FSAA Screenshot anyone?

[kump]

I have played with this a lot and didn't know if FSAA was worth the buzz, but I'm here to tell you, lower resolution with FSAA is better than higher resolution. Experiment with it and you'll see for your self. Its when things are in motion that catches your notice.

I think the V5500 has done FSAA extremely well and for CM, I refuse to turn it off. I play in 1024x768 with FSAAx4 on a 550 MHz machine and it plays great. As for other games... what other games?

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Garry Kump

Kump's CM Outpost

[Jeff Heidman]

OK, I set my system to full FSAA, left it at 1600x1200.

Frankly, I just cannot tell the difference. Not at all. A very slight framerate hit (could have been my imagination), but they both looked gorgeous.

Maybe if you have enough system to run 16x12, FSAA just doesn't add much too that?

Jeff Heidman

[Tiger]

Are you using a geforce? There's a big difference in the fsaa quality. Without fsaa turned on, it looks like someone sprinkled clear confetti all over the game map.

-johnski

[Cubes]

Jeff,

Have you tried fsaa at 800x600 then redo you pref file thingy and compare it at 1600x1200 to get a feeling for the difference.

With my V5/5500 i can turn the fsaa on & off while any games are running to compare.

Even at same resolution i can tell the difference.

Do you have a v5 or GeForce ?

Geoff

[Jeff Heidman]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Tiger:

Are you using a GeForce? There's a big difference in the fsaa quality. Without fsaa turned on, it looks like someone sprinkled clear confetti all over the game map.

-johnski<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yep, I am using a GeForce 2 64MB GTS. And I can assure you that with or without FSAA turned on, there is nothing that looks like confetti, clear or otherwise, sprinkled on the map. The picture is bright, clear, and almost photorealistic.

Were are you getting that from? I wish I had somewhere I could host some screenshots, because I think it is a little unfair for you to be making claims about a product that really are not correct. You have made this claim several times now, and it would be unfortunate if someone made a purchasing decision based upon something that is not necessarily true, or at least may not be true for them.

Without FSAA 1600x1200 looks outstanding. With FSAA, it still looks outstanding. Maybe FSAA makes a larger difference at lower resolutions, but since I have no reasons to run at lower resolutions, I really do not care.

Jeff Heidman

[This message has been edited by Jeff Heidman (edited 11-03-2000).]

[Teamski]

Yo! If you have a Geforce 2 Card, MUST READ!

Make sure that if you have NVIDIA's reference drivers installed, that you MUST have the registry file modified, since, by default, all of the options such as over-clocking, FSAA, etc, etc, are deactivated. Go here for a utility that allows you to do quick changes to the registry:

http://www.3dchipset.com/utilities/nvidia/enhance/geforceutility/index.html

If you don't make the changes, you will not see a difference!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Ski

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"The Lieutenant brought his map out and the old woman pointed to the coastal town of Ravenoville........"

[This message has been edited by Teamski (edited 11-03-2000).]

[Tiger]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I think it is a little unfair for you to be making claims about a product that really are not correct. You have made this claim several times now, and it would be unfortunate if someone made a purchasing decision based upon something that is not necessarily true, or at least may not be true for them.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Heidman, if you want to call me a liar don't beat around the bush. FSAA does make a difference, and not just by what I believe and can see for myself. You're also disputing everyone in the industry including nvidia and 3dfx, though unfortunately I feel there is some personal motive you have here.

The majority of people do not run at 1600 by 1200 resolution. That said, even raising the resolution does not get rid of jaggies or shimmering. Everyone who uses some form of fsaa with CM has said it makes a big difference, and you refuse to believe them. Apparently we're all sneaky nvidia/3dfx investors trying to get people to buy more video boards.

All I can say is to go find someone with a decent fsaa video card and ask them to show you the difference.

-johnski

[Teamski]

Believe me, 1024x768 with FSAA looks A LOT better than 1600x1200 without it. If it doesn't on your machine, then you DON'T have FSAA enabled properly.....

-Ski

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"The Lieutenant brought his map out and the old woman pointed to the coastal town of Ravenoville........"

[Jeff Heidman]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Tiger:

Heidman, if you want to call me a liar don't beat around the bush.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If I wanted to call you a liar, I would call you a liar. Being mistaken is hardly lying, and repeating something as a fact when it might nor be is not necessarily lying either.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

FSAA does make a difference, and not just by what I believe and can see for myself. You're also disputing everyone in the industry including nvidia and 3dfx, though unfortunately I feel there is some personal motive you have here.

-johnski<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I am not sure if you are missing my point intentionally, or by mistake. There is certainly no personal motive involved.

In any case, I was not referring to whether or not FSAA improved the view, since clearly that depends on many things and is subjective to boot. I certainly am not claiming that FSAA never improves things, I am claiming that it does not always, and that it is over-rated as an end-all be-all of graphics imaging.

