Do I want to use anisotropic filtering?

[jjjayb]

well i dont think you have to enable the AA if you are not a hardcore gamer.

What's the point of enabling the AA if you are playing online game anyway?

I always have AA on when I'm playing online. I play rtcw and I don't even turn it off for clan matches. It actually helps my game having it on. Jaggies crawl as you move. If I see the jaggies moving out of the corner of my eye I have to turn my focus to them to make sure it's not an enemy I see moving. Especially with big open maps like assault. The assault map has high walls in the distance that enemies can run along. Without AA I sometimes momentarily mistake the jaggies crawling for enemies moving in the distance. As I'm turning to focus on the movement, which is just jaggies, I've got an enemy lining me up in his sites in another direction. With aa on I know if something is moving it's a person.

Rtcw is a game that also benefits greatly from aniso. The textures get blurry pretty close up without aniso.

I always see people saying things like that. "You only see the jaggies if you're staring at your screen looking for them." I can only assume these are people who are used to playing without AA. Believe me, If AA is off, I notice it right away. The same with aniso. I guess it's one of those things you didn't realize you needed until you actually used it. Once you have used it however, it's hard to go back to not using it. Like a microwave.

 

[Harabecw]

Originally posted by: leolaw
well i dont think you have to enable the AA if you are not a hardcore gamer.

What's the point of enabling the AA if you are playing online game anyway?

You'd prefer your game to look worse because you're not a hardcore gamer?
it doesn't matter if a game is online or not, the difference in quality is gigantic for certain people (like me), or just "good enough to make it worthwhile".

I guess what the original poster wanted to hear is...the day of RageII's is over. AF/AA doesn't kill new video cards anymore.

 

[jjjayb]

have no idea what anisotropic filtering is, and if I should enable it.

I uploaded some pictures to show you the difference with and without aniso:

without aniso

with aniso


I would suggest opening each of these in seperate windows so you can look back and forth between them. Or download them both and open them with a program such as acdsee that allows you to flip back and forth between them. The difference is pretty obvious though. Look at the top of the boxes and the walls and floor. I've drawn some arrows on the screenshot without aniso to point out some of the blurry spots that will dissappear when you add aniso. Though you should be able to spot the difference pretty easily without my arrows.

The blurryness without aniso is even worse in motion because you can see the blurryness move as you do. It is very annoying once you've gotten used to using aniso and not seeing it. With your new video card there will be no reason you should not use aniso. You pay for a new video card you should use it to it's potential. Why look at blurry walls and floors when you don't have to?

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: jjjayb

have no idea what anisotropic filtering is, and if I should enable it.

I uploaded some pictures to show you the difference with and without aniso:

without aniso

with aniso


I would suggest opening each of these in seperate windows so you can look back and forth between them. Or download them both and open them with a program such as acdsee that allows you to flip back and forth between them. The difference is pretty obvious though. Look at the top of the boxes and the walls and floor. I've drawn some arrows on the screenshot without aniso to point out some of the blurry spots that will dissappear when you add aniso. Though you should be able to spot the difference pretty easily without my arrows.

The blurryness without aniso is even worse in motion because you can see the blurryness move as you do. It is very annoying once you've gotten used to using aniso and not seeing it. With your new video card there will be no reason you should not use aniso. You pay for a new video card you should use it to it's potential. Why look at blurry walls and floors when you don't have to?

Do you know what level of filtering that is on though? I can go all the way up-to 16X.. just curious.

 

[jjjayb]

That was 16xperformance. Even with 4x aniso it makes a huge difference. If you'd like i can put up some new pictures comparing 4xaf vs. none. Both of those shots are without Anti-aliasing. With both Aniso and Anti-aliasing the difference in image quality compared to without is even more drastic. I wanted to put up some pictures to show this but for some reason when I turn on Anti-aliasing in wolfenstein my screenshots come out blank.

 

[boyRacer]

I play mostly racing sims... and i won't notice AA or AF that much since everything is just whizzing by... So that makes me an frames per second fanboy... the smoother it is the more precise my line could be. Yey.

My bro plays FPS games though... and he has everything cranked up... pure eyecandy.

 

[Lonyo]

With UT, AF makes a big difference. 4x is very noticeable, shame it's not that great on GF4.
It would almost be worth getting a 9500Pro just to run UT with AF up high, but I' don't have the $$