OCZ Technologies Titan 3 GeForce3 Review
By: Mike Chambers - August 10, 2001
Antialiasing Under Quake 3
The following antialiasing tests using Quake 3 are based on settings 3 though 5 and contain results from the reference GeForce3 running at default clock speeds and the Titan 3 running at 240MHz/560MHz. The results for all three methods of antialiasing are shown at resolutions of 800x600 and 1024x768.
In all cases, overclocking provided an increase in frame rates between 20-22%.
Quake 3 Screenshots - Setting 3
800x600 - No AA
1024x768 - No AA
800x600 - 4X AA
1024x768 - QC AA
These screenshots are from the infamous NV15 level which will bring any system to it's knees due to the excessive amount of polygons the level was constructed from. Nevertheless, this particular scene is an excellent visual aid when showing the benefits of antialiasing combined with anisotropic filtering. The preferred way to see the differences in image quality would be to set your Windows resolution to match the resolution of the full size image.
One side effect of multisampling antialiasing is a slightly "blurry" or "softer" look which is even more prevalent with Quincunx. Comparing the 1024x768 non-antialiased image to the same image using Quincunx shows this effect.
Quake 3 Version 1.17 Settings
Settings
1
Standard High Quality Settings
2
Setting 1 with Max Texture Detail and High Geometry
3
Setting 2 with Texture Compression Disabled
4
Setting 3 with 16 Sample Anisotropic Filtering
5
Setting 3 with 32 Sample Anisotropic Filtering
Quake 3 Demo001 - Setting 3 With Antialiasing
Quake 3 Screenshots - Setting 4
800x600 - 4X AA
1024x768 - QC AA
Personally, I think that a resolution of 1024x768 and Quincunx antialiasing does a nice job while maintaining a playable frame rate. The texture clarity also slightly improves with the addition of 16 sample anisotropic filtering.
