Explanation of ATIs AF advantage?

[BFG10K]

The NV2X is adaptive only in the manner in which AF is supposed to be adaptive, based on the angle of the textures. If you have 8X AF set for the NV2X boards that is how they will sample all textures,

The NV2x does not use adaptive anisotropic filtering, it samples all visible textures uniformly regardless of their angle.

Also your two comments don't even make sense as they contradict themselves.

I believe you're wrong about NV20s method. It samples based on the slope of the textures I have a quote from David Kirk that explains this.

I'd like to see this quote too as I don't believe that to be the case at all. Like I said before, NV2x boards sample all visible texture surfaces, regardless of angle, at the full requested setting. I suspect Kirk is talking about the NV30 being adaptive (which it most certainly is), not the NV2x.

 

[nRollo]

well ben and rollo I hope you can find happiness in the nv35, may it beat ati so you can re-find your inner peace

I would be just as happy if Intel came out with a better chip- I have no brand loyalty.

I don't automatically discount his pov as irrelevant but I do question his sense of "nvidia loyalty" that he seems to hold close to his heart

See above^

PS: I like strange intelligent people, so nothing personal Rollo

No offense taken.

It will be interesting to see BFGs perspective when he buys a nV35 in June. "Well, the 9700 did have better 16X AF, but that is not important anymore. Now, you have to look at benchmark X for the TRUE test of which VGA to own. You'd have to be insane not to"
He's been doing this for years.

 

[BenSkywalker]

The NV2x does not use adaptive anisotropic filtering, it samples all visible textures uniformly regardless of their angle.

If it was, it would be isotropic filtering, not anisotropic.

Also your two comments don't even make sense as they contradict themselves.

No, they don't. Anisotropic filtering is done in 3D space, isotropic filtering is done by screen space. With a full AF implementation you sample all the textures at the maximum level of samples supported, but the sampling itself is done based on x,y,z instead of x,y.

 

[Rogozhin]

Here is the quote.

David Kirk on geforce 4 series AF implementation.

"The goal here is to correctly sample the footprint of the source texture that lies within the pixel, including orientation, and perspective. What anisotropic filtering does better than simple trilinear is those last two: orientation and perspective.
Anisotropic is not necessarily a rectangle, since the direction of anisotropy may not be axis aligned. Also, the actual shape may be more of a quadrilateral, due to perspective. The combination of these is very complex - the nearer edges of the quadrilateral will be larger, and thus lower LOD (level of detail) and weighted more. Also, because of the perspective effect, the entire "front half" of the sample is often weighted more than twice as much as the other half.

Consequently, the LOD may change throughout the pixel, by a lot more than 2x

Our anisotropic is a weighted average of up to 8 trilinear samples, along the major axis of anisotropy. So, we may include up to 64 samples, but the samples may be taken from only two MIP maps, and the weighting is nonlinear. The samples are effectively closer together in the part of the pixel that is nearer to the eye. "


URL


http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,559056,00.asp



Rogo

 

[BFG10K]

Thanks, Kirk's comment clears up a few things and I understand what Ben means too.

It will be interesting to see BFGs perspective when he buys a nV35 in June.

If, not when.

He's been doing this for years.

Doing what? Changing my comments when new technology arrives? Well duh, of course I have.

If I told you that 3 GHz P4 is the best CPU around for gaming would you expect me to say the the same next year when 4 GHz P4s arrive? Of course not.

Honestly Rollo, sometimes I really wonder...

 

[BenSkywalker]

Our anisotropic is a weighted average of up to 8 trilinear samples, along the major axis of anisotropy. So, we may include up to 64 samples, but the samples may be taken from only two MIP maps, and the weighting is nonlinear.

The GF4 supports 2x through 8x AF, is this the part that you are reading as them using differing sampling levels?

 

[Rogozhin]

Ben

No I mean they use either bilinear or trilinear OUTSIDE of the footprint.

rogo

 

[nRollo]

BFG:

Doing what? Changing my comments when new technology arrives? Well duh, of course I have.

Pimping whatever is in your box as the only viable gaming solution, slamming everything else. Pointing at really specific settings and benchmarks as "proof" of your rants about why what you have is great, everything else sux.
That's what I meant.

