Let's take a closer look Flight Simulator 2000. We begin with a 2x2 level of FSAA at a resolution of 640x480 in 16-bit color. The amount of memory required for this example is around 7.4MB.
| FSAA Disabled - Scene 1 |
2x2 FSAA - Scene 1 |
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| FSAA Disabled - Scene 2 |
2x2 FSAA - Scene 2 |
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The images speak for themselves - especially when enlarging them. The edges of objects are smoother and textures don't move around as much compared to when FSAA is disabled. Next, let's jack up the level to 3x3.
| 2x2 FSAA - Scene 1 |
3x3 FSAA - Scene 1 |
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| 2x2 FSAA - Scene 2 |
3x3 FSAA - Scene 2 |
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Again, a noticable improvement in image quality, although it's not quite to the same degree we get with comparing no FSAA and 2x2. But 3x3 sure looks great.
The following images are thumbnails of each scene. To best appreciate the benefits of FSAA, the images should be viewed at a resolution of 640x480. This can be done by momentarily switching to a Windows desktop resolution of 640x480.
| No FSAA - Scene 1 |
No FSAA - Scene 2 |
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| 2x2 FSAA - Scene 1 |
2x2 FSAA - Scene 2 |
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| 3x3 FSAA - Scene 1 |
3x3 FSAA - Scene 2 |
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| Flight Simulator 2000 Performance
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If you enlarged the previous images, you may have noticed that the average frame rate, which is the third number from the top left, is around 25-30fps. Flight sims are a different breed of game than the typical first person shooter as they are polygon intensive (especially in city flying), rely heavily on the processor, and work best with large amounts of memory (256MB).
There is a benchmark for Flight Simulator 2000 at simFlight which uses a custom frame rate counter and a recorded video of a flight around New York City. I used the graphics settings recommended by the NYC Bench (1280x960x16bpp) with the exception of not having the Mooney Bravo plane which comes with the professional version of Flight Simulator 2000. I chose the version which contains no clouds.
Flight Simulator 2000 Performance - 16-Bit Color
The difference between all three GeForce2 cards in Flight Simulator 2000 isn't that great. Flight Simulator 2000 begs for FSAA and you won't lose much performance using it. Unfortunately, the high priced GeForce2 Ultra doesn't perform any better than the GeForce2 GTS.
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