AA and AF good in moderation - Tabb sucks.

[BenSkywalker]

lol, but neither you nore the article explains the absurd level of zoom you need to see the difference or the fact that ati's implementation is based on directx specs. ati didn't cut corners here, nvidia just went an extra step. rather a much to-do about nothing.

I don't need an extreme zoom to notice that it introduces considerably more aliasing then nVidia. I was griping about that fact a year ago and was continually told by numerous ATi supporters that I was seeing things(although at the time I was blaming it entirely on ATi's LOD bias selection when that wasn't the whole issue). You are right that ATi is within DX specs, it is the extra steps that nVidia took that makes their solution better in this case. Once you are used to the higher level of filtering quality on say the NV2X parts, the R300 offerings do look noticeably inferior in terms of filtering quality(although significantly faster).

 

[edmundoab]

Originally posted by: VIAN
AA never ever completely removes all the jaggies. Even at 8x Nvidia still has some jaggies. AA just makes a little less jaggies and definitely isn't worth the performance.

depends on what kind of games you are playing,
if it does affect gaming performance with AA and AF on, by all means turn it off,
who wants smooth edges but lagging ...??

 

[BFG10K]

True

No, false. That colour wheel isn't terribly useful at showing realistic gaming conditions.

nVidia's AF method can potentially sample more angles but ATi's AF method tends to stay sharper for longer distances on the angles it does sample.

You pick a real game and try to break ATi's AF. Trust me, it's almost impossible. On extremely rare occasions you'll spot such an angle but for all practical purposes it's superior to nVidia's method the majority of the time.

 

[Gagabiji]

Everygame, I can show you.

Show us then. I don't believe for a second that at 1600x1200 with 8x AA and AF you can see jaggies.

 

[Jeff7181]

I have noticed one thing about nVidia's drivers... not EVERY edge gets AA treatment. In Call of Duty, I just finished the mission where I'm on the boat and you destroy the radar computery things. Well in the next mission, you start on a boat... certain parts of the hand rail are not anti-aliased. I'll take a screen shot in a few minutes.

This is with 4X Quality AA...

here's a bitmap... enlarge it to show it better (about 500KB)

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: Pete
What card are you using, VIAN? nV will have poorer AA than ATi (though 8xAA should be equal to ATi's 4x), and their AF doesn't reach as far into the background as ATi's.

Though I must admit I'm baffled why you think both suck. Even the bilinear-only AF on my 9100 is a huge improvement from none at all. And 8xAA really shows jaggies at 16x12?(!)

Actually I used both nvidia and ati before, and I'd say nvidia's 4xS and 6xS modes are easily comparable to ATI's AA.
AF, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a difference in AF quality. But then again, nvidia takes a MUCH larger hit doing AF.

 

[FrustratedUser]

Originally posted by: VIAN
AA never ever completely removes all the jaggies. Even at 8x Nvidia still has some jaggies. AA just makes a little less jaggies and definitely isn't worth the performance.

The only way to make it look good is actually to use a fuzzy CRT LOL! Jaggies = gone.

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I have noticed one thing about nVidia's drivers... not EVERY edge gets AA treatment. In Call of Duty, I just finished the mission where I'm on the boat and you destroy the radar computery things. Well in the next mission, you start on a boat... certain parts of the hand rail are not anti-aliased. I'll take a screen shot in a few minutes.

This is with 4X Quality AA...

here's a bitmap... enlarge it to show it better (about 500KB)

the red area is pointing to alpha textures, which mulitsampleing cannot do anything to fix. the alising being pointed to by the green arow is due to the ordered grid sampleing method nvidia uses, nearly horizonal lines will show noticeable alising.

 

[VIAN]

"Some antialiasing settings require a large amount of video memory. If the mode you requested requires more video memory than available and you see unexpected results, try selecting the next lower mode, and so on, until you achieve the desired result. You may also want to experiment with different screen resolutions, refresh rates, and/or color depths until you arrive at a setting or combination of settings for antialiasing to work."

This was written as a AA tip in the Driver User's Guide. Guess it explains it all... mostly.

 

[Viper96720]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I have noticed one thing about nVidia's drivers... not EVERY edge gets AA treatment. In Call of Duty, I just finished the mission where I'm on the boat and you destroy the radar computery things. Well in the next mission, you start on a boat... certain parts of the hand rail are not anti-aliased. I'll take a screen shot in a few minutes.

This is with 4X Quality AA...

here's a bitmap... enlarge it to show it better (about 500KB)

No wonder VIAN thinks AA sucks. Stupid Nvidia doesn't even fix the jaggies all the time. I played call of duty demo with a 9500pro and didn't notice jaggies like that.

 

[yhelothar]

fences don't antialias... here's a screenie of my radeon 9700pro @ 4xAA..
ATI @ 4xAA

 

[VIAN]

They are sprites, not polygons.

 

[McArra]

Have a look at this screenshot , I think quality is superb (jpeg has made it worse though).
NFSU: 1280x1024 2xAA 16xAF performance in 9700Pro.

Now tell me how big the jaggies are.

 

[VIAN]

I can still see many jaggies, although the picture looks great, it is compressed and it would look a lot worse in real life.

 

[McArra]

Originally posted by: VIAN
I can still see many jaggies, although the picture looks great, it is compressed and it would look a lot worse in real life.

It looks better, a lot sharper in textures and with less jaggies in real life.... I can tell you 😉

Edit: and while playing looks a lot better 🙂

 

[VIAN]

Here it is. 1280x960x32; high quality in-game master control; 2xAA and 8xAF.

 

[McArra]

Good quality but as you can notice antialiasing isn't as good as ati's. I'll post a pic of taht circuit in some minutes.

 

[McArra]

This is a similar screenshot. As you can notice, jaggies are visible, but less than those in your screenshot.
link

 

[VIAN]

They look very similar.

 

[McArra]

And without AA/AF the same screenshot: link

Sure it doesn't make a difference?

 

[Sunner]

I agree with VIAN to a degree.

I don't think they're useless, but I don't think they're a big improvement either.
I have a 9800 but I rarely use AA or AF, the major exception would be Freespace 1&2 where I use AA since they can't go higher than 640x480 and 1024x768 respectively.
Sure, if I turn on AA/AF in Max Payne, CS, or Quake, I can see a difference, but when Im actually playing them rather than just looking at them, I see no difference whatsoever compared to "vanilla" 1600x1200.

Of course I never play any flight sims, the closest to that would be the Freespaces.

 

[VIAN]

Here is another one. This one has better contrast than the other one, making it easier to see the jaggies.

Game:
1280x960
High Detail
Driver:
High Performance
2x AA
no AF
100Hz Override
FPS:
40-50

 

[McArra]

Look at the difference between texture quality in the houses for example, it's huge with AF on. Have you seen my screens with and w/o AA/AF? The difference is very big, and I can notice it while playing a lot.

 

[VIAN]

But is it worth the performance drop. Depending on your framerate likes. 30fps is enough. Who here plays Halo at much more than that?

Wow, look at the difference between the screen shots. Yours is dark and mine is light.

 

[McArra]

It is al least in the games I play. They look much better and have no lag at all. Maybe it is another story in another games, but not in mines hopefully 🙂