Firingsquad HDR+AA review

[pauldh]

Nice to see someone do this review. Here is the link, but unfortunately I think Brandon goofed big time. Dang I like him and his reviews a lot. I tried to send him a messege about it but it just says invalid author ID.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/hdr_aa_ati_radeon_x1k/

Anyway, I have spent hours digging into Farcry AA + HDR, as well as PM's with Cleeve for guideance. I could not get Brandon's 4XAA to work at all with HDR, only 2XAA. 4X had no performance hit and in game and screenie comparisons prooved the same amount of Alaising with 0xaa and 4xaa when HDR is enabled. I think in all FS's farcry testing anyway, there was no AA and the tiny perfomance hit he saw was from enabling AF. 8O If I am right, there goes the whole review.

There is way more than a 2% performance hit. running 2xaa + HDR compared to just HDR, so if 4X worked the hit would be even greater. Don't get me wrong, 12x10 max 2x/16x + HDR 7 is more than playable on my X1800XT, but only about as playable as 16x12 max 0xaa/16xaf HDR7.

 

[cleeve]

Yeah, I had wondered about that but I assumed he figured a workaround.

You should shoot him an email and let him know...

 

[pauldh]

Hey, just the guy I was hoping was here. How did he get a 2% hit only on a X1800XT enabling 4XAA/ 8XAF? Shoot Cleeve, my heart sank when I saw his 4X/8X test settings and then checking the 2% performance hit.... 8O

I can't figure out how to email him directly and didn't want to go around him. I just signed up as I used to post there an. Hopefully once logged on I can send him a messege. I never would have posted anything here is I could have successfully submitted a messege to him directly.

 

[pauldh]

Alrighty, my registration email finally came and once logged in the messege went through to him. I hope for his sake he indeed figured out a way; in this instance I'd be thrilled to be the one who is wrong.

By the way, thx for catching me editting my typo's twice. :x

 

[cleeve]

Cool. The guy should really contact Crytech about this issue...

 

[pauldh]

Alright Cleeve, still no response what-so-ever from Brandon so I am going to do some HDR+2x testing again to see the performance drop I get and try to contact him one more time before opening up some worms in his comments section. This needs to be looked into IMO. It's way more than the 2% he claimed for the X1800XT with 4xaa/8xaf. I'm telling you, he had to of botched this review and never confirmed whether AA was actually woring or not. 2% is most likely because he also enable 8XAF. 4XAA/8XAF would have been way more than 2% drop unless Cat 6.6's are AA+HDR monster drivers.

2 ?'s for you.

1) Isn't Farcry 1.4 (leaked alpha according to crytec) the only/latest HDR+AA patch?

2) Do you have any performance number on the drop that 2Xaa added compared to HDR. I'm taking a wild stab here, but 20% sounds more likely than 2%.

 

[pauldh]

OK, here are the screenshots from my previous testing. Note, all are 1280x1024 max detials with HDR 7. But, one of these images is not like the other.

1280x1024 Max (0xAA) HDR 7

1280x1024 Max 2xAA HDR 7

1280x1024 Max 4xAA HDR 7

1280x1024 Max 6xAA HDR 7

Take a look at the framerates and also zoom up on the jaggies on the gun, the building, or the sand by the door. My performance hit just on this screenie, is 36.6% when enabling 2xaa on top of HDR, and of course 4xAA and 6xAA did nothing; same framerates, same jaggies. But I'll have to run some benchies not just a screenie and get a good feel for the average fps hit with 2xaa.



In the mean time, any X1800 & X1900 owners who have farcry, please give this a shot. See if you actually get 4xaa to work with HDR, or if like Cleeve and I only 2x works. And of course I mean actually working not the appearance it worked.

 

[cleeve]

1) I believe so

2) I'll get you more numbers when I can dig into my next review.

 

[pauldh]

Yes, 1.4 patch; Give it a try if you get the chance. http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1293

 

[pauldh]

Cool. The guy should really contact Crytech about this issue...

From what I have read it seems Crytech has completly dissassociated themselves with patch 1.4 and recommend in not be installed.

 

[Heyyou27]

I have the patch but don't use it much.
1) I can't really use antialiasing with it.
2) I don't like Far Cry's implementation because it usually amounts to darker greens and blues without much

 

[pauldh]

I'm not completely sold on HDR in farcry either. Sometimes I like it other times I don't. It's not a must have setting like HDR has become for me in Oblivion. There is Quite a large performance hit using HDR in facry though. That same 12x10 max 0xaa screenie without HDR showed 91 fps vs 56 with HDR.

 

[pauldh]

i'd prefer to wait for the offical patch when it is released. i don't really play far cry so it won't hurt to wait a few weeks or so.

I am under the impression there will not be any official patch beyond v1.33. V1.4 has been totally stable for me in single player, worst thing about it is the totally annoying unlimited ammo bug. I prefer needing to reload. I'm not sure if you can join online games in 1.4 or not.

 

[Cody_7]

Hmm... For a minute there I was thinking the same as you, StrangeStranger. I thought "Did they hit me over the head with a Trigen and make patch 1.4 or what? lol. I assume patch 1.4 introduces HDR.

I'll try it out, but it seems using "paradise" mode does a similar effect without the performance hit...

*EDIT* does this work on the X800 series of cards? I assume not, because they didn't mention that it worked on them in the Guru3D page. Is it because of no ShaderModel 3.0? That's a load of crap... I think maybe I'll play HL2: Episode One with the kick-ass HDR and bloom effects.

I payed $300 for my card and it's outdated this fast? Please. It's not my fault I bought an AGP board right before they dropped it like a shot from a gun for PCE-e. I'm waiting to upgrade because i'm going to need a new mobo (and a new processor) to use an X1900 PCI-e card.

 

[Heyyou27]

The only game the X800 can use HDR with is Half-Life2 thanks to its use of a different method. Half-Life2 does not use the conventional OpenEXR HDR path that games such as Far Cry, Oblivion, and Age of Empires III use.

 

[Cody_7]

What's so much greater about the "normal" methods? So good i need a high-end SM 3.0 to run effectivley? Just a side note: I've heard alot of argument about FPX (X being a number anywhere up to 16) and I don't know what the differece is. If one of you could explain it to me, that would be great!

P.S. Why is the "official" method only for SM 3.0?

 

[Heyyou27]

OpenEXR FP16 is only supported on newer cards that also have shader model 3.0 support, even though it's not actually a part of shader model 3.0.(The Geforce 6200 does not support FP16 even though it is a Shader model 3.0 card) Basically, it's the easiest way to do HDR and this one thing is the cause it's popularity. (Valve put in a lot of extra work for their own version of HDR, something most developers wouldn't do)

 

[pauldh]

Well, that's sweet news stranger, thx. I hope it has a working aa+hdr instead of remaining TWIMTBP. I guess they are getting ready to keep farcry as a G80/R600 benchmarked game.

You know, Maybe Brandon even had this new patch, or a newer one than what we can get. I'm telling you if 4xaa + HDR actually works in farcry and has a 2-4% perfomance hit, I think I'll be replaying the whole game.

Oh, and Just a heads up. I received an email from Brandon. He said he would look into this as soon as possible but is swamped with Core 2 articles right now he needs to take care of first.

 

[pauldh]

1) I believe so

2) I'll get you more numbers when I can dig into my next review.

Hey Cleeve, Stranger is onto something. There is indeed an official 1.4 patch coming out very soon. Ya might want to hold off on your farcry testing until then. I wouldn't be surprised if FS already got their hands on this one which means 4xaa + HDR may be possible afterall. But 2% perfomance hit???? .... 8O sweet!!