AA card

[JonaChan]

New invention:

 

a separate anti aliasing card

 

y/n

[2FA]

That sounds like it would add a lot of latency and increase frame times.

[JonaChan]

2 minutes ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

That sounds like it would add a lot of latency and increase frame times.

Depends on the type. 

Post processing wouldn't cause too much latency 

[2FA]

3 minutes ago, JonaChan said:

Depends on the type. 

Post processing wouldn't cause too much latency 

It still has to be sent to the card, rendered, sent back, added to the frame buffer, and then be sent to the display.

[PlayStation 2]

Basically no point to it, as anti-aliasing is something done by the GPU itself rather than handled somewhere else.

If anything it'd just be more costly to your setup and even more pointless.

[JonaChan]

5 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Basically no point to it, as anti-aliasing is something done by the GPU itself rather than handled somewhere else.

If anything it'd just be more costly to your setup and even more pointless.

Yes but if there was a dedicated AA card it would take a lot of load off of your main gpu so if you wanted to upgrade you could for way cheaper than a new gpu

[PlayStation 2]

1 minute ago, JonaChan said:

Yes but if there was a dedicated AA card it would take a lot of load off of your main gpu so if you wanted to upgrade you could for way cheaper than a new gpu

Not really. A decent chunk of AA methods are handled through an engine's post-processing pipeline. There wouldn't be a reason to force that on a separate card.

[Guest Kloaked]

Sounds like going backwards and not innovative. Something innovative would be figuring out how to minimize aliasing without taxing the GPU so much but still get a sharp image.

 

Nvidia tried doing this with MFAA.

[JonaChan]

16 minutes ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

It still has to be sent to the card, rendered, sent back, added to the frame buffer, and then be sent to the display.

Maybe the display output could be on the aa card instead of the gpu and they would work together like Sli cards

[JonaChan]

2 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Not really. A decent chunk of AA methods are handled through an engine's post-processing pipeline. There wouldn't be a reason to force that on a separate card.

Explain?

[PlayStation 2]

1 minute ago, JonaChan said:

Explain?

Some anti-aliasing methods are handled through what an engine will do in terms of post-processing, like motion blur. Generally, this post processing anti-aliasing method is called, well, post-process anti-aliasing.

Basically most AA methods outside of legitimate supersampling are handled through some form of post-processing.

[agent_x007]

Dedicated Anti Aliasing card ?
1) SSAA is not an option for it, since it multiplies render resolution (which would mean seperating Vertex/Hull/Domain Shaders from Pixel Shaders).
And ^that is REALLY stupid idea at this point, since it will increse lag (sending data across PCB's will always take more time, than sending it within one PCB). Not to mention, it's a Voodoo 2 technology (LOL) 
2) MSAA is not an option, because it requires ROP units to be separated (or copied), from the GPU itself.
You can't simply add more ROP's and hope for best in multi PCB configuration.
That's why SLI on different model cards is impossible (too much work to keep things in-sync with each other).
Also keeping ROP's fed, would require a massive ammounts of bandwidth with added card, which is pointless since gain on GPU side would be lost on transfering data.
3) FXAA (or any other shader based AA)
To put it bluntly... 
I HIGHLY doubt, there is a way to do FXAA faster than modern GPU itself can do it.

[JonaChan]

22 hours ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Some anti-aliasing methods are handled through what an engine will do in terms of post-processing, like motion blur. Generally, this post processing anti-aliasing method is called, well, post-process anti-aliasing.

Basically most AA methods outside of legitimate supersampling are handled through some form of post-processing.

Ok, so what if the main gpu handled everything but post processing then sent it over to the aa card for post processing and motion blur etc then it gets sent directly to the monitor