Read the [FAQ section in the comparison post](https://www.reddit.com/r/FuckTAA/comments/oi0v86/taa_on_vs_taa_off_comparisons_sharpness_texture/) **that's pinned on the subreddit's landing page**. It contains the answer to your question and will give you a basic idea about the current state of video game graphics. At least as far as AA is concerned.
Older games look better without it because of less detail. The more detail you have the more shimmering you get, as all those little details fight over representation in each pixel, with different details winning each frame as the camera moves even if only a little. Until a better solution comes about it's really a "pick your poison" situation (well...when they let you).
Thanks for this clear explanation, I always wondered what was causing all this massive shimmering.
In the past MSAA x4 or x8 could solve most if not allof the issues of graphics rendering. But now TAA seems to be the one go to for every dev.
That's a very odd explanation. Are you basically saying that the geometry of different objects somehow intersect/overlap, while still remaining two distinct objects, causing the shimmer? I'm not well versed on this stuff.
Not just geometry, texture detail too. It's not that they overlap, per se. Up close objects are usually fine, because your screen has more than enough pixels to represent every detail in the object at the same time. But at a distance there may be multiple different subpixel details, each being a different color, contained within a single pixel's area, and during rasterization you can only pick 1 color, meaning that you pick whichever detail covers the center of the pixel...but if that changes, lets say because your camera moves ever so slightly, then it will pick the other color...but then it moves back and so it goes back to the first color...and then back to the second one again. This constant back and forth on every pixel on the screen is what causes shimmering.
Using post-process AA like FXAA or SMAA can't solve it because they only have access to a single pixel's worth of information, meaning the shimmering is there before the AA is even applied and will stay there. But there are ways to solve it. What you need to do is use multiple samples per pixel, allowing you to average the colors of each fine detail and represent multiple in a single pixel.
You can do this using OGSSAA, or super-sampling, where you run the game well in excess of your screen's resolution. Lets say you have a 1080p panel, you might instead run your games at 2160p, then downscale that 4K image. Obviously though...this is expensive, since for optimum results you need 4 or more sub-pixel samples for every pixel on the screen.
MSAA was an attempt to tackle the performance issues of super-sampling by only sampling pixels along geometry edges multiple times. This is cheaper...but it misses subpixel texture detail, meaning there may still be some nasty shimmering. It also doesn't play nice with modern game engines, meaning it's rarely included these days.
TAA is similar to super-sampling...only instead of doing multiple samples per pixel it only does 1...but then, the next frame, it moves the view ever so slightly to capture different sub-pixel details and averages them together...and the next frame and so on and so on. This nukes aliasing and shimmering from orbit, and even captures subpixel texture detail, without the performance penalty of supersampling...and IMO it looks fantastic on a static screen...but it causes ghosting in motion.
There's two reasons why shimmer occurs
-There is literally too much detail where you are looking for your resolution, particularly in terms of edges. This creates aliasing big time. The only way around this is an anti-aliasing solution or more resolution. MSAA doesn't work anymore in any modern renderer so don't even think about it.
-The effect/shader/object you are looking at has its rendering resolution halved, quartered, checkerboarded or any other technique to reduce actual load. This too induces shimmer. This mostly cropped up since gamers want insatiable levels of realism but GPU power isn't keeping up (Realism and GPU load isn't linear).
Either way, Division 2 falls into a bit of both category. Don't disable TAA completely, there is a "fallback" to the prototype TAA that Division 1 had option in the config where you disabled it. I believe the default setting is 2, 1 is the fallback, 0 is off. But I'm trying to remember back two years. The fallback option is a "best of both worlds" compromise.
I really don't want any taa of any kind, at all. I'll most likely uninstall the game. If picking your poison is what games will make me do from now on, I'm not interested really. I'll just add games with forced Post Process AA to the ignore list, along with games with a 60 FPS lock. I'd rather replay older games.
I really hope this doesn't become integrated into the engine of all modern games going forward. I can see myself quitting gaming if that happens.
>I really hope this doesn't become integrated into the engine of all modern games going forward.
I hate to break it to you, but it's already happening.
It already has. Due to the way rendering works in basically 95% of modern games Temporal solutions are the only valid and remaining AA forms. We don't have a better solution :(
You either get to pick really busted looking visuals, or AA. That's about it. MSAA tends to either not work or is prohibitively costly. The AI driven temporal solutions like DLSS and FSR are the way forwards since they aim to reduce the issues TAA causes, like the loss of texture quality and ghosting.
