External anti-aliasing

[Phait]

By external I mean this: using your card's control panel to set AA for specific games, and having it off in the game's own settings.

I've read about how enabling Flight Simulator 2004's anti-aliasing in-game is much worse, and how it should be enabled through your card's control panel for better performance.

I'm wondering if that is common across games, or if it's an isolated case? I know I can probably do some framerate tests (currently considering Half-Life 2).

[Denz]

I play HL2 with AA 2X and Anisotropic filtering 16x. I will try a level with AA and aniso forced, and with ingame setting. My computer: Shit compu.. err i mean, amd atlhon 1,4GHZ 512mb of ram ATI RADEON 9600 XT 128 vram. :o

[Llama Gibbz]

I always force AA an AF through the cards control panel.
Unless the game cant do HDR and AA at the same time.

[Damien_Azreal]

I use AA through the games settings, and if the game does not have such a setting I don't use it. With ATi cards it's a pain in the ass, you can't setup specific profiles for your games.

HL2 has a very lite performance hit from AA, actually I noticed no downgrade in performance at all. I run HL2 at 1280*960, 4xAA and 8xAF... game runs silky smooth.
Other games (FEAR,Oblivion) the performance hit from AA is huge. It's better to just play around with both in game and control panel settings, find what is better and set it up accordingly.

[ShadeEX]

I usually don't force settings on games. Except when games don't have settings for that on their own.. For intance if i can't turn on Vsync in a game, i have to force it on or i get image Tearing on my TFT monitor..

[Hudson]

I have my video card set to run everything at 4xAA, with some games my dinosaur PC has problems with (like F.E.A.R.) I just max everything out and run at a lower resolution, leaving FSAA to clean up the jaggies. Works out pretty well.

HL2 is wonderful with AA though :love:

I usually don't force settings on games. Except when games don't have settings for that on their own.. For intance if i can't turn on Vsync in a game, i have to force it on or i get image Tearing on my TFT monitor..

I always have VSync on too, it's a habit from playing a lot of Quake 3 games :o

[Bludd]

In-game AA settings will result in best (as in what the developers intended) quality. Setting it in control panel may result in incorrect rendering. Older games, with no in-game AA settings, must of course have AA enabled in control panel, but new games should not if visual quality is what is preferred.

[ShadeEX]

My Pc isn't that powerfull...

But if i manage to get my hands on a Behemoth of a PC then ill likely force AA and AF.. except if it causes truble in some games ofcource..
however ill still force Vsync since image-tearing looks horrible..:mryuck:

[Bludd]

As I said, forcing AA in games that let you select it in-game is not recommended since the developers may have rigged the use of AA in a special way for the game.

As a rule, only force AA if the game doesn't let you choose it in-game.

[Hudson]

I don't seem to have any problem with it.

[Edit]: Actually the only game to give me trouble was Halo, mainly because it doesn't support AA at all.

[PlayfulPuppy]

Wow, I think I'm the only person left in the world that runs everything at 1024x768, no FSAA, no anisotropic and no VSync.

It's not that my computers slow, I was just brought up that way. :(

[Hudson]

I can't live without AA and AF, I have been spoiled so :(

[Damien_Azreal]

It depends on the game, older games if I can crank the res up I don't really feel the need for AA. And some newer ones (Oblivion and FEAR) give me issues with AA, to much of a performance hit on a x800.

But most other games I can run with 2x or 4xAA nicely.

[Lethe]

Wow, I think I'm the only person left in the world that runs everything at 1024x768, no FSAA, no anisotropic and no VSync.


Join the club...

[Jiminator]

good times are when a new game is released and everyone complains about how crappily it runs on their machines, however it is running well on yours and there is still a video card upgrade to go in the near future....

[Damien_Azreal]

^^^ What I don't get is when a new game comes out, people complain about how badly it runs... horrible frames. Then you ask what settings they are running at, they say 1280*1024 and 6xAA or some shit.