 

[nutxo]

The general consensus is that in games (not tunnel texture demos) the ATI card produces better image quality.

i dunno, when i play fps i dont care if my opponents look like freakin stick people in cave drawings, i want fps and NOTHIN else matters, let the losers worry about image quality 🙂

 

[nRollo]

i dunno, when i play fps i dont care if my opponents look like freakin stick people in cave drawings, i want fps and NOTHIN else matters, let the losers worry about image quality 🙂

FOOL! As has been said over and over in this thread and others, you HAVE to care about high res AA/AF! You don't have an option here, why don't you just get an old GF3 or 8500 if you don't want to run 16X AF?!?!
The VAST majority of gamers ONLY want to run high AA/AF settings, as has been proven conclusively by the 15-20 guys on this forum saying that's what they like.

Are you from France?


LOL

 

[chsh1ca]

Originally posted by: Rollo
You don't have an option here, why don't you just get an old GF3 or 8500 if you don't want to run 16X AF?!?!

Actually, from a cost/benefit analysis, that might make sense. Both cards perform pretty well (not 300+ FPS in Q3Arena, but who needs anything more than 120@1600x1200?) given their age, and the difference in price could probably buy you a monitor capable of 1600x1200x85Hz.

If you aren't going to run AA/AF, there's little reason given the current crop of games for you to buy anything newer than a GeForce 4, and certainly the GF3/R8500 would do pretty well.

 

[nRollo]

If you aren't going to run AA/AF, there's little reason given the current crop of games for you to buy anything newer than a GeForce 4, and certainly the GF3/R8500 would do pretty well.

Err, yeah. You just keep telling yourself that. For me, I could tell the difference between playing UT2003 at 12X10X32 at 107 fps and the whole 65fps a Ti4600 gets.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1683&p=6


Ti4600s are a LOT faster than GF3s and 8500s too.
LOL, the two cards you say would "do pretty well" can't even get to 40fps, but the Ti46 is at 59.3

SO, if 9700s are almost twice as fast as Ti4600s on this current crop game, and Ti4600s are 50% faster than GF3/8500s, you were saying what about "little reason" to upgrade? Looks to me like GF3s and 8500s don't handle UT2003 very well at all.

 

[chsh1ca]

Originally posted by: Rollo
Err, yeah. You just keep telling yourself that. For me, I could tell the difference between playing UT2003 at 12X10X32 at 107 fps and the whole 65fps a Ti4600 gets.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1683&p=6

So back down the resolution. IQ isn't important anyway, so what does resolution have to do with anything? It only affects image quality right, so who cares?

If you buy a brand spanking new R9800Pro/R9700Pro or GFFX5800Pro and don't intend to use the AA or AF features they give you, then you probably shouldn't be upgrading in the first place, because you don't care about overall IQ, and thus, higher resolutions shouldn't matter to you.

 

[nRollo]

If you buy a brand spanking new R9800Pro/R9700Pro or GFFX5800Pro and don't intend to use the AA or AF features they give you, then you probably shouldn't be upgrading in the first place, because you don't care about overall IQ, and thus, higher resolutions shouldn't matter to you.

Well, it's nice you think you know how other people should use their hardware Chishica, but some of us might not take your advice.

I play fps shooters, primarily UT2003, online. I want it to look good, but I also want very fast framerates. My 9700 Pro gives me that.

You can't say I don't care about overall IQ- I care more than you. Whose IQ do you think looks better? My R9700 at 12X10X32 on a 21", or your GF3 Ti200?

 

[Rogozhin]

And I for example

play primarily flight sims

where I NEED AA and a little AF to be able to distinguish aircraft at distances where the shape of the plane is only available, not markings or color.

I also play ut2003 and some other squad based shooters but they aren't as important to me.

Everyone's gaming needs are a LITTLE different.

So i will refrain from proposing a logical fallacy like: "Everyone likes to run high IQ in games." All you need is one person to play without high IQ and that's it.

just say that "most people would probably like to have ultra high fps with high IQ."

Rogo

 

[BenSkywalker]

No I mean they use either bilinear or trilinear OUTSIDE of the footprint.

????

