1600x1200 over 4x FSAA??

[HardWired]

I've got a V5 5500 installed and the FSAA does look sweet but, at 1600x1200 or 2048x1536 without any FSAA, you don't see any jaggies either...it looks smooth as glass. With all settings low in Q3, this V5 will do 1600x1200 at 39.2 FPS, and 2048x1536 yeilds 28.1 FPS. These benchmarks are on a KDS AV-21TF monitor and the system is a P3 550E o'ced to 733mhz w/ 128mb Seimens Infineon ram on a Soyo 6VCA

I saw someone post a few days ago that they would take higher resolutions versus lower resolutions with FSAA enabled. With this new big assed monitor I just acquired I think I may agree, but I'd need another 20-40 FPS to make the above numbers more playable.

While the V5 does make all the old games look nice with FSAA, you still can't go above 800x600(even on old games) and have decent frame rates. And besides, while some of the oldies are goodies, I'm looking forward to all the new games ahead, not looking back.

In 15 years of computing, I had never seen 1600x1200 or above on a monitor until I got this combo. Now I'm seeing the light on higher resolutions, and since the V5 doesn't cut it in the highest resolutions, tomorrow night I'm going to install the CL Annihilator 2 GTS laying on the desk next to me. If get those extra needed frames, it may be bye-bye to the Voodoo 5.

I'll keep you posted...

 

[JellyBaby]

Good post HW. I went from 800x600 on a Voodoo2 all the way up to 1280x1024+ with my GeForce2. After fiddling with fsaa I came to the same conclusions you did. It works great for 640x480...and even 800x600. But I'd rather play at 1280x1024 on my 19" tube. You hardly notice the jaggies and get all the benefits of hi-res: more screen room for interface sections and game window (depending on your game of course).

It is somewhat bad that we can't quite play at 1600x1200 yet in most games. At that res, my system even with a GF2 isn't quite fast enough for my framerate tastes. Oh well, I can wait until next round.

FSAA also generates a lot of blurring which I hate. I really think we need edge aliasing to address the jaggies where they're a problem and no where else.

But today's fsaa is fine for folks with 15" tubes who play current and older games.

 

[dc9mm2]

Ok for you guys with 21 inch monitors that mite be true but on my 17 inch, FFSA is very good. i have the voodoo 5500 and i dont play quake 3 but since thats the game everyone uses as a bench mark i iam able to get it at 1280 by 1024 thats the highest my monitor goes at, the highest quality setting I get by watching the frame counter anywere from 30 to 70 fps which i feel is quite playable but then again iam not a quake nut either. On MDK 2 they have demo mode that gives you average frame rates during the demo and i got an avaerga of 57.50 FPS at 960 by 720 16 bit with 2X FSSA on. And it looked really cool. I know you will get higher frame rates with a Geforce 2 with out a doubt(without FSSA on), but i have seen both cards in action and the Voodoo 5500 looks alot better on games like Mec Warrior 3,Starsiege, Janes ww2 fighters, Falcon 4.0, plus Quake 3 demo, MDK 2. I suppose if i had a monitor that could go as high as yours and was as big as yours i mite choose a Geforce 2 also. Let us no if you feel the visaul quality of the Geforce 2 is as good as the Voodoo you had. Also tell us what you think about the 2d qaulity because my 5500 looks so sharp and clear in 2d its amazing.

 

[Orbius]

1600x1200! Most people at most have a 19inch monitor, we dont want to have to squish our faces against the monitor to see the game. FSAA is the feature to have, I'll take it over the Geforce 2s slight speed advantage any day of the week.

 

[da loser]

i think the only thing the resolution does it squish the typing, not the picture , or are you thinking 2d?

 

[JellyBaby]

<< Let us no if you feel the visaul quality of the Geforce 2 is as good as the Voodoo you had. >>

Dc9, it's hard to compare since I never ran my old Voodoo higher than 800x600 and I never run the new GF2 lower than 1024x768. The nVidia image looks more crisp and the colors seem brighter. But comparing a V2 vs. a GF2 isn't fair (too many generations apart plus V2 was an addon card).

If you can get 58 fps at 1280 on your games w/fsaa, that's great! Yeah some games are cpu limited so fsaa will hardly affect framerate. I've played fs2k at 1280 with nVidia's highest fsaa setting and notice only a tiny drop in speed. But the image did lose some crispness which I didn't like at all.

I dunno, I hear the DirectX fsaa is better in the new GF2 beta drivers. I'm sticking with 5.22 until the Big N releases the final update. Maybe image quality will improve...?

 

[koeizen]

a 64meg GeForce2 may get you the frame rates you want. It would take 22mb or so of frame buffer memory just to get that high. Voodoo5 is only 32mb of actual memory.

