In the preivous version there was native resolution AO, why has it been removed?

In the sample and in the CACAO code there exist some incorrect resource barriers and issues creating d3d12 validation errors. These are a known issue and will be fixed in the next push to CACAO.

First of all, thank you for your hard work and for making this open-source! It is genuinely appreciated by those of us looking to learn from examples, and looking to benefit off your hard work in our engines. :)

Background

I am a contributor to Godot which is an open-source game engine. We have been evaluating new methods for SSAO for a few months now. We were planning on using ASSAO when we found out about CACAO. However, once trying CACAO v1.1 we noticed the quality did not match the promotional images at all. However, we noticed CACAO v1.0 looks great!

The Issues

• V1.1 substantially reduces the quality of CACAO compared to v1.0.

• V1.1 restricts itself to only using the downsampled version edit I now see the note in ffx_cacao.h

  FidelityFX-CACAO/ffx-cacao/inc/ffx_cacao.h

  Lines 25 to 29 in ac4b575

  	// In future it is planned that FidelityFX CACAO will allow SSAO generation at native resolution.
  	// However, at the current time the performance/image quality trade off is poor, and further optimisation
  	// work is being carried out. If you wish to experiment with native resolution SSAO generation enable this
  	// flag. Integrating FidelityFX CACAO into games with native resolution enabled is currently not recommended.
  	// #define FFX_CACAO_ENABLE_NATIVE_RESOLUTION

• V1.1 is blurred much more heavily than the downsampled version in V1.0

• In V1.1 "adaptive quality" doesn't actually impact the image quality, even when set to "highest quality"

I have included screenshots below to illustrate the issue.

Could these issues be addressed in a subsequent point release or a bug fixing commit? I ask because I am unfamiliar with your development approach/priorities. For us working on Godot, we would love to see these issues addressed and then we could port CACAO directly into Godot. But if not, we totally understand. Thanks anyway!

Version 1.0:

Version 1.1:

Version 1.0 downsampled

Im using the latest AMD driver 20.4.2 and builded from source. Same happends with the release build.

Hello,

I found some disparities in quality levels in the code. Could you comment on It whether I am missing something, or It is indeed a bug?

In fx_cacao.cpp on line 1974 the importance map is generated only if the level is Highest (4) which seems correct.

if (context->settings.qualityLevel == FFX_CACAO_QUALITY_HIGHEST) {
  // generate importance map code
}

BUT, in fx_cacaco.hlsl for level HIGH (3) you call GenerateSSAOShadowsInternal with qualityLevel = 3 and adaptiveBase = false which results in:

static const uint g_numTaps[5] = { 3, 5, 12, 0, 0 };
// ... later
const int numberOfTaps = (adaptiveBase) ? (SSAO_ADAPTIVE_TAP_BASE_COUNT) : (g_numTaps[qualityLevel]);

^ number of taps being 0! which I believe should be 12 as in https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/articles/adaptive-screen-space-ambient-occlusion.html.

and

if ((qualityLevel != 3) || adaptiveBase)
{

}
else // if ( qualityLevel == 3 ) adaptive approach
{
 // ...
 float importance = g_ImportanceMap.SampleLevel(g_LinearClampSampler, fullResUV, 0.0).x;
 // ...
}

^ you sample from a map that is not generated. Because level 3 (High) is not the adaptive one. That is 4. I believe the if should be qualityLevel !=4.

This claim is made:

(CACAO) is a highly optimized adaptive sampling ambient occlusion implementation.

But there's no data available how much better it does vs Intel's ASSAO or Nvidia's HBAO+ or VXAO.

Will such data be made available on a later date?