God forbid they lower some settings. :rolleyes:

[Jiminator]

well come on, what else can you buy that will be obsolete in a year or two? a couple of years ago a friend of mine spent $4000 on a 6800 sli system. I was drooling then. The system now.... is probably not so hot. every new video card is expected to double the speed of the prior generation. it's a little insane. The game makers have to be competitive with the 3d engines, the customers insist that each game look more realistic, have huge textures, tons of objects on the screen, lots of effects, etc. Its good if you have the latest hardware. not so good a year later.

[Hudson]

My 6800 is doing just fine, sure I overclocked it a bit along with my CPU and RAM, but I can handle anything that's been thrown at me.

The only exceptions are F.E.A.R. (no soft shadows) and G.R.A.W. (apparently my PC has problems with acronyms).

Other than that I think i'm in good shape until i'm basically forced to upgrade for Crysis and any other games to follow.

I think i'll be able to run Stalker well with a few features disabled.

[Damien_Azreal]

well come on, what else can you buy that will be obsolete in a year or two? a couple of years ago a friend of mine spent $4000 on a 6800 sli system. I was drooling then. The system now.... is probably not so hot. every new video card is expected to double the speed of the prior generation. it's a little insane. The game makers have to be competitive with the 3d engines, the customers insist that each game look more realistic, have huge textures, tons of objects on the screen, lots of effects, etc. Its good if you have the latest hardware. not so good a year later.

Your missing the point of my post, I was simply making fun of people who complain about poor performance. But refuse to lower settings.... yes tech pushes forward constantly, and no you won't be able to run everything maxed out on the same machine.

But some people don't grasp that and get pissed when a PC that was top end two years ago can't max out a top end game now. I just think that's funny, they will complain about poor performance but refuse to lower res or turn off AA.

[Mblackwell]

I hated when Oblivion came out and people would say "I'm running it at 1600x1200 with full detail and HDR and it LAGS! WTF!"

[wayskobfssae]

But some people don't grasp that and get pissed when a PC that was top end two years ago can't max out a top end game now. I just think that's funny, they will complain about poor performance but refuse to lower res or turn off AA.

Don't even get me started. Frigging F.E.A.R. that the whole universe is in love with won't run smoothly on anything above the minimum detail settings, and this is on a 3.2ghz P4. At that setting, Doom 1 looks better. :mad:

[Dave-ros]

What's the rest of your system, ways? I have the same processor and I can run F.E.A.R. in nearly full settings, maybe I can help you out with settings... mind you, I have a very good graphics card (7900GS), and I hold off running it in 1280x1024 mode as it slows down ;)

[0marTheZealot]

I find that AF is far more important than AA. I can stand jaggies but blurry, mip-maps is a complete eyesore.

[Dave-ros]

I'm still not clear -- what are AA and AF? I mean in terms of what us lusers see on the screen, not the techie explanation. All I know is, they're graphical features that blur jagged edges to improve the look, and I couldn't use them when I had an FX5200 unless I wanted a slideshow :o

[Bludd]

When you have experienced 1920x1200 with HQ AA and AF, there can be no turning back. :)

[Daedolon]

Anti-aliasing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-aliasing) softens the edges of polygonal objects that are drawn in other than 100% horizontal or 100% vertical angle to reduce the jagginess in them. Anistropic Filtering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisotropic_filtering) allows the card to render textures at full-quality no matter how far they are from the player's view (normally textures blur out the further they are to reduce stress on the system).

That's just my amateurish knowledge but hopefully you got the basic idea.

[Bludd]

I'm still not clear -- what are AA and AF? I mean in terms of what us lusers see on the screen, not the techie explanation. All I know is, they're graphical features that blur jagged edges to improve the look, and I couldn't use them when I had an FX5200 unless I wanted a slideshow :o

AA makes the jaggies disappear, AF makes textures not blur when viewed at an angle (think road texture in driving game, the further ahead you look, the blurrier the road gets).

