The 3D performance of the GeForce 8800 GTX makes it an ideal match for monitors that support a maximum resolution of 2560x1600 such as 30-inch LCDs from Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Samsung. The price of 30-inch LCDs are well over $1,000 and are likely to remain at a premium until higher resolution LCDs, and the GPUs to support them, make their debut.
Unlike the world around us, monitors are constrained by a physical size and resolution, which contributes to aliasing. Aliasing artifacts can appear as wavy lines, moiré patterns, popping, shimmering and sparkling. However, the higher the image resolution, the less noticeable aliasing tends to become. Antialiasing is used to combat the effects of aliasing and is demonstrated with a zoomed-in view of the assault rifle gun sight below.
Antialiasing At 2560x1600
With 2x AA applied at a resolution of 2560x1600, the edges of the gun sight appear less-jagged and at 4x the edges become smoother. The 8x modes improve quality even further.
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars responded as expected to all of the antialiasing mode available in the control panel - 2x, 4x, 8x, 8xQ, 16x, 16xQ, SLI8x, SLI16x, SLI16xQ, SLI32x, and SLI32xQ. The SLI antialiasing modes provided the best quality, but were impractical at a resolution of 2560x1600 due to performance. However, 8x AA on the GeForce 8800 GTX was playable with SLI enabled.
MEMORY USAGE
Enabling AA at higher resolutions consumes a large amount of memory and is one reason that the GeForce 8800 GTX is equipped with 768MB. Performance will begin to decline as the amount of consumed memory approaches the amount of physical memory.
RivaTuner Hardware Monitoring
The following table provides the amount of memory used in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, as reported by RivaTuner, for the listed AA modes.
