"Trilinear" Filtering in Motion

[MikeC]

I created more videos with anisotropic filtering enabled. Driver settings are shown in the first post in this thread. The level of anisotropic filtering was set in the UT2003.ini file.

An easy way to set anisotopic filtering without exiting the game is by entering "preferences" in the console (~). Expand the Rendering option, then the Direct3D support option. Type in the filtering level in the LevelOfAnisotrophy. Don't press enter. Just close the Advanced Options window.

Control will return to UT2003, which will be running in a window. Press Alt-Enter to return to full screen.

Here are the videos I've created so far:


GeForce FX 5900 Ultra:

Trilinear - http://www.nvnews.net/temp/2.avi
4X AF - http://www.nvnews.net/temp/2-4x-af.avi
8X AF - http://www.nvnews.net/temp/2-8x-af.avi

Radeon 9800 Pro:

Trilinear - http://www.nvnews.net/temp/1.avi
4X AF - http://www.nvnews.net/temp/1-4x-af.avi
8X AF - http://www.nvnews.net/temp/1-8x-af.avi
16X AF - http://www.nvnews.net/temp/1-16x-af.avi


Anyway, this has been a fun project. But now that I look back, I jotted down a few of my own questions and even answered some of them


From NVIDIA's GeForce FX 5900 Ultra Reviewers Guide:
Quality Image Setting - "offers users the highest image quality while still delivering exceptional performance."


From NVIDIA's GeForce FX 5600 Ultra Reviewers Guide:
Application Image Setting - "will use whichever texture filtering settings the application requests."


Why was the Application Image Setting replaced with the Quality Image Setting? Don't know.


Does the Quality Image Setting deliver trilinear texture filtering in UT2003? Maybe some of the time, maybe on certain textures, but I really don't know for sure.


Is this a bug? Maybe, but the definition in the reviewers guide would indicate that it's not.


Is the Quality Image Setting a technique that can be used to increase performance at the expense of image quality? Possibly, according to the definition in the reviewers guide.


But what exactly does "highest image quality" mean in this case? Is it the highest image quality you can get on the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra or is it the highest image quality when compared to the competition?


Edited: Corrected the filenames for the videos.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Brent - ask Kyle. As we've already mentioned here, NVIDIA have already acknowledged that these "optimisations" and are telling editors they sought approaval from Epic on them - does that sound like a mistake?

are they really saying that?

i saw where firingsquad said: "(in NVIDIA’s defense, we’ve been told that they did have Epic’s approval for this optimization)." http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/asus_v9950_ultra_review/page4.asp

Yes, could you please answer the previous question Brent? You know the one.

 

[volt]

Such "approvals" should be made public. A general confusion, just like this one only brings unnecessary chaos into the table. What NVIDIA stated in their NV35 PDFs should have been available via application, regardless what the drivers forced. But when you have application specific optimizations, that's not really possible isn't it...

 

[nelg]

Brent look at how Digit-Life addressed cheating in CodeCreatures.
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/radeon/r9800pro-4.html
At least readers know the truth of those benchmark results before reading to much into them. BTW I have never heard of the IHV named Manli.

 

[StealthHawk]

oh this is just kick ass

i left the 9800 at app preference and changed the aniso in the INI file

the mip map line dissapeared on the 9800 in my test map

freakin awesome

it would be sweet if epic put an aniso option in game, selectable from the details menu

Ok, so I take it this confirms that you did NOT use trilinear AF with the ATI cards when doing the UT2003 filtering article?

Does this mean that you will take a second look while properly enabling trilinear AF for the ATI cards?

Or is this a done deal, and there will be no more front page/articles commenting on the issue at [H].

 

[StealthHawk]

And of course, I am still wondering whether or not trilinear AF was really applied for the r9800 since you configured UT2003 this way:

The goal was to set the game up as the end user would. They would use the driver control panel to enable and disable AF. So on the NVIDIA card we set it to "Quality" and then tested with NoAF, then moved the slider over to 8X and tested. Then for the 9800 we ticked app preference and tested, and then unchecked it and move the slider to quality AF and tested. These are typical setups. Only advanced users know the options in the INI file and what you can do there. For the typical gamer they aren't going to mess with the INI file, they are going to use the driver control panels. That was the goal, to test in a typical gaming environment.

