How It Works: Fragment Anti-Aliasing

[Guru]

By now we've all heard of the various anti-aliasing techniques employed by the latest video cards. Multi-sampling is currently the implemenation of choice for ATI and NVIDIA, but what about fragment level anti-aliasing such as that used by the Matrox Parhelia? In this article, Dave explores the advantages and pitfalls of Fragment AA. See how it works in today's article!

FiringSquad article

edit: prettied up the link

[VJ]

On the last page:

Matrox is the big pusher of fragment level anti-aliasing today. At present, they still have some issues with their implementation, yet rumors have it that this will be corrected in their next-generation part (though recent reports indicate this part will never even see the light of day). If so, it is certainly a worthwhile feature.

Do these rumours originated from here ?

Interesting article, nevertheless...


Jörg

[UberLord]

Originally posted by VJ
On the last page:

Do these rumours originated from here ?

Can't have come from here - if it's not on the boards it doesn't "exist"

[Guru]

@ Greebe! This is not a Matrox Hardware only article so this belongs in the General Hardware and not in the Matrox Hardware where you moved it to!!!!

Did you even read it?

[Casey Jones]

Originally posted by Guru
@ Greebe! This is not a Matrox Hardware only article so this belongs in the General Hardware and not in the Matrox Hardware where you moved it to!!!!

Did you even read it?

Guru, why are you such a know it all whiny little twit?

The title of this stupid thread, which YOU made, "How It Works: Fragment Anti-Aliasing" is a MATROX HARDWARE subject.

You aren't related to Jordan are you?

Casey

[Greebe]

pfffff

Can see cabin fever is already affecting your judgement.

[Ribbit]

Originally posted by Casey Jones
The title of this stupid thread, which YOU made, "How It Works: Fragment Anti-Aliasing" is a MATROX HARDWARE subject.

"Fragment Anti-Aliasing" is not a Matrox-specific subject. It just happens that Matrox hardware is the only hardware to implement it at the moment. "Fragment Anti-Aliasing as Implemented by the Parhelia" would be a Matrox-specific subject.

And the name-calling was quite uncalled for.

[Greebe]

"Fragment Anti-Aliasing" is not a Matrox-specific subject. It just happens that Matrox hardware is the only hardware to implement it at the moment.

Which fully qualifies it as a Matrox Hardware specific.

"Fragment Anti-Aliasing as Implemented by the Parhelia" would be a Matrox-specific subject.

Regardless. If you drop the "as implemented by the Parhelia" which you added only for sake of arguement only, it still reads the same as Casey stated.

---

How's this Guru, I won't tell you how to run Team DGC and you don't tell me how to run the forum I moderate and leave it at that.

[Casey Jones]

Originally posted by Ribbit
"Fragment Anti-Aliasing" is not a Matrox-specific subject. It just happens that Matrox hardware is the only hardware to implement it at the moment. "Fragment Anti-Aliasing as Implemented by the Parhelia" would be a Matrox-specific subject.

And the name-calling was quite uncalled for.

Fragment Anti Aliasing is only a Matrox feature. Don't be a Guru

Casey

[thop]

surely a lot of * in here.

[ElDonAntonio]

I agree the name-calling and the little intestine fights are pretty ridiculous.

I kind of agree it belongs to General Hardware as FAA is a technology (like anisotropic filtering), not a product (like matrox Parhelia), and can be used in any software/hardware. On the other hand, it's true people looking for info on FAA are more likely to visit "Matrox hardware".

[Wombat]

I haven't looked at it too closely lately, but I believe that Matrox has FAA covered with patents.

[Kurt]

Originally posted by ElDonAntonio
I agree the name-calling and the little intestine fights are pretty ridiculous.

I kind of agree it belongs to General Hardware as FAA is a technology (like anisotropic filtering), not a product (like matrox Parhelia), and can be used in any software/hardware. On the other hand, it's true people looking for info on FAA are more likely to visit "Matrox hardware".

I agree with Greebe, since only Matrox has FAA implemented. Moreover, talking about technology, if you were to discuss Quincunx (spelled right?) wouldn't you put it under Nvidia Hardware (if it existed) rather than General Hardware? It's a technology, but only Nvidia uses it (AFAIK). If there were other companies to licence and use it, then it might become General hardware. In the meantime, on implementation makes it pretty much Nvidia Hardware.

Just replace Quincunx by FAA and Nvidia by Matrox and see what happens...

[Ribbit]

I believe 3DLabs implements Quincunx. (Don't ATi do it as well now?)

And since the FSAA on the P10 is at least partially, if not entirely, done in the VPU "software", implementing FAA shouldn't be all that hard either (theoretically).

And if you read the article, Matrox don't get mentioned more than in passing until about page 4 of 6. Then they talk about how FAA is probably implemented on the Parhelia (since they don't know exactly). And then on the next page, they present a theoretical alternative implementation!