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[Lord Error]

I remember someone here mentioned this about COD2 the other day - that he heard COD2 doesn't have any AF, but that the reports about that are conficting. The game on the demo unit definitely doesn't use any AF. It's just trilinear filtering at best, maybe even bilinear (I didn't pay that much attention to look for a divider line, but I doubt I wouldn't notice it if it was there, so it's probably trilinear). Same with Kameo, again based on what I've seen on demo unit. Judging from some direct feed screen of PGR3 review copy, same thing again. Is AF that taxing feature that it's worth disabling it for some substantial performance boost?

 

[shpankey]

I'm wondering the same thing. I will be pissed if the games don't use AF... I can't stand blurry textures.

I thought all 360 games were mandated to use 8x AF and 4x MSAA (?); and if not, why did they back off that?

Wasn't the GPU designed to give this shit for free (or minimal performance hit)? I thought that was the whole deal about having 10 megs of ram on the GPU or whatever.

 

[BlueTsunami]

I just watched a CoD2 video recently (for the 360) and the game looked to have a nice amount of AF applied to it. Textures were nice and sharp, i'm not sure whatsup with the varying accounts of this though.

 

[shpankey]

Oh yeah, and I would be more than happy with just 4x AF and 2x MSAA. It doesn't have to be any higher than that (although that would be cool).

2x MSAA and 4x AF looks really damn good and I've been using that for years on my PC. They should mandate those settings as minimum.

Trilinear alone should be fucking outlawed into oblivion (and all devs trying to get bilinear through qualifications should be shot on site).

 

[Lord Error]

I just watched a CoD2 video recently (for the 360) and the game looked to have a nice amount of AF applied to it. Textures were nice and sharp, i'm not sure whatsup with the varying accounts of this though.

It's pretty clear that it doesn't have any AF when you see those games in action (COD2 and Kameo) on demo units. Trust me on that. Perhaps they resolved that problem in final version of the game and the video is from that version, but on the demo unit there's no AF.

 

[Diablos]

Why do some of the textures on 360 games look like stuff I've seen on my 9800 Pro?

First-gen, baby.

 

[BlueTsunami]

It's pretty clear that it doesn't have any AF when you see those games in action (COD2 and Kameo) on demo units. Trust me on that. Perhaps they resolved that problem in final version of the game and the video is from that version, but on the demo unit there's no AF.

There is a possibility of it being an early build. I'm wondering if things like AA and AF are as easy as flipping a switch on the 360. With that said, I wouldn't trust the Demo Kiosk when compared to the final game. I can't say anything about Kameo or PD0 but CoD2 has to have AF applied to it.

 

[shpankey]

There is a possibility of it being an early build. I'm wondering if things like AA and AF are as easy as flipping a switch on the 360. With that said, I wouldn't trust the Demo Kiosk when compared to the final game. I can't say anything about Kameo or PD0 but CoD2 has to have AF applied to it.

yes, that's exactly how easy it is. literally... turning it on is exactly like flipping a switch.

 

[Gantz]

Why do some of the textures on 360 games look like stuff I've seen on my 9800 Pro?

First-gen, baby.

Console gaming finally catching up to PC gaming :lol

 

[Pimpbaa]

I thought full anisotropic filtering would be standard next gen

 

[Raistlin]

yes, that's exactly how easy it is. literally... turning it on is exactly like flipping a switch.

:lol

 

[shpankey]

 

[BlackClouds]

It's probably the lack of HDTV's, and the difficulty of making games in general (rushed scheduals?) having coders looking for all the shortcuts they can. That's my suspicion anyways, that they are hoping nobody would notice, or care. The same problems last gen are going to be there next gen unfortunately. Widescreen and progressive scan support was just pathetic, something that should've been standard, but since less than what...5% use it...most devs cut those features out instead of making the extra effort.

 

[Hajaz]

its probably related to the fact that all launch games were developed on a pc for the first year or so of their development cycle.

 

[Hooker]

There is NO EXCUSE for not enabling AF on the new systems. Like sphankey said, it's a simple switch. It doesn't require custom coding or anything, just a switch that needs to be set at the amount of AF you want to apply to the scene.


AF is one of the cheapest additional effects you can turn on in PC gaming, why the hell can't they do it in here?! All these new consoles are practically PC's anyways, especially on the GPU front

 

[RiZ III]

edit: nvm

 

[gofreak]

Reading Beyond3D's article, it seem Bilinear is free ("Each of the filtered texture units have Bilinear sampling capabilities per clock "), and Trilinear and Ansio require some more expense ("for Trilinear and other higher order (Anisotropic) filtering techniques each individual unit will loop through multiple cycles of sampling until the requested sampling and filtering level is complete").

