HDR+AA??!!! How?

One of the reasons I bought a X1900XT, was because of its capability of doing antialiasing and HDR at the same time. But I have doubts about how this option is enabled in several games. Do I need a patch for every game to enable HDR+AA, or just with the standard ati drivers, I can play every game with this feature. If I need a patch do you know where I could find those patches in order to enable that capability?

A game that I will interested in using that capability is Serious Sam 2 which Im currently playing.


Thanx.

I believe that for each game to run HDR+AA, there will be some additional code path, either through drivers or a game patch.

Oblivion, has a driver patch from ATi, while FarCry uses a 1.4beta patch to enable HDR+AA.

This should be the trend in the game industry, as there isn't support on both fields, aka ATi and Nvidia. It's a nice to have, not a standard (yet). From this, it will depend either on ATI CAT crew, or the game publisher.

BUT, few games pull HDr off as well as Oblivion, and anything else to my view, is trivial or not worth the effort with HDr and AA running. Besides, with a X1900 card you are most likely playing at 1280x1024 which sort of off sets the AA requirement.

But that's my view.

does serious sam 2 have HDR?!?
i thought it was quite old...

Well your telling me, some games support this Feature from the menu, other needs special patching!, so before I look foward using this feature on any game I need to search a bit to see If I need any special patch. It would be nice to have a Database to make our lifes easier.

Thanx everyone.

Uhhh, Half life 2?

GF7 range isnt capible of having both, its a technical limitation of the Nvidia series
I prob. should'nt have said No Game....my bad i've been out of the loop for a while.
HL2 does not fully implement AA and HDR, where i'm basing this off? to be honest i cant remember where, but i do remember alot of conversations a while ago about HDR, AA and Nvidia

If you read the link it explains everything, including the misconceptions about HL2 HDR.

And the GF7 can do HDR+AA, but just not FP16 HDR+AA throughout in hardware.

AgesOfEmpires3 does host (CPU/software) based AA and then does FP16 HDR in hardware, so with the GF7 you can achieve FP16HDR+AA, but it's a more labrious process than HDR+AA in a game like Oblivion. This is why turning on AA in AOE3 disables the Catalyst AA on ATi hardware, and vice versa.

The GF7 can also do FP16HDR + interger AA by passing through the ROPs twice, but this would be a slower process, and likely not worth the effort to force in drivers. It's not F16 throughout, but I doubt you'd notice the difference without analyzing a screenshot in more detail than you would in games. It's important to note it for design purposes, but game wise likely wouldn't matter much other than the performance impact.

can we once and for all leave the source method of doing HDR alone. i am sick of people stating that it is not ture HDR. as long as it does the same effects then it is HDR. HDR is only a lighting effect when all is said and done so it is the end result not the method which is important. at least to me it is.