Graphics terms... (about video cards)

[pcrobot]

Hello all,
I have a newbie question for you all...
When people talk about gaming, and video cards, I see AA and AF mentioned. (I also see them on benchmarks.) What do they mean?
Thanks!

 

[gaara]

AA = Anti-Aliasing
AF = Anisotropic Filtering

AA basically prevents objects from turning jaggy and smooths them out...good example of where it might improve looks is a chainlink fence...the fence might look really squared but with AA enabled the chainlinks would start to appear clearer

AF basically just improves textures

Generally you can crank your AF fairly high without much performance loss but AA will really start to kill your framerate

 

[003]

The reason you can turn AF really high (with an nvidia card anyway) is because nvidia cheats and even when its at 16x they use a very crappy quality of AF, so there is lots of appearent shimmering, only when you turn image settings to high quality in the nvidia drivers is when it is actually decent quality, but then it really kills your FPS. ATI dosn't have this problem.

 

[Sprooty]

The reason you can turn AF really high (with an nvidia card anyway) is because nvidia cheats and even when its at 16x they use a very crappy quality of AF, so there is lots of appearent shimmering, only when you turn image settings to high quality in the nvidia drivers is when it is actually decent quality, but then it really kills your FPS. ATI dosn't have this problem.

hahaha are you trying to start a flame war?

and for memory that shimmering problem was fixed wasnt it?

 

[003]

No, it was not. But you can fix it yourself, go to the nvidia control panel and set image quality to high quality... for a 10-30fps decrease.

 

[pcrobot]

ATI dosn't have this problem.

Is that true for all of them, or just lower-end cards?

 

[Sprooty]

The problem about shimmering is only with Nvidia because they tryed to take the easy way out and to it crap. But on ATI it's fine.

 

[003]

Yeah... I got really pissed when I learned about the shimmering, and funny thing is, I never noticed it until I read about it on these forums, I guess I had gotten used to it and thought it was normal. That is why I am seriously considering ATI for my next upgrade. I want to see how they react to the 7800GTX 512MB.

 

[Sprooty]

I want to see how they react to the 7800GTX 512MB.

Yeah im locked between the X1800XT 512Mb and the 7800GTX 512MB.

There are no confirmed prices for either, but the 7800GTX 512MB is meant to beat the X1800XT 512mb. Nvidia also has alot better drivers from what i have been hearing. But i am an ATI fanboy..... but i really dont know.

 

[003]

There is no doubt in my mind, the 7800GTX will beat the 512mb X1800xt, pretty badly at that. There is no way it stands a chance with a 24 pipe card clocked at 550/1800. That is why I want to see how ATI will react, like releasing an X1800XTPE or something.