Antialising technology

[Ondrej Kapal]

Hi,
I was driving a lot of time with my old MSI 8800GTX, where I had very very good AA results with nHancer... but, since I have changed the card to ATi HD5770 SOC from Gigabyte, I cant get that good results as I did with less powered graphic card before, I am wondering how is that possible? When I use 4x AA with box settings and Super sampling, the game looks exactly how I need, but the power of the card isnt enough, how is possible that with 8800 I had the same result with good FPS? any other AA are ugly then this combination...

 

[GAIAjohan]

I guess you're talking about the Simbin games. They need special treatment in the catalyst control panel.
Most important things are in bold!
My settings:

Smoothvision HD Anti-aliasing @ 8x
AF: 16x
Catalyst AI: DISABLE
Mipmap detail level: Quality
Vertical refresh: Always On
Adaptive AA: UNTICK the square!! (so disable it)

The Simbin games just can't cope with those two settings.

 

[Ondrej Kapal]

And what actually do Catalys AI? I mean, Standard, Advanced or Disable?

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

Catalyst A.I. allows users to determine the level of 'optimizations' the drivers enable in graphics applications.

These optimizations are graphics 'short cuts' which the Catalyst A.I. calculates to attempt to improve the performance of 3D games without any noticeable reduction in image quality.

In the past there has been a great deal of controversy about 'hidden optimizations', where both Nvidia and ATI were accused of cutting corners, reducing image quality in subtle ways by reducing image precision for example, simply to get higher scores in synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark.

In response to this, both ATI and Nvidia have made the process transparent to a great extent. You can select whether you want to enable or disable Catalyst A.I. for a further potential performance boost in return for possibly a slight reduction in image quality in some cases.

If Catalyst AI is enabled, you can also choose the aggressiveness of such optimizations, either Standard or Advanced on the slider. The Advanced setting ensures maximum performance, and usually results in no problems or any noticeable image quality reduction.

If on the other hand you want to always ensure the highest possible image quality at all costs, disable Catalyst A.I. (tick the 'Disable Catalyst A.I.' box). I recommend leaving Catalyst A.I enabled unless you experience problems. ATI have made it clear that many application-specific optimizations for recent games such as Oblivion are dependent on Catalyst AI being enabled.

 

[GAIAjohan]

If on the other hand you want to always ensure the highest possible image quality at all costs, disable Catalyst A.I. (tick the 'Disable Catalyst A.I.' box). I recommend leaving Catalyst A.I enabled unless you experience problems. ATI have made it clear that many application-specific optimizations for recent games such as Oblivion are dependent on Catalyst AI being enabled.

I agree with this when it comes to new games, but the Simbin-games run considerably better without Catalyst AI.

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

I bought a new monitor, Dell U2711, with 2560x1440 resolution and .23 pixel pitch.

With this monitor i can run games without AA so much much better performance. Because of the small pixel pitch the default image is very smooth.

Now my iRacing runs at 2560x1440 without AA on 300+fps cockpitview.

Also Simbin games look better on this monitor, it is not cheap but if you want a new monitor look for a small pixel pitch, most of them have .27, the lower the sharper the image is.

 

[GAIAjohan]

Mine has 0.248 pixel pitch.. 21.5" @ 1920*1080.

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

Mine has 0.248 pixel pitch.. 21.5" @ 1920*1080.

Then I think your screen is also capable to play games without AA, as you have 21.5 inch and a full hd resolution. .248 is better than most other screens.

 

[Stefan Beemsterboer]

Oeps! 1000 euro for a TFT screen! Marcel you are completly nuts ;-))

 

[Wayne Douglas]

hi guys, im getting really bad fps with on race on with ati 4870 (monza 30fps!!!) and computer runs iracing, r factor no problem. I also get some small car flickering and lagging when online, could this be caused by the graphics card. I have race on on another computer with no problem with fps or lag/flickering.

Thanks for any help

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

Oeps! 1000 euro for a TFT screen! Marcel you are completly nuts ;-))

I know but this has a S-IPS panel. All cheap lcd's use TN. Look a bit from an angle and you see a huge difference, on a S-IPS the colors stay the same. Also this panel has 30 bit colors, 24-bit vs. 30-bit color means you get a color palette of 1.07 billion instead of 16.7 million.

Pictures look so much better on this screen and as a bonus I can run games in a higher resolution without any fps issues as I don't need AA anymore.