ATI’s lack of anti aliasing support for StarCraft II has been well publicized but official responses to the situation were few and far between. We now have what we have been waiting for: clarification.
As some of you may know, in our StarCraft II GPU Comparison we noted that Blizzard will not be including an optional anti aliasing (AA) setting in the retail version of their new game. NVIDIA decided to leap forth into the AA pool right off the bat by including an override option within their Control Panel but the result was a significant performance impact in-game. Nonetheless, the option was there. ATI didn’t follow suit for reasons we will see below.
Before the GPU comparison article went live, we asked ATI for a statement and while we received a “we’re looking into it” at the time, they have since clarified their position. We won’t editorialize here in any way and let you draw your own conclusions.
AMD constantly strives to deliver great gaming experiences for our customers and the upcoming launch of Starcraft II is no exception. Blizzard’s focus on incredible game play for all, means that gamers using ATI Radeon(tm) products can enjoy smooth HD gameplay and industry leading image quality with our current generation of ATI Radeon products as well as many of our past generation cards.
In discussions during the development of StarCraft II, Blizzard indicated that they would not initially include options to set levels of in-game anti-aliasing (“AA”). This meant that support for AA within StarCraft II would only be made possible by including it in the driver, an approach that could significantly impact performance.
Some third party reviews of the Starcraft II beta echo our concerns that AA can cause gameplay impairment. In these reviews, the third parties found that 4x AA led to a reduction in fps rendering at lower screen resolutions, which only became more noticeable at larger resolutions.
After evaluating our options, our engineering team opted not to provide AA support for StarCraft II within the Catalyst Control Center, even though the competition has included AA support in their driver at launch.
We are committed to making AA perform at an acceptable level before we release it to our customers. We will continue to work with Blizzard on this matter and hope to offer our customers an acceptable AA solution at a later date.
Tags: Anti-Aliasing, ATI, starcraft II
July 26, 2010 08:25 PM
Sounds good to me. ATI want it but don't want it to have any impact on the game. It's fait and sonsumer wise. Thx ATI for not just trowing a crap in your driver ad thinking about people!
July 26, 2010 08:29 PM
Only diehard ATI fanboys could possibly see this as a plausible move.
Its not like Nvidia went "WE ARE MAKING IT MANDATORY FOR YOU TO HAVE AA ON SO NOW YOU HAVE TO BUY BETTER VIDEO CARD AND GIVE US YOUR MONEYZ RAWR!"
Its still a ******* option. I love Blizzard and hate Ati so that's why I'm torn here. How can adding it in as an option for performance be bad? It will still run smooth as shit on the terrible systems, but people who have bought a GPU in the past two years will be able to put it to good use. DX9 and no AA? WTF
July 26, 2010 08:30 PM
*GPU*
July 26, 2010 09:04 PM
Most pro gamers are more about the gameplay, and would prefer to turn all the settings to the lowest possible to get the smoothest gameplay. And because of that, you won't notice slight improvement in graphics at all. Hell, I don't. AA is the worst thing to turn on if you want higher fps.
But then again, SC2 is already noobed out and meant for the American market. Thank Activision.
July 26, 2010 11:18 PM
dont liek when people/co's beat around the bush(too much)
happy you got a crystal clear answer. in other words they didnt want to risk it. ok,played it safe.
July 27, 2010 12:29 AM
OMG!
They found out that AA has an impact on FPS, it's like less than it was without AA!
This, obviously leads us to believe that AA somehow allows the magical beavers to rest within our cards and this is unacceptable.
Thus we cannot offer AA, it is better for all of us.
July 27, 2010 01:32 AM
I just been playing it the last 3 hours.
AA isn't even needed. seriously, everyone is going to complain because they don't have the option. This isnt even ATI/AMDs issue. If Blizzard doesn't want to include an AA option then whatever, don't buy it lol. I think forcing AA might cause more issues then it'll solve anyways. It's nvidia.
I'm happy with my AAless card. Play the game and tell me what you think.
July 27, 2010 02:31 AM
AA isn't even needed. seriously, everyone is going to complain because they don't have the option. This isnt even ATI/AMDs issue. If Blizzard doesn't want to include an AA option then whatever, don't buy it lol. I think forcing AA might cause more issues then it'll solve anyways. It's nvidia.
I'm happy with my AAless card. Play the game and tell me what you think.
July 27, 2010 04:04 AM
Anywho, AA of no AA, the starcraft series have been a game of strategy and gameplay, and not eye-candy. I see no point in your rambling.