 

[Orbius]

Extra memory doesnt help things much the GF2s problem is lack of bandwidth. Benchmarks have proven that in very particular circumstances 64mb is better, but with 95% of people having 32mb boards or less(V5 5500 included), games simply wont be designed for 64mb cards for a long while. IMO anyone who buys a 64mb GF2 and isnt a graphics professional has money to burn.

 

[dc9mm2]

No Jellybabay the question
&quot;Let us no if you feel the visaul quality of the Geforce 2 is as good as the Voodoo you had.&quot;
Was for Hardwired who has both cards the 5500 and the Geforce 2.
I know you cant answer that.
But Jellybaby about crispness after you used FSSA, it doesnt apply to the 5500 . My 5500 with FSSA on at 4X was very crisp I had the LOD adjusted to -4 which makes it's images very sharp not like the Geforce with FSSA (from what i have heard). MDK was so sharp it was assome!! Mec Warrior 3 is much better were i now can see things at far distances with 4X FSSA i couldnt see before, very sharp.

For me the decision to buy the Voodoo 5500 was easy because i dont need frame rates as high as the geforce 2 makes BUT i want it to look better which the geforce doesnt do over my old TNT. I bought the TNT back in September 98 over the Voodoo 2 because image quality was better and now to Voodoo 5500 because the rolls have reversed. And yes i have seen a couple of games i play like Mec Warrior 3 on a Geforce and it looked exactly like it did with my old TNT.

So like i said if you are a frames per second junky, get a Geforce 2 but if you are more interested in how it looks get a Voodoo 5500.

 

[JellyBaby]

<< My 5500 with FSSA on at 4X was very crisp I had the LOD adjusted to -4 which makes it's images very sharp not like the Geforce with FSSA (from what i have heard) >>

dc9, I'm pretty sure both methods of fsaa add blurring. Someday I'll see the Voodoo5's rendering myself to check it. All I have to go on is the fsaa on my GTS. It does wonders for 640x480 games but at 1024x768 on up the jaggy reduction effect isn't very noticeable. Visual weirdness occurs though I guess that's a driver problem (I'm still using 5.22...everybody says 5.3+ improved Direct3D fsaa).

Anywho, I don't think fsaa is that big of a deal. I'm loving my GTS (and would have probably loved a V5 If I chose that card). Anything is better than a Riva 128/Voodoo2 combo!

 

[Mday]

who the hell needs FSAA when running @ 1600x1200.

FSAA or any AA is only necessary on lower resolutions. I mean, HELLO...

 

[vlad]

No way! You too!? I'm running a riva128/voodoo2 combo! Actually, I'm planning to build a new system and am having a very hard time deciding between v5 and gf2. The problem is, I play quite a bit of UT and Deus Ex, and I've heard horrible things about the geforce2 with those games.

Vlad

 

[dc9mm2]

Mday i agree if you are as high as 1600 by 1200 FSSA isnt worth it. But My monitor (17 inch trintron) only goes to 1280 by 1024 as do &quot;most&quot; 17inch and smaller monitors.
Vlad,, if you like UT the Voodoo 5500 is a better card than a Geforce 2 for &quot;that game&quot; i dont know about Deus EX never played it. But both cards are very good and i dont think either card would be a bad choice for any game out there. If anyone says this or that card is the only choice there just plain wrong and to Brand loyal. Who cares who makes it as long as it does what you want. I hope the new Raydon? dont think i spelled that right,, is as good as some say it will be. More competition means better cards for less money.

 

[JellyBaby]

<< The problem is, I play quite a bit of UT and Deus Ex, and I've heard horrible things about the geforce2 with those games. >>

Vlad, how fast is your CPU? Dunno about UT but Deus Ex runs fine on my 650@866mhz at 1024x768x16. Due to a driver quirk you need to disable Detail Textures but that might be fixed now or soon. I don't care because I can't see a visual difference with this option on or off.

I've also seen this game run on a 450 with a TNT2 card and its playable though not smooth.

 

[Mday]

i still say frame rates are wasted on FSAA at any standard resolution above 800x600

but whatever floats your boat.

 

[Aboroth]

In Counterstrike there is a very noticible difference going between no FSAA and even 2x FSAA at 1024x768 on my 17&quot; monitor. I don't play games above that resolution because FSAA is so sweet. It is great in Everquest too, which can use Glide, so the V5 really looks good and plays great in that game.

 

[ahfung]

&quot;On MDK 2 they have demo mode that gives you average frame rates during the demo and i got an avaerga of 57.50 FPS at 1280 by 1024 16 bit with 4X FSSA on&quot;

Excuse me, dc9, how could your magical V5 5500 hit 57.5 at 1280x1024x16 w/4X FSAA? Probably only V5 6000 or your V5 5500 overclocked to 333MHz could do so!

