Anti Aliasing

[Jakemaster]

In my cards settings, you can either use application controlled, or it says:

2x             2xQ                4x               4xS

What are these??

[_526th_Fireman]

They are the different levels of AA that your card can render. Read up in YOUR cards docs. as to what each setting is and aims to offer.

[4_Series_Scania]

It  refers to a method to reduce the brightness levels between two neighboring pixels by overlapping the colours in the difference level to neighboring pixels. This make the images appear smoother.  ;)

It has a considerable performance hit on early (pre Geforce FX) cards, its only really useable on high end cards such as a GeForce 6 series.

The higher the setting, the greater the performance hit.

As a rule, I run on 4xQ & 4x AF.  ;)

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:cKM3_FTWrpYJ:www.nvidia.com/object/techbrief_accuview.html+4xs+anti+aliasing&hl=en&client=firefox-a
For further reading.

[the_autopilot]

Anti-aliasing just gets rid of jaggies.

4x is generally enough. Be aware that 4x will result in a performence hit.

[edzmen]

It doesn't seem to effect my PC even with 4x Anti-A set on the card, max sliders and Anti A enabled in FS9.

I think im gonna turn AA off in the FS9 settings though, not sure its needed if the card is set to 4x as default.

[4_Series_Scania]

It doesn't seem to effect my PC even with 4x Anti-A set on the card, max sliders and Anti A enabled in FS9.

I think im gonna turn AA off in the FS9 settings though, not sure its needed if the card is set to 4x as default.

yes, uncheck AA in FS9, enable it from your Graphics card driver. (Display properties, Advanced, etc)


Not sure about your pc, but I get a considerable FPS hit if AA is checked via the sim.

[the_autopilot]

Leave AA at 4x, your x850 xt can more than handle it.

Make sure to set it through the driver, not fs9.

[4_Series_Scania]

Leave AA at 4x, your x850 xt can more than handle it.

Make sure to set it through the driver, not fs9.

With an X850, 8x Anti Alaising should'nt bother it, the picture will look great.

[edzmen]

I cant see an option to go to 8x AA in my card drivers.

It only appears up to 4x i think???

Also which is better - 'Direct 3D' or 'Open GL'??

[4_Series_Scania]

Personally, D3D.

Some games prefer Open GL, not many in my collection though.

If my cheapo 6800LE Supports 8x Anti Alaising, I'm damn sure a x850 will!

I'm not an Ati owner, I can't help much with setting one up.  ::)

Somebody here will help, I'm sure.  ;)

Paul.

[the_autopilot]

Also which is better - 'Direct 3D' or 'Open GL'??

Depends on if your a developer or a gamer.

directx is MS's gfx api and most games use this.

Developers:
Opengl is another form of gfx api. Directx 9 is pretty adavnced and was the most adavnced. Opengl has closed the gap with opengl 2. If you design games for windows, dx9 is the way to go. Opengl for all other OS's. They are other gfx api, bu these two are by far the most popular.

Gamers:
Generally, games are designed in one API or the other. Though some games have render's that can render in both like Half life 1.

Nvidia cards generally handle opengl performence better then ati cards (see doom3 benchmarks). ATI cards can generally handle directx better (see half life 2 benchmarks). Doom 3 is an opengl engine and Half life 2 is an directx 9 engine.

[bschott]

Really the difference is nothing you would choose.  The game is either Dx or OpenGL.  The setting in your properties for your card is just for how games that USE those APIs looks.