Does anyone here actually use FSAA?

[sbp]

FSAA stands for Full Screen Anti Aliasing. It smoothes out the jaggies.

This is a good article that explain the difference between the various forms of fsaa.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/video/antialiasing/

I'll said it before, I'll say it again, the Voodoo5 still has the best fsaa.

The Radeon 8500 uses supersampling which does help clean up textures but takes a bigger performance hit. The GF3/4 uses multisampling which doesn't touch textures and takes a lesser performance hit. That's because multisampling saves on bandwidth. Unfortunately multisampling doesn't do alpha textures.

Quincux mode takes 5 samples and uses a blur filter. Its image quality is supposed to be as good as the 4X FSAA, with performance near 2x FSAA. Many people find it too blurry so you have to use anisotropic filtering to sharpen up details.

On the GF3/4, 4XFSAA is OGMS {Ordered Grid MultiSampling}.

On the GF4, 4XS mode is only available in Direct3D and is supposed to give a higher quality image than 4X FSAA. It also takes a bigger performance hit.

The Radeon 9700 uses multisampling fsaa. ATI might enable something in a future driver so that in OpenGL its FSAA will deal with alpha textures. Perhap this will be a mixture of supersampling and multisampling like the GF4 special Direct3D only 4X FSAA.

As Lmandrake said: Certain game types like flight sims benefit more from fsaa than fast moving first person shooters.

On my GF3 Ti500 I use level 4 anistropy (32 tap) and 2XFSAA RGMS {Rotated Grid Multi sampling}. This of course depends on the game and resolution used. Unfortunately anisotropic filtering on the GF3/4 line takes a big performance hit. Hopefully the NV30 will implement a more dynamic anisotropic filtering like ATI has, rather than the current brute force approach.

[FlyingPenguin]

So I guess this begs the question, is anisotropic filtering worth using- especially in a first person shooter? How much of a perfoermance hit is it?

I've never played with it.

[sbp]

Originally posted by matt719
You guys are crazy with this shit. Lets put it this way... my old Voofoo 3 3000 16MB 3DFX card could put out 100+fps on half-lfie (cs, or other mods) at 1024x768... I'll admit, i have no idea what fsaa is, but my geforce 3 Ti500 with an Athlon XP 1900+ with 512DDR ram doesn't play half-life any better than my old P3 500MHz with 256SDRAM and that voodoo card... If you want to test out your computer, put on Medal Of Honor Alied Assault and see what resolution you can run it at before it crashes. My current Athlon system can only handle it smoothly at 1280x960. I could play MOHAA on my old P3 500 at 800x600 easily, without OpenGL. (sigh, crappy ATI Radeon 7200) So anyways, could someone tell me what fsaa is?

Its not crazy to increase image quality.

Half life is an old game.

Could the Voodoo3 do any anti-aliasing? How about anisotropic filtering? How about 32-bit color? Is chug chug enjoyed when the 16 meg Voodoo 3 runs of space for textures? Get that damn Voodoo out of here!

[nexus_7]

actually the best fsaa out there I have seen is the new Matrox card. Tosted the v 5500 well, tosted is a bit strong...it is better though...atleast I think so.

With Nvidia owning the 3dfx info now I would assume they would use some of the fsaa technology they used (then again, the reason the nv30 is late is probably cause they have the voodoo stuff...HAHA)

Greg

[matt719]

dude, shut up, lol... I haven't had a voodoo 3 for like 2 years now, i was just pointing out that if you can only get a 40 frame rate with a modern video card, your card sucks ass. I think it's an unwritten law that frame rate comes before resolution, and if you can run your monitor @85 hertz at 1280x960, and only 75 hertz at 1600x1200, you go with 1280x960. Just so you know, my voodoo 3 had anti aliazing, but decided i'd rather have a 100 frame rate than have my graphics look smoother, yet run like a greyhound pulling a car.

