Anti-aliasing: my gripe

KNiVES

KNiVES

KNiVES

Soldato
Joined
4 Jan 2005
Posts
14,973
This month has been a favourable one for 360 owners, with the demo of Forza 2 and the Halo 3 beta arriving on many consoles. However, both games in their current form lack one vital graphical feature: anti-aliasing. Forza 2 apparently does have 2xmultisampling, but I cannot notice it at all.

After the technical masterpiece that was Gears of Wars - a game that runs at 45 frames per second with 4xAA (yes, that's four!) and 720p, many would have expected games like the other two I mentioned earlier to at least put in the same effort. The disappointment is exacerbated by Peter Moore's pledge that the 'days of jaggies are over' due to the 360's eDram that provides the frame buffer with some headroom for apparently free 4xAA. Granted, he said that games have to be built up from the ground to support this feature and that is fair enough - we got our taste of this with Gears of War, which looks and runs fantastically well. So why on earth do two of Microsoft's own projects lack anti-aliasing?

Just now I went on the Halo 3 beta and looked in dismay at the hideous, hideous aliasing, and then on the Forza 2 demo and frowned in disappointment once more. It's moments like these when you really realize how much of a technical achievement Gears of War is.

Bungie and Turn 10 really need to get their backsides in gear - two of the most anticipated titles of the year, on a platform that the developers really should be taking advantage of, and yet we're not getting what is expected of them. Halo 3 for example, does sport better special effects such as HDR and other lighting tricks, but the aliasing really lends support to the 'Halo 2.5' suggestion.

In fact, if you put in Halo 2 on your 360, then put it to 480p and then changed the picture to 4:3 with borders, it looks considerably smoother than Halo 3 on the same picture settings due to actual anti-aliasing being added. It's that sad.

Give us anti-aliasing!!! You made the eDram, use it!

(edit: silly silly typos and errors)
 
Last edited:
It's 45. Not only has CliffyB said this, but it's noticeable. If you are a PC gamer, it's especially apparent. You're missing my point anyway, AA is supposed to be a strong point for the 360 yet it's not being utilized.
 
There is no denying that Halo 3 and Forza 2 are both extremely fun and playable games, but we are supposed to be seeing visuals that are a big step above their predecessors. They are not.
 
I am of the firm belief that Forza and Halo can have sufficient anti-aliasing. Once again I go back to my Gears of War example - while it's not the most open shooter around, it still has plenty of large, massive areas that you haul through, without any slowdown. For example, walking through the city streets, or going through the underground caverns. I have to admit that seeing the place where they plant the failed resonator from a distance was very impressive, as well as approaching the outside plant in the rain.

Halo 3 (at least on the multiplayer maps we have seen) has nowhere near as detailed or complex geometry compared to Gears of War, yet it slows down frequently and has no anti-aliasing support at all. Granted it is just a beta, but there are only four months left in the development cycle. I don't know about Forza 2 - all I know is that the developers promised 60fps and 4xAA, and they failed to deliver. Whether or not that is down to hardware limitations or just general lack of knowledge of the system, I don't know, but it's severely disappointing stuff.

Peter Moore promised us this, Gears of War brought the proof, so why can't the other graphically inferior games have it as well?
 
Bungie has a history of making their announcement trailers look far better than the actual release. Have you seen the Halo 2 announcement trailer? They also did a realtime demonstration of that, reflective visors and shiney parallax maps and all.

The announcement trailer has a stupidly high resolution, something like 8xAA, the textures are sharp all the way to the horizon indicating 16xAF and beyond. They wouldn't suddenly remove these features just for the multiplayer beta. They never existed.

http://www2.mythica.org/halo/hbo/halo2_announce_qt6_small.mov

Do the end of the Space Station level, and see the massive drop in graphics quality.
 
Last edited:
Those two games are what this thread is discussing :p They're not just any games either, Forza 2 and Halo 3 are supposed to be some of Microsoft's biggest releases for the consoles. Expectations are high and of course the two games are going to be slated over glaring flaws in the graphics department, especially when said console is supposed to be giving a smooth good IQ.

edit: Yes, self-promotion for the win :p
 
Halo 3 is actually four months from release. I am not expecting a major overhaul - a layer of multisampling would actually make it an extremely good looking game. But as it is, there are large regions with small objects in the distance such as railings, fences, wires, spartans holding rifles, etcetra and they all really make the jagged edges stand out. High Ground for example looks in extreme dire need of some smoothing.
 
NokkonWud said:
Amazingly enough from a lot of uninformed people. Surprise.
Click to expand...

So because they're 'uninformed' they can't say that there's insufficient AA? :rolleyes: Last time I checked, you need a pair of eyes, not a degree in computer science.

I bet you my left leg that when Halo 3 and Forza 2 finally releases, the forums will have a fair few amount of graphics moaning threads. You can quote me on this.
 
Last edited:
Well there you go then. I'm using a 40" HDTV and I really don't appreciate the jaggies, especially after coming off my rig seen in my sig.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom