Ultra Quality vs High Quality

[pcslookout]

Whats the point of using Ultra quality compared to high quality, with your video card, in the select few games that have it ? I never noticed any difference. How was I able to use Ultra Quality in Quake 4 and Doom 3 with my Geforce 8800 GTS 320 ? Doesn't it require at least 512 mb of video ram ?

 

[ViRGE]

For Q4 (and other Doom 3 engine games) the difference between HQ and UQ is solely texture compression. HQ uses S3TC/DXTC, UQ doesn't. The quality difference between the two is basically impossible to tell.

 

[Laminator]

It doesn't require 512MB of video RAM but it will give you a warning recommending that you have over 500MB of video RAM. Still, even if you have only 256MB of video RAM, if your card is fast enough you will only experience a small performance drop compared to High Quality. As ViRGE mentioned, the quality difference is unnoticeable in actual gameplay.

 

[pcslookout]

Then why do they have ultra quality if you can't notice the difference ? Whats the point ?

Why does it warn you about needing over 500MB of video ram when it will still work if your video card is fast enough ?

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: pcslookout
Then why do they have ultra quality if you can't notice the difference ? Whats the point ?

Why does it warn you about needing over 500MB of video ram when it will still work if your video card is fast enough ?

They offer UQ because some people want it anyhow. The textures are already there, why not just spend 3 minutes putting in a mode where texture compression is turned off? As for the 500MB warning, all the D3 engine games tend to have texture-heavy sections that would amount to more than 256MB of uncompressed textures, you will take a performance hit in those sections unless you have >=512MB of video memory.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: pcslookout
Then why do they have ultra quality if you can't notice the difference ? Whats the point ?

Why does it warn you about needing over 500MB of video ram when it will still work if your video card is fast enough ?

They offer UQ because some people want it anyhow. The textures are already there, why not just spend 3 minutes putting in a mode where texture compression is turned off? As for the 500MB warning, all the D3 engine games tend to have texture-heavy sections that would amount to more than 256MB of uncompressed textures, you will take a performance hit in those sections unless you have >=512MB of video memory.

Still makes no sense because why would a gamer want to use ultra high quality when high quality looks exactly the same ? We never use to have ultra high quality.

Whats next super ultra high quality ? :laugh:

 

[Laminator]

e-Penis, probably. Note that when Doom 3 came out, the performance drop from High Quality to Ultra Quality WAS enough to make a difference. God forbid you try Ultra Quality on your 9700 Pro. In the era of GeForce 7, however, cards like the 7800GT 256MB will chew up Doom 3 at 1600x1200, Ultra Quality, 4xAA and spit it out.

HardOCP (below) on a factory-overclocked 6800 Ultra and Doom 3 (FX-53, 2GB RAM):

"While technically the DOOM 3 Ultra Quality level calls for a 512MB video card, if you have enough system memory on the motherboard, you can get that Ultra experience even at 1600x1200 with 4XAA. There are still some slight pauses in the game that are noticeable as the textures needed are loaded from system memory, but it is certainly playable and you will have a hard time beating the visual experience. This is probably the closest we have come to witnessing real-time movie quality CG."

Doom 3 with many different cards/configurations: http://www2.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjQ0
256MB versus 512MB on Quake 4, Ultra Quality (7800GT): http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=33&page=4

 

[pcslookout]

There is not that large of a difference, that I can't see between 256 mb of video ram and 512 mb of video ram. Just around 5 to 10 fps. Doesn't seem like much at all.

 

[gorcorps]

Christ... just because YOU can't tell doesn't mean nobody can tell. Compression lowers quality, that's a given. It's just a matter of if you can tell. It's just like with music: some people can hear the difference between the raw track and an mp3, some can't. That's how it is with the HQ vs UQ. If you can't tell the diff, then run HQ for the extra performance boost. Others notice, or just want the peace of mind knowing they're running the best textures they can.

 

[Laminator]

Originally posted by: pcslookout
There is not that large of a difference, that I can't see between 256 mb of video ram and 512 mb of video ram. Just around 5 to 10 fps. Doesn't seem like much at all.

Remember that this was tested with a 7800GT. When Doom 3 came out, the best card you could use to run it was the 6800 Ultra.

 

[Pain999]

maybe the difference is how much it taxes your system? Would the cpu or gpu have to work harder to uncompress the textures?

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Pain999
maybe the difference is how much it taxes your system? Would the cpu or gpu have to work harder to uncompress the textures?

No, there is no real uncompression. It's not lossless compression, it's lossy compression ala JPEG. It technically requires a bit more work by the GPU, but all GPUs that implement S3TC support can do so without a performance hit.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: pcslookout
There is not that large of a difference, that I can't see between 256 mb of video ram and 512 mb of video ram. Just around 5 to 10 fps. Doesn't seem like much at all.

Is this a round about way of deciding on whether to get the 8800GTS 320 or the 8800GTS 640?
If so, you have two other threads that are just about covering the same questions.

I was going to buy the GTS320 initially. But at the last second, before purchasing all the hardware for my now current rig, I deleted the 320 and added the 640 to my shopping cart.
Why? Peace of mind. Knowing that there won't be a game out there that would suffer from lack of memory. Even if the 320 never has any trouble because of it's smaller memory size, I know I won't have memory attributed restrictions that would ever show up on a 320.

You saw how Call of Juarez in DX10 mode caused the 320 to tank badly. Nvidia says driver bug, I say lack of memory. But we'll see soon enough if they can fix it or not.

Your call. Risk buying a 320 for less money, but kick yourself in the arse later when you run into a game that needs the extra memory, or risk a 640 for more money, but kick yourself in the arse later when you see all your friends having zero issues because of lack of memory in any games. I know this helps you in no way, but there it is.

 

[BFG10K]

How was I able to use Ultra Quality in Quake 4 and Doom 3 with my Geforce 8800 GTS 320 ?

It'll still work (i.e. the game will happily load uncompressed textures) but you?ll experience hitching in some places. Actually even my 512 MB 7900 GTX hitched in places with Ultra; my 640 MB 8800 GTS was fine in the same spots.

You really want more than 512 MB RAM to run Ultra quality.

Then why do they have ultra quality if you can't notice the difference ?

I can't tell a difference in Quake 4 (so I don't use it there) but in Doom 3 there?s a bit of difference. The Mars/Hell skies have no banding, characters' faces in cinematics have more detail and general textures are slightly crisper.