MS never claimed AF would be free, IIRC. There's been no indication from ATi or MS about its relative expense, AFAIK, but I'd be very surprised if it was prohibitive, or even relatively expensive. It should be cheap.

But I've seen the same apparently poor filtering quality in a lot of X360 screenshots, but hopefully final builds are different.

 

[cybamerc]

MS never claimed AF would be free, IIRC.

No but every game was supposed to have it along with AA and a minimum res of 1280x720. As usual MS overpromises and underdelivers.

 

[DSN2K]

you would think AF would be a strength being powered by ATI and all.

 

[Funky Papa]

The lack of AF must be related to buggy implementation on the kits or something, AF has been really cheap standard effect for a long time and most modern video cards can pull it at 8x without breaking a sweat. There must be a logic explanation for such thing, it doesn't make sense at all.

 

[Yusaku]

I don't know, but it fucking breaks my heart. What's the point of having nice textures when it turns into a blurry mess the second it's even close to being perpendicular to the camera. I can deal with no AA, since its impact varies on the content and resolution, but no AF always looks shitty. The fact is almost notice notices AF or the lack of it, so I guess they'll take the 0.00000001fps boost turning it off gives.

 

[Deg]

It could be the RAM. COD2 needs 1GB of RAM to run fine on max settings. Probably why BF2 wasnt ported because it needs 2GB of RAM.

 

[Yusaku]

Uh, RAM requirements of PC games and console games are totally different. More importantly it has nothing to do with AF.

 

[Culex]

It could be the RAM. COD2 needs 1GB of RAM to run fine on max settings. Probably why BF2 wasnt ported because it needs 2GB of RAM.

Far Cry on the PC needs 1-2 gigs of RAM at max settings. Guess how much RAM is being used in the Xbox version of Instincts.

 

[EternalDarko]

Once devs get a hang of coding for the system and know how to optimise for it more appropriately, i'm sure more features will be used. So far it just seems the lack of optimisation and so less speed meaning less features used. I'm sure more games will use it in the future.

 

[DonasaurusRex]

well what did you see the game on? I saw COD2 at BB the other day and it looked to have AF on, perhaps you were looking at the game thru a poor monitor? It didnt look breath taking like PGR3 does but it looked damn good for the rez it was running.

 

[pestul]

It could be the RAM. COD2 needs 1GB of RAM to run fine on max settings. Probably why BF2 wasnt ported because it needs 2GB of RAM.

Anisotropic filtering isn't handled by system ram. It certainly plays a part when you use really high resolution textures though (BF2 on high, HL2, Far Cry).

 

[Gahiggidy]

Why no anisotropic filtering in some X360 games?

Because 360° is weak, yo!

 

[GashPrex]

you can't judge a game based on a demo, the final version is different from it. from what i understand has full bells and whistles going

 

[Lord Error]

well what did you see the game on? I saw COD2 at BB the other day and it looked to have AF on, perhaps you were looking at the game thru a poor monitor? It didnt look breath taking like PGR3 does but it looked damn good for the rez it was running.

I saw COD2 on a demo booth at EB which was properly set up and running at 720p, on a designated Samsung widescreen LCD display. Same thing with Kameo, except I played it at Futureshop. Neither of the demos used any AF, I'm sure about that.

 

[pestul]

I saw COD2 on a demo booth at EB which was properly set up and running at 720p, on a designated Samsung widescreen LCD display. Same thing with Kameo, except I played it at Futureshop. Neither of the demos used any AF, I'm sure about that.

The full version of Kameo that I'm playing on a SDTV (480p rez on 480i tv) seems to have about 2x-4xAniso if I were to compare it to PC graphics card standards.

 

[Lord Error]

The full version of Kameo that I'm playing on a SDTV (480p rez on 480i tv) seems to have about 2x-4xAniso if I were to compare it to PC graphics card standards.

Can't really use SDTV to judge that, as the buffer gets scaled down 2-3x from what it's originally rendered at, which would make things seem more even and filtered.

 

[Beer Monkey]

Can't really use SDTV to judge that, as the buffer gets scaled down 2-3x from what it's originally rendered at,

Some games might, but Kameo, according to Blim-Blim's capturing, uses a 640x480 buffer for SDTV rendering. It is not scaled down from 720p.

