Anti-Aliasing: 4x vs 4xEQ vs 8x

[AusQB]

Can someone explain in a nutshell what the EQ anti-aliasing levels mean, and how 4xEQ differs in both quality and performance compared to 4x and 8x?

Would selecting 4xEQ cause issues with overriding settings in Skyrim, since according to this guide, the settings in the CCC and game launcher must match, and obviously there isn't an option for EQ in the launcher.

I'm using an ASUS Radeon 6970 2GB with display driver 9.012 (CCC v13.1).

 

[aleksanderdev]

RCRN knows what they are talking about, and any mistakes they would do would be slaughterd down by the users of there mods.

Im using nvidia so not sure about amd.

Im forcing AF trough nvidia panel its better looking than the games AF
For it to work Af must be disabled in skyrim.

 

[AusQB]

RCRN knows what they are talking about, and any mistakes they would do would be slaughterd down by the users of there mods.

Im using nvidia so not sure about amd.

Im forcing AF trough nvidia panel its better looking than the games AF
For it to work Af must be disabled in skyrim.

I'm not questioning their advice, I'm following it to the letter, but that guide was made before AMD introduced EQ AA.

After looking at numerous guides and threads, it does seem that when overriding with Nvidia that you should disable game AA/AF, but for AMD they need to be enabled and the same.

 

[aleksanderdev]

Ah so the EQ is quit new.
Still would have thought that RCRN would have implemented this into there guide the day the EQ was released.

If your up to it, it would be nice of someone tested this new EQ

Turn EQx4 on and set 4x AA in skyrim, find a good place in skyrim, save than take a screenshot.

Keep EQx4 on and disable 4xAA in skyrim load up the game and do another screenshot of the exact same spot.

Disable EQx4 enable 4xAA load up the game and do another screenshot of the exact same spot.
Than post your screenshots her
Would be great if you could

 

[aleksanderdev]

It seems EQAA adds coverage samples to pixels. Its supposed to enhance the MSAA giving better quality without performance loss.
8f16x EQAA is the higest setting.

http://developer.amd.com/wordpress/media/2012/10/EQAA%20Modes%20for%20AMD%20HD%206900%20Series%20Cards.pdf

 

[AusQB]

Ah so the EQ is quit new.
Still would have thought that RCRN would have implemented this into there guide the day the EQ was released.

If your up to it, it would be nice of someone tested this new EQ

Turn EQx4 on and set 4x AA in skyrim, find a good place in skyrim, save than take a screenshot.

Keep EQx4 on and disable 4xAA in skyrim load up the game and do another screenshot of the exact same spot.

Disable EQx4 enable 4xAA load up the game and do another screenshot of the exact same spot.
Than post your screenshots her
Would be great if you could

You know what, I was trying to, but I kept getting CTDs trying to load the saves. I don't know whether it was because of mods (most likely) or the engine, but I just gave up.

I did manage to get a couple shots, but only of 4x vs 4xEQ (didn't get around to disabling AA from the launcher), but what I can say is the visual improvement from 4x to 4xEQ is ridiculously minimal, I had to go right up to the monitor to notice the differences, which is just a slight more blurring. As for the performance, outside in Riverwood (rather heavily modded mind you) switching from 4x to 4xEQ dropped my FPS by only 2.

It's not a very thorough test, but I'm confident that it's really just a waste of time. I feel like it hasn't been properly optimized yet, and we know how prompt AMD is with their drivers.

Regardless, I use DYNAVISION, a great mod that adds a blur with the strength of your choosing either dynamically or statically with very minimal performance loss. It's a great substitute for FXAA and reduces the need for higher normal AA. I think for now I'll just stick with normal 4x MSAA.

 

[aleksanderdev]

Hehe I thought so.
AMD and nvidia both seems very very desperate to come up with some new super evolutionary AA soulution.

TXXA from Nvidia Was just... I dont know, dont think words can discribe how terrible it was and what a huge failiur it was.
And now apperently AMD has failed the same way.
Though FXAA isn't so bad. Im acutally using it my self instead of AA.
My skyrim texture pack and surround monitors makes skyrim use 4gb with 4xAA and low medium settings, and when skyrim exeeds the Vram of 4gb on my 680 game crahses
So Im using FXAA which puts skyrim at 3,7 GB vram thus making it stable.
But that will change once i get my 2, want to say big but they are quit small Monster Titans SLI.

 

[AusQB]

Hehe I thought so.
AMD and nvidia both seems very very desperate to come up with some new super evolutionary AA soulution.

TXXA from Nvidia Was just... I dont know, dont think words can discribe how terrible it was and what a huge failiur it was.
And now apperently AMD has failed the same way.
Though FXAA isn't so bad. Im acutally using it my self instead of AA.
My skyrim texture pack and surround monitors makes skyrim use 4gb with 4xAA and low medium settings, and when skyrim exeeds the Vram of 4gb on my 680 game crahses
So Im using FXAA which puts skyrim at 3,7 GB vram thus making it stable.
But that will change once i get my 2, want to say big but they are quit small Monster Titans SLI.

While I knew Skyrim had been patched for LAA, I thought that meant it would handle memory management above 2GB automatically. When I noticed that it never used more than 2GB I suspected I had to do something myself, but I only just recently found out what that was. So with the memory allocation set, it should be a lot more stable now.

 

[aleksanderdev]

Skyrim cant handel more than 3.2 GB Memory, just tested this. The game gets unstable and wont load saved games if settings are set in which manor that the games needs to load more than 3,2 GB while loading a saved game.

Since i got 3 monitors, and hige texture packs I cant use more than 5 ugrid.
7 ugrid and the game crash, becuse with 7 ugrid the game needs to load more than 3,2gb which results in the game not loading at all.