Anisotropic Filtering Unimportant

[rdytorave]

I found this article describing how worthless anisotropic filtering is: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,548248,00.asp

Interesting!

[richardwalker73]

I will look at that one.

Cheers for the link.;)

[HeXenViRii]

very interseting indeed

[PreservedSwine]

Very informative indeed. I have only one issue with the article, not enough screenies!!
They conclude, based on the ONE screenshot comparison, that AF is not importnant, and they can tell NO difference.

This is in direct conflict with every other reveiw I've seen comparing AF among video cards. That both screenies looked identical suggests something went wrong in their test.

Other than that, excellent article, though I completley disaggree w/ their conclusion. The screenshot test was incorrect. I am assuming they used an R9700 for that screenshot, and with the R9700 and the original shipped drivers had a bug that did not change AF without a "mode change" or re-booting. Just guessing there, but it seems quite likely given the screenies presented:)

[Emericana]

i have no clue wtf they are talkin about. if you run a game w/ no anios enabled then put 8x enabled you notice a HUGE increase in image quality! that is at over 1280x1024 (never play games below that so i wouldnt know what anios does in lower resolutions)

[JigPu]

I actually don't think (could be wrong.... don't actually mess with the settings enough) that I notice a diffrence with or without AF. I know that I read an article that explained exactly what it did, and had a screenshot showing the effects, and it seemed that the effect only minorly increased image quality. Not enough that I think I'd notice durring gameplay.

But then again, I keep this card near maximum settings for games since I can and retain the framerate! :D
JigPu

[PreservedSwine]

Ahh- found it- he screwed up the screenshot comparison....

"Update/Mea Culpa: I incorrectly captured the first screenshot in Serious Sam SE, because Sam does have an AF setting of its own, and nVidia's driver apparently forces on an AF state, but only if the app hasn't made a request for a given level of AF. If the request is made, it supercedes whatever setting is specified in the driver panel. So having fixed that, you can see with these two screens that AF is making a difference primarily on the floor textures. AF also helped minimize texture crawling that's quite common at 1024x768. Going to 1600x1200 helps clean up texture crawling as well, but AF can be useful here too.

So, too bad he only used one card for his conclusion. Woud have been nice to see him compare ATI aniso to Nvidia's.

Once you get used to the super sharp textures of high aniso settings, there is NO going back. Everything else just looks muddled without it. I can't live w/out aniso, it actually ****es me off! With it on, I appreciate the scenery of games so much more, and it certainly helps to add to the realism.

:)

[PhobMX]

yeah, i can see the difference up to 4x aniso in my primary rigs' vid card above 60fps, so i think that article is all BS... when you finaly have trained eyes that can tell the quality on anisotropic filtering, as swine said, theres no way back hehehe :beer:

[RuffRyder88]

can Anisotropic filtering not be used it direct3d games? I ask this because, in my ti4200 settings, the aniso settings are under the openGL tab.