The PS5 and Xbox 2 thread - it's happening

[aweigh]

Look at the astounding difference a good temporal filter makes when it handles texture crawl and shimmer properly:

Video of Alien: Isolation before getting the TXAA patch, and showing the results after the temporal filter is in place. It's the single biggest boost in image quality you can achieve if done properly.


REAL anti-aliasing, the kind that takes care of shimmer and crawl, is way more important than increasing pixel count:

 

[tritosine2k]

Not representative because such slow motion is overidealistic situation wrt. temporal schemes, otherwise TAA would be supersampling for free.
This is why this is a thing and it's expensive
https://hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/120656-nvidia-adds-ray-tracing-tech-temporal-anti-aliasing-taa/

 

[aweigh]

Not representative because such slow motion is overidealistic situation wrt. temporal schemes, otherwise TAA would be supersampling for free.
This is why this is a thing and it's expensive
https://hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/120656-nvidia-adds-ray-tracing-tech-temporal-anti-aliasing-taa/

"Supersampling" doesn't affect texture crawl or shimmer. Only a temporal solution can do this. Of course, no reason you can't use both.

EDIT: The speed of the camera panning has no bearing on the amount of texture crawl/shimmer. It is there regardless. That comparison is more than representative of modern texture crawl/shimmer. To say otherwise is disingenious.

A game without a proper temporal solution will still have tons of texture crawl/shimmer at 4k, and it's the main culprit in ruining image quality. Increasing pixel count can alleviate the crawl and shimmer a bit, but hardly enough to be worth it; I'd much rather have a steady image (i.e. no crawl or shimmer) than one with an absurdly high pixel count. Most gamers would as well, even if they don't realize it.

 

[tritosine2k]

How do you know supersampling makes no diff?
There's no headroom to enable 4x, 8x (lets not get started with eye tracking stuff) . Downsampling is not exactly that.
Obviously theres stuff it can't fix, like their usual screen space stuff and broke LOD, but that above stuff is within realm. Also fast moving objects will be hurt by TAA even if you play with controller/turtling.

 

[aweigh]

How do you know supersampling makes no diff?

Because I've tried supersampling before, and use it sometimes. I'm a complete autist when it comes to frame-rates and to texture shimmer/crawl. I've tried out any random thing you can probably think of to get rid of texture shimmer and crawl. It's something that's been bothering me since the early 2000s when I first noticed shimmer and crawl in some maps/objects in Counter-Strike: Source; I didn't understand why the game's MSAA didn't fix the texture crawl, and it always bothered me.

Also texture shimmer and texture crawl are temporal artifacts, they require a temporal solution. Maybe they'll eventually implement a temporal supersampling (TAA kinda is that already, but in a crude way), but until then "regular supersampling" does little-to-nothing for temporal artifacts like shimmering or texture crawl.

EDIT: By the way, temporal = between frames in gaming context. This is why things don't shimmer or crawl when you're standing still (unless the camera is swaying or the objects themselves are moving).

Also fast moving objects will be hurt by TAA

Yes, due to the temporal nature of the solution. More than acceptable comprise, and TAA gets better and better all the time anyway. Picture quality is the most important thing and you can't have good quality if you have texture shimmering and texture crawl.

 

[TemplarGR]

Supersampling is stupid and un-needed. It is only there on PC if you want to run old games and have spare power. Personally i would never use it as other AA solutions are much cheaper and provide more or less the same result. People keep forgetting that as resolutions go higher and especially when playing on computer monitors, you can hardly notice any difference unless you go out of your way to look for it in a still image.

And aweigh is correct in that there are issues that can't be corrected with "traditional" AA solutions. AKA "let's render at higher resolution and then downsample". Many issues are still there when you do that. Post processing AA can help much more and is also cheaper on modern hardware.

 

[tritosine2k]

SSAA is not solution it is "ground truth".

Even if you have special TAA running on per texture basis in texture space instead of screen grid, that will be compared to SSAA / ground truth and probably be around 128x SSAA equivalent (& overkill most of the time).

 

[aweigh]

That doesn't do anything for texture shimmer or crawl. Only a temporal solution can correct temporal artifacts.

 

[DalekFlay]

Because I've tried supersampling before, and use it sometimes. I'm a complete autist when it comes to frame-rates and to texture shimmer/crawl. I've tried out any random thing you can probably think of to get rid of texture shimmer and crawl. It's something that's been bothering me since the early 2000s when I first noticed shimmer and crawl in some maps/objects in Counter-Strike: Source; I didn't understand why the game's MSAA didn't fix the texture crawl, and it always bothered me.

