Why FSAA?

[Guest]

Why FSAA if one can play games in high resolution? I've tried a ELSA GeForce2 MX card recently, and couldn't understand the point of FSAA. Maybe 3dfx's FSAA has more to show(unfortunately which I've never seen), but in nvidia's case, I hardly notice any difference in the following two setting: 640x480 1.5x1.5 FSAA and 800x600 no FSAA. At the same time, the performance is almost identical.(90+fps) Does 1.5x1.5 FSAA setting mean the core runs in 960x720 and then scales it down to 640x480?? I don't understand this...why not run in 960x720(or closer-800x600) directly?? Why draw all the scene in 960x720 and then take the extra effort scale it down to 640x480? Maybe I'm not judging it fairly since most time I play Quake3 games. Maybe FSAA improves the image quality in other games significantly....still, I think most gamer still live happily without it. Many people I know who use GeForce2 series say they don't turn FSAA on because they want the extra frames per second.(Though I think 120fps with FFSA on and 140 fps with FSSA off make little difference.)

 

[mpjesse]

3DFX had another brain fart and thought that resolutions were not going to get any higher in the near future. They basically underestimated Moore's Law. FSAA is useless when you get to a high enough resolution- which is quickly coming upon us. That's part of the reason that Nvidia does't really care about FSAA. Why waste research on FSAA when you can research ways to attain higher resolutions? Your right, FSAA is pointless- in my opinion. The only real world use is for ppl who REALLY like flight sims and straight edges. I'm sure someone will disagree though.

-MP Jesse

 

[Guest]

Well #1, you need to have FSAA set to 2x2 before you are going to see much of any changes.

I would say if you want the best comparisons of non-FSAA versus FSAA, go over to www.3dfxgamers.com. They have several downloadable examples that show the difference between having FSAA enabled and disabled. They also have one comparing the FSAA on Geforce versus that on a V5 5500. It still may not be everyone's bag, but it does give you a direct comparison.

Increasing the screen resolution is not similar to FSAA. I know some people prefer boosting the resolution, but it is a matter of preference at this point. Besides, not everyone has a monitor that will go to 1600x1200. The majority of monitors out there cap off at 1280x1024.

 

[Guest]

In fact, here is the link to those downloadable comparisons, if you are interested.

http://www.3dfxgamers.com/view.asp?IOID=2366

 

[mpjesse]

Don't get my wrong, FSAA is a great technology and works pretty good- at low resolutions. But, like I said earlier, it won't be around in say... another year. The problem w/ FSAA is when you get to 1024x768 you take a major performance hit.

-MP Jesse

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the link! Actually I've seen some of the samples. Yes the samples illustrate clearly what FSAA can do, but I also think it's a bit unfair since no FSAA samples are run in 640x480. Also considering the fact that I've never seen V5 working in real world.(Sorry to say that but little people buy 3dfx these days. Especially it's more expensive than GTS here.) Thanks for noting me that nvidia's FSAA may need 2x2 to show certain effect. I didn't try it because I thought the performance hit might be too huge. All in all, my question would be that - under near-identical resolution, which has the best balance between performance and quality? Does the extra step FSAA takes impact the performance? Also, why no V5 review on THG?

 

[Grizely1]

Actually I run my computer at quite a high resolution (1200x1800) and it looks WAY better with FSAA turned on. And I mean like 2002048883939399999x better.

 

[Guest]

"Also, why no V5 review on THG?"

Well.... Tom and the 3dfx PR people had it out a while back. Tom was reporting that the Nvidia cards were better and said some negative things about 3dfx. While 3dfx could have taken it as motivation, I think they just got ticked off. The last I heard was that 3dfx would no longer send free evaluation boards to Tom for reviewing. Tomshardware would have to go out and buy the boards just like the rest of us for his reviews. That along with the bad blood from the whole event kind of soured the whole deal.

That's the way I remember it. The whole ordeal occurred a little while back so some of my facts may not be dead on target. Somebody please correct me if I am wrong.

Personally, I hope 3dfx offers an olive branch to Tomshardware in the near future. Though people may not always agree with Tom's style, I personally think they give some of the most thorough reviews on the web. It would be nice for 3dfx to get such an evaluation, for better or for worse, on their next product.

