X1800/7800gt AA comparisons

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Nite_Hawk

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So I was reading through Brent's X1800 preview at hardocp and got to the Anti-Aliasing section:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODIyLDg=

Right now I'm at work viewing on a Dell 1703FPs connected via a standard analog vga connector. What I noticed, is that I'm pretty much disagreeing with Brent's subjective comparison of the AA quality in all of those shots. Oddly enough, the 7800 looks better at 4x+ AA settings almost across the board both for the normal AA shots and the alpha shots. The 2x shots are a lot more difficult to tell, though I think I agree that the ATI shots are perhaps better.

This seems rather odd to me, as I expect that ATIs shots should look better given gamma correction, better sample positions, etc.

Anyone else mind taking a look at those images and telling me what you think? The things I'm specifically noticing is an over-lightening of AA samples on the ATI shots. This is making antialiasing on very fine lines appear sort of.. ragged perhaps. Kind of like there are small bits of them still missing even though they've been smoothed out. It's kind of hard to explain.

Nite_Hawk
 
You think gamma correction looks better? For the most part I've never liked gamma corrected AA, its just been that generally ATi has better, not the gamma corrected part.

Now looking at those screenshots, I'm up in a toss. I actually dont perfer either overall, but perfer one in one shot and another in another shot. So its a toss up for me. I dont like these shots though that try to point out something like this, I want a wide range shot. You dont exactly spend lots of time during gameplay looking through chainlink fences for alpha texture AA quality.

So I'd personally want to see may a shot of a heavily fenced area (there's lots in HL2) but not so close up and out of gameplay.
 
I agree with Brent. It's removing the jaggies as much without adding thickness (That really shouldn't be there imo).
 
radeonic2 said:
You must be blind.
Look at the wire dude.. it looks appalling compares to the X series.
http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTEyODI4MDE0MEFCVGlYSnBoRUNfOF8zX2wuanBn
Click to expand...

that's a bit uncalled for don't you think?

Oddly enough this is one of the scenes that looks significantly better on the 8xs AA mode to me. Every other mode by both manufacturers has problems.

I'll rate them from best to worst as I see it:

1)nvidia 8xS mode by far
Excellent looking. Fine lines, very very subtle "missing parts" look I mentioned before. Best looking mode both up close and from a 3 foot distance.

2) ati 6x mode
Looks almost as good as the 8xS mode when viewed from atleast 3 feet from the monitor, but when view from 1-2 feet, it starts having that effect I tried to describe in my first post. It's like sections of the line are too thin.

3) slight edge to ATI's 4x mode

When viewed from 3 feet, ATIs mode looks better, almost as good as their 6x mode, though some slight "too thin" syndrom is apparent. When viewed up close, the "too thin" syndrom is noticable again and is slightly more pronouned.

4) nVidia 4x mode

When viewed from far away, does not look as nice as ATI's mode. staircasing is more apparent. When viewed from up close, does not suffer from the "too thin" syndrom that ATI's mode has, but at the same time makes the lines look slightly too thick and dark compared to their own 8xs mode and ATI's modes.

5) ATI's 2x mode slight edge

Has problems both up close and from far away with looking too "thin" in places. Some stairstepping is apparent.

6) nvidia 2x mode

Looks like nvidia's 4x mode with even worse stairstepping and still makes the lines too dark/thick.

Nite_Hawk
 
My thoughts. In the first (from the left) situation:

2xAA: Look at the "noise" in the bottom-right part of the image of the G70. On the other hand, the barbed wire on top of the chainlink fence does look slightly brighter in the ATI image. Overall: ATI.

4xAA: Again much less noise in the R520 image on the bottom right. The barbed wire continues to be brighter. On the other hand on the left part of the image, the aliasing is much more pronounced in the ATI image. Overall: tie.

6xAA/8xS: Again, the G70 pic still has too much noise but the chain link fence on the left part of the image continues to be better than in ATI's image. Overall: tie.

Second situation: No need for detailed descriptions. G70 wins the last two. At 2xAA I think it is a tie. On the last two the advantage is slight but as you increase number of samples it's clear that despite the appearance of "noise" it's still better than to appear there's no chainlink fence at all like the ATI images.

Third situation:

2xAA: If you look at the branches they have more noise in the G70 image. Don't see any more differences so the R520 wins this one.

4xAA: I don't see any differences so a tie.

6xAA/8xS: Again, looking at the branches, they have less noise in the G70 image and are not as bright as the R520 image. Overall: G70 wins this one.

Totals:

R520: 2 wins
G70: 3 wins

I do agree Skrying that these shots are not very useful and I would have preferred non-cropped screenshots.
 
yeah, he must've been talking about AAAaand TS because the GT only offers competition at 8xSAA vs 6xmsAA, 2x and 4x are for ati period.
 
Yes, I'm only talking about the adaptive/transparency AA comparisons. In the regular AA comparison image ATI wins 2x and 4x by a wide margin and is roughly equal at 6x versus nVidia's.
 
neliz said:
yeah, he must've been talking about AAAaand TS because the GT only offers competition at 8xSAA vs 6xmsAA, 2x and 4x are for ati period.
Click to expand...

that's true, he says he thought the 8xsaa was better it looks like (I must have missed that my first time through). On this image though:

http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTEyODI4MDE0MEFCVGlYSnBoRUNfOF80X2wuanBn

I definately like the 8xs shot better than the 6x shot. I also think I lean slightly toward the nvidia shot at 4x. The lines are certainly darker, but on the other hand portions of the fence seem better intact. For example, if you just look at the central-right portion of the 4x shots, the ATI image is not nearly as busy, but you can't really make out much of the chainlink either. The nVidia shot there seems more busy, but shows more of the fence. On the left hand side of the images though, the nvidia 4x shot both seems better antialiased and seems to avoid removing portions of the chain link more so than ATI.

Edit: Missed Mordenkainen's thoughts above. Those are pretty similar to mine, though I think I'm more partial to the 8xs mode across the board. Haivng looked at 4x modes again I go back and forth between ati and nvidia for the transparency AA shots. ATI gets it for the HL2 wire shot at the beginning though for 4x.

Nite_Hawk
 
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Nite Hawk, now I just dont get you. 2x and 4x are CLEARLY ATi's. I dont see how you could see it any other way, the smoothness is very easily seen there. Now on the 8x/6x, I see were you can like Nv's better, as the fence doesnt seem so faint compared to ATi's.

To me I'd think of it this way, 2x and 4x are easily ATi, and 8x is Nv's. Overall that's for ATi, I havent seen a time where 8x or 6x TrAA/AA is playable yet.
 
To me (a n00b) it seems that TS is doing a better job against the bright background (clearer chains, definitly) but it seems to dissolve the door in the chain fence completely. if you look at where the door(or edge)r in the fence is in the 6x and 8x picture, it seems like the nv card is only rendering one layer of the fence there, it just does not look like there are two layers of fence where there should be...

and btw, what's up with the blurry windows in the 8x shot? (the one next to the 7 where the spike seems to dissolve in the window?)

So. AAA looks better against the dark red brick wall, TS looks better against the warehouse.
 
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Skrying said:
Nite Hawk, now I just dont get you. 2x and 4x are CLEARLY ATi's. I dont see how you could see it any other way, the smoothness is very easily seen there. Now on the 8x/6x, I see were you can like Nv's better, as the fence doesnt seem so faint compared to ATi's.

To me I'd think of it this way, 2x and 4x are easily ATi, and 8x is Nv's. Overall that's for ATi, I havent seen a time where 8x or 6x TrAA/AA is playable yet.
Click to expand...

I pretty much agree with you as far as 2x goes. 4x is a lot more up in the air for me. There are portions of scenes that ATI looks better and portions of scenes that nvidia seems to look better. This is pretty much entirely why I wanted to get other people's opinions on this. It's entirely possible that what you are seeing is different than what I am seeing on different monitors too. I could see ATI's and nVidia's implementations looking much better/worse under different gamma curves or brightness/contrast settings.

Nite_Hawk
 
You know, one thing that I haven't really considered yet is ati's temporal AA modes. Granted they are only really viable with a high framerate, but assuming that is the case, I imagine that it would be quite nice at 2x temporal and 4xms and adaptive aa.

Nite_Hawk
 
ATI's MSAA in my opinion looks better then NV's from those screens, plus they have the 6X mode. On the other hand NV's Transparency AA looks better then ATI's adaptive AA IMHO from the screens in various reviews I have seen. ATI's adaptive AA seems to blur the chain link fence in all of them. Did anyone else notice that? Some comparison shots below.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2552&p=6
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=172&type=expert&pid=26
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_x1800_xt_xl/page6.asp
http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q4/radeon-x1000/index.x?pg=15
 
Nite_Hawk said:
Right now I'm at work viewing on a Dell 1703FPs connected via a standard analog vga connector.
...
The things I'm specifically noticing is an over-lightening of AA samples on the ATI shots. This is making antialiasing on very fine lines appear sort of.. ragged perhaps. Kind of like there are small bits of them still missing even though they've been smoothed out.
Click to expand...

Hi Nite_Hawk- and a rather interesting opinion. I can kinda see where you're coming from though.

A 300% zoomed & original of the wires points out what I believe you are saying. The ATI power lines have those grey blocks in-line with the cable (gamma correction, obviously) so the continuity of the cable here is "jagged" by a grey->black pattern rather than it being solid black:


I think your flatpanel is the missing link here. If I look at this on my trusty 19" CRT, the original size on the ATI looks much, much better due to the contrast with the lighter sky.. but on our Sony Flat Panel (with high contrast ratio), the lighter color makes the cables look almost "chainlink" from the gamma bits colorizing the cable line.

Interesting observation.. but I can clearly say the ATI 4x looks superior on my CRT.. the result of the gamma correction on the samples creates less of an "eyesore"... but the reverse is true on a high contrast ratio LCD- the black, grey, black, grey, black, grey pattern stands out ONLY on the LCD. Strangeness indeed and very, very interesting!
 
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So which overall looks better? The CRT or the LCD?

Hmm, maybe the monitor is holding someone back as far as getting the best view. Aha!
 
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