What are you talking about? The sampling footprint is how AF, bilinear/trilinear are done, they don't use different texturing samples when AF is applied(they do in relation to isotropic filtering, but when AF is on they use the exact same samples).

 

[chsh1ca]

Originally posted by: Rollo
Well, it's nice you think you know how other people should use their hardware Chishica, but some of us might not take your advice.

I play fps shooters, primarily UT2003, online. I want it to look good, but I also want very fast framerates. My 9700 Pro gives me that.

You can't say I don't care about overall IQ- I care more than you. Whose IQ do you think looks better? My R9700 at 12X10X32 on a 21", or your GF3 Ti200?

IMO, if you are buying a new top of the line card, and don't turn on either AA or AF, then you aren't getting your money's worth. And you are one to talk about 'knowing who cares more'. My reasoning behind having a GF3 Ti200 is purely financial at this point in time, and I've said many times before, I'm looking to upgrade. If I had the money, I would have already become an R9700Pro owner. Simply because someone doesn't have the means to buy a better IQ/higher speed card doesn't mean they don't care about IQ.

And by the way, I do fully agree that your R9700Pro has better NoAA/NoAF IQ than my GF3Ti200. However, you've said before that you run at 1280x1024x32 on an R9700Pro, so you should be pulling enough FPS in UT2K3 with 4xAA/8xAF to break the 100 FPS barrier and have better IQ than if it were not enabled. That's according to Anandtech and discounting your processor's affect on performance. Even factoring that in, you should be able to pull 8xAF, which provides better IQ than NoAF. And yet you don't?

"Very fast frame rates" are irrelevant past ~120FPS, because I've yet to see a level where going from one area to another would drop your framrate by 60+. I've seen some that slow down cards pulling 100FPS, so I'll give you that you would want to run faster than that. Pulling 320FPS doesn't make a damned bit of difference over 120FPS. I would rather have 120FPS + AA/AF over 320FPS any day of the week. If someone can point me to proof of otherwise, I'd appreciate it.

My point is that upgrading to the newest hardware doesn't always make sense for everyone. If you don't play any new games, and stick to UT/Q3A based games, you can use older hardware. My GF3Ti200 + 1.2GHz TBird pulls 130FPS at 1280x1024x32 with max details. It does similarly in Q3A. People who are still playing CounterStrike for the majority of their time, and don't play new games at all, are probably best off just sticking with GF4 or less hardware, because it's not going to make a lot of difference otherwise, especially if they don't care about using AA/AF.

While you may not know anybody who fits this bill, be assured, they are out there (I know three or four who I LAN party with regularly who fit this bill).

So, care to sell me a used R9700Pro cheap? 😀

 

[nutxo]

Originally posted by: Rollo

i dunno, when i play fps i dont care if my opponents look like freakin stick people in cave drawings, i want fps and NOTHIN else matters, let the losers worry about image quality 🙂

FOOL! As has been said over and over in this thread and others, you HAVE to care about high res AA/AF! You don't have an option here, why don't you just get an old GF3 or 8500 if you don't want to run 16X AF?!?!
The VAST majority of gamers ONLY want to run high AA/AF settings, as has been proven conclusively by the 15-20 guys on this forum saying that's what they like.

Are you from France?


LOL

I dont play high res, period. Im not the vast majority, Im the independent thinking minority 🙂

15 to 20 guys on a forum that 1000s visit is hardly overwhelming evidence.


I wish I had a link to an old comic on gamespy about the guy that wanted to see the ants on the sand in CS, I think it would be fitting here 🙂

Anyways, to each his own and more power to ya if thats what your lookin for. I have a right to be happy with what I like as well.

not from france, 8 years in the military, you?

 

[nRollo]

I dont play high res, period. Im not the vast majority, Im the independent thinking minority 🙂
15 to 20 guys on a forum that 1000s visit is hardly overwhelming evidence.

I was being facetious Nutxo. Like you, I run 11X8/no AA, sometimes 4X AF because I'm a FPS gamer who doesn't think the IQ improvement is worth the fps hit you get at high res/high detail.
We basically think alike, I was parodying some of the responses I've received for posts like yours.