Ok, I think I can understand and respect that decision.

However, I'm not sure what the point of the article was? Using your test conditions neither NVIDIA nor ATI was doing full trilinear AF. Therefore, I'm not really sure what the point of comparing ATI to NVIDIA was at all. In the article, as well as in the forums, it seems that [H]'s position is that the UT2003 optimization by NVIDIA is perfectly valid. Kyle has said this. But, on what basis? You did not show your readers whether or not there was any actual differences between NVIDIA's shortcut methods and real trilinear.

I also think that a lot of people were confused and thought that ATI was using full trilinear when AF was enabled, when they were not. This is my belief, because I have run across several people who say "there is no problem with what NVIDIA is doing because it does not decrease IQ." However, you did not compare NVIDIA's filtering with full trilinear filtering, but with ATI's shortcut filtering. Clearly many people who read your article are confused about what is actually being compared.

 

[jb]

Brent,

thanks for taking the time to reply back here. Its good to see that you are not afraid to stick to your guns. I do dissagree with the statement about not noticing them much in on-line play. Not every one runs around twiching shooting everything in site. I tend to play with more team games were my sniping skills can be put to use. So I set up places were I can "ambush" the other team. With new mods thanks to the MSU contest these types of things start to become more and more noticible. For example if your in a round based mod, you die, then while your waiting to respawn you start to notice a lot of things And yes I for some reason spend a lot of my time in that "waiting to respawn state" for some reason

 

[Dave Baumann]

Errr, I've just noticed this...

oh this is just kick ass

i left the 9800 at app preference and changed the aniso in the INI file

the mip map line dissapeared on the 9800 in my test map

freakin awesome

it would be sweet if epic put an aniso option in game, selectable from the details menu

Brent - this is a surprise??

I keep telling people to read B3D more

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Brent is kind of slow.
No Brent, I didn't mean slow as in mentally retarded, I mean slow as in takes time to catch up with old news type of slow.

Errr, I've just noticed this...

oh this is just kick ass

i left the 9800 at app preference and changed the aniso in the INI file

the mip map line dissapeared on the 9800 in my test map

freakin awesome

it would be sweet if epic put an aniso option in game, selectable from the details menu

Brent - this is a surprise??

I keep telling people to read B3D more

 

[digitalwanderer]

Brent is kind of slow.
No Brent, I didn't mean slow as in mentally retarded, I mean slow as in takes time to catch up with old news type of slow.

Errr, I've just noticed this...

oh this is just kick ass

i left the 9800 at app preference and changed the aniso in the INI file

the mip map line dissapeared on the 9800 in my test map

freakin awesome

it would be sweet if epic put an aniso option in game, selectable from the details menu

Brent - this is a surprise??

I keep telling people to read B3D more

"Must resist urge to add comment involving short bus and a bracketed "T"....", mutters the Dig thru clenched teeth.

 

[Quitch]

I have to say, Brent sure does get it easy here. I mean, if Kyle had come onto the forums saying things like "I don't like to post opinions, I don't want to be subjective... IMO differences were there but I don't feel they affected me much" then there would be flames by the thousand.

How long can we sit around and think that "Brent's our man at [H]" when such glaringly obvious facts are laid down before him, and turned aside.

I'm hardly techy on video hardware, and only really started following things when the nVidia cheats started, and all I've done is read B3D, yet it's bloody obvious to me exactly what is happening. Why do others find it so difficult?

If anything, Brent is far more dangerous than Kyle, simply because people feel he's far more honest. All the while he continues to post false information under a guise of confusion, then does nothing about it. It boggles the mind.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I have to say, Brent sure does get it easy here. I mean, if Kyle had come onto the forums saying things like "I don't like to post opinions, I don't want to be subjective... IMO differences were there but I don't feel they affected me much" then there would be flames by the thousand.

