2D graphics on the GPU is not an open research problem in practice. In real life you either use Direct2D or OpenGL/Vulkan/Direct3D and just... ignore a dimension.
Yes, MSAA 16x is incredibly expensive on mobile devices, and it provides a worse result than a coverage based approach. But MSAA 16x is done by an asic, and is simpler than coverage based AA. It is not even close in performance. A GPU ROP trounces any programmable compute unit as far as performance, it's not even closed. It is done by pecialized, in silico hardware. And in practice MSAA 8x is more than good enough, especially on mobile devices. You certainly will not notice a difference on a phone with a density of 563 dpi between MSAA 4x and 8x, let alone 16x and coverage based.
At those scales, the resolution of the phone is literally greater than the optical resolution of the optical system that is your eyes. There is no point in anything beyond MSAA 4x in reality, and a lot of people with displays in the 200 dpi range just use 2X MSAA while they could use 8X MSAA because they really can't tell the difference.
The final nail in the coffin is that these compute-based rasterization engines so far more or less match the performance of CPU rasterization. This is simply unacceptable when GPU direct rasterization can give results nearly indistinguishable at multiple times the performance and much less power usage. This is literally taking something done by a highly optimized, 12-7nm ASIC, and trying to do it through compute for a tiny improvement. It's absurd.
Yes, MSAA 16x is incredibly expensive on mobile devices, and it provides a worse result than a coverage based approach. But MSAA 16x is done by an asic, and is simpler than coverage based AA. It is not even close in performance. A GPU ROP trounces any programmable compute unit as far as performance, it's not even closed. It is done by pecialized, in silico hardware. And in practice MSAA 8x is more than good enough, especially on mobile devices. You certainly will not notice a difference on a phone with a density of 563 dpi between MSAA 4x and 8x, let alone 16x and coverage based.
At those scales, the resolution of the phone is literally greater than the optical resolution of the optical system that is your eyes. There is no point in anything beyond MSAA 4x in reality, and a lot of people with displays in the 200 dpi range just use 2X MSAA while they could use 8X MSAA because they really can't tell the difference.
The final nail in the coffin is that these compute-based rasterization engines so far more or less match the performance of CPU rasterization. This is simply unacceptable when GPU direct rasterization can give results nearly indistinguishable at multiple times the performance and much less power usage. This is literally taking something done by a highly optimized, 12-7nm ASIC, and trying to do it through compute for a tiny improvement. It's absurd.