FXAA / SMAA and Path of Exile

Something to think about Path of Exile.

http://kotaku.com/5866780/what-is-fxaa

http://www.iryoku.com/smaa/

I don't know too much about how they work and all that. Think it is post process anti-aliasing.

But it has good performance and image quality, compared to regular anti-aliasing.

Bohemia Interactive has released a new patch enabling FXAA and SMAA for its military simulator ARMA 2/OA.
Before I couldn't even use regular AA on low taking a big frame rate hit.
I can use SMAA or FXAA on low and get some form of AA and get negligible frame rate hit.

Will Path of Exile potentially support FXAA or SMAA ?

It probably comes more down to, "do the devs have time to implement more shading options" rather than "can they support it". Does GGG have the time? Maybe in the future. But I would see it more as a quality of life thing they implement years from now, rather than rush to get it out this year.

They could just open the shaders up for modding instead.

We could do FXAA through dx9 dll injection right now, but there's problems with doing it that way.

That would be great.

It' a post process and I think pretty much pre-programmed shader, an algorithm that's out in the open.

I would love to see this shader because AA is very expensive at 2560, and the game has lots of shiny textures like in caves and such, which tend to create more noticable aliasing, and would greatly benefit from the shader.

That said it may be more complicated than just slapping a shader, because you don't want to smooth out fonts and other UI elements twice.

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DeF46 wrote:

...it may be more complicated than just slapping a shader, because you don't want to smooth out fonts and other UI elements...

FXAA is pure shader-side anti-aliasing. It would affect the entire screen... there's no way to have it ignore UI elements... no good way, anyways, since it would require branching... which just isn't worth it. ;)

EDIT: Well, now that I think about it, it is possible... but the engine would have to be build a certain way to combine the UI with everything else in a separate step. Thinking about it even more, that's probably the best way to do it. But unless the engine is already set up that way, I wouldn't bother.

Yeah, FXAA does specular anti-aliasing.

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Daemonjax wrote:

They could just open the shaders up for modding instead.

We could do FXAA through dx9 dll injection right now, but there's problems with doing it that way.

I really think they should make their game as a "Platform", and allow players to replace cosmetic items.

They may upload a female character for GGG, and they can either make it as "default package" or "addon package" for free download.

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markshiu wrote:

They may upload a female character for GGG, and they can either make it as "default package" or "addon package" for free download.

Heh... kinda like SecondLife. That's an enormous coding effort.