Can someone give me a quick rundown on AA and anisotropic and where they need to be set?

[BrunoPuntzJones]

I've fiddled with AA before and have been...well less than impressed. Even at 4x I can't tell much of a difference. I currently run everything in 1600x1200 with no aniso and no aa and everything runs real nice like. Now for the questions.

Is aniso availible in D3d? because I only see it in openGL.

Do these need to be set in the game or set from the control panel display thing? Will one override the other? Like if I disable it in control panel can I still enable it from inside the game? And if the game doesn't have the option will enabling it from control panel "turn it on"?

Under AA I have 2x, Quin, 4x, and 4xS. iirc quin is the best compromise, but can look like pooh. What is 4xS?

What do the different aniso options mean? I really don't know much about it. Just scales from 2x, 4x, and 8x. I've heard it refered to as 32tap or 64tap etc, but don't see such options.

Sorry for the n00b questions, but as long as I have been able to run 1600x1200 with everything maxed I'm happy. Just wondering what I'm missing out on with this stuff.

 

[sxr7171]

Yes Anisotropic filtering is available in D3d, but you need a tweaker program or know how to do the registry tweaks. I use GeForce tweaker to enable Anisotropic filtering.

In my opinion: at the resolution you're running at AA doesn't make a big difference, since aliasing is pretty benign at 1600x1200. On the other hand , if you enable 64-tap anisotropic filtering (using a tweaking program) you will see the biggest difference in quality you have ever seen. I tried in GTA3 at only 1280x1024, and 64-tap Aniso gets rid of all the 'twinkles' you see when you drive around. The most amazing thing was the textures were so sharp that all the billboards, and storefronts looked real. You could stand in front of the restaurant in "times square" area in Staunton island and the texture that was trying to create a glass front restaurant gave me the most realistic simulation of the depth of a restaurant behind glass that I have seen recreated by a texture in a video game.

It makes a big difference on games with big textures like GTA3, it didn't make such a big impression on me in Half-Life. Try it now, and let me know what you think.

 

[Sukhoi]

Interesting, I have those exact same questions.

How much does anisotropic filtering slow down games compared to AA?

Does GeForce Tweaker work with 29.42 drivers? On the website it says it works with 29.20 and doesn't work with 29.60, but doesn't mention 29.42.

 

[Emultra]

Pretty much. The Parhelia has an advantage in Anisotropic Filtering in the fact that it doesn't have as much impact on the performance. Not that the Parhelia (currently) has much of a performance in the first place, anyway. :/

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: Sukhoi
Interesting, I have those exact same questions.

How much does anisotropic filtering slow down games compared to AA?

Does GeForce Tweaker work with 29.42 drivers? On the website it says it works with 29.20 and doesn't work with 29.60, but doesn't mention 29.42.

I'm using it right now with 29.42. You will be amazed!

 

[Sukhoi]

Ok, I'll have to try it out with GTA3 tomorrow.

 

[spanky]

AA usually hammers my FPS when i play CS. AF's FPS hit is not much at all

 

[AnAndAustin]

It does depend a little on the game engine and its implimentation of both AA and Aniso.

1600x1200 should look about as good as 800x600xAA, the real advantage is being able to run much higher refresh rates (ensure you have tweaked the likes of WinXP which likes using default refresh rates). Also, on GF4 cards the latter should be faster.

Basicly the GF4 AA options break down as so:

2xAA takes about 10% perf hit but only fully corrects about half of the jaggies, still keeps textures relatively sharp.
QxAA takes about 10% perf hit and gives very near 4xAA BUT results in blurrier textures.
4xAA takes about 30% perf hit correcting all jaggies and still keeps textures relatively sharp.
4xS AA takes about 40% (?) perf hit and corrects all jaggies AND keeps textures very sharp by implimenting some SS-AA (other modes are fully MS-AA).

2xAniso takes about 10% perf and sharpens game textures, all that is ever really necessary although 4xAni and 8xAni are also available. __tap is just another way of refering to Ani, like DDR333 and PC2700 both refer to the same thing.

Without AA you won't see much diff with Ani, with QxAA the diff is amazing giving better than 4xAA looks and perf. 4xS was designed for DX as Ani isn't officially supported under DX, only OpenGL. If you override via the control panel the game is forced to use those settings, intended to force AA etc in games that don't directly support it, not guaranteed to work though. So in short enabling QxAA and Ani is usually by far the best combination, great quality and small perf hit. This is all to the best of my knowledge and IMHO.

 

[Sukhoi]

Thank you very much for the extensive rundown! I'll have to try those settings out soon on GTA3.

