Silly bullcrap with my R300

[K.I.L.E.R]

This morning, around 1am I was running Morrowind at 1280x960 2x FSAA and 64 tap aniso, it was running fine but slow in some areas.

I decided to quit the game and go to nVnews and catch up on some of my posts, I did that when a guy I was arguing about monitors suggested that the resolution of 1024x768 is the best for 17 inch monitors, so hence I decided to enable 6x FSAA and 128 tap AF, got into Morrowind launcher and picked the resolution and ran the game.

What happened next was amazing, my framerates bolstered, I never got a number but the game was running so freaking fast, especially in those areas it used to slow down.
I was like WTF? This doesn't make much sense, but then I thought about framebuffer compression the R300 uses, 6:1 compression.
Then I thought, how come my performance is so damn high over 1280x960 2x AA + 16x+bilinear(64tap aniso)?

Does the 6:1 FBC with 6x FSAA at 1024x768 actually destroy the bandwidth required for 6x FSAA and even lessen the bandwidth consumption a bit more than I would play without 6xAA?

What is exactly occuring that had my framerate shoot up so much?

I know it's not CPU limitations going away/appearing as when I ran MW at 640x480 with no AA or AF it never slowed down and ran faster in a lot of areas.

Thank You

PS: I just think it's amazing that something like this occured just by switching the res. My view distance is set to 50% and AI distance to 30%.

 

[Doomtrooper]

Does the 6:1 FBC with 6x FSAA at 1024x768 actually destroy the bandwidth required for 6x FSAA and even lessen the bandwidth consumption a bit more than I would play without 6xAA?

I would say you are correct with that assumption, you are not the 1st person to mention getting better frames in certain games at 6X.

 

[Nagorak]

Does the 6:1 FBC with 6x FSAA at 1024x768 actually destroy the bandwidth required for 6x FSAA and even lessen the bandwidth consumption a bit more than I would play without 6xAA?

I would say you are correct with that assumption, you are not the 1st person to mention getting better frames in certain games at 6X.

So then this sort of goes back to my Rez/FSAA topic... Is it better in terms of performance to run in lower res with higher AA, and does the end result look better too? Or does it all depend on monitor size?

 

[KimB]

I think it depends more on the game than monitor size. Some games just beg for good FSAA (like Unreal2).

 

[Reverend]

In certain games, there is a certain and definite threshold where a GPU's properties (fillrate/bandwidth) and a CPU's properties is determined. I believe that is what you discovered, even though I don't know what CPU you have.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

look in sig
Yes it does look craploads better at this new res.

 

[demalion]

Hmm...a comment sounded strange....

6x AA with color compression shouldn't use less bandwidth than not using AA...at the same resolution.

I would think, however, thatt 6x AA at 1024x768 uses less bandwidth than 2x AA at 1280x960 (not how I read the comment, but what I presume was meant). View distance at 50% seems to me likely to cut down the edges in a scene significantly.

 

[Sherlock]

Staying within your bandwidth is key for good performance, and it makes sense to make use of the bandwidth conserving technology (FBC/DXTC) available on the card. Once you run out of bandwidth things slow down immediately; this is very evident in bandwidth dependent games like Morrowind.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Staying within your bandwidth is key for good performance, and it makes sense to make use of the bandwidth conserving technology (FBC/DXTC) available on the card. Once you run out of bandwidth things slow down immediately; this is very evident in bandwidth dependent games like Morrowind.

I know, MW does back to front rendering too which slows down all video cards that don't do B-F rendering well.
This was proven ages ago when someone decided to view the game in wireframe mode.

 

[WaltC]

I know, MW does back to front rendering too which slows down all video cards that don't do B-F rendering well.
This was proven ages ago when someone decided to view the game in wireframe mode.

