4xfaa and 9xfaa, a good idea?

[TdB]

I was wondering if 4xfaa and 9xfaa option for the parhelia would be a good idea.

as it is right now the 16xfaa has a 15%-30% performance hit, I don´t really know where the bottleneck in the faa algorithm is, but IF the bottleneck is fillrate, then 4xfaa or 9xfaa would be a good performance/image-quality trade-off, giving us practically free antialiasing, that can be useable in really high resolutions or newer and more hardware demanding games.

I have always felt that 16 samples per pixel is a bit overkill, considering how good the 6xfsaa on the ATI R300 looks.

maybe a combination of the different fsaa techniques would be a good idea too, something like 9xfaa AND 2xfsaa at the same time(to help the undetected edges on the faa-algorithm).

I don´t know if stuff like that can be added in the drivers, or if it even makes sense at all.

what do you guys think?

[P5ycho]

i thinnk they should get their current features bugfree before adding any new ones...

[Chrono_Wanderer]

That's actually i really good idea... probably 8X FAA...

Also... i wonder if they are ever going to release DX9 drivers + higher AF support.

[3dfx]

Before they add more modes, they need to fix the current FAA as it doesn't work in some instances like translucent textures such as water etc. If you look at it in motion some of the game looks very aliased and perfect, while some of the image remains very jaggy! I know I cant blame Matrox for this as they are pioneering the tech tbh, but I would likee to see a fix.

[Chrono_Wanderer]

sadly whether we will see a new part or not still remains a question.

If you look at it in motion some of the game looks very aliased

You mean anti-aliased right jk

[SitFlyer]

There already is a 4xfaa option.

[Zao]

SitFlyer: Don't you mean 4xfsaa?

[TdB]

Originally posted by SitFlyer
There already is a 4xfaa option.

no there isn´t. that is 4xfsaa which antialiases the whole screen and not just the edges, and it is (IMO) way too slow, I was talking about a 4xfaa, the only antialias edges, and only with 4 samples instead of 16, but it will have all the drawbacks from the 16xfaa, and only give 4 sample quality, it might(depending on the bottlenecks and implementation) be almost without a performance hit, my guess would be something like a 1-2% performance hit

[SitFlyer]

[borat]

its not worth it, would be complex to code i think and the performance hit of any fsaa is going to be beg when combined also with faa, i find that if i am playing a game i dont even notice most bits left out by the faa any way and it doesnt really affect performance noticably at all.

[Ribbit]

I imagine the FAA and FSAA samples/pixel is fixed in hardware.

[funky-d-munky]

I believe if there was a performance advantage to 4,8 faa ect.. they would have implemented it. I think 16x was likely the "sweet spot" and higher or lower provided no real advantage.
The same is probably the same with AF. My belief is any higher then the 2x desimates this card to a stand still.
It still baffles me as to why the 256bit memory bus is so slow?
Check out Anands comparisson between different cards with tests that stress memory performance. This is why they went faa and minimal AF, anything more kills it.

[Kurt]

probably because bus efficiency is low. 256bits isn't all that counts...

[funky-d-munky]

My guess is it is designed for high resolutions.
As far as gaming is concerned the higher the resolution the better the P performs in relation to the competition. I guess this was a design priority when creating 3 screen architecture.

ATI and Nvidia were both going for the FPS crown, as this is what swoons the public. Neither company would risk going triple head as it would have put restraints on their architecture putting them in the same boat that Matrox now has to endure.

Simply put, no other graphics card company would risk triple head, but instead continue forward with the exact same dual-head architecture Matrox first provided, oh so many years ago. Of course with faster fps and current DirectX support to attract as many sheep as possible.

My opinion is: If you want a triple head card check around, I think you will find the P is the best ;>)