July 27, 2010 05:24 AM
good god any clean up in here?
July 27, 2010 05:34 AM
Meh, the comments are what they are. Quite a few people aren't happy about this simply because ATI isn't giving the option for AA regardless of the FPS drop. Personally, I don't need SCII to be pretty for it to be fun but I still think Blizzard should have added the option in-game. It's like going back to the 90s when it comes to game design.
July 27, 2010 06:21 AM
I agree with you guys. SCII is not a candy eye game. Like WarHammer DOW II I don't want the game to be OMG look at these little ship they are so detailed. I want no fking lag to play against other player and get a stunning and fluid experience. Also, blizzard is such a mature company so if they decide not to include it then it's probably the right thing to do.
July 27, 2010 10:19 AM
Meh, the difference between AA o and AA off with 480s or sli ing isnt large enough to have to worry. I like having the option to make my games look better, and even for these kind of games as long as its not laggy why not make it look as good as possible.
Of course I love that Blizzard made sure it worked on low end machines, using a GT210 atm and it still looks nice.
July 27, 2010 10:28 AM
The segments in Joey's bar look terrible with the jaggies.
OK, at Ultra settings at 1920x1200, you don't even notice.
July 27, 2010 10:51 AM
I have to echo the thought of why Blizzard didn't put AA in there as an option. I mean what new top tier games these days don't have an option to adjust AA?
When I play thru a game on single player, I'd turn up all the eye candy that my system can take. When going on multiplayer, yes I'll turn down options to get a smoother gameplay.
I guess my comments are more directed to Blizzard rather than ATI in regards to the AA setting.
July 27, 2010 11:02 AM
Don't blame ATI, blame Blizzard. While it would be nice to have the option in drivers, I don't think its worth enabling. I didn't feel like I really needed it while playing at my native resolution.
But I agree, it is getting ridiculous with the lack of AA in PC games today.
July 27, 2010 12:03 PM
" After evaluating our options, our engineering team opted not to provide AA support for StarCraft II within the Catalyst Control Center, even though the competition has included AA support in their driver at launch. "
translated: We're too cheap and stupid to waste our precious few dollars of 8 billion debt on our screwed up driver teams who still can't make AA work in Batman Arkham Asylum even though our lying PR piece of crash Richard Ruddy swore to Hexus and it's readers he had their very best drive guy working on it and would deliver because ati cares about it's gamer base - EIGHT MONTHS AGO.
"We are committed to making AA perform at an acceptable level before we release it to our customers. We will continue to work with Blizzard on this matter and hope to offer our customers an acceptable AA solution at a later date."
translated: We will never have working AA for this title, we won't be working on it, we could care less until it sells a bazillion copies and zit covered teenagers burn down our Headquarters demanding satisfaction. The way we work with Blizzard is call them up and wail and moan about NVidia already having the problem solved and asking the jerks at Blizzard why they haven't implemented for us since were so broke.
How can we keep our rabid fan base lit on raging fire without jerk companies like Blizzard they can blame for our own sorry CCC crap panel we won't even make forced AA work in ? We've got another scapegoat and it didn't cost us a dime !
A million brainwashed fanboys will scream ati didn't get a fair break and demand while lying to everyone they come across buy ati and screed they hate nvidia at the same time.
So with our plan, our cards suck since our drivers aren't even present, but we still have the upper hand.
Our best bet is to make sure it's a TWIMTBP game then our rabid fanbase will even scream louder and buy it just to run it on their ati cards and cry and moan Nvidia screwed them again.
We don't lift a finger at ati, our card sucks as we don't make complete drivers, but in the end, we win.
July 27, 2010 12:23 PM
Is there a way to ignore guest comments on articles and the forum in general?
July 27, 2010 12:31 PM
translated: We will never have working AA for this title, we won't be working on it, we could care less until it sells a bazillion copies and zit covered teenagers burn down our Headquarters demanding satisfaction. The way we work with Blizzard is call them up and wail and moan about NVidia already having the problem solved and asking the jerks at Blizzard why they haven't implemented for us since were so broke.
How can we keep our rabid fan base lit on raging fire without jerk companies like Blizzard they can blame for our own sorry CCC crap panel we won't even make forced AA work in ? We've got another scapegoat and it didn't cost us a dime !
A million brainwashed fanboys will scream ati didn't get a fair break and demand while lying to everyone they come across buy ati and screed they hate nvidia at the same time.
So with our plan, our cards suck since our drivers aren't even present, but we still have the upper hand.
