1900XT AA setting confusion...

[Dragonprince]

:confused:

What is the difference between the different AA settings in the Catalyst control panel ? Do you turn them all on at the same time, or just one at a time ? AF I understand, but why different types of AA and whats the benefit of one vs the other ?

Has anyone read an online review were the different types are tested ? I hit Google but came up empty.

[Vio1]

the higher the aa the better supposedly it will look

"Anti-Aliasing - Aliasing is the jagged edges on curves and diagonal lines in a bitmap image. Anti-aliasing is the process of smoothing out those jagged edges. Another term commonly used is font smoothing. Without anti-aliasing, diagonal edges appear jagged, like staircases, which may be noticeable on a low resolution display. The default for this setting is "Application Preference". Increasing this setting to 2x or more may improve overall image quality while having the possibility of degrading gaming performance."

[Nebulous]

the higher the aa the better supposedly it will look

"Anti-Aliasing - Aliasing is the jagged edges on curves and diagonal lines in a bitmap image. Anti-aliasing is the process of smoothing out those jagged edges. Another term commonly used is font smoothing. Without anti-aliasing, diagonal edges appear jagged, like staircases, which may be noticeable on a low resolution display. The default for this setting is "Application Preference". Increasing this setting to 2x or more may improve overall image quality while having the possibility of degrading gaming performance."


And that, in a nutshell, is how it's done :thup:

[Dragonprince]

I understand how its done, what I dont understand is ATi's confusing settings.

Temporal AA vs. Adaptive vs. "let the app decide" ?? which is best ? or are they all supposed to be turned on at the same time ? Does "let the app decide" override all of the other settings including Adaptive AA even though its on a separate tab in the CCC ?

[Nebulous]

I understand how its done, what I dont understand is ATi's confusing settings.

Temporal AA vs. Adaptive vs. "let the app decide" ?? which is best ? or are they all supposed to be turned on at the same time ? Does "let the app decide" override all of the other settings including Adaptive AA even though its on a separate tab in the CCC ?


Ok, what you do is try each setting seperately and run a game to see if the jagged edges are there. What's best for me may not work for you. Be sure you write down the setting you changed and next to it how good or bad it looked. Keep track of this as it will help you.

It'll take a while, but you'll see what we're talking about and what works best for your setup/monitor.

[keninishna]

I understand how its done, what I dont understand is ATi's confusing settings.

Temporal AA vs. Adaptive vs. "let the app decide" ?? which is best ? or are they all supposed to be turned on at the same time ? Does "let the app decide" override all of the other settings including Adaptive AA even though its on a separate tab in the CCC ?

Temporal AA supposedly doubles the AA quality without double the performance hit so 4x AA plus temporal AA enabled will be like 8x AA. Adaptive AA also increases the AA quality greatly but also causes a good performance hit. Some games like oblivion if you enable those options your fps will usually go to hell but some lesser damanding games like prey or quake you could probably get away with it on. If you set the CCC to let the app decide it will by default disable all AA and you will have to set the AA levels in the game. With a game like oblivion if you turn on the HDR setting you have to set the AA levels in the CCC. Here are some links I googled:

http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2004q2/radeon-x800/index.x?pg=22

http://www.elitebastards.com/page.php?pageid=12254

What settings you use really depends on the games you play and at what resolution and your system setup so your going to have to experiment with the settings and see whats the best settings for quality/performance.