GSdx

[Asmodean]

Yes. But It's best to mention it, and provide screen examples, if I'm to leave that build up for others to download, or I might have 10 private messages tomorrow all asking me why it isn't working for them lol.

Edit: I tried it in Shadow Hearts Covenant there, in the forest, and it made a huge difference to the trees and foliage etc. Its much better with AF.

[Arcadius]

That's great to hear. I remember reading a long time ago AF is impossible due to how the PS2 works, but man, you're a genius! (As is everyone who is involved in the making and up keeping of PCSX2)

[Blyss Sarania]

Impossible?

We can do anything we want with the graphics data, once we "have it" so to speak.

[Arcadius]

Oh yeah?, that's pretty awesome.

[Blyss Sarania]

I mean think about it. Once we emulate the GS and have the scene data ready for DirectX present, that's what I meant by "have it"

We have the graphics data in PC form. We can manipulate it however we want. We can't do magical things like huge texture improvements(although some emu support loading external textures) but for instance, if we wanted to turn all the red things blue, we could do that.

[Arcadius]

But aren't there things that the PS2 doesn't have capabilities for, so applying those capabilities in the form of a hack could/would break things right?

[Blyss Sarania]

Yes, there is always that possibility. If we manipulate the data in strange enough ways, it can throw the game's logic off and make it go screwy.

[Arcadius]

Ah Okay, your edit took care of what I meant.

Just a quick question, does the PS2 GPU have native capabilities for AF or is Asmodean essentially applying a smart "hack".

[dabore]

nope. ps2 doesn't have it. or not really. in a fixed and straight 3d environment - 2.5D or something - one could fake it with a scanline blitter and the bilinear. one could get really sharp scanlines, texture wise. in full projected 3d this is impossible. the ps2 can't compute the projected texture space distortion needed for AF sampling nor sample good enough.

i wouldn't call it a hack. it's just using a feature a modern gpu has. the gpu actually does it automatically when you set the flag in d3d.

[Asmodean]

I've been thinking of tidying up the implementation of this, and adding it to GSdx's hacks section. As it's quite nice of an improvement. But, It can cause small visual glitches (I've only noticed the glitch in that one instance in FF12 on Vaan's face, but if it happens in one game, it will happen in others). So unless that was sorted, and a workaround found for it, it would be safer to be put in the hacks dialog.

Any of the pcsx2 team have any objections to this? if so, I can just keep it for personal use.

dabore: using a modern gpu feature, in an environment/manner it was never intended for, would typically be classified as a hack btw. However simple of a one it is. Just because something is a standard feature on the PC platform, doesn't make it so for PS2.