[Dave-ros]

Ah, thanks guys -- so AA is for the 3D objects as a whole (though you can also get "full-screen AA", which is presumably on top of that), while AF is for the textures on the objects. Obviously both are essential unless you want your game's appearance to suck more than Bludd :D (Sorry, that just slipped out!)

[Malgon]

Wow, I think I'm the only person left in the world that runs everything at 1024x768, no FSAA, no anisotropic and no VSync.


I'm the same dude. :)

[Echo Black]

I play with all settings on, but always on 1024x768. My monitor supports higher resolutions, but I'm so used to this, I always find mouse movement weird when I use something higher. And it's not like it's a bad resolution, it's your standard one...Even though for most MP I still use 800x600 (even if I can run the game flawlessly - Like this not only can I see the in-game text better, moving the mouse around also feels natural). ;)

Should I feel bad about this? People rave on how higher resolutions are awesome, but I can't get used to them, the mouse movement is just too skippy for my tastes. :( And I'm running it @ 1000DPI/250HZ USB rate (anything over that starts getting inconsistent).

[Phait]

I notice in some games, even though I can run at a satisfactory framerate, maybe like 30 to 40 at medium-high resolutions, if I drop it down I get even quicker framerate and it's definitely noticable - things are so much more fluid, it's unbelievable. It's a lot better in racing or flight sims cause your sense of speed becomes greater.

Just to experience it, try running some of your favorite games at a lower resolution (1024 x 768 or maybe even 800 x 600) , it'll be so much more quicker. If higher resolutions had that fluidity gaming would rock even more :D

[Jiminator]

try sniping at 1900x1600, nothing like it. :)

[Echo Black]

Lower resolutions are supposed to be better for aiming, aren't they? Most pro-gamers (not that we should try to imitate them) use 800x600 (or lower if it's something more snappy/flickshot-ey like CS) because the pixels are more "stretched out" (don't know how to illustrate this), whereas something like 1900x1600 crams them all together, allowing for slight "over-aiming" to occur. As in, your mouse becomes way too sensitive, and a slight touch moves it perhaps a few more could-be decisive pixels around. :insomnia:

[Daveman]

Wow, I think I'm the only person left in the world that runs everything at 1024x768, no FSAA, no anisotropic and no VSync.

It's not that my computers slow, I was just brought up that way. :(
I run at that resolution with no AA but I can't live without AF. I'll lower other settings just to get AF. There's usually hardly a performance drop when I turn it on anyway. Not as much as AA at least.

My 6800 is doing just fine, sure I overclocked it a bit along with my CPU and RAM, but I can handle anything that's been thrown at me.

The only exceptions are F.E.A.R. (no soft shadows) and G.R.A.W. (apparently my PC has problems with acronyms).

Other than that I think i'm in good shape until i'm basically forced to upgrade for Crysis and any other games to follow.

I think i'll be able to run Stalker well with a few features disabled.
Just out of curiosity, what's the rest of you system? I'll probably be getting a mid-upper range laptop in the coming months and I need to know what kind of card to get that will let me run games like Company of Heroes, F.E.A.R., and Medieval 2 Total War at full quality without too much slowdown. The package I'm looking at comes with a Radeon X1700 and I don't think that would be able to do it (though the Core 2 Duo and 2 Gigs of RAM would help) but I don't know the rough equivalent for an nVidia card.

[Yenji]

Bah, you're all spoiled ;)

I've always had low end systems or video cards so I was just happy if I could play the game. I'll try things like AA and AF but if they slow down the game too much then I will shut them off. I honestly don't find they make that much of a difference anyways. I enjoy my games just as much without them :p

I have never tried setting them externally... though maybe I will try that the next time I play a game that uses these features ;)

[Jiminator]

As in, your mouse becomes way too sensitive, and a slight touch moves it perhaps a few more could-be decisive pixels around. :insomnia:
uh, you know there is a mouse sensitivity setting right? and if the game doesn't support it, the os does.... :)

[Echo Black]

uh, you know there is a mouse sensitivity setting right? and if the game doesn't support it, the os does.... :)

That's not what I meant. :D Of course I know you can change mouse sens in game.