[sbp]

Originally posted by nexus_7
actually the best fsaa out there I have seen is the new Matrox card. Tosted the v 5500 well, tosted is a bit strong...it is better though...atleast I think so.

With Nvidia owning the 3dfx info now I would assume they would use some of the fsaa technology they used (then again, the reason the nv30 is late is probably cause they have the voodoo stuff...HAHA)

It appears Nvidia has come down a case of 3dfxitis.

[sbp]

Originally posted by matt719
dude, shut up, lol... I haven't had a voodoo 3 for like 2 years now, i was just pointing out that if you can only get a 40 frame rate with a modern video card, your card sucks ass. I think it's an unwritten law that frame rate comes before resolution, and if you can run your monitor @85 hertz at 1280x960, and only 75 hertz at 1600x1200, you go with 1280x960. Just so you know, my voodoo 3 had anti aliazing, but decided i'd rather have a 100 frame rate than have my graphics look smoother, yet run like a greyhound pulling a car.

Oh sure you don't still use a Voodoo 3 card.

You do realize sir that some games are cpu-limited?

I'd respond to the rest of your post but this here GeForce card has crappy 2D filters. Nevermind I'm using a Radeon right now so its the beer goggles at work again. :lol

[LoneWolfX1X]

Originally posted by FlyingPenguin
LMANDRAKE: LOL!





Took the worlds out of my mouth Tunis. No way you can get any kind of usable fps at that res with Quincunx. Not in any modern game. Maybe Quake2...


Well I've been playing around a lot with it. I've found 2x is usable in most games at 1024x768 except SOF2 (real performance hog. ESPECIALLY RMG Jungle maps - that moving grass puts a hurtin' on a 3D subsystem).

Quincunx (ahem - not sure that word should be spoken in mixed company ) is impractical and 4x is nice if you like a slide show.


However I don't want to be enabling it and disabling in all the time. Frankly I just don't see the difference in an FPS multiplayer game. Who cares about zaggies. I grant you it's nice to lose the dancing barber pole effect, but I'd MUCH rather turn FSAA off and just crank up the resolution to 1280x. Looks just as good, AND give you the bonus of better details in distant objects (nice for a game like DOD or SOF2).

ANYWAY, I'm perfectly happy with this hardware. All my games ran fine on my P3-1000 at 1024x768. It's just nice to play DOD at 1280x now

No way I'm spending the dough on a GF4 right now - not after coughing up money for a new mobo, CPU and RAM. Vid card upgrade will have to wait until Xmas and by then some better hardware may be out.

Honestly here are some numbers using AA (based on ut2k3 engine (though I'm sure not as demanding as ut2k3 will be)

Americas army: Spectator mode
Pipeline

Control room: 70-80 fps
Maintenance tunnels: 50-60fps
Front courtyard: 30-40fps

Bridge:

In towers: 70-80fps
Assault side: 50-60fps
Defense side: 55-65fps
Center view: 45-55fps
Offside views looking a entire bridge: 25-35fps

Note this was in 1280x960 32 settings mentioned above with an LOD bias of 2.0 (3.0 flickers too much)

*edit* The main reason I use AA is because I mostly play outdoor tactical shooters. If someone is lying prone on a distant hilltop they could easly be rendered invisible by jaggies...

[Lmandrake]

Well....

I am so bad at FPS games, I don't play em. I do have some strategic/tactical games and sims on my box and my youngest son (a stone cold train freak) actually does play with Microsoft Train Simulator.

FSAA does make a difference in these. Train Sim looks much better with FSAA and since the whole point is to pretend you are running the train, watching the train, riding in the train, etc. it really adds value.
(yes, I know most of you would rather watch paint dry, but everybody has their own idea of fun..)98


In the combat sims I play, framerate is not an issue usually. Stuff either happens to slowly. Lots of flight sim freaks love FSAA, although I have dropped out of flight sims...

In my experience, and in the games like the above, nothing touched the Voodoo 5 until the GF4 came out.