BioShock and forced AA

Xiro

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 1, 2005
Messages
105
So our Nvidia brethren are able to force AA in Bioshock. Any thoughts on when we'll see such ability from our ATI cards?

The game of course is totally playable, but after having AA enabled in every game I play for many years now, not having AA makes the game looks rough.


edit:
Hmmm, seems Koroush over at tweakguides came up with some ideas for ATI users.
ATI Cards:

Windows XP, Vista - It is not normally possible to use Antialiasing in Bioshock on any ATI card, whether in DX9 or DX10, even though X1X00 cards and newer can do HDR+AA. This is likely an ATI driver issue.

However ATI X1X00 and HD2X00 users can apparently force the game to use AA in DX9 if you rename the Bioshock.exe file to Oblivion.exe, make sure Catalyst AI is enabled (as that's what detects the game-specific optimizations/capabilities), and then you should be able to force AA in your Catalyst Control Center. You probably need to add -dx9 to the shortcut in Vista as per the example further above, but I can't personally test this though others have confirmed this method works. I.e should look something like this:

"E:\Program Files\2K Games\BioShock Demo\Builds\Release\Oblivion.exe" -dx9


Note: The STEAM version of the game doesn't allow the successful renaming of the game executable, so this method will only work on the retail version of the game.

I have the Steam version =( someone with the retail version should try this out.
 
I thought I added AA in the game from the ati control panel, I did 4x but I had noticable speed drops so I kept it on 2x.
 
I thought I added AA in the game from the ati control panel, I did 4x but I had noticable speed drops so I kept it on 2x.

You can force AA (if there is no in-game setting for it) from either the Control Panel or CCC (the same applies to AF); this applies to any ATI R3xx or later card. Bioshock, however, *does* have a setting for AA (in the Graphics options); I have mine set to 2x AA (X1650PRO).

I'm just getting used to the idea of actually being able to *add* AA...
 
I was pleasantly surprised how well it ran on my system (P4 system with AGP) with the resolution set at 1440x 900 to fit my widescreen monitor. Nice visuals but still it would be a sight to behold with functional AA.
As far as the demo, grab it from STEAM. I'm not going to shell out the $50 for it though.
I usually wait until they drop to the $20 range before I part with my green. :p
 
You can force AA (if there is no in-game setting for it) from either the Control Panel or CCC (the same applies to AF); this applies to any ATI R3xx or later card. Bioshock, however, *does* have a setting for AA (in the Graphics options); I have mine set to 2x AA (X1650PRO).

I'm just getting used to the idea of actually being able to *add* AA...

Uh what are you talking about? You can't enable AA in Bioshock.. and only NVIDIA's drivers offer AA for the game currently.
 
And you know this because...?

What? It's obvious.. it's all over the web. No one who owns an ATI card can get it to work. NVIDIA users get it to work. That's not to say ATI will never add the ability to their driver, but it's not there now.
 
Uh what are you talking about? You can't enable AA in Bioshock.. and only NVIDIA's drivers offer AA for the game currently.
Wrong, you can enable AA/AF in Bioshock. You have to change Bioshock.exe to Oblivion.exe then enable AA from CCC. Make sure you create a new icon on the desktop to include the change in file name. Also, make a copy of the bioshock.exe and save it in the same location as the original file. That way if you want to change it back all you do is change the icon on the desktop from:
"X:\Program Files\2K Games\BioShock\Builds\Release\Oblivion.exe"
to
"X:\Program Files\2K Games\BioShock\Builds\Release\Bioshock.exe"


It's really that simple. However, regardless if you use a ATI or Nvidia card not all textures and objects will get AA/AF. From what I've seen from both cards there is very little difference in game.
 
Wrong, you can enable AA/AF in Bioshock. You have to change Bioshock.exe to Oblivion.exe then enable AA from CCC. Make sure you create a new icon on the desktop to include the change in file name. Also, make a copy of the bioshock.exe and save it in the same location as the original file. That way if you want to change it back all you do is change the icon on the desktop from:
"X:\Program Files\2K Games\BioShock\Builds\Release\Oblivion.exe"
to
"X:\Program Files\2K Games\BioShock\Builds\Release\Bioshock.exe"


It's really that simple. However, regardless if you use a ATI or Nvidia card not all textures and objects will get AA/AF. From what I've seen from both cards there is very little difference in game.

That's called a "hack". That's not really enabling it for Bioshock, that's hi-jacking settings for another game. I'm talking about supported, tested AA/AF.
 
That's called a "hack". That's not really enabling it for Bioshock, that's hi-jacking settings for another game. I'm talking about supported, tested AA/AF.
Your response is disingenuous to the fact that it DOES WORK. Placing a label on a "work around" is not a hack. If you are going to use the term "hack" use it correctly.
 
Semantics aside, in essence I have to agree with Sr7 on this one; Bioshock should have the options for enabling/disabling/adjusting AA and AF, accept Control Panel/CCC configuration if it doesn't, or at the very least explain what they are trying to accomplish by omitting such. I'm not even going to go into the whole SecuRom/SONY root-kit revisited fiasco. They just keep trying to sink the ship they have worked so long to launch.
 
Semantics aside, in essence I have to agree with Sr7 on this one; Bioshock should have the options for enabling/disabling/adjusting AA and AF, accept Control Panel/CCC configuration if it doesn't, or at the very least explain what they are trying to accomplish by omitting such. I'm not even going to go into the whole SecuRom/SONY root-kit revisited fiasco. They just keep trying to sink the ship they have worked so long to launch.

No AA is an Unreal Engine 3 limitation (used by Bioshock, R6Vegas, MoH:A). Apparently it will only work in DX10 (this is IF they release a patch) and DX9 is out of luck in terms of official support.
 
No AA is an Unreal Engine 3 limitation (used by Bioshock, R6Vegas, MoH:A). Apparently it will only work in DX10 (this is IF they release a patch) and DX9 is out of luck in terms of official support.

OK, but that begs the questions; why release if the code wasn't ready for DX10, and why isn't it there for DX9c, which has been out for some time now?
 
Yeah this is weird, totally noticed the lack of AA in bioshock yesterday when I fired it up for the first time. Then again its not that noticiable due to my new 1680x1050 wide monitor resolution, but weird none the less.
 
OK, but that begs the questions; why release if the code wasn't ready for DX10, and why isn't it there for DX9c, which has been out for some time now?

because like I said, its a limitation of the engine. I think it has something to do with the way things are rendered and that not being compatible with anti-aliasing in DX9.

Couldn't tell you why they left it out for DX10, though.
 
what's the fuss about? I force it in control panel and voila! no jaggies at all thanks.
 
even 8800 series can't use AA for bioshock in DX10, what is ur point?
What are you trying to say?? I was replying to someone that says he was forcing AA on in Bioshock so I said he must not be using Vista. I know with Vista you cant force AA in Bioshock without renaming it and using dx9 on the 8 series. That was my point so whats yours??
 
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