Incredible!
Not only has AMD discovered how to get crisper looking Images in Games by using Sharpening Techniques.
It also takes almost zero Performance! This would mean that you could downscale Texture sizes in your Games and still have a better looking outcome when you apply a Sharpening effect afterwards. I poop my pants! This is HUGE!
Okey, jokes aside. Literely everyone who ever used a Shader application like ReShade in their Games knew this for many many Years.
But id like to take this Example to kick off a Discussion about Shaders in Videogames and id like to hear what People from the gaming Industry think about it.
Sorry for my Name. After 15 Minutes trying to get a unique Name i just smashed my Head on the Keyboard and got it.
Personally i am just a Gamer and i am also using applications like ReShade as a Standard application in all my Games.
To see that AMD now starts to use Sharpening as a build in Option in their GPU’s makes me feel very weird and i would like to hear some Thoughts from Developers and maybe UE4 Staff.
Are Modders that Superior above the Industry?
Why aren’t basic effects like “Sharpening” a standard-slider in every single Game yet?
Games use a number of post processing techniques that will deliberately blur or soften an image (anti-aliasing, motion blur, depth of field, bloom, etc). Trying to then *sharpen *the image again afterwards makes no sense; why blue something then try to unblur it again? You’d be considerably better off just turning off the blurring effects if you don’t want to see them.
Ambershee is right, the majority of games do some deliberate blurring, whether its motion blur, depth of field, or even expected softening from TXAA. Makes more sense to do sharpening within the game itself, instead of a tacked on GPU effect. I don’t want TXAA artifacts being sharpened.
@ZacD: Thanks for the Link.
Ill have a look into this =)
@ambershee: I get what you are saying, although i have to disagree.
When Textures for Games get painted or downloaded they often get resized with Tools like Photoshop.
Every time a Texture get’s resized there is a loss in Quality wich can be seen in blurred Details on the Texture.
I can not look over Devs shoulders but from what i see in Games the above seems to be true especially for Games that aim for realism and use photoscans and similar detailed Textures but want to target low end Rigs for a bigger Playerbase.
I can raise Texture Quality and Rendering to rediqueless hights but the Textures still look blurry.
What sharpening doe’s is that it will bring back a lot of Details and Depth of the original Texture. None of the effects you mentioned aim for blurred Textures.
In case of ReShade sharpening Filters also affect the outer lines of an Texture wich pretty much kills all AA.
Now, by using Gaussian Blur after sharpening you will keep most of the Details but you also get an AA effect that works on the whole Image.
The Clou: You can use the same technique to lower Texture Quality and Rendering size by keeping a comparable or in some cases (Depending on Game) even much higher Amount of Detail.
For the FPS on average i ran around a few Minutes in the same Area i made the Screenshots.
I choose Die Young as an Example because it is a very well optimized Game.
The Devs even published an Article about their Goals in Optimization and how they reached it on their Website, wich was very interesting to read.
Article: https://ue4techarts.com/2017/06/04/d…he-production/
In fact this is not the best Example i could give in terms of raised Quality by lower performance impact, but i would need to install Arma or similar Games to show it.
It was many years ago when i read a Post on the Internet about “a Shader Tool” (Can’t remember if it was ReShade) that explained the very same thing from another guy who tends to play his Games with a Potato and uses Shaders to better the Quality. Today, years after, i hear that AMD has discovered that you can get sharper Images with no loss in Performance and they make a big show from it. I feel very funny about this. I do this Stuff for years in all my Games and most often get better Results for lower Performance then Vanilla High-Settings.