Look at the GF2 GTS review where Reverend included V5 5500 MDK2 scores: http://www.voodooextreme.com/reverend/Reviews/nVidia_GF2GTS/nvidiaGTS_frames.html

V5 5500 (No Hardware T&amp;L)
1024x768x16 No FSAA: 75.48
[edit]1024x768x16[/edit] 4x FSAA: 29.76 (typo, it should be 1024x768, not the previous 1280x1024)

Please explain to me where u pull the number 57.5fps at 1280x1024x16 w/4X FSAA from.

 

[dc9mm2]

Ahfung I went and retested and i had mixed up my results SORRY. It was a mistake, not that i was trying to decieve anyone. I corrected what i said with the correct results. It was set at 2X FSSA and the resolution was 960 by 720. I screwed up sorry for any miss information. I was doing so many differnt setups with FSSA on and off and differnt resolutions. sorry again. But at 960 by 720 with FSSA at 2X it does look very cool with FPS at 57.5 . At 1280 by 1024 with FSSA off i get 60.5 FPS. I double checked it and thats correct.

 

[ahfung]

Apology accepted. I believe you were just careless and you has honestly admitted it.

You may think that I'm too sensitive with benchmark numbers, but since numerous Sharky's scandals, I am allergic towards those **incorrect** results.

I did a complete benchmark with MDK2 on my system, so I could readily tell if the number is *reasonable* or not. If u are interested in the MDK2 benchmark, I could let u see.

 

[HardWired]

Wow, one of my first posts and it generated a decent size thread...cool.

Well, I sent the V5 back and I'm loving this Creative GF2. In the same tests as my original post, the GF2 yeilds 61.3 FPS @1600x1200 and 42.9 FPS @ 2048x1536. It is clearly the dominant card at those resolutions. So while 2048x1536 is still a bit slow for smooth play(at least with Q3), the 1600x1200 setting looks like the winner. 60 FPS at that resolution looks absolutly sweet on the GF2.

And I have been playing around with the FSAA settings on the GF2 and to me it looks quite comparable to the V5. And with DX8 coming, I've read there should be better support for it. But like I said in my first post, anything above 800x600 with FSAA on is too much of a slowdown to enjoy....with either card. Although with the GF2 and 1024x768 with just the first notch on the FSAA slider enabled, you could see some slight FSAA happening while still leaving the game playable. I like the slider with several notches on the GF2 FSAA enabler better. It gives you more room to tinker with FSAA levels before you hit a performance wall. Unlike the V5 where you can only select 2x or 4x FSAA with nothing in between.

2D looks crisp and bright on the GF2. Every bit as good as the V5. But in all games(8-10 different games written/produced from over the last 2 years) that I tried at all resolutions, you can just see/feel the horse power difference in the nVidia chip. You can only play the old games for so long and we all know that the new ones around the corner are going to require more video card horsepower, not less. And even though you maybe using that 15&quot; or 17&quot; monitor today, that 19 or 21 incher may be just around the corner and you'll wish you'd have bought the card to push the high resolutions.

So in my mind...and this is just one mans very unscientific opinion of the two cards....if you're looking at either one of them as an upgrade solution today, the clear choice should be the GeForce 2.

 

[snow patrol]

HardWired - you're playing at 1600x1200 with all the settings set to low? You mean you're playing at the lowest texture detail? Yuck!

 

[K_Factor]

I don't know about the fsaa vs. 16x12 issue. I get playable framerates in NFS5 at 1600x1200x16 on a CLA2. The game looks very good. I just recently started experimenting with fsaa using the 5.30 drivers. The best playable resolution was 800x600x16 with the fsaa slider set to the third notch from the left. There is something about fsaa that makes it look BETTER than the 16x12 resolution, IMHO. I can't quite put my finger on what it is, because jaggies are barely noticable at either setting. I think it has to do with textures and 'pixel popping', but the fsaa seems to make the game look a little more crisp.

 

[jpprod]

Deus Ex runs perfectly on a GeForce/GeForce2 accelerator w/ all detail at max if you do following things:

1. Get the new D3DDRV.DLL Ion Storm released a while ago. It really improves performance, espacially on those large open areas
2. Upgrade to 5.30 Detonator drivers

I have a Celeron 375mhz/128mb/V6600dlx combo, and Deus Ex demo runs very, very well in 800x600@32bit w/ full world&amp;character texture detail + detail textures enabled. It used to run 2..5FPS prior to these steps, now framerate hovers around 20-40FPS. BTW, I suggest running D3D in 32bit color since dithering in Deus Ex looks damn ugly at 16bit.