No military, does 8 years of college count? (didn't think so)

 

[nRollo]

Chishica:

so you should be pulling enough FPS in UT2K3 with 4xAA/8xAF to break the 100 FPS barrier and have better IQ than if it were not enabled. That's according to Anandtech and discounting your processor's affect on performance. Even factoring that in, you should be able to pull 8xAF, which provides better IQ than NoAF. And yet you don't?

Here's why:
Framerate has dropped to 94fps from 142fps just by adding 4x AA
This is at 10X7, it's worse as resolution increases. That's a 50% decrease in performance to add your 4X AA, and there's no AF. (which would cut fps more)
Remember, that is AVERAGE fps too- so minimum would be much lower. The test system in that review is comparable to my system. (I have a P4 2.53/512 PC2700/Asus P4PE)

We're not talking about 300fps vs 200fps on games like UT2003, we're talking about adding stutters to your game play and not seeing rockets coming.

As far as the 9700Pro goes, I'll likely sell it on this board when the nV35 comes out.

 

[chsh1ca]

Originally posted by: Rollo
Chishica:

so you should be pulling enough FPS in UT2K3 with 4xAA/8xAF to break the 100 FPS barrier and have better IQ than if it were not enabled. That's according to Anandtech and discounting your processor's affect on performance. Even factoring that in, you should be able to pull 8xAF, which provides better IQ than NoAF. And yet you don't?

Here's why:
Framerate has dropped to 94fps from 142fps just by adding 4x AA
This is at 10X7, it's worse as resolution increases. That's a 50% decrease in performance to add your 4X AA, and there's no AF. (which would cut fps more)
Remember, that is AVERAGE fps too- so minimum would be much lower. The test system in that review is comparable to my system. (I have a P4 2.53/512 PC2700/Asus P4PE)

We're not talking about 300fps vs 200fps on games like UT2003, we're talking about adding stutters to your game play and not seeing rockets coming.

As far as the 9700Pro goes, I'll likely sell it on this board when the nV35 comes out.

Read what I wrote, I was talking in the latter part of my post about Anisotropic Filtering. You'll notice, I say that you could run at 8xAF.
NoAF: 142.5FPS vs 16xAF: 126.1FPS at 1024x768x32. AF by itself doesn't drop your performance all that greatly, and yet, it gives you better IQ, so why not use it if you value your image quality? I did suggest 8xAF instead of 16xAF because it's a decent balance between raw speed and IQ IMHO (and yes, I've seen the R9700Pro in action).

How much money would you be asking for the 9700Pro then? That should be about when I'm looking to upgrade. 🙂

 

[nRollo]

How much money would you be asking for the 9700Pro then? That should be about when I'm looking to upgrade

Won't know till then- I'll just look at what they're going for and put it in the middle of the range. The one advantage of buying mine over any other retail pack 9700Pro would be mine has never been OCd.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: Rollo
BFG:

Doing what? Changing my comments when new technology arrives? Well duh, of course I have.

Pimping whatever is in your box as the only viable gaming solution, slamming everything else. Pointing at really specific settings and benchmarks as "proof" of your rants about why what you have is great, everything else sux.
That's what I meant.

I dunno Rollo, BFG tends to have the best gaming cards money can buy whenever they become available, he kinda does his research before blindly diving into a bad investment and then trying to pimp it off trying to make others believe that its the greatest only to protect the idea that he might have made a mistake or that he cannot afford to upgrade to a new part. Obviously if the FX were clearly superior to a 9700 Pro, I'm sure BFG would have one by now. Apparently it is not worth the upgrade.

When judging which card is "best" you not only look at 3D performance but also 2D IQ in a wide range and variety of settings. And until the FX another category many of us took for granted was noise factor, and the undisputed winner amongst the general population is easily the 9700/9800 Pro. You can whine and moan how the FX is right up there and even faster in many cases, but the cost factor and the noise factor really don't cut it, there really is no excuse for that BS. Throw on an acceptably quiet water cooling system then maybe the FX is a considerable solution, but then if you have the ability to water cool, water cool a 9700/9800 and truely oust the FX in 3D performance, which according to you is apparently all that matters when it comes to judging video cards...

