Rokossovski Posted March 25, 2004 Share Posted March 25, 2004 What is it? I recently managed to fix a long-running problem with having CM freeze my PC when I turned antialiasing on my GeForce FX 5200 from "application controlled" to "off." My question is, what IS antialiasing? What, if anything, am I missing by not having it on? Should I bother turning it back on when using other applications/games? Thank you for your comments. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted March 25, 2004 Share Posted March 25, 2004 AA makes 3d graphics less jagged, and especially small details easier to recognise. When AA is on, the colour of each pixel is determined as an average of the colours "within" the pixel, while otherwise just one colour is picked. That is, suppose there's red and yellow within a pixel. With AA, it should look orange. Without AA, it might be red OR yellow. The accuracy depends on how many rays are shot (2x2, 4x4 etc.). However, I don't think you have been seeing anti-aliasing in the game if it was set as application controlled, because by default CM doesn't use AA. If you want to use it, you must set it as forced. Try it. I couldn't play CM without AA, because without it it's impossible to tell if that tiny object on the other side of the map is a tank, a squad, a tree or a house. I also use anisotrophic filtering. Don't ask me what IT does, but it looks good! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rokossovski Posted March 26, 2004 Author Share Posted March 26, 2004 As per your suggestion, I turned anisotropic filtering on. I'm not sure it looks any different, but it's hard to tell. Also at your suggestion, I turned ON antialiasing to various settings (x2, x4, etc) and the results ranged from getting only a black screen and having to reboot, to merely having the "text" taken away. (For example, with antialiasing no words appear on the unit editor or the unit purchase screen.) Another thing I recently did (which seemed to help in avoiding having the computer freeze up when running CM) was to change my driver to 30.82 - an older set. I suppose I could upgrade to the latest drivers, but the prior "new" drivers created problems of various sorts, hence the reversion to 30.82. On a side note, as long as I was messing around with the "NVIDIA Media Center," I turned on an option called "Enable Texture Sharpening" which has made a notable improvement in resolution. Thank you for any comments you may have. -- Rokossovski [ March 25, 2004, 11:43 PM: Message edited by: Rokossovski ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hpt. Lisse Posted March 26, 2004 Share Posted March 26, 2004 Right, so the lastest driver release solved alot of problems for the Nvidia-based cards, so you should pick them up ASAP. The FX5200, quite frankly, doesn't sport alot of graphic horsepower, so if you employ x4 AA you may notice some scrolling slowdowns when rolling around larger maps. (This image enchancement makes your graphic card work pretty hard!) There are several recent threads dealing with newer graphic cards, drivers, etc. in this section. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexei Posted March 26, 2004 Share Posted March 26, 2004 Any screenshots to illustrate that point ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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