Do I want to use anisotropic filtering?

[theanimala]

I just ordered a new Dell 2.66ghz system with a radeon 9700tx card. My previous system is a home built 700mhz AMD system with the first gen Radeon card.

I have no idea what anisotropic filtering is, and if I should enable it. I assume it makes games look better, but I understand it slows things down as well. Should I just run a higher resolution without it or a lower resolution with it?

FYI, I am not a hard core gamer, but I do like to play games once in a while on my PC (GTA3, Dungeon Seige, whatever I can find or borrow).

Thanks!

 

[Doh!]

Yes, your card is capable to run w/ AA&AF cranked up.

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: theanimala
I just ordered a new Dell 2.66ghz system with a radeon 9700tx card. My previous system is a home built 700mhz AMD system with the first gen Radeon card. I have no idea what anisotropic filtering is, and if I should enable it. I assume it makes games look better, but I understand it slows things down as well. Should I just run a higher resolution without it or a lower resolution with it? FYI, I am not a hard core gamer, but I do like to play games once in a while on my PC (GTA3, Dungeon Seige, whatever I can find or borrow). Thanks!

I'm a casual gamer myself, and the only PC game I play is GTA3. I think we are the kinds of gamers that most benefit from things like AA and AF, because we don't play games where fps is really important. Gamers like us prefer our games to be better looking over running fat the absolute fastest speed. Honestly, GTA3 is perfectly playable at 30 fps, IMO (the designers feel the same way because if you choose "lock framerate" in the game settings it locks the framerate at 30 fps), and I would rather crank up AA and AF and get 30 fps than get 90 fps without AA and AF. The game looks absolutely stunning with AA and AF cranked up. I actually have been trying to get a deal on the 9700tx on Ebay for quite a while now for the sole reason of playing GTA3 with AA and AF cranked up higher than I can with my GeForce 4200ti (which runs the game perfectly with 2x AA and the minimum AF setting). You are lucky to have card that can handle it well, and you definitely should crank those settings up.

 

[Jeff7181]

I honestly cannot see any difference in the image quality with Ansiotropic Filtering on... but I do notice an improvement in FPS when I turn it off, so I leave it off.

I also usually leave Anti-Aliasing off because when I'm running around shooting people, I don't take much time to stop and look for jaggies.

 

[JeremiahTheGreat]

the easiest way to sport aniso is to look at the floor of the game... with aniso, its sharp all the way to the end of the view, without it, it becomes very very blurry very fast.

 

[FearoftheNight]

aniso makes textures in the distance less blurry

 

[Jeff7181]

Hmmmm... I see... I'll have to check it out

 

[BFG10K]

Yes, you should most definitely use it. Anyone with an R300 based board (like yourself) should just leave the setting at 16x performamce and it'll run really fast and look stunningly good.

I have no idea what anisotropic filtering is,

Basically it sharpens textures at long distances, especially if they have steep angles.

Should I just run a higher resolution without it or a lower resolution with it?

Run at both a high resolution and with it enabled. The 9700 Pro can run almost any game out there using at least 1600 x 1200 x 32 with 16x performance anisotropic enabled. You should also experiment because you'll find a lot of games can be run at much higher resolutions and still run very fast.

EDIT: typo.

 

[MustangSVT]

yes, itll make texture further away to look sharper.

try different settings and see if u notice the difference.

usually maxing it out doesnt hurt too much. but looks much better.

 

[theanimala]

Wow, thanks for the replies guys. It's been so long since I've had a PC with power I assumed I wouldn't be able to use these features. I also thought that if I could use it, it would be a minumum settings (like 2x). When the system get's here I will have to try it out.

I was debating upgrading to this card because like I said I don't play a ton of games. But with the recent deals, I figured I could spend the $120 to upgrade to it (from a 32mb Rage card), and only $60 more then a 64MB Geforce MX it would be worth it.

 

[selfbuilt]

AF is definitely worth it on the R300 ATI cards (9500/9700 series). I agree, run it forced to 16X Performance mode and everything will look great with a neglible effect on speed (about a 10% or so hit). 2X won't do much and you'll still get a 5% hit anyway. Quality mode has a much greater performance hit, and isn't worth it. Enjoy!

 

[Looney]

Heck ya, use AA and AF since your system can handle them easily.

 

[Rogozhin]

I just did a test bench with a raven shield (benched against a fellow running and fx 5800 ultra).

started first fraps log file using 2x aa and 2x af.

looked better than without for sure.

THEN

we maxed aa and af

for me that was 16x quality af and 6x quality aa.

for him that was 16x aa and 8x quality af (should have been application).

The game just looked awesome! walls, floors, dirt floors, grass, all looked WAY better.

so i suggest you use it

rogo

 

[theanimala]

Originally posted by: selfbuilt
AF is definitely worth it on the R300 ATI cards (9500/9700 series). I agree, run it forced to 16X Performance mode and everything will look great with a neglible effect on speed (about a 10% or so hit). 2X won't do much and you'll still get a 5% hit anyway. Quality mode has a much greater performance hit, and isn't worth it. Enjoy!

It's only a 10% performance hit? I thought in all of the benchmarks that things dropped to maybe 10% of what the card could do without AF and AA set. I am really glad I posted here, because I problem would not have run it, or perhaps only at 2X afraid of what it would do to the game.

Remember, this is not the Pro version, I believe the TX is just the regular version, so hopefully this still stands true. Also, since this is a Dell branded card, will it be possible to overclock it slightly?

 

[vss1980]

Yes, use Anisotropic filtering if your card has it although you dont have to crank it up....

If you are gonna be playing a game like Unreal Tournament or something, turning on AF to just the lowest/first level will give you a very noticable improvement in the quality of the textures as they move into the distance and lessen the banding/step effect (eg. when you look at a floor as it goes into the distance it has distinct levels of bluriness).

