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Author	Topic: FSAA what's all the fuss?
Elric Pilot	posted 06-02- 06:50 AM Temptation got the better of me and I stuck one of those snazzy Geforce 2 GTS cards in my box and what a difference! FSAA stands for Full Screen Anti-Aliasing, FS looks more beautiful for it! I can imagine what T&L would do for fighter squadron, way more planes in the virtual skies... and for other features of the card, imagine a polished metal finish P51D... Hmmm, can't wait! Before 800x600 After 800x600 c/w FSAA Elric [This message has been edited by Elric (edited 06-02-2000).] IP: Logged
der boom Pilot	posted 06-02- 07:52 AM wow i must say that is a real breaktrough it look fantastic wat the name off the card is it a geforce 256 ------------------ der boom IP: Logged
ReaperMan Pilot	posted 06-02- 11:03 AM Looks like your framerate went down though... ------------------ -=TheReaper=- IP: Logged
Diego Lozano Pilot	posted 06-02- 11:31 AM Look Ma, no jaggies! That DID make a difference! IP: Logged
Nat Pilot	posted 06-02- 11:37 AM hhhmmm.. I like it.. but the Geforce 256 is like Ł130 here for the OEM version.. I think I like my Voodoo for now IP: Logged
Spanky the Mad Dog Pilot	posted 06-02- 11:40 AM Spanky here... It does look great, But FSAA is really just a stop-gap solution until we can get crazy high resolutions. Like 3200x2400. I don't know about you guys but I don't like the way AA blurs the whole picture a bit. Its not to bad but it is just a tiny bit annoying. Really all FSAA is, is a tiny bit of blur. IP: Logged
Himdog Pilot	posted 06-02- 11:43 AM I put in a Gforce w/SDR ram about 2 months ago, the frame rate stayed about the same but no more jaggies and I can run a much higher res. Some games do much better than others but all in all everything is better Well it better be those cards are not cheap Himdog out IP: Logged
JG2_FireCat! Pilot	posted 06-02- 11:54 AM Great shots, Elric Quite a difference for a cost of only 8 frames. I believe I read somewhere that you can turn FSAA on or off while in game, it that true? if so, how do you do it? I think this feature is there so you can enjoy FSAA most of the time, but when there is a lot going on and FPS start getting too low, you can just switch it off. Salut! *JG2"FireCat!"* [This message has been edited by JG2_FireCat! (edited 06-02-2000).] IP: Logged
spin Pilot	posted 06-02- 11:56 AM Spanky, Don't hold your breath on resolutions beyond HDTV level (1280 X 768). IP: Logged
Spanky the Mad Dog Pilot	posted 06-02- 12:31 PM Spanky here... Yeah unforutunatly the industry would rather use work arounds and skirt the problem with fixes such as this instead of attacking it head on. Don't get me wrong it does look alot better and i'm sure some day we will all have it on our cards but it does add blur to the image and that will always bug me. IP: Logged
Razer Pilot	posted 06-02- 12:33 PM Who cares, as soon as 3DFX stops screwing up and gets me my Voodoo5, i will have it too! ------------------ Tony "Razer" Martin http://www.fshangar.com IP: Logged
Tailslide Pilot	posted 06-02- 12:37 PM SDOE runs fine at 1600x1200 and 1920xsomething but the 1920 res makes the text really tiny. TS IP: Logged
Spanky the Mad Dog Pilot	posted 06-02- 12:57 PM Spanky here... Yeah and I bet that at 1920x? it looks pretty damn good and is still nice and sharp. I would much rather that then any AA. IP: Logged
Dole Pilot	posted 06-02- 02:51 PM quote: Who cares, as soon as 3DFX stops screwing up and gets me my Voodoo5, i will have it too! "What do you geeeeeEEEEEEEEeeeeeeet when you add 4 voodoo2's together!" 3dfx needs to develop some new technology for a change. ... shame they wont be in the videocard business this time next year. IP: Logged
JV44_Jetlag Cadet	posted 06-02- 03:20 PM That looks pretty cool to me. Is there different levels of AA (i.e. x2 x4)? ------------------ Jagdverband 44 IP: Logged
Spanky the Mad Dog Pilot	posted 06-02- 04:32 PM Spanky here... Wasn't there some sort of Edge AA? Somthing that would only blur the pixels on the edges of objects and not just everything on the screen? I would rather that. IP: Logged
