Firingsquad Publishes HDR + AA Performance Tests

[josh6079]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Im not saying Farcrys is better

That's what this was implying:

What I did say was that HL2's is "watered down" compared to Farcrys, which it is.

You were basically saying that HL2's HDR isn't as good as Farcry's. Basically it is the same analogy as soda. Watered down soda doesn't hold as much appeal as "true" soda.

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: josh6079
Ackmed, don't get so bent out of shape about Wreckage. He has trouble even reading things correctly more or less arguing logically. If you say you're going to ingnor Crusader, why not just do it to Wreckage as well? There's not much of a difference.

The same could also be said about you and Ackmed. If you are going to accuse, why not sling mud at both sides.

Since you see any post that is a disagreement with yours as "slinging mud" I don't think there is anything I can say to you that will make you think otherwise. I will say that if Ackmed began calling all of the sites that said the 7950GX2 gets higher frame rates biased and leaning towards the green, then I would be in a disagreement with him as well. As far as me commenting on your reading capability, the quote of mine in your own sig is talking about one of your very own posts. All I saw in it was crap, just like the posts you've been making on this thread. Posting to the contrary of what a benchmark site has compiled is only really legite if you have your own comparison and results to display. Therefore, crying out that sites are biased when no contrary evidence is presented is seen as worthless crap. If you hold something as a truth, it shouldn't be difficult to show why it is indeed a truth.

Originally posted by: Crusader
The resolution is only maxed out at 1600x1200

More people play closer to that resolution than 1920x1200. You yourself have a 2005fpw only capable of 1680x1050.

And they also only gave the minimum framerate numbers in Foliage for 1280x1024, not 1600x1200.

True, if they are going to bench those resoultions they should have shown the same kind of information they did with the outdoor area with the foliage. They did provide the average framerate which is the most important to consider since on the average you wouldn't be in the thick of trees. (Unless you just feel that close to nature...)

I personally don't understand why they said they have put on "Highest Quality Settings", yet bench only up to 8xAF.

If you want to point out things that the benches missed, that's one thing--just about every bench I see has forgot something. However, to back up Wreckage's assumption that the site is biased based on a benchmark that other sites were not even attempting is a far stretch.

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: josh6079
Ackmed, don't get so bent out of shape about Wreckage. He has trouble even reading things correctly more or less arguing logically. If you say you're going to ingnor Crusader, why not just do it to Wreckage as well? There's not much of a difference.

Im not bent out of shape, far from it. While I generally do not agree with Wreckage, he has more maturity to him that crusader. Ive ignored crusader, because of his constant insults, ignorance, and to be honest, idiocy. Such as saying I was "betraying his nation" or "selling his soul to canada", etc. for buying an ATi card. Nevermind the fact, that Ive bought far more NV cards, than ATi cards. And nevermind the fact, that he has far more "made out of America" stuff in his house, than "made in America" stuff. Putting me down, because I live in the sound. Saying Im against the "Union" because of it. Its just pure idiocy, so I ignore him. Wreckage does none of that.

Originally posted by: josh6079

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Im not saying Farcrys is better

That's what this was implying:

What I did say was that HL2's is "watered down" compared to Farcrys, which it is.

You were basically saying that HL2's HDR isn't as good as Farcry's. Basically it is the same analogy as soda. Watered down soda doesn't hold as much appeal as "true" soda.

I didnt imply that Farcrys looked better. I was implying that HL2's is not in the same caliber technology wise. And its not. HL2's HDR cannot do all that Farcrys can. Why do you think the only game to do HDR like HL2, is HL2? Perhaps I didnt use the right term, I read it somewhere else, and it stuck. It makes sense to me.

Ive said many times, over the past several years, I dont like much of Farcrys HDR. On the beach, the sand looks too bright, too "hollywood" if you will. About the only thing I really like, is when lights shine thru windows, holes in a cave, or when you go outside, from inside.

Edit to your edit, about the 1280x1024 res for minimum frames. Ive gone over this before, FS always puts 1280x1024 only with the minimum frames. Its not something new. And like it or not, its the most used res for gaming. They have never to my knowledge used 1920x1200, although I would love for them too. And I too have no clue as to why they use only 8xAF.

 

[deadseasquirrel]

I made a 5min video of Oblivion in the foliage, running around, stopping to smell the flowers, fighting deer/bear/etc. I have an XTX and play at 1600x1200, but made the video using 1920x1200 since that's what Crusader wanted to see (though, like Ackmed mentioned, 1280x1024 is probably a much more mainstream and popular resolution out there). Everything is maxed in the settings, with 4xAA, 16xHQAF, and HDR (utilizing the old Cat 6.3s with the Chuck... do the 6.5 improve on anything??). It's gorgeous and is very playable (though the widescreen res looked weird while gaming on a 4:3 crt).

