Puzzled

[snizzle]

I just recently found out that by turning off aa my CS:S video did not become laggy and was playable. i started doing this because someone else told me to do it for COD2 and it worked so i tried it. Can my video card not handle any aa or something?

 

[SynthDude2001]

Depending on what resolution you're playing at, the 9800 Pro is definitely a bit weak these days if you like to play with AA on (probably especially so for newer games like COD2).

 

[Pete]

AA isn't a free feature, it requires more video card memory space and bandwidth (and more GPU passes for >2xAA). Yes, your 9800P is getting a bit old to enable AA without a noticable performance hit, considering how powerful your CPU is. 2xAA *might* be OK, but 4xAA will probably really hurt your framerates in modern games like CoD2 and CSS.

That said, I find CSS playable at 1024x768 with 2xAA on my 9800P. I'm severely limited by my AXP 2400+ (usually 30-40fps average, closer to 30 in firefights), tho, so in essence 2xAA is "free" for me as my CPU is handicapping my framerates. I recently switched off AA, but I may reenable it just b/c even 2xAA at just 1024x768 on a 19" CRT makes jaggies much less noticable.