My reference to your incorrect comments was referring to your claim that a GeForce card without FSAA made it look like someone sprinkled confetti on the map. That is quite simply NOT the case.

Specifically:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

Are you using a geforce? There's a big difference in the fsaa quality. Without fsaa turned on, it looks like someone sprinkled clear confetti all over the game map.

-johnski

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have a GeForce, and there is no indication of the flaws you mention. Simple as that.

Jeff Heidman

[Jeff Heidman]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Teamski:

Believe me, 1024x768 with FSAA looks A LOT better than 1600x1200 without it. If it doesn't on your machine, then you DON'T have FSAA enabled properly.....

-Ski

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hmmm. I suppose it is possible I am turning it on incorrectly.

I am currently running the latest NVidia reference drivers (ver. 6.31 IIRC). I just went into the advanced display setting, GeForce properties, and clicked the checkbox next to the FSAA 2x2 option. Or is it 4x4? At work, do not remember exactly.

Anyway, I will check out the link you referenced tonight and post my results.

I am open to the idea that FSAA will improve the image quality, I am just not willing to assume it. I know (technically) what FSAA does, and it is certainly the case that any benefit derived is going to be lessened as real resolution increases. So far I have seen no reason to think that for a machine capable of running 1600x1200 cleanly FSAA is an improvement.

Anyone know where I can post some pics? And how to link them?

Jeff Heidman

[Teamski]

Heidman:

Unless you make the changes in the registry, you can click on the FSAA in the setup menu all you want. It doesn't work until a "coolbits" statement is put in the registry. The utility mentioned above will do that for you......

Don't ask me why the reference drivers are like that. It's pretty stupid to release drivers and deactivate the most useful features like overclocking, FSAA, etc. If you install a newer driver,( 6.45 are the latest right now) all changes in the registry will remain, so you don't have to do it again.

-Ski

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"The Lieutenant brought his map out and the old woman pointed to the coastal town of Ravenoville........"

[Guest Madmatt]

Teamski, that post of yours is a little misleading.

FSAA is NOT disabled by default in the new reference drivers. The Direct 3D settings work just fine.

However, the GLIDE implementation is set at 2x2, that tweak allows to change it to the other settings.

That file also allows you to overclock the memory and core of the Geforce which isn't supported in reference drivers but IS once they go official. That is just something Nvidia always does.

Now then, as to the quality of 1600x1200 you need to understand HOW FSAA works to understand why he isn't seeing a difference.

FSAA is in effect super sampling, it takes a single pixel and draws it multiple time at higher resolutions. So a jagged edge rendered in 800x600 will look like it was really in 1600x1200 with 2x2 FSAA on. By doubling the FSAA to 4x4 you still get those pixels rendered in 1600x1200 but you get it happening twice as often and thereby a cleaner image.

FSAA at extremely high resolutions is NOT easy to notice since it isn't doing much more than what the actual screen resolution is doing. At 1600x1200 with a Geforce the edges are already VERY smooth with almost no jaggies since the pixels are so small. Where you will see a difference is with the texture creep and shimmering which is the confetti effect that Tiger spoke of. Trees and buildings dont seem to flicker as much when you pan the camera.

Jeff, make sure you select the Force FSAA For All Applications checkmark in the FSAA Panel as CM doesn't seem to enable FSAA unless you do that.

In the past the Voodoo implementation of FSAA was superior to the Geforces, in the recent months though the gap has narrowed significantly and the latest drivers from Nvidia (up to 6.47 now) are even better. The gap is narrowing, and we all benefit when it does.

Some people have also blasted T&L as a gimmick but its interesting to note that 3DFX will be supporting full T&L in their next line of cards while there own T buffer has attracted mere yawns by most game developers.

Madmatt

Just trying to keep the facts straight.

[This message has been edited by Madmatt (edited 11-03-2000).]

[Teamski]

Uhhh, ok so I'm a bit rough around the edges! I just don't remember FSAA working until I changed the regisrty settings. That was quite a while ago, so I'm sure I could be wrong there. But, why are so many people not able to get FSAA if it's already active in the setup??

As for the reference drivers, you won't get the overclock function unless the registry is changed (thus the above utility to make it simpler) But note, people with name brand cards usually don't have this problem, if they installed the original name brand drivers. I have a reference card so I had to use the reference drivers, thus no overclocking or (possibly) FSAA to start with. I was banging my head against the wall when I first got my reference card, but when I found out about the registry settings, everything fell into place........

-Ski

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"The Lieutenant brought his map out and the old woman pointed to the coastal town of Ravenoville........"

[Teamski]

Here is an article that might help on tweaking a geforce card including the registry tweaks:

http://www.tweak3d.net/tweak/geforce/

It has some shortcut batch files that help as well.....

