8800GTS 512MB: Huge Hit With AA in Crysis?

Hey all,
Some of you may remember my thread some time back about problems with an 8800 GT I was having. I returned that card for an 8800 GTS 512MB and most of those problems went away, especially the crashing. I think the GTS is just a higher quality part, imo. Anyway, I do notice something that I find odd. In Crysis without AA I get excellent fps on high settings at 1680x1050, around 40 or higher walking around, upwards of 60 inside buildings. However, turn on AA and watch the fun begin. With 4xAA I am talking about a max of 20 fps outside, with it going so low at times as to go down to 5 fps around many enemies. Now I know Crysis is a very demanding game, but what strikes me as odd is my old 640MB GTS had no problems with AA in Crysis. I could have 4xAA and still get 30 fps with many enemies around. Other games I also notice some problems with AA, in that it seems a little glitchy, though Crysis is by far the worst. My question is, what is the cause of this? Is the new GTS not as good at AA as the old GTS? Is it that the old GTS was better in DX9 than the new GTS? I am really kind of stumped here, so anyway thoughts would be great.

Thanks

(P.S. Does anyone know how Nvidia's DX10 drivers are doing? I have the option of getting a free copy of Vista and wondered if it would be worth it.

Yes, the AA is a problem in Crysis. Keep it off. Doesnt add any visual quality anyway.

I am running Vista w/ the latest nvidia drivers, and it is running fine. I have no way to comare it to your system though.

No single card handles 4xaa at 1680x1050 high in crysis. I can barely manage that with dual 8800GT and actually play 2xaa/16xaf for better framerates. Something seems wrong with your 640MB GTS testing though, are you sure it was all high? maybe hitting a 512MB ram limit with 4xaa? I know the GPU bench at least puts the 640MB GTS below the 8800GT with or without fsaa.
http://www.legionhardware.com/docu [...] id=698&p=4

You are talking about actual observed framerates during gaming to which I'll say I have tried one 8800GT with 4xaa/16xaf 16x10 high and no way would I call that playable. SLI 8800GT I felt there was major stuttering with 4xaa in the Assault level (out in the open at the shipyard with the large carrier). I reduced to 2xaa and even then that level gave me the least smooth performance of any other level.

BTW, this is the level that I'm refering to:
http://guides.ign.com/guides/694190/page_8.html

In my OPINION, Crysis is a terrible game to benchmark GPU performance on. It just seems to be so inconsistent. I got tired of it, and now I just play COD4. I can crank the graphics all the way up, and I think they look just as good as Crysis.

I don't see inconsistency with Crysis. It just takes a powerful card to run @ higher settings.

Perhaps I should have been more clear.

Various levels, environments, number of enemies, proximity to water, complexity of terrain and the like, all drastically affect the frame rate, more than most games.

Again, I will provide a deeper explaination of what I mean.

Sure 4xAA removes the jaggies, but at higher resolutions with high graphics settings, the AA is difficult to notice, and the performance hit is significantly greater than the increase in visual quality.

Edit: To further clarify and simplify. And visual quality provided by AA is more than cancelled out by the serious hit in frame rates.

unless you just like a good slideshow.

What you are really doing is Trolling. Im out. No time for arguing opinion or how yours is better.

Guys, please don't turn this into an opinion war, I am asking for help, not a debate on AA. I'd rather not have this thread locked.

As for the fact that Crysis is a poor game to benchmark, I agree. However, it's not just Crysis. Company of Heroes has the same problem. AA doesn't affect the problem in CoH, on or off I still get the stuttering and the subsequent revving up of performance. I swapped back in the old card and the prob went away. I have reinstalled all drivers and such, but I am not sure if it's working. I do know that some people on other forums have reported the same problem, and I figure a fresh install can't hurt. Basically I am confused because I am getting worse performance than what I had with my old card. The only other option, as I checked the PSU and it's not the prob, might be my mobo and if it doesn't like PCIE 2.0, but I don't see why that should be a problem.

It's not an opinion war. The guy gave his opinion about AA. I gave facts. He calls me a troll and says it's an opinion argument.

How is Crysis inconsistent? I will explain to you in best of my knowledge why you think it's inconsistent.

Now you say it makes a visual difference? Way to change what you said originally. How convenient of you.

Again how AA takes performance hit has nothing to do with what you said originally. Never said I didn't agree with that doesn't mean it doesn't make visual difference.

All games varies wildly depending on what is going on the screen. Do you understand that? You thought games stay constant 60fps. LOL

It's funny you mention that because I had the hardest time with the same level. I thought it should have been smoother with all the static buildings and the ship taking up much of the screen. I thought the worst performance would have been the woods where the enemy is on the other side of the river and you have to run through the woods.

If you had read one of my responses, you would have seen that I had mentioned that it is not just Crysis.

Oh really? I only saw you mention crysis.

*sigh* Sure ok yea uh-huh whatever.

MSAA is incompatible with the edge AA effect that CryENGINE2 employs to make foliage look better. MSAA+Crysis=massive fail on any current hardware. With the loss of edgeAA the IQ advantage isn't significant enough to justify the performance loss.

To the OP, you are most likely running out of VRAM running 1680x1050 + 4xMSAA. The 640MB GTS obviously has more memory, which is why it doesn't tank at said settings like the 512MB GTS does. Not that it matters as neither card will offer playable framerates at those settings.

*Hails marvelous211 as Queen of the day*

OP few questions:

1. Are you running the 169.25 drivers?
2. Are you running Crysis w/ the latest patch?
3. Did you completely uninstall drivers before installing the new cards?
3a. Did you use a 3rd party driver cleaner?
4. Did/do you OC anything?
5. Did you try kicking the computer?

No, but take a look here: http://www.hardocp.com/article.htm [...] VzaWFzdA==

It's a 1GB 8800GT vs a 512MB 8800GT and basically it shows that 1GB is pointless because the 8800GT isn't powerful enough to take advantage of it.

Thanks for the link.

In any case, 512MB is still the sweet spot for videocards atm.

For me, crysis looks ugly without AA, doesnt show off all those nie shadow effects if there are just squares.

I sacrificed a bit of image quality to turn on AA, thats just me though.

Think it adds huge depth to the quality.

I am attempting a fresh OC install today, I will let you guys know how it goes. I don't think it is the card, but we will find out soon.

Sounds like Vistas power management is utilizing Intel Speedstep. It's probably set to balanced and is downclocking to save power. Go into power options in control panel and set it to performance or max performance mode.

For OC'in you may want to just turn speedstep off in your bios.


edit: BTW, glad to here your stuttering is gone!

^ same here.

Wrong word. Stupendous is a good thing, its like "holy sh!t this cake is STUPENDOUS!"

Anyway, for frick sake yeah he said AA didnt add picture quality but it was in reference to Crysis, in which case due to the drop in frames it isnt WORTH having AA on. I can understand that...why cant you?

Stop being a douchebag and focus on the OP topic, this isnt about who made an overly simplified statement. I'm sitting here reading your posts and I got so frustrated that I decided to make this post, if anything to shut you up and your little fanboi too.

It's NOT speedstep, that's what C1E and EIST are in the bios. I already have those disabled guys, this is not the first time I overclocked a CPU. In addition, speedstep only affects multipliers, not fsb. My fsb and my multiplier are being reduced to default.