Adaptive anti-aliasing on ATI Radeon X800 boards investigated

Vikingod · Oct 17, 2005, 02:19 PM

Anti-aliasing... It seems like just a few short years ago that this word would send shivers of excitement through any pixel whore, yet coupled too with shivers of fear. Yes, we all drooled over the superb anti-aliasing of 3Dfx's Voodoo 5, but also how we cringed over the performance hit. Super-sampling looked great, and it still does, but the performance is way too expensive in the majority of situations.

Then came ATI's Radeon 9700 Pro, and everything changed forever. Suddenly, 4x anti-aliasing was a reality for pretty much any game, thanks both to the raw speed of the architecture coupled with the low-ish performance hit of its multi-sampling implementation. All was good with the world, and so the trend continued as subsequent architectures became more powerful still, and anti-aliasing became all but taken for granted.
__________
Read More / Source: Elite Bastards

studbagel9 · Oct 17, 2005, 03:40 PM

i really like their animated picture windows. It lets you see comparisons so much better than switching between windows or tabs as the case may be.

No_Style · Oct 17, 2005, 04:30 PM

Adaptive AA / Transparency AA is quite possible the greatest image quality improving technique since regular AA and AF. I simply love it. I just hope they somehow decrease the performance hit a bit in areas where there is a dense (I mean dense) amount of alpha textures. (ie: Forests in GW and FarCry.) Quite a noticeable drop when you stare at the trees and such.

Once you've experienced it, you can't go back!

Oct 17, 2005, 02:19 PM	#1
Vikingod Int'l Fish Liaison Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: By the light of lamp I sit and type... Posts: 16,197 Rep Power: 112 System Specs	Adaptive anti-aliasing on ATI Radeon X800 boards investigated Anti-aliasing... It seems like just a few short years ago that this word would send shivers of excitement through any pixel whore, yet coupled too with shivers of fear. Yes, we all drooled over the superb anti-aliasing of 3Dfx's Voodoo 5, but also how we cringed over the performance hit. Super-sampling looked great, and it still does, but the performance is way too expensive in the majority of situations. Then came ATI's Radeon 9700 Pro, and everything changed forever. Suddenly, 4x anti-aliasing was a reality for pretty much any game, thanks both to the raw speed of the architecture coupled with the low-ish performance hit of its multi-sampling implementation. All was good with the world, and so the trend continued as subsequent architectures became more powerful still, and anti-aliasing became all but taken for granted. __________ Read More / Source: Elite Bastards

Oct 17, 2005, 03:40 PM	#2
studbagel9 Rolling the Hard Six Join Date: May 2003 Location: Lock Haven, PA Posts: 767 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	i really like their animated picture windows. It lets you see comparisons so much better than switching between windows or tabs as the case may be. __________________

Oct 17, 2005, 04:30 PM	#3
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	Adaptive AA / Transparency AA is quite possible the greatest image quality improving technique since regular AA and AF. I simply love it. I just hope they somehow decrease the performance hit a bit in areas where there is a dense (I mean dense) amount of alpha textures. (ie: Forests in GW and FarCry.) Quite a noticeable drop when you stare at the trees and such. Once you've experienced it, you can't go back! __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here