 

[Guest]

To answer some other questions. Yes, bumping up FSAA to 2x2 will cause a performance hit. Personally, I have a TNT2U running 1024X768 with 2x2 FSAA enabled. In a game like Thief2 I think it helps overall visual quality and things scroll along just fine for me. I haven't tested it for FPS, but as long as I don't notice any slow down, who cares? Then again, I'm not one of these people that lives and dies over a few FPS. I notice if it is slow, but I could care less after it goes above 45 FPS or so. From what I've seen and heard, most people with Nvidia cards don't go beyond 2x2 because the performance hit becomes too great.

 

[Guest]

Finally someone with sense. I am running a Voodoo5 5500 and it is very hard to convince some people that 4x FSAA is absolutely wonderful. FPS counts up to a certain point (my life extends beyond Quake3) but if things are running smoothly who cares about extra frames. It's what things look like that count.

 

[mpjesse]

I really don't see how you can get a decent frame rate with FSAA on at such a high res. Unless your using a GeForce or ATI card that really sucks at FSAA. Are you using a Voodoo5?

-MP Jesse

 

[Guest]

Glad to hear that you are getting good results from your FSAA. It seems like any comments about FSAA often break down into 3dfx vs. Nvidia chest thumping. I would rather recognize it as a useful feature that, depending on personal preference, can be enabled or disabled. I don’t think it is a feature that is going to disappear any time soon. Some of those test shots of upcoming game engines with tons of polys (e.g. the cryengine, I forget the link) could seriously benefit from some kind of FSAA. I really don’t care which card manufacturer provides it.

 

[Guest]

Does Moore's law apply to displays/CRT's?
When you get these insane fillrates from the graphics card, u have to use a display that can handle this in terms of bandwith.
FSAA brings increased graphics quality, without increasing the bandwith requirements to the monitor.
I have a voodoo2 and a old 21" monitor. The monitor looses image quality (intensity/distortions/focus) when i bump the resolution over 1024x768. To improve the image quality in the 3D games i play, i can
A. Buy a GeForce somthing and a new monitor
B. buy a Voodo5 and use 4xFSAA or 2xFSAA at resolutions the monitor can handle.

Think i'll go with alt.B

Just my 2 cents




<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by SkrueMcDuck on 12/04/00 06:39 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[smn198]

"Sorry to say that but little people buy 3dfx these days. Especially it's more expensive than GTS here"

Are you saying that vertically challanged people are stupid? :lol:

 

[smn198]

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1272&p=3" target="_new">Anandtech's FSAA reviews with 640*480 images</A>

Is FSAA really worth it if you have a high res monitor and a graphics card which can run it fast enough?

 

[Guest]

What kind of a system are you running? Graphics card, processor, mobo, etc.

I would be intersted to know.

Thanks,

Poderoso.

 

[Guest]

"Sorry to say that but little people buy 3dfx these days. Especially it's more expensive than GTS here"

Heheh. I was confused by that statement at first, but in the context of what else was being said I think he meant "few people" not "little people". No leprechauns involved.

 

[Guest]

"To improve the image quality in the 3D games i play, i can
A. Buy a GeForce somthing and a new monitor
B. buy a Voodo5 and use 4xFSAA or 2xFSAA at resolutions the monitor can handle.

Think i'll go with alt.B"

That's definitely a part of the argument for FSAA. I mean I'm really happy for people that have a 1600x1200 capable monitor, but that is not the majority of the population. Monitors with that high of resolution also tend to be on the expensive side.

 

[smn198]

I just couldn't resist!

 

[Grizely1]

Athlon 1050, GF2 GTS, 256MB PC133 SDRAM, 50GB Maxtor hard drive, 19" monitor, X-Gamer sound card,what else?

 

[Guest]

i think FSAA is the most important feature WHEN you play games and output to TV. most TV set can't handle more than 600-lines horizontal resolution, you know...
try to figure out what is the image quality when you're playing game on a 33" TV with 640x480 output.

sorry for bad english. v_v

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