Is it possible to make a hardware AA device.

[tipdrill]

I was doing a little day dreaming on my lunch break when I cam up with an idea which i though to be insane but couldn't under why is was not possible.

My understanding of AA (anti-aliasing) is that rough edges are softened my blurring them slightly- both the pixels that make up the edge and the pixels surrounding it. Why does this have do be run in the software via the game engine, API, or graphics driver?

Why could this not be done by a piece of hardware placed in between the graphics card and the monitor? If someone told me that for $100 there was an external device that would take the AA load off my GPU at 4xAA up to some high resolution and that it didn't matter which card i was using i'd say 'f..k yeah'.

IE a device that without software receives the raw video data either via vga or dvi cable and outputs a filtered video.
The device would have such good longevity because you'd be able to upgrade your system without getting a new one.

Not there might need to be an external power source or a usb cable to make sure that the device only turns on when an api is initialized, i'd be happy with that.

So start cutting me down, I want to know why this product doesn't exist. But if you patent it ill kill you.

 

[nukemaster]

this device would not be able to just blur or else it would also make any sharp textures blur.... for the most part the AA is done with the video hardware to begin with. They would have to integrate it into the video card it self....

If i remember right there is a way to implement a performance hit free AA(it was like 2x or maybe 4x. they had it listed here on THG when it first came out...). they did something in the Xbox 360 to give it a low level of FREE AA... I do hope something like this comes with future NV and ATI cards....you never know....dreams come true....

 

[Heyyou27]

It does not simply "blur" the edge, but that's not really the point anyways. Currently the only GPU that offers a penalty free form of antialiasing is the the Xbox360 GPU "Xenos" as it has integrated eDRAM which offers up to 4xAA at no performance penalty as long as it's able to fit within the frame buffer at 720p.

 

[Harrisson]

Yes it would be very nice to have free 4x AA in the cards but its not done yet (except Xbox360 gpu), and I wonder myself why not? Whats the problem of integrating eDRAM in 88xx or 38xx? Ofc it would cost additional die, but imagine the advertising possibilities! For once gamers would actualy want to hear about such feature and gladly buy the card with decent performance and free 4x AA.

Lets say we have slower 3870 than 8800GTX, but with free 4x AA ATI would be actualy faster in most games than GTX with antialiasing, or at least perform similarly. We would have a killer card, for which AMD could charge more and sell even better, which would offset additional eDRAM cost IMO.

 

[MagicPants]

This is a little off topic but is there any video hardware out there that does sub-pixel rendering in 3d scenes? because that would be cool.