By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Gaming Discussion - Xbox 360 Reportedly getting a slight Graphical Boost

I have seen a few articles relating to this news yesterday and today. I thought it was interesting that MS is now going to be implementing MLAA into their systems. That was something that was largely used by Sony in their PS3. I wonder if we will be able to tell some graphical differences in new games after this is implemented. Here is one of the articles below:
 
 
Xbox 360 will join PS3 with morphological anti-aliasing features.
Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3) console can take advantage of morphological anti-aliasing (MLAA) operations when rendering HD graphics. By removing forms of "jagged edge" pixelation, this can help to make high-detailed graphics look as smooth and as realistic as possible (though it does have its problems too).

Modern PC graphics cards can also take advantage of MLAA, which can go far beyond multi-sample anti-aliasing (MSAA) found in
games consoles too. Sony's utilization of MLAA can be seen in rendering of God of War III. While the effect it has on the graphics can be observed as positive, it is expensive from a computational perspective.

The MLAA used with the PS3 requires 3-4ms of rendering time spread across five SPUs. Still, the technology would benefit the
Xbox 360 console greatly as the fight goes on to squeeze as much as possible out of the current generation of games console hardware.

Two developers, Jorge Jimenez and Jose I. Echevarria, are working on a GPU-based implementation that repoertly works very well on the Xbox 360 and the
PC. "On the Xbox 360 we run at 2.47ms, with still a lot of possible optimisations to try," Jimenez told GamesIndustry.biz.

It will be interesting to see if the technology finds its way to Xbox 360 titles. Recent reports that there could be a new Xbox as soon as next year have been rejected by multiple
Microsoft executives, who have commented that the Xbox 360 is about halfway through its life cycle, and has been given a major boost by Kinect.

Source: http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2011/06/30/xbox_360_to_get_boost_in_graphics

VGChartz, do you have any comments on this?

EDIT: In your opinion will this make much graphical differences?

 Also,

Do you think this will at all have an effect on the release schedule fo the Xbox 720? Or has the Wii U forced MS's hand to release a new console sooner?

 




Around the Network

So I don't get it since I'm not the best tech guy on here but is this a software / development type thing or a hardware thing? I'm guessing it can't be a hardware addition because not all 360's would be compatible.



6 years late to the party with a watered down version of anti aliasing.. I don't think anyone will notice the changes they will be so slight and subtle.



Couldn't the XBOX 360 get "free" anti-aliasing through the EDRAM or something along those lines?

I don't think this will make much of a graphical difference nor will it be used much in games, anti-aliasing didn't really strain the XBOX 360 GPU that much and the MLAA is still working on the GPU. It was such of an advantage for the PS3 because the anti-aliasing could be loaded onto the CPU.

I want to see where this goes, where it will be used and what difference it would make. Sounds interesting.



BenVTrigger said:
So I don't get it since I'm not the best tech guy on here but is this a software / development type thing or a hardware thing? I'm guessing it can't be a hardware addition because not all 360's would be compatible.

From what I have seen this is a development they are working on that uses the existing GPU to accomplish what the PS3 uses its CPU to achieve MLAA. No new hardware needed. It helps to improve textures and edges of objects when playing a game so they look more lifelike. I dont think the differences of having MLAA verses not make a huge difference, but at least a slight difference in quality. Essentially just slighly better looking images. The guys working on it for the Xbox 360 say they are going to be able to accomplish this advancment at 2.47ms speeds rather than the 3 to 4ms speeds that the PS3 has. So essentially it will run at slightly faster speeds. However I don't think the difference in 1 ms will make all that much difference to the human eye when looking at the graphical textures in a game.




Around the Network

I doubt the change will be very significant.



           

I guess you could call it a "graphical boost", but it's really just making better use of the hardware they already have. It's purely an improvement in software, and it's something only some developers will have the capability to utilize, much like how developers had variable results with the hardware before, depending on the skill of their programmers.

It's not like they released an add-on to add more RAM ala the N64.



oh man, the wii-u is screwed now.

./sarcasm off.



Raider84 said:
6 years late to the party with a watered down version of anti aliasing.. I don't think anyone will notice the changes they will be so slight and subtle.

Yeah even though there version of MLAA is said to be up to 3 time as fast as the Cell's. I guess not everyone can read correctly though.



Allfreedom99 said:
BenVTrigger said:
So I don't get it since I'm not the best tech guy on here but is this a software / development type thing or a hardware thing? I'm guessing it can't be a hardware addition because not all 360's would be compatible.

From what I have seen this is a development they are working on that uses the existing GPU to accomplish what the PS3 uses its CPU to achieve MLAA. No new hardware needed. It helps to improve textures and edges of objects when playing a game so they look more lifelike. I dont think the differences of having MLAA verses not make a huge difference, but at least a slight difference in quality. Essentially just slighly better looking images. The guys working on it for the Xbox 360 say they are going to be able to accomplish this advancment at 2.47ms speeds rather than the 3 to 4ms speeds that the PS3 has. So essentially it will run at slightly faster speeds. However I don't think the difference in 1 ms will make all that much difference to the human eye when looking at the graphical textures in a game.

The reason people made a big deal out of MLAA on ps3 was mainly because it was running on Cell, leaving the GPU free to do other things.  It some ways it could be considered "free", given few developers actually use Cell to its fullest, thus they were now using processing power to run MLAA that previously was left unused.  Of course, the time it takes to render must still be accounted for in each cycle, so it's not completely free.

MLAA generally produces a better image than MSAA for a lower overall cost (though actual results can be less than stellar, looking at Killzone 3), so it should be beneficial to 360 developers regardless.