Dumb Question: Why AA Causes Sluggish Mouse?

H

Hurin

2[H]4U
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Oct 8, 2003
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Ever since my ATi 9800XT days, I've noticed that enabling AA always makes the mouse cursor slow down and become more "sluggish" in 3D games. Yet, I've never actually figured out why this is the case. Turning on other eye candy and/or increasing resolution never seems to do this. Can someone explain this relationship? Just curious.
 
Less frames per second, more juice to process the video, slow card unable to handle = latency from GPU to monitor.
 
blacken said:
Less frames per second, more juice to process the video, slow card unable to handle = latency from GPU to monitor.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but the specific AA-to-mouse relationship is the odd part. Even now on my 8800GTXes, I can sense a mouse slow-down with AA enabled. Yet, cranking up AF, and other eye candy doesn't have a similar effect. Always struck me as odd.
 
ITSTHINKING said:
turn off mouse smoothing
Click to expand...
Tried that. No effect.

But, again, this is more about the cause. . . which I find curious. Even before 3D action starts, the mouse is already more sluggish in the menu system of COD2, for example.
 
You know, it just occurred to me that maybe I'm the only one who sees this effect. Though I guess that would be nigh-impossible given that I have noticed this on my last four or five systems.

You guys notice this effect too, right?
 
If the cursor is hardware accelerated (i.e. it's part of the 3d game) it will go as slowly as the FPS you are getting in the game. 10fps on a cursor is noticeable.
 
I dont have any slowdowns at all. Check drivers, BIOS, and chipset. Clean out all drivers and reinstall them. Have you made any other changes?
 
Uh, the purest form of noticable mouse to screen lag is verticle sync. Make sure it's off. Otherwise, your monitor is lazy... :eek:
 
There's a small delay added by the extra filtering step of AA, but it shouldn't be noticeable. I've never noticed it, so long as it didn't impact the framerate.

What mode of AA are you using with the 8800 - the new coverage AA, or just the regular AA? I'm not sure how much extra delay the coverage AA adds.
 
I must admit, I see it too sometimes. Primarily in older games where I turn up the settings to the max, like Q3A - however Unreal seems to be fine.

In games where I do see it, I find that 2x isn't noticeable - 4x is rarely noticeable - 8x is always noticeable.

I also see in games a studder - the framerate will be fine, but games will jump every 25-40 frames. I see it in Q4 - in the opening scene, as the bodies are flying by, the framerate will be nice and high (I don't remember what exactly, but it was decent) but everything will skip maybe 2 or 3 times a second.

And v-sync is always off
 
LCD screens have a 4 - 9ms delay also. You can see it if you focus mid-way between the mouse and screen, though it's extremely quick.
 
Well, again, this is like the 4th system in several years, and I've noticed the phenomenon on each system. So I don't really think it's a "problem". . . was just curious about about it.

I don't have an LCD monitor. It's a 24" widescreen Sony CRT. :D

Nothing abnormal running in the background.

Was just curious if anyone knew why this happens. Seems like only a few others have really noticed it though.

H
 
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