I respect your specific hatred for shimmer, but people have different priorities and annoyances. I actually turned the post-processing AA in Alien: Isolation down, because the blur bothered me way more than the shimmer did. So I'd almost surely take downsampling over TAA, in almost any situation.

There are some modern games so designed around TAA they look weird with it off though. I know in Red Dead 2 for example turning off TAA and turning on MSAA makes the tree leaves pop-in super close to the camera and look more barren in general. Something about the TAA blends the leaves together to create the intended look.

 

[SlamDunk]

REAL anti-aliasing, the kind that takes care of shimmer and crawl while not making the game look blurry, is way more important than increasing pixel count

I was compelled to make that very important addition.

 

[DalekFlay]

The blur is a very minor issue since it can be fixed with basic post-process sharpening.

Not everyone likes the very processed look of blurring something and then sharpening it. To me that kind of pasty look with sharpening artifacts is worse than the aliasing it's meant to reduce.

 

[aweigh]

I respect your specific hatred for shimmer, but people have different priorities and annoyances. I actually turned the post-processing AA in Alien: Isolation down, because the blur bothered me way more than the shimmer did. So I'd almost surely take downsampling over TAA, in almost any situation.

There are some modern games so designed around TAA they look weird with it off though. I know in Red Dead 2 for example turning off TAA and turning on MSAA makes the tree leaves pop-in super close to the camera and look more barren in general. Something about the TAA blends the leaves together to create the intended look.

Yeah, modern devs use temporal filters as standard practice nowadays because it's the most effective at cleaning up the image. They design graphics around it kind of like how back in the day Sprite Artists would design their art around the dithered pixels. Besides your example of RDR2, most modern games' character models are designed around some kind of temporal AA being in place as well and their hair and eyes look like shit without it.

In fact, curiously the scenarios are weirdly similar; some people prefer the raw pixels in retro games while others prefer the softer image produced by dithering.

 

[aweigh]

Not everyone likes the very processed look of blurring something and then sharpening it. To me that kind of pasty look with sharpening artifacts is worse than the aliasing it's meant to reduce.

Personally as for the blur introduced by bad TAA implementations I just use ReShade's Smart_Sharp filter. Yet another reason that you're always better off playing on PC even if it isn't "next-gen capable".

Options.

EDIT: Oh, it heavily depends on the sharpening filter you use. Currently the most technologically advanced one is Smart_Sharp, included in the Depth3D shader package in ReShade. It avoids that "processed" look and doesn't produce ringing artifacts (which is what you're talking about).

You really do have to see it in action to believe it, it makes simpler shaders like lumasharpen look like garbage. Seriously, if you haven't bothered with any sharpening in a while, download a recent ReShade and make sure to select Depth3D and then the Smart_Sharp shader, and try it out in a game. I think it will surprise you with how clean it looks, especially if your previous experience was with the default sharpeners in older versions. Lumasharpen and AdaptiveSharpening did a great job when they were new but they have been rendered completely obsolete by Smart_Sharp. There's no contest.

 

[DalekFlay]

EDIT: Oh, it heavily depends on the sharpening filter you use. Currently the most technologically advanced one is Smart_Sharp, included in the Depth3D shader package in ReShade. It avoids that "processed" look and doesn't produce ringing artifacts (which is what you're talking about).

You really do have to see it in action to believe it, it makes simpler shaders like lumasharpen look like garbage. Seriously, if you haven't bothered with any sharpening in a while, download a recent ReShade and make sure to select Depth3D and then the Smart_Sharp shader, and try it out in a game. I think it will surprise you with how clean it looks, especially if your previous experience was with the default sharpeners in older versions. Lumasharpen and AdaptiveSharpening did a great job when they were new but they have been rendered completely obsolete by Smart_Sharp. There's no contest.

I'll try it out next time I play a TAA game, but I've never seen sharpening I liked the look of. I'm a movie fan first and foremost, and they sharpened a lot of DVD/Blu-ray masters and it's always super obvious and ugly looking to me. I think that makes me very sensitive to it with games. But... you never know, I'll try it out sometime.

Either way, the ideal would be no processing nonsense of any kind, IMO, as long as the game doesn't look weird with post-process AA off. Sadly many do.

 

[DalekFlay]

It's not like I've never experimented with this stuff or seen it myself. I'm saying I've tried it, many times, and it always looks like ass to me. I like natural looking images, even if they're softer or less vibrant. My TV is calibrated for it, and that's the look I'm used to and want. Not sure I ever tried the one aweigh mentioned though, maybe it's subtle enough for me. We'll see someday.