How long can we sit around and think that "Brent's our man at [H]" when such glaringly obvious facts are laid down before him, and turned aside.

I'm hardly techy on video hardware, and only really started following things when the nVidia cheats started, and all I've done is read B3D, yet it's bloody obvious to me exactly what is happening. Why do others find it so difficult?

If anything, Brent is far more dangerous than Kyle, simply because people feel he's far more honest. All the while he continues to post false information under a guise of confusion, then does nothing about it. It boggles the mind.

You probably have a point, but we still love Brent anyways and are trying to keep him from 'turning to the [T] side'.

I personally don't think Brent will answer this thread anymore, he can't.

 

[Pete]

Brent is a nice guy, at least. Kyle can be, how shall we say, not nice. See his speculation on the impetus for ET's 3DM03 expose, or his response to Reverend in a recent [H]forum thread, for examples.

 

[Dave Baumann]

I personally don't think Brent will answer this thread anymore, he can't.

Anyway, Brent has displayed on numerous occasions that hes willing to be open minded and learn.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I personally don't think Brent will answer this thread anymore, he can't.

Anyway, Brent has displayed on numerous occasions that hes willing to be open minded and learn.

No argument there and thus me optimism on his future, but he can't say a yes or no to the mipmap line question without screwing himself over either way.

He's kind of backed himself into a corner by using them qualifiers previously on his comments, they're the ambiguity he needs to say it with a clear concious....without them he can't say it without out-right lying.

IMHO, I think, my theory, yada-yada-yada-ya.

The almost-trilinear justifomercial on [H] is still his most questionable work IMHO, and I believe he feels the same way but can't say it.

So I try and drive that point home rather blatantly.

 

[StealthHawk]

I have to say, Brent sure does get it easy here. I mean, if Kyle had come onto the forums saying things like "I don't like to post opinions, I don't want to be subjective... IMO differences were there but I don't feel they affected me much" then there would be flames by the thousand.

How long can we sit around and think that "Brent's our man at [H]" when such glaringly obvious facts are laid down before him, and turned aside.

I'm hardly techy on video hardware, and only really started following things when the nVidia cheats started, and all I've done is read B3D, yet it's bloody obvious to me exactly what is happening. Why do others find it so difficult?

If anything, Brent is far more dangerous than Kyle, simply because people feel he's far more honest. All the while he continues to post false information under a guise of confusion, then does nothing about it. It boggles the mind.

On the other hand, Kyle has shown multiple times that he IS willing to be subjective and not objective. So if Kyle came here saying that, he would clearly be a lying hypocrite. AFAIK, Brent has not been hypocritical. So although people may disagree with what he should be doing, and what his repsonsibilities as a journalist are, there aren't too many issues people have with him.

 

[Reverend]

When you stay quiet on certain issues (eg. Brent), you're both damned (for staying quiet) and praised ("He hasn't said anything because he probably doesn't know enough... that should be the way") as well.

When you sound out on certain issues (eg. Kyle) with the general public disagreeing with your opinion, you're damned outright.

Oh boy... the rigours of being associated officially with a media outlet.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Brent is cool. He has a cool name. Brent Justice. I swear he should go into the action business. Make Brent Justice action figures.

Or Brent can become an action hero.

Main thing I like about Brent is that he didn't leave these forums.
Oh and he has a cool surname.

 

[digitalwanderer]

When you stay quiet on certain issues (eg. Brent), you're both damned (for staying quiet) and praised ("He hasn't said anything because he probably doesn't know enough... that should be the way") as well.

When you sound out on certain issues (eg. Kyle) with the general public disagreeing with your opinion, you're damned outright.

Oh boy... the rigours of being associated officially with a media outlet.

The problem is Brent wasn't quiet on the issue, he was quite vocal and outspoken on it until he was cornered to give a straight answer about it.

Staying quiet is just peachy, but selective silence can be hard to pull off at times.