There's nothing inherent in UE 4 that does it. It happens in all games when you get to sub-pixel levels. Fyi, in UE 4 this method of AA can be disabled on a per actor basis. For example you can disable it on some particle effects, or on characters or whatever.

That's intersting, how come I've not seen that effect (strange white flickering pixels related to lighting) in any of the games I've ever played?

That's intersting, how come I've not seen that effect (strange white flickering pixels related to lighting) in any of the games I've ever played?

Well it presents differently depending on the game and honestly it's significantly worse with the lighting in UE, at least in my experience with UE4 SDK. But yeah if you google "Texture Shimmering" and search for videos you can find examples of it. Here are a few: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlg4C0_3fUM (Notice the flickering/shimmering in the highlights) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pellQfXMBBg (You can see it here on the fence + floor) It's actually funny because there are other games like BF4 where if you pay attention it's definitely noticeable but most people are so caught up in the game that it doesn't really matter.

I have never seen this effect to that extreme in any games I have played in the past. Sure I've seen a flicker here and there, but this video looks like it has been deliberately rendered poorly so they can say their new AA is better than anyone elses. I have seen other videos of the U4 engine that have none of this flickering at all. How about instead of coming up with new AA techniques that make your GFX engine sound more impressive than it really is, you actually build a graphics engine that doesn't have these flaws to begin with ?

I have never seen this effect to that extreme in any games I have played in the past. Sure I've seen a flicker here and there, but this video looks like it has been deliberately rendered poorly so they can say their new AA is better than anyone elses. How about instead of coming up with new AA techniques that make your GFX engine sound more impressive than it really is, you actually build a graphics engine that doesn't have these flaws to begin with ?

Yeah because 99% of games you played in the past didn't use subpixel shaders + specular lighting and if they did they minimize it because of issues like this. And they are building a graphics engine that doesn't have these flaws, that's the entire purpose of the AA... Edit: You edited your comment to say that you haven't' seen it in other videos. It's been in the engine since it shipped, it's not new to 4.4.

Temporal AA, that's nothing new for ENB users 🙂

Well it presents differently depending on the game and honestly it's significantly worse with the lighting in UE, at least in my experience with UE4 SDK. But yeah if you google "Texture Shimmering" and search for videos you can find examples of it. Here are a few: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlg4C0_3fUM (Notice the flickering/shimmering in the highlights) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pellQfXMBBg (You can see it here on the fence + floor) It's actually funny because there are other games like BF4 where if you pay attention it's definitely noticeable but most people are so caught up in the game that it doesn't really matter.

Thanks for the info, I can definitely see what you mean in the Skyrim clip. I played Skyrim for a while, and I actually liked that shimmering in that clip, for me it made it look more vibrant & magical in some ways - even if it was an 'error' or 'limitation'. Yes, it looks significantly worse in the UE4 non AA demo though!

Temporal AA, that's nothing new for ENB users 🙂

I mean the idea of temporal AA has been around forever but this implementation of it is really good. I know the vast majority of people here are just watching the video but download the power point presentation from the video too -- it explains how it works and why they made certain decisions and how it's superior to previous iterations.

First thing I noticed is that the frame rate dropped off by almost half...;) But aside from that, "Temporal AA" is hardly new. ATi/AMD supported Temporal AA in its drivers for years before it was replaced by superior forms of AA, like supersampling, for instance. Last I heard, Epic's had its snout buried in the rear end of consoles for the last decade or so, so I'd imagine that Epic is going to be just a bit behind the curve on just about everything. IMO, "falling behind" is the whole reason Epic got out of the PC business long years ago--just couldn't keep up. Console money was easier and more convenient and less demanding--lower standards, etc. Pretty much, Sweeney mirrored Carmack in that respect. I think that like id, Epic was always better at engine-programming than game development. Until and unless Epic fully recommits to PC support I'm afraid the company won't be able to do anything that will impress me. (Back in the original Unreal/Return days, I was mightily impressed with Epic & Sweeney--until they jumped ship and sold out.)