Unfortunately, it's 285megs and compressing it would only degrade the quality that it is attempting to show. Either way, if someone knows of a host (and if there's actually someone out there that *wants* to d/l a 280mb video) I'll up it.

Either way, regardless of what anyone wants to say about minimum frame rates or playability, unless you're actually USING the feature, you really shouldn't comment on whether it's playable or not. Feel free to argue about whether HDR+AA is a useful feature or not, because it may not be to you. Before the Chuck patch came out, it was a useless feature to me too since I had no intention of playing SS2 or re-playing FC for the 4th time. But, seeing as how Oblivion took over my gaming life for a good 5 months or so, it became a very useful feature to me.

While I wish there were MORE games that utilized the feature, Oblivion was enough for me to pull the trigger on an x19-card and toss my 6800gt-SLI cards.

 

[thilanliyan]

You should be okay I think. Enermax is fairly high quality I think. It IS a dual rail PSU with 22A on both 12V rails. I think the recommended for an X1900XT is something like 30A on the 12V rail correct(but I'm not sure if it's recommended on 1 rail)? I think most people running X1800/X1900 cards are running around the same PSU specs as you.

Anyone else with some input?

I know the old OCZ Powerstream PSUs gave 30+ amps on the single 12V rail but most newer PSUs have gone the multi-rail route.

 

[fierydemise]

deadseasquirrel, try mega upload

 

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: josh6079

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Im not saying Farcrys is better

That's what this was implying:

What I did say was that HL2's is "watered down" compared to Farcrys, which it is.

Originally posted by: josh6079
You were basically saying that HL2's HDR isn't as good as Farcry's. Basically it is the same analogy as soda. Watered down soda doesn't hold as much appeal as "true" soda.

Originally posted by: Ackmed
I didnt imply that Farcrys looked better. I was implying that HL2's is not in the same caliber technology wise. And its not. HL2's HDR cannot do all that Farcrys can. Why do you think the only game to do HDR like HL2, is HL2? Perhaps I didnt use the right term, I read it somewhere else, and it stuck. It makes sense to me.

Ive said many times, over the past several years, I dont like much of Farcrys HDR. On the beach, the sand looks too bright, too "hollywood" if you will. About the only thing I really like, is when lights shine thru windows, holes in a cave, or when you go outside, from inside.

Watered down is poor term, you could have just said HDR utilizing Pixel Shaders, so any card with Shader Model 2.0 support can have HDR in HL2, with AA I might add.

The term Watered down in itself says inferiority. So it's just a bad choice of words, from what have I seen so far of HDR, it looks so overbright. Get the name unstuck, because it is not politically correct. You could say that HL2 HDR is inferior from a certain standpoint. But "watered down" is too vague. How the hell are we supposed to know what you mean exactly by "watered down"....?

ATI's current advantage is OpenEXR HDR FP16 with MSAA, which is available in 3 games to my knowledge, Serious Sam 2, Far Cry and Oblivion.

 

[Tangerines]

Originally posted by: coldpower27

Originally posted by: josh6079

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Im not saying Farcrys is better

That's what this was implying:

What I did say was that HL2's is "watered down" compared to Farcrys, which it is.

You were basically saying that HL2's HDR isn't as good as Farcry's. Basically it is the same analogy as soda. Watered down soda doesn't hold as much appeal as "true" soda.

I didnt imply that Farcrys looked better. I was implying that HL2's is not in the same caliber technology wise. And its not. HL2's HDR cannot do all that Farcrys can. Why do you think the only game to do HDR like HL2, is HL2? Perhaps I didnt use the right term, I read it somewhere else, and it stuck. It makes sense to me.

Ive said many times, over the past several years, I dont like much of Farcrys HDR. On the beach, the sand looks too bright, too "hollywood" if you will. About the only thing I really like, is when lights shine thru windows, holes in a cave, or when you go outside, from inside.

Watered down is poor term, you could have just said HDR utilizing Pixel Shaders, so any card with Shader Model 2.0 support can have HDR in HL2, with AA I might add.

The term Watered down in itself says inferiority. So it's just a bad choice of words, from what have I seen so far of HDR, it looks so overbright. Get the name unstuck, because it is not politically correct. You could say that HL2 HDR is inferior from a certain standpoint. But "watered down" is too vague. How the hell are we supposed to know what you mean exactly by "watered down"....?

ATI's current advantage is OpenEXR HDR FP16 with MSAA, which is available in 3 games to my knowledge, Serious Sam 2, Far Cry and Oblivion.

Doesn't Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory also support HDR?

