AA on the card and in the Sim?

[Harold]

Only enable Anti-aliasing on your card, not the sim. You will tend to lose alot of performance if you have it on both...

Hi guys, I just read this post and can anyone explain how this works and why it is a sucker for the speed of the sim ...

I know what AA is and how it works but I'd like to have an explanation on the comment above ...

[EirePlane]

From what I have heard people say before, the AA in the sim just doesnt work

[FridayChild]

AA in game is done in software = slow and sucks up system resources
AA at driver level is done in hardware if the vcard supports it = faster
AFAIK this is the difference.
Unless the AA option in FS acts just like a switch to turn on hardware AA if available. But I don't think so, and even if it was this way, you couldn't set the desided level of AA that way, just turn it on or off.

[NicksFXHouse]

Hi guys, I just read this post and can anyone explain how this works and why it is a sucker for the speed of the sim ...

I know what AA is and how it works but I'd like to have an explanation on the comment above ...

1. Disable AA in the sim and run it from your video card settings. Generally, 4xAA and 16xAF with vertical refesh set to ON will deliver a great visual.

2. Enable "Render to Texture" in the sim

3. Enable "Trillinear Filtering" in the sim

4. Enable "Transform and lighting"

5. Mip Quality to "4" for ATI (usually no higher) and higher for Nvidia (depends on the card)

6. Hardware render lights to 8

7. Set Global texture size to MASSIVE (highest if your card can handle it)

Set the resolution to the native resolution of your monitor... higher will kill resources and make sure it is set to x32.

AA in the sim is software render... AA on your video card is hardware accelerated.

[Harold]

Thanks guys! Very helpfull! I think I now understand the difference.
So if you let the sim do the rendering you loose performance. Right?

Makes sense ...

[FridayChild]

Every load you put on the CPU degrades performance, and software AA is particularly demanding.

[NicksFXHouse]

Thanks guys! Very helpfull! I think I now understand the difference.
So if you let the sim do the rendering you loose performance. Right?

Makes sense ...

That is correct.. AA in the sim takes up CPU cycles where AA on the video card uses the GPU. Since your CPU is already tied up with other processes and the GPU is dedicated to the graphics sub system, setting AA in on the video card allows for greater performance and visual appeal.

[Harold]

Thanks again guys! Very helpfull! I now understand completely.
Let's put that Radeon 9800 XT PRO to work

[NicksFXHouse]

Thanks again guys! Very helpfull! I now understand completely.
Let's put that Radeon 9800 XT PRO to work

On a 9800 pro you will probably want to keep AA @ 4 and AF @8 instead of 16 with Catalyst AI on ADVANCED and the vertical refresh set to "3".

You can try 16x but it will really depend on the system. The higher the AF the better the visual quality. You do not need to exceed 4x on AA because the visual difference will not be worth the loss of performance.

[Harold]

Ah ... OK! Good tips! I'll try that. Thanks Nick!

Does it help to tell you that I'm on a Dell Dimension 8300, 3.2 Ghz. HT with 2 GB RAM.
The OS is Windows XP Pro SP2 and I'm running Omega drivers version 3.8.252.

I run with all settings maxed (on the card and in the sim). Once I'm airborne I get decent performance of about 15-20 FPS. Sometimes my FPS goes up to around 30 as I locked them to that value.

The problem occurs when I'm approaching an airport. Then my FPS drop to 6 or 7.

And that is not funny :-/

Any further tips would be greatly appreciated!

[NicksFXHouse]

Ah ... OK! Good tips! I'll try that. Thanks Nick!

Does it help to tell you that I'm on a Dell Dimension 8300, 3.2 Ghz. HT with 2 GB RAM.
The OS is Windows XP Pro SP2 and I'm running Omega drivers version 3.8.252.

I run with all settings maxed (on the card and in the sim). Once I'm airborne I get decent performance of about 15-20 FPS. Sometimes my FPS goes up to around 30 as I locked them to that value.

The problem occurs when I'm approaching an airport. Then my FPS drop to 6 or 7.

And that is not funny :-/

Any further tips would be greatly appreciated!

That card wont handle a 30FPS lock... drop that lock to 22-24. I use to run 24 max on that card. I am afraid your going to have to scale back on the FS9 graphic settings a bit with that card.

[cheesegrater]

AA in the sim is software render... AA on your video card is hardware accelerated.

Never knew this. I thought when you turn on AA in FS9, FS9 turns AA at the hardware level. I never even knew AA can be software rendered. Does this mean I can buy a non-AA card, and turn on AA in the game and AA will work? Just a hypothetical situation, don't worry I'm not crazy.

That card wont handle a 30FPS lock... drop that lock to 22-24. I use to run 24 max on that card. I am afraid your going to have to scale back on the FS9 graphic settings a bit with that card.

I would turn off AA.

[NicksFXHouse]

Never knew this. I thought when you turn on AA in FS9, FS9 turns AA at the hardware level. I never even knew AA can be software rendered. Does this mean I can buy a non-AA card, and turn on AA in the game and AA will work? Just a hypothetical situation, don't worry I'm not crazy.


I would turn off AA.

His card will handle 2-4x AA but no higher in FS9. I would not run without AA... the graphics would be horrible.

Although sim AA does use a software algorithm it must have a base to work with in hardware so the answer to you question is no, without 3D rendering chip the AA setting in the sim would not work but then again neither would the sim. As long as you had a 3D card, even if it does not support FSAA changes, it would render a better image, just not what you would expect from hardware AA.

[Harold]

That card wont handle a 30FPS lock... drop that lock to 22-24.

Thank you Nick! I'll give it a try tomorrow!
I did't have a chance to test it last night and won't be able to test it tonigt.

But I'll let you know what the results are ...

I'm waiting for FSX but I'm also considering to get a 7950 GX2.
I would appreciate your opinion on that card ...

[Hai Perso Coyone?]

1. Disable AA in the sim and run it from your video card settings. Generally, 4xAA and 16xAF with vertical refesh set to ON will deliver a great visual.

Sorry to hijack this thread...Nick, see my sig for my card...and I don't see Vertical Refresh on the nVidia settings tab...I see Vertical Sync...could this be the same thing? It is currently application controlled...