Our best bet is to make sure it's a TWIMTBP game then our rabid fanbase will even scream louder and buy it just to run it on their ati cards and cry and moan Nvidia screwed them again.
We don't lift a finger at ati, our card sucks as we don't make complete drivers, but in the end, we win.
----------------------------------
For myself, I'm not a "graphic whore". I've been running my games on low settings forever, so running SC2 on max settings with my new GPU was awesome. I just love how game looks, and I don't care about AA, I didn't even noticed any chance in other games with AA on/off.
Disclaimer : I don't got any rant against the gtx4xx series -
July 27, 2010 12:53 PM
there he goes again.
July 27, 2010 03:59 PM
Frankly, it's Blizzard who should be catching flack for this for not having an AA option in the first place. ATI has determined that it's not worthwhile to implement AA, and that'll be their cross to bear, and perhaps they'll end up paying for it in sales numbers. I think the only 'brainwashed fanboy' here is you. It's either that, or you've got no brain that can be 'washed' in the first place; judging by your mindless drivel, may not be far from the case.
July 27, 2010 04:19 PM
They should have put it in there. If I can run the game fine with 32xAA WHY not let my have that option? I can run some of my older games with 64 x SLI AA forced through the driver.
Haven't you been able to force AA through the driver for many years already? Why is Nvidia making a press statement about something that we have been doing for a long time already. Forcing AA on through the driver.
July 27, 2010 06:31 PM
Haven't you been able to force AA through the driver for many years already? Why is Nvidia making a press statement about something that we have been doing for a long time already. Forcing AA on through the driver.
Nvidia did the work, the driver work, to ensure the AA works when forcing in the new Blizzard game.
Things are much more complicated, game engine are far superior than before, things are getting more and more complex and that means sometimes special work is needed, and the "one AA checkmark in CP fits all" no longer applies.
My question is, what's wrong with ATI ? Why don't they just make the AA work from CCC and be done with it ? What's their problem ? Nvidia seemes to have just knocked it off. On second thought, that probably answers your question as to why Nvidia is "making a press announcement" about it.
They just knock the work off, get 'er done, and then they look over at ATI, and ATI has a bunch of excuses. So Nvidia brags it up. Just like when ATI had the 1st dx11 cards to market we never heard the end of it from them.
That's how all this stuff works you know.
July 27, 2010 06:44 PM
is it me or it's the most guest reply news for long and all guest reply are fanboyism or idiot reply that simply look mind closed from a noob that only want graphic instead of a fluid and complete game experience? I agree with most of the member time for some cleaning or is there any way to ignore unregistered post?
July 27, 2010 07:01 PM
The option should still be there.
July 27, 2010 09:35 PM
So glad i bought nvidia GTX 460 cards, SC2 already looks bad for a game in 2010, with no AA its even worst! AMD need to put their money where there mouth is, what happned to "Gamers first". They say they want to support the best interest of their customers but disabling this feature because tehy think performance is too poor sounds like they're acting in their own self interest.....
July 27, 2010 10:22 PM
@martin_metal_88
It is fluid and complete game experience with 2xSSAA. ;)
AA isn't necessary on this game, but it certainly helps a lot in some scenes.
July 27, 2010 10:24 PM
congrats on cleaning up the language a bit, mr unregistered :)
July 28, 2010 12:36 AM
Apparently, there is a workaround to force FSAA in Starcraft II using (newer) AMD/ATi cards:
1. Download the freeware RadeonPro profiling utility from RadeonPro :: Radeon Profiles Tool and install it.
2. Create a profile for Starcraft 2 and point it to Starcraft II's .exe file.
3. Click on the newly created Starcraft II profile.
4. Go to the Tweaks tab, and in the Anti-Aliasing Compatibility section, force the "Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway" Anti-Aliasing Profile.
5. Set your desired FSAA options in the Visual tab for the profile.
6. Start Starcraft II and enjoy it with FSAA.
Make sure to have RadeonPro start with Windows, as it's required to run in the background to switch to the proper profile when you launch the game.
Note that this workaround may not work with some older Radeon cards.
PS.: Renaming the .exe to biahh.exe may also work, but it's nowhere as elegant as using RadeonPro and it may cause issues with the CrossfireX profile being used.
July 28, 2010 12:54 AM
That's great caveman - glad someone knows how to hack better than the entire ati driver teams.
