bar Haim found here (http://www.driverheaven.net/display.php?page=ben_interview).

[Kruno]

FF8 + MSAA != good IQ :)

FF8 + SSAA = whew! Good IQ. :)

Though I do have to agree that the R300's MSAA is far better than my former Geforce 3's SSAA+MSAA combo (4xs and 6xS).
It may not get rid of alpha textures but it does one hell of a job on the rest of the scene. :)

[ChrisW]

Originally posted by vampireuk
Gotta love those companies who promise something then decide they wont do it....
You must be refering to nVidia's removal of support for RT-patches, right? I agree, they never should have advertised this feature just to remove support for it.

By the way, where is the thread here filled with people bitching about this? :confused:

[AnteP]

Originally posted by ChrisW
You must be refering to nVidia's removal of support for RT-patches, right? I agree, they never should have advertised this feature just to remove support for it.

By the way, where is the thread here filled with people bitching about this? :confused:

It's still present in Open GL.
But since no one uses it who cares?

SSAA is a different story since it would be there at the hands of the user.

[ChrisW]

Originally posted by AnteP
It's still present in Open GL.
But since no one uses it who cares?

SSAA is a different story since it would be there at the hands of the user.
And why does nobody use it? Could it be that no card supports it? So you are saying it's ok for nVidia to remove support for some of it's own features but not ok for ATI? I think they are both wrong for doing this.