-Ski

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"The Lieutenant brought his map out and the old woman pointed to the coastal town of Ravenoville........"

[This message has been edited by Teamski (edited 11-03-2000).]

[Guest Madmatt]

Yeah the coolbits reg hack is well known, but Nvidia (I thought) did include the overclocking panel into the last OFFICIAL release (6.31 maybe) although I might be wrong. I am using 6.47 right now which was leaked a few days ago.

About why people aren't seeing FSAA I think it is two fold.

#1 There were some early pre- Detonator 3 drivers where FSAA just plain didn't work, that could be one problem

#2 Combat Mission seems to want you to select that Force All 3D Applications To Use FSAA check mark for FSAA to work, that could be another issue.

and 3rdly, not everyone really notices the effect that FSAA gives. Especially in high resolutions as it is rather subtle. Some people just pick up on the shimmering and texture creep more than others.

So a combination of all three is probably the cause.

Madmatt

[Jeff Heidman]

OK, my GeForce 2 was displaying FSAA before. But, like I said (and as Matt so nicely explained), I just do not see much difference in the game. In fact, I do not think I could tell whether it was on or off at 1600x1200!

Note that I have also not seen the "shimmering" effect when panning, so apparently it is not universal.

As far as what the industry thinks, the gaming press almost unanimously endorses the GeForce line as the top dog in the graphics world now, and for the near future.

Which isn't to say that you should buy one instead of a Voodoo, but at make sure you do your homework. It is (by no means) a sure thing that the Voodoo is the best solution for CM gaming.

Jeff Heidman

[Teamski]

Matt,

yeah, who knows? I couldn't tell you whether or not Nvidia enabled the coolbits or not on their latest drivers. I wouldn't know if they did or not, since it's already been sorted on my system. You have a point about the pre-3 drivers. That would make sence in my case. I don't use the force FSAA option for in CM. It works great with the geforceaaset utility I use on the fly.....

-Ski

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"The Lieutenant brought his map out and the old woman pointed to the coastal town of Ravenoville........"

[Tiger]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>My reference to your incorrect comments was referring to your claim that a GeForce card without FSAA made it look like someone sprinkled confetti on the map. That is quite simply NOT the case.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't believe I ever said geforce in that reply. IMO looks like clear confetti sprinkled all over the map regardless of which card you are using, comparing non-fsaa to fsaa. Obviously at really high resolutions the effect is made smaller and thus not as noticeable, however I find it very noticeable even at 1024 by 768.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Some people have also blasted T&L as a gimmick but its interesting to note that 3DFX will be supporting full T&L in their next line of cards while there own T buffer has attracted mere yawns by most game developers.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yeah, T&L has really taken off hasn't it. 3dfx just didn't consider it to be a high priority a year ago; I can count on one hand the T&L games released for nvidia's T&L. Also, T&L will actually slow down your system on higher-end systems. Very simply, your high-end computer's cpu can do it faster than the video card can, without taking a significant hit in performance. T&L is most significant with lower-end systems where it helps the most.

I never said the geforce was a inferior card, only that voodoo 5's fsaa is higher quality. You can dispute this industry-wide accepted fact all you want. At least with 3dfx's method you don't have to hack your registry to get the fsaa to work or find different drivers.

I suggest you re-read the first post of this topic. The gent said he wasn't intrested in nvidia.

-johnski

[This message has been edited by Tiger (edited 11-03-2000).]

[Pvt. Ryan]

I just installed the lastest Detonator 3 drivers and enabled 4x4 FSAA. I run at 1152x864 and I did notice some improvement. I didn't have to edit the registry, I just adjusted the settings in the display properties.

[Guest Madmatt]

Tiger,

The following page lists the games currently available or coming out that have full support for T&L.

http://www.nvidia.com/products/geforce2ultra.nsf/xform.html

Seems a little more than how many you can count on one hand, unless you are some sort of mutant.

I also don't think that 3Dfx would engineer T&L support into their next generations of Video Cards if they didn't see the benefits. You info about CPU overhead is also a bit misleading. Let me say again, T&L is rendered by the separate GPU and NOT the CPU. Anytime you bump up the resolution you will get more and more issues with CPU's since there is only so much data they can handle at a time. But to say that T&L slows down computers is not entirely true. It is just like any other effect, it CAN slow down some systems but won't necessarily slow everyone down.

I can CFS2 with all settings FSAA and T&L at full and get consistent 50+ FPS in flight. Turning off those settings and the frame rate stays about the same. In this case T&L and FSAA is not causing ANY frame or speed loss.

This whole issue is incredibly subjective though. We all have our favorite video cards and what seems crystal clear to one person seems jagged and slow to the next.

Now, lets drop this issue which I believe has been gone over more than enough already.

Madmatt

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[Tiger]

Well it seems you don't mind taking 3dfx to task for it's newer card features not being used right away by game developers, but don't mind that nvidia went through the same thing with t&l.