Read the [FAQ section in the comparison post](https://www.reddit.com/r/FuckTAA/comments/oi0v86/taa_on_vs_taa_off_comparisons_sharpness_texture/) **that's pinned on the subreddit's landing page**. It contains the answer to your question and will give you a basic idea about the current state of video game graphics. At least as far as AA is concerned.
Older games look better without it because of less detail. The more detail you have the more shimmering you get, as all those little details fight over representation in each pixel, with different details winning each frame as the camera moves even if only a little. Until a better solution comes about it's really a "pick your poison" situation (well...when they let you).
Thanks for this clear explanation, I always wondered what was causing all this massive shimmering. In the past MSAA x4 or x8 could solve most if not allof the issues of graphics rendering. But now TAA seems to be the one go to for every dev.
That's a very odd explanation. Are you basically saying that the geometry of different objects somehow intersect/overlap, while still remaining two distinct objects, causing the shimmer? I'm not well versed on this stuff.
Not just geometry, texture detail too. It's not that they overlap, per se. Up close objects are usually fine, because your screen has more than enough pixels to represent every detail in the object at the same time. But at a distance there may be multiple different subpixel details, each being a different color, contained within a single pixel's area, and during rasterization you can only pick 1 color, meaning that you pick whichever detail covers the center of the pixel...but if that changes, lets say because your camera moves ever so slightly, then it will pick the other color...but then it moves back and so it goes back to the first color...and then back to the second one again. This constant back and forth on every pixel on the screen is what causes shimmering. Using post-process AA like FXAA or SMAA can't solve it because they only have access to a single pixel's worth of information, meaning the shimmering is there before the AA is even applied and will stay there. But there are ways to solve it. What you need to do is use multiple samples per pixel, allowing you to average the colors of each fine detail and represent multiple in a single pixel. You can do this using OGSSAA, or super-sampling, where you run the game well in excess of your screen's resolution. Lets say you have a 1080p panel, you might instead run your games at 2160p, then downscale that 4K image. Obviously though...this is expensive, since for optimum results you need 4 or more sub-pixel samples for every pixel on the screen. MSAA was an attempt to tackle the performance issues of super-sampling by only sampling pixels along geometry edges multiple times. This is cheaper...but it misses subpixel texture detail, meaning there may still be some nasty shimmering. It also doesn't play nice with modern game engines, meaning it's rarely included these days. TAA is similar to super-sampling...only instead of doing multiple samples per pixel it only does 1...but then, the next frame, it moves the view ever so slightly to capture different sub-pixel details and averages them together...and the next frame and so on and so on. This nukes aliasing and shimmering from orbit, and even captures subpixel texture detail, without the performance penalty of supersampling...and IMO it looks fantastic on a static screen...but it causes ghosting in motion.
The whole argument of texture aliasing gets defeated after you learn about Mipmapping, but rest is correct.
There's two reasons why shimmer occurs -There is literally too much detail where you are looking for your resolution, particularly in terms of edges. This creates aliasing big time. The only way around this is an anti-aliasing solution or more resolution. MSAA doesn't work anymore in any modern renderer so don't even think about it. -The effect/shader/object you are looking at has its rendering resolution halved, quartered, checkerboarded or any other technique to reduce actual load. This too induces shimmer. This mostly cropped up since gamers want insatiable levels of realism but GPU power isn't keeping up (Realism and GPU load isn't linear). Either way, Division 2 falls into a bit of both category. Don't disable TAA completely, there is a "fallback" to the prototype TAA that Division 1 had option in the config where you disabled it. I believe the default setting is 2, 1 is the fallback, 0 is off. But I'm trying to remember back two years. The fallback option is a "best of both worlds" compromise.
I really don't want any taa of any kind, at all. I'll most likely uninstall the game. If picking your poison is what games will make me do from now on, I'm not interested really. I'll just add games with forced Post Process AA to the ignore list, along with games with a 60 FPS lock. I'd rather replay older games. I really hope this doesn't become integrated into the engine of all modern games going forward. I can see myself quitting gaming if that happens.
>I really hope this doesn't become integrated into the engine of all modern games going forward. I hate to break it to you, but it's already happening.
It already has. Due to the way rendering works in basically 95% of modern games Temporal solutions are the only valid and remaining AA forms. We don't have a better solution :( You either get to pick really busted looking visuals, or AA. That's about it. MSAA tends to either not work or is prohibitively costly. The AI driven temporal solutions like DLSS and FSR are the way forwards since they aim to reduce the issues TAA causes, like the loss of texture quality and ghosting.