July 28, 2010 02:30 AM
Looks great at 1650 x 1080, don't miss AA IMHO
July 28, 2010 02:38 AM
July 28, 2010 03:38 AM
That's a bit disappointing, just laid 1k$ on a core i5-750 + hd5850 combo. My last card was a Nvidia 9600gt and forcing AA in practically any game was a snap. Not only that, but I also get that weird mipmapping bug ( mipmapping turns off for no reason, can't get it back to work at all ) that forces me to uninstall/reinstall the damn card every few days ( no, just reinstalling drivers and getting back to defaults won't work ) and ATI don't want to listen and fix the damn thing. And don't get me started on the lack of support for Digital Vibrance which is a must if used sparingly.
I usually play low res, still on CRTs ( type in google for CRT vs LCD and the more than 60hz thing, I won't bother here ), and considering this, AA is a GODSEND. Heck I play some games like Mass Effect 2 / CoD WaW and a few more or less recent titles with 8x SUPERSAMPLING ( yes, 8 times the vertical and horizontal res ) at 1152*864 and it looks great. Can't stand the jaggies.
I'm downloading that RadeonPro program right now. Too bad ATI won't support profiles in the CCC, the Nhancer developper asked ATI for it so he could make an ATI version of his wonderfull program, that was ages ago, still no smart moves on ATI's part.
Most probable next choice for a video card for the next rig, take a guess, it most probably won't be red, more like green.
July 28, 2010 08:00 AM
We will miss you, really.
July 30, 2010 03:01 PM
ATI just released the 10.7a beta drivers which include AA support for Starcraft II: GPU-75: ATI Catalyst? 10.7a Beta Driver
July 30, 2010 03:08 PM
Ha. PR and engineering not talking to each other again? It was just 4 days ago they said it would be a while before AA was implemented.
July 30, 2010 03:10 PM
July 30, 2010 03:15 PM
Maybe they decided they wanted to see the actual release game code to ensure it worked properly on it, rather than then having to go back and "fix" the driver AA if there was a problem.
A lot less griping with a non existant game hack than with one that doesn't work......
July 30, 2010 03:16 PM
A lot less griping with a non existant game hack than with one that doesn't work......
July 30, 2010 03:22 PM
By release code I really meant after-the-zeroday-patch-to-fix-the-unforseen-issue-that-came-up-in-the-first-week-of-use release.......
July 30, 2010 03:28 PM
props for the driver team for the short notice* work
*bitching>boss>team=drivers done
July 30, 2010 07:43 PM
August 3, 2010 10:11 AM
If people can stand the graphic in SC1 from 10 years ago. Then I don't see why people can't stand SC2 without AA.
Lastly, **** the people who say ATI is bad. My 5770 works just fine in SC2. Thank you.
August 4, 2010 06:43 AM
anyone found SC2 benches with AA ? (both ATi / nVidia)
August 4, 2010 09:43 AM
I think HWC should do an AA battle in SC2 to follow up on their earlier video card showdown for SC2.
August 4, 2010 01:30 PM
..since drivers came out :) lets see how bad it drops :)
August 4, 2010 01:35 PM
Lastly, **** the people who say ATI is bad. My 5770 works just fine in SC2. Thank you.
Is that a unregistered comment that actually make sens?? probably the only one we can find on a SC2 thread here
August 5, 2010 05:51 AM
Post deletion of facts.. Too hard to swallow the truth eh?
August 5, 2010 06:49 AM
In the past 2 days, you've posted 3 "Pro Nvidia/Anti ATI" and one "ATI owner sad that his card isn't doing AA well" style posts from the same IP.
Now normally, that would just point to your standard garden variety troll, but the fact that your IP points back to a Media Consultant Firm suggests that you're actually a paid troll, and I suspect the only reason you're using your own IP is that we've deleted quite a few trolls over the last few days coming from host/redirect IPs.
So.... either you're a paid troll, or you're an employee of a media consultant firm who really shouldn't be using his/her/it's corporate account to spam web forums.
August 5, 2010 06:56 AM
In the past 2 days, you've posted 3 "Pro Nvidia/Anti ATI" and one "ATI owner sad that his card isn't doing AA well" style posts from the same IP.
Now normally, that would just point to your standard garden variety troll, but the fact that your IP points back to a Media Consultant Firm suggests that you're actually a paid troll, and I suspect the only reason you're using your own IP is that we've deleted quite a few trolls over the last few days coming from host/redirect IPs.
So.... either you're a paid troll, or you're an employee of a media consultant firm who really shouldn't be using his/her/it's corporate account to spam web forums.
August 5, 2010 12:32 PM
If I were you guys I would honestly just disable guest posting altogether. If they want to troll, let them make an account and then you can just ban them and be done with it.