Your high-end cpu can handle the t&l faster than the current gpu can, w/o taking any serious performance hit. Makes t&l somewhat redundant for higher end systems. Remember that t&l was mainly for low-mid range systems to remove the graphics processing burden from the cpu to the video card. Like I said before, this applies to high-end systems, I did not say it applies to everything.

Every report I've read (non-nvidia, non 3dfx) says the geforce takes a framerate hit when its fsaa is turned on. The voodoo 5 does as well. Sure the geforce 2 still has a higher frame-rate, but the voodoo 5 looks better (subjective). Fps's are really the only games where framerate matters nowadays with today's video cards. Even then the people out to get max framerate are going to turn off fsaa.

I'll end with this quote that I wrote *early* on in this discussion topic:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Both companies make excellent cards, choose whichever makes you happiest <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

-johnski

[Lee]

Interesting discussion. Both cards have their strong points. GF2 has

really high frame rate, but most reports that I've seen indicate the voodoo's

FSAA and overall 3D image quality is a lot better. Obviously, some of

this is subjective but that seems to be the opinion of most gamers.

3DFX didn't include T&L because they thought fill rate was more important

and that T&L wouldn't be commonly used for awhile. And they were right.

Now that the time is approaching when the number of games that support T&L

is growing 3DFX will release their next card and it will have T&L.

Right in time to greet the next crop of games that are nearing completion.

It is interesting to consider that if you have a very fast CPU it could

possibly do the T&L job better than your GF.

The card I'm looking forward to seeing in action is the voodoo 6000.

This card will end any difficult choices between image quality

and speed. It will be the fastest card out there and will have that

3DFX image quality that so many seem fond of. Of course, there is a price

to pay for such greatness. Somewhere in the 500-600 dollar range,

to be more exact. And since there is no T&L, it will go as fast as your

CPU will allow.

Imagine CM at 1280x1024 4X FSAA and 80+ frames per sec. Should be

fun to see.

[Supertanker]

The other part of the equation that often goes unmentioned is the quality of the monitor. I'm always surprised when someone will spend $300 or more on a video card, and then run it through some cheap crap monitor. Personally, I have a hard time looking at anything that isn't a Trinitron (or Diamondtron, I'm not picky). You might want to consider running a color utility as well, though I do like to saturate things a little more.

I still remember the shocking difference in picture quality when I moved from a RIVA128 to a Voodoo3. The RAMDAC was so much better, it was like getting a monitor upgrade in the bargain.

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We eat like kings, drink like czars, and game like fat drunken king-czars. - CaSCa

[Guest Andrew Hedges]

I have a question about the V 5500 PCI -- right now I have a TNT2-M64 in my K6-2 530 with 128M; I have no AGP slot . I'm not opposed, in principle, to spending the $300 for the V-5500, if it would make a noticeable difference (esp. wrt FSAA), but I guess I wonder to what extent the PCI would limit performance. Any thoughts on this?

[Jeff Heidman]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lee:

Interesting discussion. Both cards have their strong points. GF2 has

really high frame rate, but most reports that I've seen indicate the voodoo's

FSAA and overall 3D image quality is a lot better. Obviously, some of

this is subjective but that seems to be the opinion of most gamers.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

See, that's just it. I have not heard anything of the kind. Well, I have heard that the Voodoo FSAA implementation is marginally better, but not noticeably.

I have not heard anyone claim that the Voodoo image quality is superior with the exception of Voodoo owners. And I hear the same claim from GeForce and Radeon owners. I certainly have seen nothing that would lead anyone to believe that the Voodoo's image quality is a lot better.

As far as the opinion of "most" gamers, I think you are very incorrect. The only gamers I have heard claim that their is some perceived image quality issue are those who already own a Voodoo. I have seen both cards in a action, and I would be willing to bet you could not differentiate them based on image quality, FSAA or not.

What I have consistently heard from the gaming press is that the GeForce, when all things are considered, is the superior card. Without FSAA turned on, it is consistently and significantly faster than the Voodoo 5500. And with FSAA on (which is only for a subset of games anyway), it is still slower, although it is more compatible. Even that is less and less an issue with every new Detonator driver release.

A GeForce is the chosen card in ever Anandtech system, from the value gaming to the high-end gaming. The same holds true for CGWs gaming systems. In fact, I have not seen one single example of where a un-biased source has chosen the 3dfx solution over the GeForce, although I have seen some that have claimed that the Radeon gives the GTS 2 a run for its money, and may be superior in some ways. Of course, take that with a grain (really a large lump) of salt, since I have not seen that many reviews total, so there could certainly be some out there.

I guess I would like to know where these benchmarks are coming from that claim the so-called superior Voodoo image quality. Anyone have a reference?

Jeff Heidman