Lothar Pilot	posted 06-02- 05:32 PM Anti-aliasing isn't just blurring the screen. Proper antialiasing always makes images look better and more detailed. Sometimes a full screen blur effect is called anti-aliasing, but it isn't. Anti-aliasing works by taking more than one sample per pixel. This means that the color of each pixel on the screen is an average of the colors of all the surfaces contained in that pixel. An example would be drawing the edge of a grey airplane with a background of sky blue. An aliased pixel will sample just the center of the pixel, which will fall either on the plane or on the sky. The pixel will be either grey or blue. Repeat this for all pixels, and you get a jagged appearance. An anti-aliased pixel will sample more than one point per pixel. Lets say 4 points. In the airplane case, some of the samples fall on the sky, some on the airplane. The result is a pixel that is colored as a mixture of grey and blue. Repeat this, and you have a very natural looking edge. This is how our eyes work also. Each rod and cone in our eyes receives multiple rays of light from slightly different positions on a surface, that's why we don't have jaggies in our vision (well, not on weeknights...) IP: Logged
Bryan Russell Pilot	posted 06-02- 11:15 PM All the nVidia FSAA does is render a 1600x1200 image and resize it using some filters, so why not just run it @ 1600x1200? The frame reate will be exactly the same (if not a little better) and the image will probably be very similar. IP: Logged
Spanky the Mad Dog Pilot	posted 06-03- 02:00 AM Spanky here... Lothar I get your point and I'm not saying that AA is just a blur effect. BUT the end result is just a blur over everying. Plus although the method you decribe sounds like the edge method I was talking about IF it does that with everything it ends up bluring the whole thing. THe second pic looks cool but you seem to lose detail all over the whole thing. Personally I would just crank my res as high as it would go. If the geforce does what Bryan says it does then I totaly agree with him. IP: Logged
Mighty Pilot	posted 06-03- 02:35 PM One reason to anti-alias is that not all monitors can handle the highest res. Or, they can handle high res, but at a low refresh rate. Also, in most games that I can think of, when you increase the resolution your HUD-type interface gets smaller. Eventually, they get so small they're hard to use. I wouldn't call AA a stop-gap. It's just one of a series of tradeoffs. A well-done AA gives you the perception of a higher resolution than you're actually running at. IP: Logged
Spanky the Mad Dog Pilot	posted 06-03- 03:15 PM Spanky here... Ok So what your saying is that once we have monitors that can run the refresh rates we need to run really high resolution and people design the games with the hud type interfaces independent of the res. then we will no longer need AA. Which makes it a stopgap. At least In my mind. It gives you the perception but it does it at a cost of frame rates and blur. I'm not into that much of a trade off right now. Maybe once cards are faster and can do it with a little less blur I will be. IP: Logged
Lothar Pilot	posted 06-03- 06:54 PM Anti aliasing doesn't make things more blurry, it actually renders things more accurately at a fixed resolution. Even at 1600x1200 you can get bad aliasing on distant objects (remember the old 'mirrored balls and checkerboard ground' demos and how the ground in the distance shimmered and distored? Aliasing!). At any resolution, AA makes an image look better. Mighty had another point, which is most video cards and or monitors start hitting their bandwidth wall at 1600x1200, e.g. my setup only supports 1600x1200 at 60hz, which is noticibly flickery. I'd prefer 800x600 with antialiasing at a nice 85hz refresh (which it sounds like the geforce does). IP: Logged
