Settings: Serious Sam: First Encounter
(Extreme quality, 1280x1024 / 32bit)
Just for reference, there are no major differences between Serious
Sam: First Encounter and Serious Sam: Second Encounter. Basically
TSE uses a twekaed engine and has different maps. Again the game
has been updated to latest version, in this case 1.05. As mentioned
before there was some texture curruption while playing version
1.00. Anyway, let's take a look at the image quality.
For your convenience, we are comparing two images with a help
of Java script. Just hover over an image to see Image Quality
comparison. In Anisotropic filtering tests none of the images
were enlarged.
The guys from Croteam have developed awsome game engine. It
is very similar to Quake 3 engine in terms of OpenGL extensions.
Of course Serious Sam supports Direct X, but it's mainly built
on OGL API. If you want multi-texturing support only OGL can provide
it. What makes me go back to this game is superior performance
even with highest settings. The game itself has enormous amount
of video options you can fiddle with. You can also execute custom
quality scripts. While we tested the card, we have used the "Extreme
Quality" script which was provided in the game.
Allow us to explain the Anisotropic comparisons above. Please
note that Aggressive Mode does *not* use trilinear filtering (that's
why it doesn't look as good as on Balanced mode). NVIDIA uses
its own adaptive filtering which stands somewhere between trilinear
and bilinear filtering in terms of IQ.
First we have tested the card without any Image Enhancing options:
No Antialiasing, No Anisotropic filtering, and the performance
slider was set to "Balanced". What we compare it with
is Level 8 of Anisotropic Filtering. As you can see, this produces
a spectacular effect. So even if you don't want to apply Antialiasing,
you will be very happy with Aniso alone. Next we take a look at
Level 2. You can clearly see a difference between the image with
no Anisotropic filtering. The textures on side-walls are a bit
blurry, but it doesn't look bad at all while you play. When we
apply Level 4 AF to Level 2 Antialiasing, you will notice a nice
change. The textures appear much sharper now and the view range
has been extended by a nice chunk. In Quincunx, we get a similar
effect. Now in Level 4 of AA we get fabulous results when combining
it with Anisotropic filtering. Unfortunetly you will lose quite
a few frames when applying 4AA-2/4/8AF. Next up we change the
Performance silder in our drivers and switch to Aggressive Mode.
Again, one thing you will definetly notice is that the textures
are not filtered the same way as with Balanced Mode.
As you can see Anisotropic filtering produces breathtaking results
here. Especially at Level 4 and 8. Combine that with NVIDIA's
Balanced Mode and you are ready to kick some monster ass!
Now, the Antialiasing tests...
Again, hover over images to see the results.
Settings: Serious Sam: First Encounter
(Extreme quality, 1280x1024 / 32bit)
Performance - Balanced
NoAA / 2AA
QuinAA / 4AA
You probably noticed that the second test (QuinAA
and 4AA) does not look like apples-to-apples. *Somehow* Quincunx
shifted the image to the right. I'm 100% sure I have taken the
screenshots in the same position. Take a look at it...
As you can see Level 2 produces really good effects. As long as
you are playing with highest settings available, Level 4 *might*
be an overkill at 1280x1024. We were hoping to see less jaggies
with 4AA, but I guess you can't have everything :)
As stated earlier you should be golden running at high resolution
with some 2X AA 4X AF modes. Try Quincunx, it doesn't look bad
at all. Some people will probably want to smack us for recommending
Quincunx. But guess what? This particular mode has improved a
lot becuase of the drivers. It's not as blurry as it was before.
Happy fraggin!
That would conclude our Image Quality adventures :)