Of course, devs can use the overhead (afforded by lesser fillrate) for more effects.

 

[OG_Original Gamer]

I mean two current gen consoles can perform AF, maybe its just hard to see on HDTV's.

 

[vas]

Here is a comparison of COD 2 running on my pc (1280x1024, 4:3 ratio, cropped, all details maxed. 2xAF), shown on the top screen and the xbox 360(also cropped). The xbox 360 image was taken from: http://www.halomovienews.com/xbox360.php#cod2

Notice the inferior textures on the coat and also the lack of AF in the xbox 360 shot (the lack of any AF is particularly noticeable on the wooden planks in that shot)

So it looks like the COD2 on PC is superior afterall....

 

[OG_Original Gamer]

Either way that guy looks horrible.

 

[DSN2K]

here's a clean picture of COD2 on 360

textures look better on PC but for the quality your getting at 60fps you cant complain really.

 

[StoOgE]

Also, that Xbox 360 screenshot is a digicam taking a picture of an HDTV.

 

[Shompola]

When I see those guys, the word I think is LEPPER.

 

[Inumaru]

When I see those guys, the word I think is LEPPER.

What's a LEPPER?

 

[Shompola]

Sorry leper.

 

[SonnyBoy]

Either way that guy looks horrible.

Both of the pictures look like trash. The PC version is just clearer trash.

 

[shpankey]

I still don't understand why they can't at least use 4x AF. Hell, even 2x AF is you must (which is nearly 0 performance hit even on yesterday's video cards).

To use Trilinear is just unacceptable.

 

[civilstrife]

Also, that Xbox 360 screenshot is a digicam taking a picture of an HDTV.

Actually, I thinks its coming from a high resolution projector.

 

[Lord Error]

textures look better on PC but for the quality your getting at 60fps you cant complain really.

Can't argue with that, the game looks nice and runs at mostly solid 60FPS on X360 (it does dip here and there but not very often from what I've seen). I'd rather have that 60 FPS than AF to be honest, but I thought that AF should have next to no performance hit that it would run at that framerate regardless if it's enabled. Kameo runs at 30FPS even and doesn't have AF :\ (well at least the demo doesn't)

Now that you posted that pic, I wonder if COD2 renders at 1280x720 or like PGR3 it cheats the resolution to achieve AA while having the whole buffer in video RAM (that picture is 1024x576).

Both of the pictures look like trash. The PC version is just clearer trash.

Eh, no. The game looks nice. Not groundbreaking or anything, but it's a nice looking game.

 

[BlueTsunami]

yes, that's exactly how easy it is. literally... turning it on is exactly like flipping a switch.

I'm not talking about the implimentation of AF but actually haveing it on. If the game does have AF you can switch it on and off (i'm talking about the developers). Why they would have it off is something else. I don't know why they would have no AF since AF makes textures look better. The issue at hand is that some people are seeing versions of Demo CoD2's that seem to not have AF.

Its probably due to 360s that don't use the right settings so the games themselves are being scaled in a weird way.

 

[Kleegamefan]

I still don't understand why they can't at least use 4x AF. Hell, even 2x AF is you must (which is nearly 0 performance hit even on yesterday's video cards).

To use Trilinear is just unacceptable.

I believe the games we are getting at launch are basically G5/Radeon X800-developed software ported to X360 hardware at the last moment.

I will agree that AF applied to software developed on an X800 should be no problem…

AntiAliasing on X360 is a little bigger problem, though…..AA on X360, at HD resolutions require built-in tiling support from that game engine and you can’t do that without the Xenos hardware because Radeon cards don’t have eDRAM…..

2X and 4X Antialiasing will not fit in the 10MB Xenos frame buffer without tiling, so unlike PCs, where you *can* just flip a switch to get the results, X360 games, (at 720p and up resolutions) need to have tiling implemented at the game engine level to enable AA.... perhaps this is the same story with Anisotropic filtering too??

Developers didn’t receive Xenos hardware until late Aug 2005, so you will not see a lot of the fancy Xenos-specific graphic features until games arrive that were designed from the ground-up on Xenos hardware…..this wont be until well into next year at the earliest……it really should be almost a night/day difference from the launch games in many ways, IMO...

Of course, *some* games (PGR3) are rendered at less than HD resolution so in those cases, the pixels will fit into the 10MB frame buffer, so then you can just “turn on a switch” for AA once you port it to final X360 hardware, because no tiling is involved