Nat Pilot	posted 06-03- 07:20 PM to me, whats basicaly being said here is that you wont know if it's any good untill you try it on your own system, as specs are so different between us, it's a case of try it and see.. a rather expensive test if you ask me for honestly what very little difference it makes, cause lets be honest here.. ok, it looks better in that pic, but it doesn't look Ł140 better.. catch my drift? IP: Logged
Spanky the Mad Dog Pilot	posted 06-03- 07:39 PM Spanky here... Well to me it looks blury, you lose the detail on the chiped off paint, the checker board doesn't look as crisp, nor does the writing. Yeah its not worth the money to me either Nat. It might be someday but not right now. IP: Logged
Jv44~Siggi Pilot	posted 06-03- 07:44 PM My tale of woe. I have the Asus P3V4X MB. It's the Via 133A chipset. 4-in-1 driver set 4.17. BIOS revision 1003. And the CL Ge-Force DDR PRO. I had the standard drivers that came on the disc, plus I used the CL AGP-Wizard to enable X4AGP, side-band and fast-writes. Then I read this topic and went looking for the new drivers. I found them at CL's site, FSAA driver set and the new Blaster-Control app. I installed both and suddenly my X4AGP was reduced to X2. In the BIOS X4AGP was still enabled but my little diagnostic program informed me that the MB was only X2AGP capable. Somehow the new Creative FSAA drivers and/or Blaster-Control app screwed my system. I've spent about six hours trying everything I could, including installing Via's latest 4-in-1 driver set 4.22, all to no avail. I'm back with the standard drivers now. Worst thing? Even with the FSAA set to max I could see very little difference. My monitor runs at 1600x1200, 75Mhz refresh rate, so maybe I shouldn't have expected much improvement anyway. I also tried NVidia's Detonator2 drivers...same prob. FSAA sucks the large one, and the drivers from CL and NVidia are obviously not compatible with the Via 133A chipset yet, or at least not with it's current drivers. Year 2000? Feels like 1994 and the days of DX3. Rats. IP: Logged
Elric Pilot	posted 06-04- 05:51 AM Siggi, check this out GeForce FAQ I think the FSAA at 800x600 is a good tradeoff, not too bad a FPS hit. Faster than 1600x1200 and at a much better refresh rate. 60hz just makes my eyes hurt. You lose some FPS and sharpness on the textures but overall I thrilled at the effect, it really improves the image quality, makes it look very natural and smooth when you're flying. Elric IP: Logged
Spyder Pilot	posted 06-04- 06:42 AM If you find some detail is blurred slightly then it just requires repainting the skin and taking AA into account. Sharpen the skin slightly and it should be fine. That AA looked great to me too. ------------------ IP: Logged
Jv44~Siggi Pilot	posted 06-04- 09:02 AM Thanks Elric, I'll check that in a mo. I have a 22" monitor, so you'll know I can't run 800x600 without having massive icons across my desktop. I did try SDoE at 800x600, just to compare my image with those above. I use SDoE as a benchmark, inside the B17's cockpit on the runway, zoomed right back. I get 45fps at 1600x1200. Now this is the weird bit...at 800x600 I got 28fps. I have read somewhere that this can happen, but I don't understand it. Something to do with memory bandwidth...? SDoE uses small textures anyway, so one can't expect TOO much. I'm off to check your link. [This message has been edited by Jv44~Siggi (edited 06-04-2000).] IP: Logged
JV44_Jetlag Cadet	posted 06-04- 11:52 AM Hmmm... interesting. Now if someone can post a similar set of images from a new Voodoo with a frame rate report etc that would be useful. I've read that the GeForce GTS is better at lower resolutions and the Voodoo at higher. ------------------ Jagdverband 44 IP: Logged
Bryan Russell Pilot	posted 06-04- 08:56 PM jetlag, toms hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com) as done comparisons for most combinations, including the next gen voodoo and GeForce GTS. I think they also did a FSAA comparison as well. They only use Quake Arena for the tests but at least these are mostly graphics anyway so they probably better represent the card itself. ------------------ IP: Logged

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