so will X1000 have hardware support for adaptive antialiasing ?

flexy

Diamond Member
Sep 28, 2001
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we have that feature now, and depending on the game-engine it can give a substantial hit - eg. in FarCry (a lot of foliage and transparent textures) FPS drop like 50% on my X850XT.

In engines like HL2 etc. the drop is less significant - but then i think it really depends how much transparent textures in a scene are - if we NEED adaptive AA (because of many transparent textures) it just gets unbearable slow.

I still (after reading quite some X1000 reviews) dont know whether X1000 series will have hardware support for adaptive antialiasng !

Anyone knows ?
 

rbV5

Lifer
Dec 10, 2000
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You have to have hardware support, or you don't have AAA at all.
 

1Dark1Sharigan1

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Oct 5, 2005
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Of course it does . . . there is no such thing as software AA . . .

Even the X800 series has hardware support for AAA, it is simply disabled in the registry . . . that doesn't mean AAA on the X800 series is enabled via a software path, merely that ATI didn't decide to implement the feature on the X800 series but as rbV5 said, it HAS to be supported by hardware or else you won't get it at all . . .
 

flexy

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Sep 28, 2001
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ok you might nhave a point, but what i want to ask is:

On my X850XT the adaptive AA can be EXTREME slow - but we have A AA already and i think it even works on 9700 and up.

Question: Does X1000 have ANY harware-side optimization etc. whbich makes it SIGNIFICANTLY faster in using the adaptive AA than eg. on A X850XT

ATI pushes adaptive antialiasing with the X10000 series and i want to know whether we can expect the SAME performance hit with the new cards than what we have now. (As said it depends on how intensive the adaptive AA is used, certain scenes etc....but 50% or so perf decrease is unnacceptable in my opinion and i HOPE that X1800 etc. will do better)
 

1Dark1Sharigan1

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Oct 5, 2005
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Originally posted by: flexy
ok you might nhave a point, but what i want to ask is:

On my X850XT the adaptive AA can be EXTREME slow - but we have A AA already and i think it even works on 9700 and up.

Question: Does X1000 have ANY harware-side optimization etc. whbich makes it SIGNIFICANTLY faster in using the adaptive AA than eg. on A X850XT

ATI pushes adaptive antialiasing with the X10000 series and i want to know whether we can expect the SAME performance hit with the new cards than what we have now. (As said it depends on how intensive the adaptive AA is used, certain scenes etc....but 50% or so perf decrease is unnacceptable in my opinion and i HOPE that X1800 etc. will do better)

From what I've seen in the reviews, the X1800XT can handle AA very well and I assume this would be true for adaptive AA also. Remember the reason why ATI didn't introduce AAA "officially" with the X800 series was because it wasn't eally optimized for that architecture (hence a bigger performance hit). I would assume that the ATI has optimized AAA for X1800 series or else why bother having it as an "official" feature?

Also Adaptive AA isn't all that slow on the X800 series. I am running it on my X800XL in Half-Life 2 with 1600x1200 4xAAA/16xAF and I have good framerates even in areas with large amounts of alpha textures (i.e. HW17, parts of the first level)

I would be surprised (and quite disappointed) if the X1800 turned out to lack AAA optimization . . .
 

DJSfurry

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Dec 21, 2004
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How do you run AAA? is it enabled within the CCC? i have a x800gto^2 which will later go in and be unlocked.. so i hope to make use of this as the IQ is far superior, at least according to the tests done by anand.
 

Duvie

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Feb 5, 2001
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Is adaptive antialiasing more of a feature that CAD users and other 3d modelers use??? I dont know it was as much a gamer thing....Let me know cause I think I unlocked a eature like that in my 6800NU by soft quadroing the card...
 

xtknight

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Oct 15, 2004
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Originally posted by: Duvie
Is adaptive antialiasing more of a feature that CAD users and other 3d modelers use??? I dont know it was as much a gamer thing....Let me know cause I think I unlocked a eature like that in my 6800NU by soft quadroing the card...

It was something else like Rotated Grid Multisampling. NVIDIA cards don't even have Adaptive AA.
 

1Dark1Sharigan1

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Oct 5, 2005
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Originally posted by: DJSfurry
How do you run AAA? is it enabled within the CCC? i have a x800gto^2 which will later go in and be unlocked.. so i hope to make use of this as the IQ is far superior, at least according to the tests done by anand.

It requires a registry edit with the Catalyst 5.9 Drivers. You don't need CCC (it works with ATI Traytools)

Go to "Run" in Windows and type in "regedit" go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{A8D04130-81FF-401B-A157-55986498E0BC}\0000

"{A8D04130-81FF-401B-A157-55986498E0BC}" will be different for everyone but it should look something like that.

Then once in the 0000 folder, set ASTT_NA to "0" (This enables AAA to be chosen in CCC or ATT)
Create a new string value "ASTT" and set it to "1" to enable AAA. Reboot.