 

[schneiderguy]

Originally posted by: Tangerines

Doesn't Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory also support HDR?

yes, it does it by FP16 for for 6/7 series & x1xxxx cards and emulated via pixel shaders for r4xxx ATI cards.

i dont know if HDR+AA works in that game for ATI with the FP16 method

 

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: schneiderguy

Originally posted by: Tangerines

Doesn't Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory also support HDR?

yes, it does it by FP16 for for 6/7 series & x1xxxx cards and emulated via pixel shaders for r4xxx ATI cards.

i dont know if HDR+AA works in that game for ATI with the FP16 method

Yes. Splinter Cell Choas Theory utlizies the OpenEXR HDR FP16, but to my current knowledge AA is not avaialble with it, the option is greyed out apparently.

As well Age of Empires 3 also utlizes OpenEXR HDR FP16, the difference there is Nvidia can do AA here, since they have developer support they have their own SSAA pathway.

 

[josh6079]

Originally posted by: coldpower27

Originally posted by: josh6079

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Im not saying Farcrys is better

That's what this was implying:

What I did say was that HL2's is "watered down" compared to Farcrys, which it is.

You were basically saying that HL2's HDR isn't as good as Farcry's. Basically it is the same analogy as soda. Watered down soda doesn't hold as much appeal as "true" soda.

I didnt imply that Farcrys looked better. I was implying that HL2's is not in the same caliber technology wise. And its not. HL2's HDR cannot do all that Farcrys can. Why do you think the only game to do HDR like HL2, is HL2? Perhaps I didnt use the right term, I read it somewhere else, and it stuck. It makes sense to me.

Ive said many times, over the past several years, I dont like much of Farcrys HDR. On the beach, the sand looks too bright, too "hollywood" if you will. About the only thing I really like, is when lights shine thru windows, holes in a cave, or when you go outside, from inside.

Watered down is poor term, you could have just said HDR utilizing Pixel Shaders, so any card with Shader Model 2.0 support can have HDR in HL2, with AA I might add.

The term Watered down in itself says inferiority. So it's just a bad choice of words, from what have I seen so far of HDR, it looks so overbright. Get the name unstuck, because it is not politically correct. You could say that HL2 HDR is inferior from a certain standpoint. But "watered down" is too vague. How the hell are we supposed to know what you mean exactly by "watered down"....?

ATI's current advantage is OpenEXR HDR FP16 with MSAA, which is available in 3 games to my knowledge, Serious Sam 2, Far Cry and Oblivion.

Whoa, Ackmed made that quote weird. I didn't say some of those things like it shows.

Ackmed said this:

I didnt imply that Farcrys looked better. I was implying that HL2's is not in the same caliber technology wise. And its not. HL2's HDR cannot do all that Farcrys can. Why do you think the only game to do HDR like HL2, is HL2? Perhaps I didnt use the right term, I read it somewhere else, and it stuck. It makes sense to me.

Ive said many times, over the past several years, I dont like much of Farcrys HDR. On the beach, the sand looks too bright, too "hollywood" if you will. About the only thing I really like, is when lights shine thru windows, holes in a cave, or when you go outside, from inside.

Not me.

 

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: josh6079
Whoa, Ackmed made that quote weird. I didn't say some of those things like it shows.

Ackmed said this:

I didnt imply that Farcrys looked better. I was implying that HL2's is not in the same caliber technology wise. And its not. HL2's HDR cannot do all that Farcrys can. Why do you think the only game to do HDR like HL2, is HL2? Perhaps I didnt use the right term, I read it somewhere else, and it stuck. It makes sense to me.

Ive said many times, over the past several years, I dont like much of Farcrys HDR. On the beach, the sand looks too bright, too "hollywood" if you will. About the only thing I really like, is when lights shine thru windows, holes in a cave, or when you go outside, from inside.

Not me.

Yeah I fixed it, Anandtech's quoting system is kinda wierd me thinks, it shows every prior quoted post, so it could get really long.

 

[RobertR1]

I played through 75+ hours of Oblivion using 4xAA + 8xHQAF at 1920x1200. Works fine.

Crusader, sweetie, wanna come sit on my lap while daddy drives the mouse and keyboard so you can see the pretty picture???

 

[josh6079]

Originally posted by: RobertR1
I played through 75+ hours of Oblivion using 4xAA + 8xHQAF at 1920x1200. Works fine.

Crusader, sweetie, wanna come sit on my lap while daddy drives the mouse and keyboard so you can see the pretty picture???

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Normally I wouldn't coment on such a post, but that was really funny.

 

[imported_ST]

Originally posted by: deadseasquirrel
I made a 5min video of Oblivion in the foliage, running around, stopping to smell the flowers, fighting deer/bear/etc. I have an XTX and play at 1600x1200, but made the video using 1920x1200 since that's what Crusader wanted to see (though, like Ackmed mentioned, 1280x1024 is probably a much more mainstream and popular resolution out there). Everything is maxed in the settings, with 4xAA, 16xHQAF, and HDR (utilizing the old Cat 6.3s with the Chuck... do the 6.5 improve on anything??). It's gorgeous and is very playable (though the widescreen res looked weird while gaming on a 4:3 crt).