A few weeks ago I was playing around with AA settings with GTA3, and I seem to remember a larger performance drop. If I remember right I was running 1024x768 perfectly smooth yet when I enabled QxAA it really started to stutter. Any idea why? I could be getting this stuff mixed up and maybe I enabled 4xS AA which would certainly explain the stuttering.

 

[AnAndAustin]

If it is QxAA & Ani (lowest setting is best) then you may need to drop the res, you should find 800x600x32 QxAA & Ani much better than 1024x768x32 2xAA and 1280x1024x32 without AA (if not 1600x1200x32 noAA). Applying AA and Ani does depend upon the game engine and implimentation of AA & Ani, so you really need to experiment with every game.

 

[Actaeon]

Originally posted by: AnAndAustin
It does depend a little on the game engine and its implimentation of both AA and Aniso.

1600x1200 should look about as good as 800x600xAA, the real advantage is being able to run much higher refresh rates (ensure you have tweaked the likes of WinXP which likes using default refresh rates). Also, on GF4 cards the latter should be faster.

Basicly the GF4 AA options break down as so:

2xAA takes about 10% perf hit but only fully corrects about half of the jaggies, still keeps textures relatively sharp.
QxAA takes about 10% perf hit and gives very near 4xAA BUT results in blurrier textures.
4xAA takes about 30% perf hit correcting all jaggies and still keeps textures relatively sharp.
4xS AA takes about 40% (?) perf hit and corrects all jaggies AND keeps textures very sharp by implimenting some SS-AA (other modes are fully MS-AA).

2xAniso takes about 10% perf and sharpens game textures, all that is ever really necessary although 4xAni and 8xAni are also available. __tap is just another way of refering to Ani, like DDR333 and PC2700 both refer to the same thing.

Without AA you won't see much diff with Ani, with QxAA the diff is amazing giving better than 4xAA looks and perf. 4xS was designed for DX as Ani isn't officially supported under DX, only OpenGL. If you override via the control panel the game is forced to use those settings, intended to force AA etc in games that don't directly support it, not guaranteed to work though. So in short enabling QxAA and Ani is usually by far the best combination, great quality and small perf hit. This is all to the best of my knowledge and IMHO.

Very good points. But one thing I noticed with my GF3 Ti200, is that the QxAA runs slower than 4xAA on my system. I am unsure why, so, I just use 4x when i'm playing.

 

[AnAndAustin]

GF3's aren't quite as optimal with AA, QxAA is as fast as 2xAA on GF4 cards, on GF3 cards QxAA should be inbetween 2xAA and 4xAA though. It does vary with the specific game engine and AA/Ani implimentations. You should find both 2xAA and 4xAA very good, even without Ani (since they blur less than QxAA). GF3 still has far better AA than Radeons, although Radeons' AA is very sharp and certainly has no need at all for Ani.

 

[Actaeon]

I see, I turned on level 8 AF, I only took a 3fps performance hit on Jedi Knight time demo. but when running QxAA, It was still slower than 4x. I think I should stick with 4xS AA. As it looks incredibly gorgous, too bad it runs pretty slow

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Sukhoi]

Originally posted by: AnAndAustin
If it is QxAA & Ani (lowest setting is best) then you may need to drop the res, you should find 800x600x32 QxAA & Ani much better than 1024x768x32 2xAA and 1280x1024x32 without AA (if not 1600x1200x32 noAA). Applying AA and Ani does depend upon the game engine and implimentation of AA & Ani, so you really need to experiment with every game.

Ah, thanks.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Well i for one think QAA absolutely sucks. Tried it out on GTA 3 and gave it a cartoonish bland look. It also softens the picture up conisderably, even after enabling aniso and tweaking the lod. QAA is just not for me.

I like upping the res and enabling a bit of aniso personally. I am just not a fan of AA because the performance hit is just too much. Besides the gains in image quality are more substantial by raising the resolution than enabling AA. I run CS at 1600X1200 with 8X aniso and get 60-100 FPS all the time. I also run FIFA 2002 at 1600X1200 with 8X aniso. I can run GTA 3 smoothly at 1024X768 with QAA but IQ really sucks and enabling any aniso totally annihilates my FPS, so i stick to 1280X960 with Vysnc off and no aniso or AA.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Sudheer Anne, it is down to personal choice. Many users can't use res higher than 1280 or even 1024 so AA & Aniso are the options to get the better image quality. Don't forget it depends upon the actual game engine and game type as to how good and slow AA & Aniso are, so do try it in a few games before you rule them out!

 

[Robor]

So what you're all saying to us is we need to get GF4 cards to get some really good quality and fast AA/Ani effects?

I'm running a Gainward GF3 Golden Sample. I've toyed with AA but found that 2x didn't clear up the jaggies enough and 4x was too much of a performance hit.

What is the "tweaker" necessary to play with the settings?