8x fsaa vs 16x fsaa?

[Corporate Thug]

is there a noticable difference 8x af and 16x af?

 

[Tetsuo]

I personally don't notice a difference.

 

[clicknext]

Wow, there's 8x and 16x now? I didn't even know, I thought there was still only 4x.

 

[Tetsuo]

I think he means anisotropic

 

[Hanzou]

Isn't the max 8x AA and 16xAF?

 

[1ManArmY]

yup

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

I notice some difference, not a whole lot though.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

If you're talking about:

AF - Anisotropic Filtering
Diminishing returns at 8X, I've found. Not worth the FPS drop.
Lossless PNG of bilinear-8XAF scaling

AA - Anti-Aliasing
There currently is no such thing as 16X AA using supersampling. The Matrox P-series chipsets perform 16X Edge-AA, which looks bitchin' but does not affect the non-edge texture sharpness at all.

- M4H

 

[edmundoab]

im gaming WC 3 The Frozen Throne with 6x AA and 16x AF
frankly, I lowered the details to 4x AA and 8x AF.. and didn't see any difference..

maybe in other games I will get a noticable difference,
for example Halo.

 

[edmundoab]

Originally posted by: Hanzou
Isn't the max 8x AA and 16xAF?

I think Nvidia used to have 8x AA,
but they ran into alot of bugs and all problems...

 

[BFG10K]

16x AF does make a visible difference at long range (i.e. things stay sharper for longer) and games with large outdoor areas like the Serious Sams show a large difference.

16x performance AF is basically free on ATi's cards so there's no reason to drop any lower.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: edmundoab

Originally posted by: Hanzou
Isn't the max 8x AA and 16xAF?

I think Nvidia used to have 8x AA,
but they ran into alot of bugs and all problems...

I can use 8X AA with my FX5900... looks about the same as ATI's 4X AA... nVidia is definately behind ATI in that area. 4X AA on my FX5900 looks about like 2X on ATI hardware.

 

[oldfart]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: edmundoab

Originally posted by: Hanzou
Isn't the max 8x AA and 16xAF?

I think Nvidia used to have 8x AA,
but they ran into alot of bugs and all problems...

I can use 8X AA with my FX5900... looks about the same as ATI's 4X AA... nVidia is definately behind ATI in that area. 4X AA on my FX5900 looks about like 2X on ATI hardware.

I think review sites should run benches this way. ATi 2X AA Vs nV 4XAA and ATi 4xAA VS nV 8XAA, since this provides ~ the same actual level of AA quality. Instead of equal AA "settings" which may have the same "X AA number", but not the same level of AA, use what actually looks the same. The same goes with AF, but that is a more complicated setting to make equal in IQ between the two cards.

 

[Pete]

As M4H noted, FSAA != AF.

FSAA = full-scene anti-aliasing. This mainly refers to smoothing "jagged" or "stair-stepped" lines. I'm actually not sure if the multi-sample AA found in current consumer 3D cards is actually "full-scene," as it doesn't affect everything in view--just polygon edges. Older, slower super-sample AA was actually full-scene, as it rendered everything at a higher resolution, then down-sampled that to the screen res.

AF = anisotropic filtering. This basically refers to rendering textures not perpendicular to the camera with more detail. I don't think you'll see a huge difference between 16x and 8x AF, especially with the adaptive/restricted methods nV and ATi use to apply AF. Currently, the AF level you set is just the maximum AF applied to textures at certain angles; most of the rest of the screen textures have lower levels of AF applied. You can see the actual difference between 16xAF and 8xAF on ATi cards by looking for older reviews (your best bet is probably those of the 8500 or 9700 Pro at release) with Serious Sam or Quake 3 screenshots with colored MIP-map levels, to make it easy to see the technical difference. Whether you'll notice the difference in-game, I don't have enough experience switching between the two to say for sure.

 

[Pete]

Originally posted by: oldfart
I think review sites should run benches this way. ATi 2X AA Vs nV 4XAA and ATi 4xAA VS nV 8XAA, since this provides ~ the same actual level of AA quality. Instead of equal AA "settings" which may have the same "X AA number", but not the same level of AA, use what actually looks the same. The same goes with AF, but that is a more complicated setting to make equal in IQ between the two cards.

I'd love for this to happen, but I'm not sure reviewers have the time for this. At the very least, they don't seem to have the inclination to take on the sheer work that such a review would entail. I'd love to see a profitable site (that can afford the initial "R&D" to determine comparable settings) take a shot at it, though.

The easiest alternative for reviewers (shifting the work of determining comparable settings to the reader) would be to bench some regular settings, provide screenshots of multiple games with each setting, and then allow the reader to view a custom benchmark table with graphs of IQ settings they deem comparable from the screenshots.

(Heh, it appears "st a b" is a four-letter word to this forum--I was forced to change it before submitting my post. I used "shot" instead. 😀)

 

[Matthias99]

I'm pretty sure that the AA is referred to as "full-scene" because it's applied to the entire picture (as opposed to just portions of it). Multisampling AA just doesn't *do* anything in areas where there isn't a noticeable change in color between adjacent pixels, which saves a lot of processor time. Super-Sampling AA is forced to go over everything (which, in theory, looks better, but I'd estimate that roughly 90% of the noticeable difference and maybe 10-20% of the work is in the edges where colors sharply change).

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: Hanzou
Isn't the max 8x AA and 16xAF?

ATI`s max is 6xFSAA and 16xAF.
nVidia max is 16xFSAA and 8xAF. AFAIK.

 

[Mem]

You can use 16x AF performance setting on ATi cards(especially 9600 Pro and above) with virtually no performance hit,if you go to quality setting then you`ll get serious drop in FPS in gaming.