Hi there

I am surprised i don’t get the same result on every computer and more specificly antialiasing is not always applied.

For example, on a laptop with Firefox 16.0.2, with Flash 11.4.402.287, graphics card nvidia GeForce 7400, the render of the view3D is just awfull

I remember i didn’t have this issue with the same computer on a away3D 3.6 application.

Any clues someone ?

Did you actually specify the anti aliasing in the view settings?

yes i did :

Do i have to specify something else?

someone, any idea what could be the source of no anti aliasing on some computers?

Hi guys,

The problem with antialiasing in some computers has different causes, but generally is related with graphic cards drivers support (This is why with Away3D 3.6 didn’t happen the same - 3.x -> CPU and 4.x+ -> GPU). Also antialiasing over 4x is useless at this point because there are no real difference in the graphics results.

Dedicated consoles for video games share similar hardware that runs at the same ghz speed, this makes completely different the environment and the development expectations. Some personal computers (mostly laptops) are/were not designed for this type of graphic pipelines so you have to expect different results with different computers (no matter what technology you use the visual results won’t change).

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

Thanks for this explanation.

Hence, what are the minimum requirements for a graphic card to display a 3D view with antialiasing?

This point seems to me a very big limitation, antialiasing is the least one could expect from a 3d display. Is it due to away3d or stage3d? Is there a way in away3d 4 to be backward compatible and support CPU instead of GPU?

Hi aeki,

I’m glad this information could help you in some way.

Graphic cards manufacturers don’t support AA, and other shading and computational improvements in some chipsets because they are aware of the stress that the hardware is exposed to. Stressed machines block and require forced reinitialization and that is not cool for the users.

The performance of your graphic card also depends on your processor and bus speed supported by your CPU/main board. This means that the same Nvidia GeForce 7400 can support AA in conjunction with another faster or more compatible processor for example, so it is hard to give a proper AA black list of graphic cards in general.

Indeed there is a big limitation in this moment, but it’s a matter of time to be fixed. If the issue is this possible hardware compatibility, then there is no solution with Away3D or Stage3D and basically you will have the same visual results independently of the technology used (Flash, Unity, UDK, etc). And unfortunately it is not possible to use the CPU instead of the GPU using Stage3D or any other similar technologies.

Flash Player Chrome in windows is having AA problems in past weeks and is not because of the problem described above.

Cheers.

Thanks for your reply.

2 points which is still not clear to me :

  > Is this limitation due to Stage3D in general or Away3D in particular?

> you say “it is a matter of time to be fixed” : are you so sure, as I can’t see anything about AA in any roadmap? On the contrary, One can read on the adobe flash roadmap that : “Adobe will not add support for new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.)”. Does this mean that iPad will never support AA?

cheers,

My pleasure

Is this limitation due to Stage3D in general or Away3D in particular?

No, it is not a particular issue of Stage3D or Away3D. This means you get this limitation with other platforms too.

“it is a matter of time to be fixed”

I’m assuming that hardware and computers fabricators will produce better and more uniform hardware for gaming and high-end 3D graphics in the upcoming years, specially for portable personal computers, like they did when HD video appeared for example.

“Adobe will not add support for new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.)”

I think this is related with no further development of the browser based Flash Player in mobile devices. You can take a look to their list of unsupported hardware here. No antialiasing information can be found on this list and is only information for PC machines.

iOS 4.x+ (iPad2+, iPhone4+) supports antialiasing until 4x with OpenGL, but I’m not sure if AIR is taking advantage of that.

Cheers.

Thanks for taking time on this topic

You can take a look to their list of unsupported hardware here. No antialiasing information can be found on this list and is only information for PC machines.

Thanks, i’ve checked the link. I can read on this page that

This document lists the GPUs chipsets and graphics drivers not supported by the Stage3D feature introduced in Flash Player 11 (desktop) and AIR 3 (desktop). In such a scenario, your content still runs, but Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 will fallback to software rendering.

Note that using the Stage3D APIs ensures you that even when using software rendering, your content should perform significantly faster (around 10x in some cases) than with previous versions of the Flash Player or Adobe AIR.

This means that software rendering does not support antialiasing, correct? So is there any workaround ? Special techniques in setting up the scene in order to minimize the aliasing effect?

Concerning iOS devices, can someone confirm this point :

iOS 4.x+ (iPad2+, iPhone4+) supports antialiasing until 4x with OpenGL, but I’m not sure if AIR is taking advantage of that.

Hi,

As for today AIR / Away3D / Stage3D anti-aliasing of 3D-content is disabled for all mobile devices on the runtime-side.

This means that the edges of your 3d-object will always be jagged on a mobile device, no matter what value you set on View3D.antiAlias property. On HiDPI devices (e.g. Retina Display) the jaggedness is less obvious, but still clearly visible. And no, you currently can’t make this better, i.e. “supersharp”.

You could use a FXAA-filter, but this solution doesn’t make runtime-side-anti-aliasing redundant. The only filter I could find for Away3D is this one, shared by iY0Yi:

FXAAFilter3D: https://gist.github.com/iY0Yi/9214675
Filter3DFXAATask: https://gist.github.com/iY0Yi/9214656

There is a new feature-request on Adobe Bugbase concerning stage3D anti-aliasing on mobile devices I would strongly encourage you to vote for:
https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=4101164

Thank you & good luck with your 3D mobile app.