PLEASE help me with AA modes!

[ragejg]

So I'm doing some GPU testing in various games.

I don't want to use plain-jane 2x or 4x AA, I want to explore the other modes... and for what it's worth I want to check them out while having Multisample selected in the Transparency checkbox, as IMO there's no sense in checking out high-end AA modes if you're not going to apply AA to alpha textures. That makes sense, right?

First off, I have AA set to "override application setting", as I want exclusive control and want to make all adjustments in NVIDIA Control panel. However, to be safe, I try to set the in-game settings as close as possible to what I set in the NVIDIA Control Panel.

So let's say I want to only test two AA modes, 4xAA with Multisample selected, and 8xQ with Multisample selected. I want to check out 8xQ because I've heard that it's better than regular 8x, with out that much higher of a performance penalty, is that true? ... but what happens when I try something like the Just Cause 2 demo which only has selections for 8x and 8x CSAA? Even if I have the Control Panel set to override do I run any risk of the game applying its own AA setting? Or will the 8xQ + Multisample that I had set in the Control Panel Stick no matter what I have selected in-game?


Ugh, there are SOOOO many AA modes now, and their configuration is different for NVIDIA and AMD, and that's not even taking into account the in-game selections (and I don't have all the faith in the world in the "application override" setting unless someone can tell me different).


Hey, I don't want PC gaming graphical options to become console-ized, but DAMN. Why can't there be some more consistency/ease of use? I get that there are a few DirectX games that use their own proprietary AA, and that's all fine and good, but the rest of the games out there.... idk, maybe there should be a drop-down box that's the same for every game, and maybe there could be a direct link between that and the graphics driver control panel?

Making it worse is reviewer A using 4X AA mode Z, reviewer B using 4X AA mode Y, reviewer C using 4X AA mode X, so on and so forth... this isn't making it any easier for reviews to appear to have much consistency in their findings, and I don't like that.

I've had problems with this before, with reviews I wrote where I ended up using Catalyst AI at a setting that appeared to have no real NVIDIA equivalent. I didn't mean to make that mistake, but it's not like it was easy to sift through the huge control panels for both AMD and NVIDIA and easily set things exactly equal.

I'd like to better wrap my head around the AA modes... and maybe after I do so I can get an article together that explains things better so dummies like me can know what they're doing, and maybe this can help bring some ease of use issues to the attention of AMD and NVIDIA.


Please, discuss.

[ragejg]

Is this a graphics card forum or a frickin' playground?

[red777star]

Speaking of Nvidia setup. I set in the game, if not there then i force through panel regular 4x model.

[lee63]

I think there are way too many kinds of AA, its all a little confusing to your average PC gamer. I like to keep it simple and run 4xAA to 8xAA mostly ingame, if not...then I'll use CP.

When your playing a FPS do really notice the difference between 8xAA and 32xSSAA ?

Nvidia's override works pretty well...but most PC games have ingame AA now so its not really needed IMO.

[ragejg]

caveman-jim told me that if I use the CP override option that I should set the in-game to none. Have any of you here done that before?

[Redeemed]

Originally Posted by ragejg

caveman-jim told me that if I use the CP override option that I should set the in-game to none. Have any of you here done that before?

That's how I always do it.

Works fine for me, at least I can't notice many jaggies. Not too big of a buff on all the various types of AA though so likely some surfaces are still aliased... haven't really noticed it though.

[lee63]

Originally Posted by ragejg

caveman-jim told me that if I use the CP override option that I should set the in-game to none. Have any of you here done that before?

Nivida's CP 4xAA will override ingame 2xAA most of the time, AMD AA....well that's another story.

For the most part I used ingame AA when running AMD cards...their AA is confusing as hell, too me anyway.

[Redeemed]

Originally Posted by lee63

Nivida's CP 4xAA will override ingame 2xAA most of the time, AMD AA....well that's another story.

For the most part I used ingame AA when running AMD cards...their AA is confusing as hell, too me anyway.

It is... "Box", "Wide-tent", etc. Then there's the level of AA "performance", MS or SS... so many options!

I like it though.

Originally Posted by ragejg

caveman-jim told me that if I use the CP override option that I should set the in-game to none. Have any of you here done that before?

Not quite - the majority of the time I set the in-game AA to the desired value, then set CP to edge-detect. Keep in mind though that this was with a 4870 512mb card.

Box and wide tent always seemed to give too much of a performance hit regardless of value.

So for me on that card, 2 or 4x max in-game + whatever edge-detect value would still allow me to have playable frame rates. I'm sure the 5xxx and 6xxx series wouldn't see near the performance hit I did. Not sure if this answers your question at all.