NEW AT ARTICLE! Image Quality Analysis Fall 2003: A Glance Through the Looking Glass

[Adul]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1931

 

[ginfest]

Good article, well written and easily understandable. It seems to verify what is already known re ATI's AA advantage and NV's AF. Of particular note is the "....NV seems to be doing more work.." quote, which makes sense in the light of some games showing a 5-10% advantage in fps for the R3xx line over the NV3x line.

I'm sure that certain people will jump on the "too close to call" conclusion but those of us who have used both products know that the it is too close to call and that both have thier advantages/disadvantages not only in IQ but in performance and compatabilty.


Mike G

 

[MDE]

off to read...

 

[Megatomic]

My eyes must suck, it was rare for me to spot quality differences between the two cards. They both were putting out really nice graphics. I'd be happy with either at this point in time.

 

[ginfest]

Just got thru reading a "review" of the review on the B3D forums-according to the "experts" there the AT article has little to no value. Hard to tell if the critiques offered there are based in fact or because the AT article offers somewhat of a positive conclusion regarding the NV cards?
Of course lately the B3D forums are filled with anti-NV invective and anyone who dares offer an alternative viewpoint is instantly ridiculed.
Just hate to see the personal attacks leveled at Derek and AT but until forums rein in the trolls, I'm sure that the FUD will continue.


Mike G

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Originally posted by: Ginfest
Just got thru reading a "review" of the review on the B3D forums-according to the "experts" there the AT article has little to no value. Hard to tell if the critiques offered there are based in fact or because the AT article offers somewhat of a positive conclusion regarding the NV cards?
Of course lately the B3D forums are filled with anti-NV invective and anyone who dares offer an alternative viewpoint is instantly ridiculed.
Just hate to see the personal attacks leveled at Derek and AT but until forums rein in the trolls, I'm sure that the FUD will continue.


Mike G

There's going to be noise at any forum you go to. With B3D's popularity growing, you're inevitably going to get more "vocal" members. There's a core set of members that consistantly give positive, constructive input. Just filter out the noise.

In any event, I'm off to read the article.

 

[rbV5]

Unfortunately, defining image quality is a more difficult task than it seems. Neither ATI nor NVIDIA produce images that match the DX9 reference rasterizer
For the sake of Image Quality comparison, why not throw up a shot from the reference rasterizer as a reference for the screenies of the 2 cards?

There is, in fact, no ?correct? image for any given frame of a game. This makes it very hard to draw a line in the sand and say that one GPU does something the right way and the other one does not.
I thought thats what the reference rasterizer did? Why isn't the reference rasterizer rendered frame the "correct" image?

 

[aka1nas]

Well, IQ is a bit subjective so maybe ATI or Nvidia can do something that looks better than the reference raster, though it would not be identical then.

 

[rbV5]

Well, IQ is a bit subjective so maybe ATI or Nvidia can do something that looks better than the reference raster, though it would not be identical then

Is there a reason why Derek said "There is, in fact, no ?correct? image for any given frame of a game. , Does the reference rasterizer not draw the "correct" image now? I thought that was the whole point of the software reference rasterizer...to draw the "correct" image independant of the hardware..... to "reference" the output of your hardware to a known correct image.

And, why not include a frame drawn by the reference rasterizer when comparing the hardware anyway, especially when Image Quality is the main criteria? Image "accuracy" probably plays a large role in Image "quality" at least in my mind.

 

[Matthias99]

Does the reference rasterizer do AA/AF (I'm not too up to date on DX9 development)? If not, then the differences in AA and AF implementations would certainly be "in the eye of the beholder", so to speak.

 

[Megatomic]

I gave up on R3D and B3D even before I sold my R9600Pro. Those forums are full of windbags who see conspiracies around every corner.

I personally liked this analysis though it didn't do much to help me decide which card family to buy into next. Both produce excellent quality images at rates fast enough+ for my gaming needs.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Does the reference rasterizer not draw the "correct" image now?

Refrast uses inferior quality to what is available in current hardware in some instances. AF is not clearly defined, nor is AA. Certain games render techniques that refrast doesn't support(Splinter Cell's highest quality shadows as an example, the ones that won't work on ATi's boards). I think using refrast as a baseline is still a good idea, but it isn't quite ideal.

 

[rbV5]

Refrast uses inferior quality to what is available in current hardware in some instances. AF is not clearly defined, nor is AA. Certain games render techniques that refrast doesn't support(Splinter Cell's highest quality shadows as an example, the ones that won't work on ATi's boards). I think using refrast as a baseline is still a good idea, but it isn't quite ideal

Thats probably exactly what he means when he said there was "no ?correct? image for any given frame of a game", but I'd like to see a reference image for comparison.