You should now see "Adaptive Anti-Aliasing" in CCC or ATT . . . :D

If you have more than one "{XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX}\0000" folder make sure you change every ASTT_NA value to 0 and add ASTT 1 to each of those folders . . .
 

flexy

Diamond Member
Sep 28, 2001
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Originally posted by: 1Dark1Sharigan1

Also Adaptive AA isn't all that slow on the X800 series. I am running it on my X800XL in Half-Life 2 with 1600x1200 4xAAA/16xAF and I have good framerates even in areas with large amounts of alpha textures (i.e. HW17, parts of the first level)

I would be surprised (and quite disappointed) if the X1800 turned out to lack AAA optimization . . .

thats exactly the point. I know in HL2 the perf hit is neglectible - but then please try FarCry and get your wake-up call. FarCry (also with the OC FarCry benchmark) - you can see the hit can be as big as 50%.

I GUESS that HL2 uses just a moderate/low amount of transparent textures - and FarCry a lot (trees/leaves etc.).
*Another* possibility would be that HL2 uses some "optimized" code and FarCry doesn't. (?)

Would be VERY interesting to see a X1800XT/XL do the same benchies tests with FarCry with adaptive AA on and see how it does there....

 

flexy

Diamond Member
Sep 28, 2001
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Originally posted by: DJSfurry
How do you run AAA? is it enabled within the CCC? i have a x800gto^2 which will later go in and be unlocked.. so i hope to make use of this as the IQ is far superior, at least according to the tests done by anand.


easiest for you is you get ATI Tray Tools and latest (5.9) ATI cats...there are specific registry settings you have to add/edit...but latest ati tray tools can do that for you.
 

flexy

Diamond Member
Sep 28, 2001
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Originally posted by: Duvie
Is adaptive antialiasing more of a feature that CAD users and other 3d modelers use??? I dont know it was as much a gamer thing....Let me know cause I think I unlocked a eature like that in my 6800NU by soft quadroing the card...


i read that some people working with modeling programs had success and picture quality was better - however i only can tell from the gamer's point of view.

It always applies if transparent textures are used, typical example would be something like a wire fence or often trees/foliage etc. Those are not anti-aliased normally but now can.
 

1Dark1Sharigan1

Golden Member
Oct 5, 2005
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Originally posted by: flexy
easiest for you is you get ATI Tray Tools and latest (5.9) ATI cats...there are specific registry settings you have to add/edit...but latest ati tray tools can do that for you.


lol, wish I had known that . . . would have saved me some trouble . . . :p
 

DJSfurry

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Dec 21, 2004
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ok sweet. what kind of performance hit can i expect when using it with a unlocked gto^2? ie x850xtpe? would it result in a drop from say 90 fps to 70? or would it be less? also, i would only have to run less Adaptive AA to get a better effect than that supplied by a higher normal AA setting correct?
 

1Dark1Sharigan1

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Oct 5, 2005
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Originally posted by: DJSfurry
ok sweet. what kind of performance hit can i expect when using it with a unlocked gto^2? ie x850xtpe? would it result in a drop from say 90 fps to 70? or would it be less? also, i would only have to run less Adaptive AA to get a better effect than that supplied by a higher normal AA setting correct?

Depends on the game . . . for HL2 I fully expect a minimal decrease (maybe 5-10FPS) but for Farcry, yes there is a significant drop (I tested it) due to all that lush jungle . . . BF2 should also see only a small drop since it doesn't use too many a-textures (trees) . . .

You can't set "low" or "high" adaptive AA specifically. It is set by the total AA amount. Basically Adaptive AA anti-aliases those alpha textures which normal AA does nothing to . . . so even at 2x, AAA will make HL2 look much better . . . but yeah, for HL2, 2xAAA should look better than 4xAA . . . be warned though, for games that have built-in AA options (HL2, Battlefield) you need to enable AAA and then switch AA to "Application Preference" in order for AAA to function properly. Else, it does nothing . . . (i.e. forcing 4xAAA in CCC and then running HL2 results in AAA not working at all)
 

DJSfurry

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Dec 21, 2004
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oh yeah sure. that should be no problem since i already set it do app preference. to get adaptive AA off i just need to un-check the box within the CCC program correct?

EDIT: btw does ati tray tools overclock as well or should i carry on using ATi Tools as that seems to be the best one.. or are they infact the same thing?
 

flexy

Diamond Member
Sep 28, 2001
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ATT overclocks as does AT...recently i switched over to ATT again (from AT)...problem was i had *slight* issues with ATT but i think they're gone now.

ATT has so much more options than AT anyway...but then AT is more "streamlined", less options if you only want to overclock.
 

1Dark1Sharigan1

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Oct 5, 2005
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Originally posted by: DJSfurry
oh yeah sure. that should be no problem since i already set it do app preference. to get adaptive AA off i just need to un-check the box within the CCC program correct?

EDIT: btw does ati tray tools overclock as well or should i carry on using ATi Tools as that seems to be the best one.. or are they infact the same thing?

I don't know if ATI Tools supports Catalyst 5.9 as it doesn't work for me. ATI Tray Tools is great for overclocking especially with its "Auto-Overclocking" feature allows you to only overclocks your card when it enters 3D applications if you wish and then when you're back in 2D it will automatically set your card back to stock (or whatever you set it to) It also has a built-in max core / mem tester, fan controller, and mem latency tool . . .
 

DJSfurry

Senior member
Dec 21, 2004
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hmm, 1Dark1Sharigan1 those features are also available on Ati Tool. well if i have to get ATi Tray Tools to get AAA then might as well use it to overclock the card too. i currently use a slightly older version of ATi Tool.