V5 FSAA questions

[JC]

Hi
Just got my first V5, been looking forward to the FSAA. Maybe I'm not clear on when/how much it will help, and I sure don't know about enabling it. I've got the 1.04 drivers,
Win98SE. Does the FSAA work in 2D and 3D modes? My comparison is my previous GF256 DDR card, my previous V3-3000, and good 'ol Final Reality (remember that?) In 2D
scenes I notice quite a bit of aliasing on both cards. Are the Alpha-blending and video display settings the ones that affect FSAA? Smoothing vs. sharpness? I'm clueless, but
so far I'm still looking for the AA that people rave about on this card. Am I looking in the wrong place? Am I expecting too much? Wrong settings? At this point it seems like my
V3 looked better than either the GF256 or V5 as far as aliasing. Help!
Thanks

JC

 

[vlieps]

First, if You use Win 98 SE, the best drivers are the 1.041 betas.
Change to those. Then go to Advanced Display settings and there is an Anti-Aliasing folder. Go in there and You can set FSAA seetings for D3D and OGL. (single chip, fastest performance, 2x, 4x).
And You do not see the difference in 2D scenes at all, in fact the 2D menus in games get more blurry and do not look as good as without FSAA.
You really see the candy of FSAA in racing games and flight simulators. In FPS games it is just a waste of resources.
So, If You enable it, You shall see a nice difference in all 3D games, except maybe in FPS, not that it is not there, but that the picture is changing so fast that it gets irrelevant.
My best example of FSAA was Mech Warrior 4 - there it was actually crucial, since without FSAA You do not see the enemy at far distance very clear or You miss it at all, with FSAA however, the objects at far distance that are small get very clear due to no shimmering and no aliasing. That game MUST have FSAA on. And MW4 was a nice example where You do not see the performance hit of FSAA I would say at all. Good luck.

 

[Tominator]

There is also an ability to enable a 'hotkey' that toggles FSAA on or off. You can REALLY see a BIG difference in Serious Sam or any game where scenes are at a distance....gets rid of the jaggies!

 

[richleader]

Hotkey? God, this nvidiot here would kill for that!

 

[Chikin]

The hotkey is only good for demo purposes in that it visually the diff between FSAA on and off, but the game performance stays the same as the FSAA setting that you started the game with. 'Tis still a nifty little feature.

 

[JC]

Thanks guys, you've been very helpful
On my way to the beta drivers.....

JC

 

[richleader]

That's still cool, in a way, but I would just kill for a feature that would let you toggle 4X on during slower moments in games, but to be able to switch back when the serious bullets start flying to maintain fps.