nVidia release new all singing all dancing dets.

Here are some UT shots from a map Chalnoth gave me (thanks).

0X:
http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~vidaralm/UT/0X.jpg

1X (application controlled):
http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~vidaralm/UT/1appcontrol.jpg

1X:
http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~vidaralm/UT/1X.jpg

2X:
http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~vidaralm/UT/2X.jpg

4X:
http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~vidaralm/UT/4X.jpg

8X:
http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~vidaralm/UT/8X.jpg

Rivatuner 8X:
http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~vidaralm/UT/rivatuner8X.jpg

It's obvious that 8X is the same as 4X on these shots. Rivatuner does it right. Trilinear in UT is set to True, but the 1X and Application Controlled shot is the same. (the folder is open for easy viewing: http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~vidaralm/UT/ )

 

I don't see any difference.

 

I've been talking to Brian Burke back and forth today, and here's a bit of what he said that confirms what we've seen:

 

I like the last quote there

 

Just got another very interesting tidbit from Brian just now. I just posted this on my site, but thought I'd post this here too since some of you never visit 3DGPU.

 

Morrowind may be a title to look for improvements, playing around with the water rendering settings in the .ini usually showed some modest changes in fps in quite a few of the outdoor environments.

Would be nice to play with the water texture set to 512 vs 256(default if I remember). I'd check for myself but dont own the game anymore -once I hit level 30 the game became ridiculously easy and the fun in just wandering around had long worn off by then...

 

Actually, NVIDIA's display panel is "doing it right" for the desired effect as well.

While on the surface it may appear that 4x->8x isnt making a change, if you benchmark the two settings, there is a measurable change in performance between the two. This was the answer to the "severe hit with 8x" in past drivers- just slam the 8x IQ down to damn-near 4x at a much lesser hit and watch the smiles at benchmark graphs. Rivatuner's 8x obviously looks more proper (like a GF3 did with pre 29.xx drivers or newer) and should also benchmark accordingly with the pre 29.xx hit at max anisotropic setting.

The question about defaults (be it for AF or LOD) is also a recurring theme... one of which where the same sources provide screenshots of slightly differing default IQ compared to someone else's. Unfortunately with all the tweakers, toys, and whatnot- this makes a true depiction and the arguments cause by them a bit muddled and difficult to pursue.

 

3Dcenter has wrote up a little Javascript showing the effects from setting zero to one..again in German..just hold the mouse over the image.

http://www.3dcenter.org/artikel/2002/08-30.php

 

Yeah Matt, Brian wrote me the exact same thing after I asked for their D3D aniso slider clarification.

 

If you ask me, what we're seeing is the driver improperly turning down aniso on the wrong texture stage. Future drivers should fix the problems without too much performance hit (if any).

Regardless, I truly hope that nVidia's anisotropic optimizations are going the route of detecting how the textures are rendering to decide how to apply anisotropic to them, not game-specific optimizations.

 

Hehe, I've been harassing him on that too. Poor guy.

 

Well if you ask me, it's simply a way to show an "improvement" in performance with max AF from driver revision to driver revision since this was the biggest controversy at the unveiling of the GF4. It was also where the biggest stink was made thereafter with claims of "they fixed AF performance" when nothing of the sort had (has) occurred.

I personally prefer the "big" hit when the IQ justifies the hit. Unfortunately, all the "8x" benchmarks that show changes dont tell the story at all- especially when a setting is superfluous and yields no change from the previous level of AF... yet yields a measurable performance hit to give the illusion of an increased level.

 

Why, pray tell?

Flaws always come out. Why put them in on purpose?

Weren't you one of those people that was saying that the poor quality with the Quack issue was due to a driver bug, not an optimization?

 

is there an echo in here ?

 

So you can be a hero at work when you solve the problem, and get a big raise.

At least that's why I do it.

 

David Kirk

http://www.nvnews.net/articles/david_kirk_interview.shtml

Hmmm someone is preaching FUD here

 

I just have one question, Doom.

Why?

 

How does the GF4 Ti4600 stack up to the R9700 now in the Pixel Shader test and Aquanox?

 

PROBABLY SOMEWHERE BELOW IT

But I'm just guessing.

 

Nagorak,

Did you say something?