DLSS 2.0 is probably a good example. The whole industry is going batshit for it, and I played Control's DLC flipping it on and off and thought it looked like garbage. I'm just very sensitive to processed images I guess.

Edit: Here's a good example from the movie world. Which looks better to you? One of them is a natural image right off the negative, the other is processed to "improve it."

 

[aweigh]

What they do to movies has nothing to do with the kind of sharpening filter you'll find in ReShade, like Smart_Sharp.

Apples and oranges comparison.

 

[aweigh]

For DalekFlay and whoever else is interested.

No sharpening:

Default value of sharpening from Smart_Sharp, no other changes or modifications to the filter (just enable and go):

Besides the clearer definition of Noctis, look also at the rocks around him. Much better looking with some Smart_sharp.

I dare anyone to say that looks "processed", it merely looks clearer. Smart_Sharp filter is the best one on the market right now. Its default values are also very understated, as you can see in this comparison, you don't have to fiddle with it to get it right, just enable and go. You only have to fiddle with it if you want more sharpening, which is usually the reverse with other sharpening filters.

And, of course, you can always dial down the sharpness. The default value is 0.625 (value used in the picture above), but I've found a flat value of 0.5 works very well too, giving just a slight bump in clarity without making itself known.

EDIT: I picked FF15 cos it's a worst-case scenario when it comes to blurriness. Has garnered somewhat of a reputation for it.

 

[aweigh]

I've also tried out the driver-level sharpening NVIDIA added a year ago but I don't like it. I don't think it's very good, and it's definitely not on the same level as Smart_Sharp, or even the older AdaptiveSharpening.

Supposedly the supplied AMD sharpening in AMD drivers is actually really good, it's called CAS Fidelity X or whatever; haven't personally used it but i've seen some comparisons and apparently it uses a similar algorithm as Smart_Sharp does.

 

[DalekFlay]

If you tell me I got it wrong and the 2016 one is actually the processed picture, then that would accidentally prove my point, but in that case it would be down to pure preference anyway because I just wouldn't be able to wrap my head around someone prefering the 2017 picture.

Hahaha... Hello, I prefer the 2017 picture! As would most film enthusiasts, because that is the raw film scan which hasn't been fucked with. That's how the movie looked on screen in the 80s, more or less. The other one has been sharpened, contrast boosted and even given a cooler color temperature. You say this proves your point, but I think it proves mine, because that point was I'm not a normal dude when it comes to processed images. My film enthusiasm and decades spent obsessing over film scans has made me very sensitive to processed images. Hence, I hate them in games as well.

You're probably in the majority though, as people tend to like sharpened images. That's why studios sharpened everything in the mainstream movie disc era. It's only now that it's becoming an enthusiast market that companies like Arrow are doing raw film scan releases.

I dare anyone to say that looks "processed", it merely looks clearer. Smart_Sharp filter is the best one on the market right now. Its default values are also very understated, as you can see in this comparison, you don't have to fiddle with it to get it right, just enable and go. You only have to fiddle with it if you want more sharpening, which is usually the reverse with other sharpening filters.

I'm gonna piss you off because yes, I do think it looks processed. Most obvious place is on his shoulders where the light hits them, very obvious sharpening artifacts there. However I will agree that's one of the better sharpening filters I've seen, as far as I can tell.

 

[aweigh]

Well, thankfully you can adjust the values.

I feel sorry for the people stuck on consoles who don't have any options.

 

[DalekFlay]

Well, thankfully you can adjust the values.

I feel sorry for the people stuck on consoles who don't have any options.

I'll probably give it a go when I play my next TAA game. At some point TAA blur is worse than sharpening of course.

 

[taxalot]

Lockhart, pretty much confirmed by now, is set for reveal in August according to Eurogamer.

This is THE console you have to look for if you want to see how beautiful and demanding next gen games are actually going to be, considering for most multiplatform games (and that's 99.9% of games today), games will be scaled to run on Lockhart, and PS5&XseX will merely be able to add bells & whistles to it.

 

[DalekFlay]

If Lockhart's real and gets anything approaching good market share then I'd assume they'll design around it and then use PS5 and Series X's extra hardware just for higher resolutions and framerates. However there's always a chance Lockhart bombs and gets tossed aside for multiplatform games, like a WiiU or whatever.

 

[aweigh]

I can't see Lockheart model being good for anyone. If it succeeds it will gatekeep and stifle technological progress, as Dalek says. Seems like a very silly idea, especially when I read that it will be only slightly higher in power level than an existing Xbox One X. WTF.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Maybe their intention is for it to be a cheap box to run xcloud. Performance would be comparable to it's big brother but tied to a subscription model and always online gaming.