The fact that nVidia needs to overclock their flagship and give it such an extreme cooling solution to do so is, imo, practically admitting defeat. What's to stop ATI from doing the same thing and pumping out a 9900 Pro @ 450MHz+ with 50db fan and a huge ass heatsink system? Oh yeah, that's right, they know that consumers don't want to listen to a vacuum cleaner while they play.

Ah but all the review sites and all the customers who give out bad reviews of their own, its all a conspiracy, nVidia could never ever make such a mistake, their AF is soooo much better and their fan is silent, 50db is nothing the hum of a monitor is obviously louder than that. And they have the fastest 3D performance in all areas with all settings, they are perfect and have been victorious every round of this battle, there is no chance for ATI to win the war, nVidia is god and prophesies of the all mighty savior the NV35 are complete underestimates of its true power and might. But hey, we don't even need to be saved by this perfect GPU because the NV30 is already perfect and superior.

 

[Rogozhin]

The undercurrent of sarcasm is strong in this one 😉

Rogo

 

[nRollo]

Bunny:
"BFG tends to have the best gaming cards money can buy whenever they become available"
Ok, so he's a guy with a job. That doesn't mean a card isn't "best" for some people because BFG doesn't own it, however. I have a 9700Pro I paid top dollar at release for as well. The 5800FX Ultra would be a better card for me now though. (I don't care about AA/AF, so the Ultra is faster)

"he kinda does his research before blindly diving into a bad investment and then trying to pimp it off trying to make others believe that its the greatest only to protect the idea that he might have made a mistake or that he cannot afford to upgrade to a new part. "
I think that's exactly what he does- buys what he thinks is best, tries to convince the rest of us. He doesn't even bother to admit there could be people whose use and needs are different than his, he just tell us why our use and needs should be the same as his.

"Obviously if the FX were clearly superior to a 9700 Pro, I'm sure BFG would have one by now. Apparently it is not worth the upgrade."
Why is that? Maybe he lost his job. Maybe the Ultra isn't enough of an upgrade to justify the cost. (reason I don't own one) I don't think the Ultra is "superior" I think it's comparable.

"When judging which card is "best" you not only look at 3D performance but also 2D IQ in a wide range and variety of settings"
You can point me at some reviews of the Ultras 2d compared to the 9700, I assume?

"And until the FX another category many of us took for granted was noise factor, and the undisputed winner amongst the general population is easily the 9700/9800 Pro"
Some of us don't consider the Ultra noise a factor, we already have big fans in case. Also, companies are making their own versions of cooling for this chip that are quieter than nVidia reference. (e.g. Gainward)

"You can whine and moan how the FX is right up there and even faster in many cases, but the cost factor and the noise factor really don't cut it,"
You can whine and moan about the cost and noise, but some of the cards aren't noisey, and some people don't care as much about $100 extra as others...

"but then if you have the ability to water cool, water cool a 9700/9800 and truely oust the FX in 3D performance, which according to you is apparently all that matters when it comes to judging video cards..."
I don't recall saying that, but I personally don't like water in my case. I have a friend who had a leak, case full of water is no fun.

"The fact that nVidia needs to overclock their flagship and give it such an extreme cooling solution to do so is, imo, practically admitting defeat"
This makes no sense. Both nVidia and ATI release speed binned versions of their chips. nVidia has their Ultras, ATI uses Pro/non, or a higher part number. Do you think the 9800 is a new part, or an OCd 9700? A big "fix" for 8500 retails was underclocking them. Etc.

"What's to stop ATI from doing the same thing and pumping out a 9900 Pro @ 450MHz+ with 50db fan and a huge ass heatsink system"
Nothing. They should probably do it, because I bet they'd sell.

"Oh yeah, that's right, they know that consumers don't want to listen to a vacuum cleaner while they play."
That's why dealers sell all the 5800s they can get?

"Ah but all the review sites and all the customers who give out bad reviews of their own, its all a conspiracy, nVidia could never ever make such a mistake, their AF is soooo much better and their fan is silent, 50db is nothing the hum of a monitor is obviously louder than that. And they have the fastest 3D performance in all areas with all settings, they are perfect and have been victorious every round of this battle, there is no chance for ATI to win the war"
LOL- I never said any of this, and it makes no sense, so I won't comment.