The next driver release has some nice fixes for Morrowind--although it runs and plays fine for me. The problem with the paper dolls which I and a lot of other people initially thought was z-buffer related because the symptoms made it appear that way, really had nothing to do with z-buffering at all (which is just about perfect in the current Catalysts.) Anyway, the next drivers (which I don't have, btw) fix this in Morrowind (according to sireric), so I'd not be surprised to see at least a little performance jump in certain areas.

It's funny how people's perspectives and tastes differ, but I'm running a 21" monitor and enjoy NWN at 1280x1024 x2FSAA/16x AF--my favorite (I think it looks a *lot* better than 1600x1200--and even higher, which I've tried--with no fsaa and 16xAF.) Morrowind I play at about the same res. But I've got to agree with you and your friend that you'll get more out of 17" at 1024x768 with 6x FSAA than at 1280x960 x2FSAA. On my monitor I've tried 1024x768 x6FSAA and actually prefer the 12x10 at 2x FSAA. But with some older software I've got that locks me into 10x7 or lower, 6x FSAA is a literal godsend, it looks so much better...

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Morrowind runs fine but I am just stating that doing BTFR is far less efficient than FTBR.
I have heard Chalnoth talk about Z-buffer errors but I have yet to come across any. He said it's in some funny town. I don't know, I am stilll stuck in Ald-Ruhn stealing crap for the theieves guild.
The paper doll problem I don't know about it. MW looks like it had when I had my GF3 only now shitloads better looking and faster.

Thanks for the responses guys.

 

[Ostsol]

It's actually a w-buffer problem -- the problem being that the R300 doesn't support the w-buffer. It appears in the paperdoll and is most prominent when you have shield.

 

[tEd]

i would rather guess that it has something to do with the resolution.

i experienced in some games that with 1280*960 it's much slower than with 1600*1200 same settings , like it would be not native supported by the r300

I just played nolf which has exactly that problem. Playing with 1280*960 gives me crappy framerates(30-40) but running with 1600*1200 same settings, it's super smooth(85 vsync on).

try 1280*1024 instead

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

This game runs like crap because it has too much useless polygons. Use the TWF command to see the wireframe, walk around and be overwhelmed by polygons...

 

[Ante P]

UT2003 is shitloads faster on my rig when I play with 6x FSAA and 16x Performance Aniso than 1600x1200 without AA/Aniso

great compression, not so great fillrate...

 

[WaltC]

UT2003 is shitloads faster on my rig when I play with 6x FSAA and 16x Performance Aniso than 1600x1200 without AA/Aniso

great compression, not so great fillrate...

That's probably because UT2K3 is an extremely cpu-limited game...

 

[Ante P]

UT2003 is shitloads faster on my rig when I play with 6x FSAA and 16x Performance Aniso than 1600x1200 without AA/Aniso

great compression, not so great fillrate...

That's probably because UT2K3 is an extremely cpu-limited game...

huh, what would that have to do with it?
it's not like 1600x1200 puts a whole lot of loaf on the CPU compared to 1024x768

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

UT2003 is shitloads faster on my rig when I play with 6x FSAA and 16x Performance Aniso than 1600x1200 without AA/Aniso

great compression, not so great fillrate...

That's probably because UT2K3 is an extremely cpu-limited game...

huh, what would that have to do with it?
it's not like 1600x1200 puts a whole lot of loaf on the CPU compared to 1024x768

LMFAO!!! Yes, AnteP is right.
My video card starts to choke after 1024x768 in UT2K3.

 

[Ante P]

a second TMU in UT2003 would increase performance like mad me thinks

try going from Bilinear to Trilinear to Performance Aniso to Quality Aniso
that also has a crazy large impact on performance

I mean the difference between Performance and Quality aniso is MASSIVE
in all other titles the difference is pretty small

on the other hand the FX has loads more fillrate, yet it doesn't do THAT much better in UT2003.. strange

 

[KimB]

The problem is that more TMU's would only increase performance for fixed-function applications. I would find it more than a little disappointing to see hardware manufacturers turn around and start focusing on performance of "low tech" at the expense of "high tech" performance.