Usually just the lowest levels are enough to stop that itself becoming an irritation in the game whilst not impacting performance all that badly.

 

[ArmchairAthlete]

First concern is your resolution. Find out what the maximum resolution your monitor can support at 85Hz is. If it is a cheaper monitor it's probably 1024x768. If it is a good one it could be 1280x1024. You might think "the higher the better" but with a low refresh rate it'll hurt your eyes, you can start to notice a flicker, and the screen isn't refreshing fast so you're really limiting your true framerate.

Once you have your resolution picked out play some games. If they all run real fast and smooth, cut on Antialiasing and Anisotropic and see if performance is still good. If you're still getting high frames keep them on. If your performance is taking too much of a hit turn them off or just lower them first. If you can run a high resolution on your monitor AA/AF don't matter quite so much.

I myself have different settings for different games with Rage3d Tweak. CS is so old I can of course cut AA/AF all the way to the top, but in WC3:TFT if i have AA/AF turned way up in big battles the framerate will drop enough to start making the game a bit harder to control (so I have AA/AF off for WC3).

It is best to try and see how different games work.

 

[selfbuilt]

Originally posted by: theanimalaIt's only a 10% performance hit? I thought in all of the benchmarks that things dropped to maybe 10% of what the card could do without AF and AA set. I am really glad I posted here, because I problem would not have run it, or perhaps only at 2X afraid of what it would do to the game. Remember, this is not the Pro version, I believe the TX is just the regular version, so hopefully this still stands true. Also, since this is a Dell branded card, will it be possible to overclock it slightly?

Published reports for the 9700 Pro shows a performance drop of about 10% on average with 16XAF "Performance" mode enabled. Your 9700tx is, I believe, a slightly underclocked 9700 non pro. While that might concern you, I doubt it will be an issue for AF. I have a 9500 Pro (which is slower still), and I have measured only a 9-10% drop in framerates at WORSE with that setting. For example UT2K3 flyby rates will drop 10%, but botmatch is completely unaffected (more processor depedent). Similar for 3DMark 2001/2003 ... a 10% drop.

Where you may see more of a hit is with AA. On a 9700Pro, 4XAA and 8XAF is reported to cause only about 15% (max) combined reduction (so, say 7-8% for the AA and 8-9% for the AF). But on my 9500 Pro, 4XAA and 8XAF more typically causes around a 25% reduction in performance. So, slower cards (like my 9500) are more prone to the effects of AA than AF. I would expect the 9700tx to be intermediate here.

End result: crank up the AF (performance mode), but play with AA to see what gives you the best trade-off (most like 2X or 4X AA). Have fun!

 

[theanimala]

Originally posted by: ArmchairAthlete
First concern is your resolution. Find out what the maximum resolution your monitor can support at 85Hz is. If it is a cheaper monitor it's probably 1024x768. If it is a good one it could be 1280x1024. You might think "the higher the better" but with a low refresh rate it'll hurt your eyes, you can start to notice a flicker, and the screen isn't refreshing fast so you're really limiting your true framerate.
q]

Thanks again guys. My monitor is not a fancy new flat screen, but it was supposed to be a great monitor of it's time. It's a Nokia 19" 446X Pro back from 99 or so. I did some searches online and according to some sites it does 1600 x 1280 @ 80hz. Not sure if that is correct, but I am willing to try. I'm glad to hear that I should be able to use AA and AF and not notice much of a difference speed wise. Again, I am not a die hard gamer and I probably would not notice the framerate difference anyway, but I'm sure I'll notice the picture difference.

Looking forward to Wednesday when I should have my new machine...

 

[BFG10K]

It's only a 10% performance hit?

Yes, if you're using performance mode then don't bother using anything less than 16x as it's basically free anyway. If you use quality you should still be able to use 16x in most games although you might have to lower the resolution a tad.

And above all else, do not enabled FSAA or truform unless you have high resolutions and full anistropic filtering running smoothly. Those two things take priority over everything else.

 

[Blain]

I've always thought that the higher the resolution you run the less important AA becomes.

The higher resolution gets the finer the lines get and the less your eye picks up on the jaggies. Lower res. has heavier lines, the jaggies are more pronounced and your eye picks them up.
I love flight & racing sims, but don't run at extreme resolutions. So AA is very important to making my gaming experience enjoyable.

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I honestly cannot see any difference in the image quality with Ansiotropic Filtering on... but I do notice an improvement in FPS when I turn it off, so I leave it off.

I also usually leave Anti-Aliasing off because when I'm running around shooting people, I don't take much time to stop and look for jaggies.

I agree with you dead on..

 

[Insidious]

My poor lil' 4400 can't deal with aniso or AA turned on it brings performance down to a point I start considering turning off details of the game.... kind of self-defeating for me.

If your card is up to it.... then I suggest why not?

of course, all the posts in the world aren't really going to help you.

It's not like you are going to break anything..... how 'bout you give it a try and then YOU TELL US which you liked best and why.

(yeah, yeah, I'm always grubbin' for info)

Have fun with it man! (then share it with us!)

-Sid

I love living vicariously through people with better hardware than I have

 

[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?

 

[screw3d]

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?

It doesn't matter if you are a hardcore gamer or not to enable AA, nor whether you play online games or not matter to turn AA on. If your video card can handle it, I don't see why you don't wanna turn it on coz AA = better image quality in general and better image quality = duh!

 

[Zrom999]

AF is good for 1st person shooters, objects in the distance don't just blend away. I got mine set on 16X . It doesn't take away as much from frame rate like AA does. You want good frame rate just set everything on the lowest settings, you'll have great frame rate but you screen looks horrible. I rather it look good, and set it to the best quality settings that can still be usable.