In my testing of an x1900xt, i found a discernable difference when enabling HDR + AA. THese numbers were Frapped directly from a set course i used in Oblivion outdoors (10 min run) at 1920x1080p (my LCDTV's native resolution) w/ all image settings maxed:

HDR w/ No AA 8x AF :

ATI Stock 621MHz Core - 720MHz Mem (HQAF)
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
13968, 543034, 2, 57, 25.722

ATI OC 655MHz Core - 792MHz Mem (HQAF)
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
14778, 540610, 16, 58, 27.336


HDR-4X AA 8x HQAF :

ATI Stock 621MHz Core - 720MHz Mem
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
10539, 562581, 0, 36, 18.733

ATI OC 655MHz Core - 792MHz Mem
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
11492, 549567, 12, 45, 20.911


At higher resolutions, you will see quite a detrimental loss in framerate. NOte that I'm not knocking the X1900s, as I prefer the superior HDR+AA features, but some folks are really exagerating the performance delta. I would assume the next gen of vid cards (x1950xt?) w/ the higher clock rates will rectify this though, as evidenced by the OC fps numbers.

 

[Nightmare225]

Do you guys think G80 will be able to support AA+FP16 HDR? I don't see them making the same mistake twice...

 

[Sc4freak]

I'm pretty sure HDR + AA has been confirmed by Nvidia for G80.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Nevermind

 

[imported_Crusader]

Originally posted by: RobertR1
I played through 75+ hours of Oblivion using 4xAA + 8xHQAF at 1920x1200. Works fine.

Crusader, sweetie, wanna come sit on my lap while daddy drives the mouse and keyboard so you can see the pretty picture???

No thanks RobertR1, but it's interesting you call men "sweetie" and want them to "sit on your lap".

It's also interesting you played 75 hours of Oblivion at a setting HardOCP deemed "unplayable".

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA4Myw1LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA

 

[thilanliyan]

 

[schneiderguy]

Originally posted by: thilan29

:thumbsup: :Q

 

[fierydemise]

Originally posted by: Crusader
It's also interesting you played 75 hours of Oblivion at a setting HardOCP deemed "unplayable".

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA4Myw1LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA

Thats the biggest problem with HardOCP's methods they rate cards biased on a subjective measurement, I like HardOCP's reviews because test all the IQ features different cards have to offer but their results are based on a totally subjective and unrepeatable metric.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Originally posted by: fierydemise

Originally posted by: Crusader
It's also interesting you played 75 hours of Oblivion at a setting HardOCP deemed "unplayable".

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA4Myw1LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA

Thats the biggest problem with HardOCP's methods they rate cards biased on a subjective measurement, I like HardOCP's reviews because test all the IQ features different cards have to offer but their results are based on a totally subjective and unrepeatable metric.

My problem with HardOCP is they tend to make Ati hardware look worse by adding options which they leave out in Nvidia hardware, based on their "playable settings" logic...

Remember that bit tech (bit tech also uses the playable settings method) review in which the x1900 clearly won against the 7900, while using grass shadows, which were left off for the 7900? Nvidia fanboys kept arguing "oh, but they said it looks pretty much the same" well, why enable it for ati hardware only then? If theyre gonna add useless performance crapping options, do it for both sides

 

[schneiderguy]

Originally posted by: ShadowOfMyself

Originally posted by: fierydemise

Originally posted by: Crusader
It's also interesting you played 75 hours of Oblivion at a setting HardOCP deemed "unplayable".

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA4Myw1LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA

Thats the biggest problem with HardOCP's methods they rate cards biased on a subjective measurement, I like HardOCP's reviews because test all the IQ features different cards have to offer but their results are based on a totally subjective and unrepeatable metric.

My problem with HardOCP is they tend to make Ati hardware look worse by adding options which they leave out in Nvidia hardware, based on their "playable settings" logic...

Remember that bit tech (bit tech also uses the playable settings method) review in which the x1900 clearly won against the 7900, while using grass shadows, which were left off for the 7900? Nvidia fanboys kept arguing "oh, but they said it looks pretty much the same" well, why enable it for ati hardware only then? If theyre gonna add useless performance crapping options, do it for both sides

grass shadows dont do anything

 

[Nightmare225]

They don't, but it doesn't make sense to benchmark cards with one using it and the other not.

 

[schneiderguy]

Originally posted by: Nightmare225
They don't, but it doesn't make sense to benchmark cards with one using it and the other not.

true