Antialisong

[Pudgie]

To make a long story short........................ ..................NOT!!



Skuzzy's right.

A good rule of thumb to use:

If using lower image resolution/texture settings then using some AA to "clean up" the image is a decent methodology to use (main reason that AA was developed) as you're basically trading the resources. Meaning what you may gain by using a lower resolution/texture setting you gave back by using AA to clean up the jaggies. The net result if used carefully should give decent image/performance ratios.

If using higher image resolution/texture settings then using even less AA or turning AA off is also a decent methodology to use as you're exponentially using up the resources. Meaning that you have basically no resource tradeoffs occurring & can very quickly eat up your available resources to the extent that the vid card will then go out across it's bus (whether AGP or PCI-E) & acquire SYSTEM RAM to continue it's operations & here is where the stuttering starts occurring due to bandwidth & frequency differences between the vid card & the PC. The vid card has to start waiting to access/write out data to finish frames so that they can be displayed-thus stutters. The resolution at higher settings reduce the jaggies due to usage of a higher pixel count in the texture (1024 vs 512, for example) & at some point would need no AA at all due to the eye can't distinguish the difference anyway. But all this takes more resources to do efficiently-both mem & GPU.

The main reason for the large amounts of video memory is for the frame buffers & there will be at least 2 of them (heard of double buffering anyone) due to the preferred display method of "flipping". Triple buffering helps smooth out image display quality even more but, as the name suggests, it creates a 3rd frame buffer which takes up more video memory & GPU cycles to operate-thus using up resources. For smooth video playback you DEFINITELY don't want your vid card having to create ANY part of a frame buffer in your system memory-you want ALL FRAME BUFFERS to reside in the vid card's much faster memory/bus for best playback, period.

So the main thing that helps graphic cards is the amount of on-board video memory that they have & how it's being used along w/ the GPU-the more on-board memory, the larger the buffers can be WITHOUT going to system memory-thus smoother & faster. There is nothing wrong w/ using AA at all-just know & understand the ramifications of it's overuse on a system's ability to perform well running a game--such as AH & be willing to reconsider some of your choices that you chose to set that in the end your hardware cannot handle & not just blame the game itself for your troubles--as soooooo many of us do, unfortunately. AH isn't the only game/sim that has this type of stuff happening either--they ALL do!

Yes, good graphics can enhance any game's imagery & immersion value. But gameplay is far more important IMHO.

Skuzzy, if any of what I said is not true, please correct it.



 

[Skuzzy]

You do not need to ask me to correct anything.  

I only comment in threads like this when I can see a train wreck about to happen, and that I am the one who will have to pick up the pieces afterwards.

I have been supporting this community for 9 years.  I have a pretty good feel for how things go.  One thing I never need is for someone to make more work for me.  Yes, I am being selfish.  I am also aware of how frustrated someone can be when things do not work the way they have been told it will work.  I have to deal with thier frustration.

I would rather stop the train wreck before it happens.  I do not get a chance to do that very often.

[Tigger29]

I'll just say this.. if I had to choose between "pretty eye candy" and "realistic flight modeling"... I would choose the latter every time.

I'll be more than happy to deal with the lack of water movement, troop leg movement, sheep nipples, and smooth edges, to keep my FPS up high.

I have maybe five flight hours in my lifetime in a single engine Cessna 172, so I may not have a lot of ACTUAL flight to compare things to, but of all of the Flight Simulators I've flown, AHII is the most accurate when it comes to physics, accuracy, and the general "feel" of flight.

FSX is quite nice too, but I feel they may have added a bit too much eye candy.  You need two 8800GTS cards in SLI to even begin to see the same performance that AH gets, even at minimal settings.  It would be great to max out the video settings of FSX and still get 75FPS, but the simple truth is that if I had the money to invest in that sort of setup, I'd be out flying for real instead.

Just my two cents worth...

[RTHolmes]

ok so no simple formula. from Ctrl-I offline I get:

Frame Rate 59
VM/INTERNAL DM SNAP
VidMem 245.4M Used 71.0M Cnt=0
SystemMem 1023.5M Used 683.9M Tex = 127.4M

so this means I'm not going to run into problems with vram presumably as I have plenty of headroom? can we say that if you have unused vram during normal gameplay shown on ctrl-I then you can eliminate vram as a cause of stutters?

also what does Cnt=0 mean?

[Skuzzy]

How much video memory is being used is not a reliable number.  It is dependent on what the video card driver thinks is available memory.

The 'Cnt' variable is the count of how many textures are still to be handed off to the video card driver.

Your system RAM is pretty heavily used.

The only sure fire way to tell if any combination of variables is going to work is to try it.  If it does not perform well enough for you, then back down the settings.

[Emu]

Originally posted by Krusty
Wingnut: I can tell the difference between 2x and 4x. 4x is much more refined. However I can't tell the dif between 4x and 6x, or 4x and 8x (that's my vid card's max, or I'd have tested 16x as well!)

EDIT: Ge 7600 GTS 256MB running DVI to Dell FP 1900 (?) running at native resolution of 1280x1024.

I got one 7900GT with 256MB.  8Xs looks A LOT better than 4X.  I definitely cant go back now... if i do, reminds me of "Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe" back from the 90s.