[Jokke_r]

Lower resolutions are supposed to be better for aiming, aren't they? Most pro-gamers (not that we should try to imitate them) use 800x600

Thats just cos the older version of the half-life engine was completely ****ed up. You couldn't hit where you aimed if you didn't use 640x480, something to do with hitboxes and crosshair and whatever, but afaik this was fixed years ago and some retards still play with low res thinking they have an advantage which they really don't have, guess they're just used to playing that way.

[Hudson]

Just out of curiosity, what's the rest of you system? I'll probably be getting a mid-upper range laptop in the coming months and I need to know what kind of card to get that will let me run games like Company of Heroes, F.E.A.R., and Medieval 2 Total War at full quality without too much slowdown. The package I'm looking at comes with a Radeon X1700 and I don't think that would be able to do it (though the Core 2 Duo and 2 Gigs of RAM would help) but I don't know the rough equivalent for an nVidia card.

Athlon64 3200+ @ 2.3ghz
1.5GB PC-3200 @ 20%
BFG 6800 Ultra AGP @ 20%

The x1700 is about the same as an nVidia 7700.

[Jiminator]

Ridermark DX 10 benchmark - video here...

http://www.fileshack.com/file.x/10212/RyderMark+Teaser+Trailer

fileshack has become a pain to use, but oh well.
This just shows a sample scene with different effects applied. Its a video of the benchmark running, not the actual benchmark, so you don't need DX10. Some of you may want to see if it will be worth the upgrade.

[Bludd]

Ridermark DX 10 benchmark - video here...

http://www.fileshack.com/file.x/10212/RyderMark+Teaser+Trailer

fileshack has become a pain to use, but oh well.
This just shows a sample scene with different effects applied. Its a video of the benchmark running, not the actual benchmark, so you don't need DX10. Some of you may want to see if it will be worth the upgrade.

Uh, nobody should judge D3D10 by that. It is terrible, boring and worthless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inquirer Read the Rydermark part.

[Micki!]

I wonder i can run Carmageddon with this kind of Anti Aliasing...
And any other old 3D game for that sake..!

Or is it still a requirement for the games to support it, even if it's external..?

[Bludd]

You can get rendering errors, but you should try to force it on old games. I remember playing Carmageddon 2 with AA and AF, and it looked much better (of course, Carmageddon suffers from low resolution textures, but that can't be fixed by AA and AF. :))

[Micki!]

I do play it on "hires" mode though, so the the resolution has been doubled to 640x480
No idea if that's any help, i'm gonna try it anyways though...

[wayskobfssae]

Carmageddon supported 3DFX Glide, which, from how I remember it looking, had some form of anti-aliasing.

[Micki!]

It doesn't seem to work though...

[Daedolon]

You have to run it from the 3dfx.exe. Last time I tried it, I couldn't get it to work on my Voodoo 3 2000, but it has worked in the past.

[Micki!]

a Dos window just posp up, and it dies off... :( so i don't know what could be wrong

[LeadBullet]

Aside from AA one neat thing I found in my Nvidia control panel the other day while enabling AA and Anisotropic to play an older game was the option to do Super Sampling on transparent textures. Its for those textures that have an alpha cutout on them.

Lots of people probably notice that there are jagged edges even with AA on for polygons that have a transparency map. But that setting blended the edges of those kinds of textures. So all the leaves and other plant textures had smoothed edges so the entire scene was jaggy free.

[Micki!]

doesn't seem to work at all in Carmageddon
Works fine in Carmageddon 2 though :)