Since AA + resolution are two of the highest drains on performance, won't AA become less and less relevant as higher and higher resolution screens become normal? To the point where you are running at a massive resolution and only need a very small amount of AA.

First thing I noticed is that the frame rate dropped off by almost half...;) But aside from that, "Temporal AA" is hardly new. ATi/AMD supported Temporal AA in its drivers for years before it was replaced by superior forms of AA, like supersampling, for instance. Last I heard, Epic's had its snout buried in the rear end of consoles for the last decade or so, so I'd imagine that Epic is going to be just a bit behind the curve on just about everything. IMO, "falling behind" is the whole reason Epic got out of the PC business long years ago--just couldn't keep up. Console money was easier and more convenient and less demanding--lower standards, etc. Pretty much, Sweeney mirrored Carmack in that respect. I think that like id, Epic was always better at engine-programming than game development. Until and unless Epic fully recommits to PC support I'm afraid the company won't be able to do anything that will impress me. (Back in the original Unreal/Return days, I was mightily impressed with Epic & Sweeney--until they jumped ship and sold out.)

You make it sound as if Epic is behind the curve on Temporal AA because AMD has had it forever.. They aren't even close to the same type of implementation. Temporal AA is about as generic of a term as 'bread'. The rest of your post is just console-hate whine bull****. Some of the best games on PC in the last decade were on Unreal 3 and those games probably had the best cross-platform support of any engine. Mass Effect, Bioshock, the whole batman series, borderlands, mirror's edge, etc were all games that ran and looked great on both PC and consoles. I fail to see how Epic was behind. Oh and Gears of War was probably one of the most fun games I've ever played, so to imply that they suck at game development is laughable. I really despise this idea that a company has to cater to specific demographic or they get shunned as sellouts. It's literally like emo whine level of stupid. I remember when I thought everything was about me, I grew out of that when I turned twelve. "Damn Tim Sweeney for using his skill to create a scalable bridge between console and PC!!!!!1!1oneone". In the meantime Epic is putting out tech demos on iPads that look as good as current generation consoles and delivering some of the best looking PC graphic concepts simultaneously. They are soon to be building out weekly alpha's of UT4 on both Linux and MAC while already doing it on PC. They are developing two free to play PC only games. And they are doing all this on an engine that's affordable by indie devs, open source, supports the latest technologies and is easy to use. Yep, **** those guys /s.

meh still too blurry.. And if it has big hit, bigger then lets say PostAA (2xSMAA ,etc) then they can keep it until further notice :P

Temporal AA is TXAA is it not? Either way No AA image had shimmering all over the place, the Temporal AA did not. I honestly didnt see an jaggies as Youtube compression is terrible and most video trying to show off AA fail miserable as a result. AA is one those thing you have to see in person on your own PC to actual form a opinion of

Yeah YT is not a good example, although it looked very smooth with it, but also lost some detail - tiny reflections, finer texture detail.. imo TXAA does it even worse, don't like it in any game so far and I own 4-5 of them old and new.

I just blow stuff up, no aa for me taa 😀

Both methods are wrong. While their no-AA causes a lot of lighting artifacts their temp.AA implementation reduces even reflection where there should be. I would like it to be somewhere in the middle as that environment while very wet and full of light sources gave impression of very dry environment with just few additional light sources to ambient. Basically it reminded me of regular sunny day which took away big part of atmosphere which those artifacts gave it before. So I hope they reduce effect of this or chose some middle way.

Both methods are wrong. While their no-AA causes a lot of lighting artifacts their temp.AA implementation reduces even reflection where there should be. I would like it to be somewhere in the middle as that environment while very wet and full of light sources gave impression of very dry environment with just few additional light sources to ambient. Basically it reminded me of regular sunny day which took away big part of atmosphere which those artifacts gave it before. So I hope they reduce effect of this or chose some middle way.

Yes, I agree, both examples were bad, they need some sort of a middle ground. I just hope games aren't launched using the UE4 engine that 'require' temporal AA to remove these lighting anomalies, this would be sad, I'd like to be able to play UE4 games using non-blurring MSAA while not having to live with significant lighting artifacts as seen in this video.