HD 5870 question

[polonyc2]

I've been using Nvidia cards for the past 2+ years but recently decided to pick up the Sapphire HD 5870 card...I'm confused as to how the AA filters work...from what I've read, the Narrow-Tent and Wide-Tent filters suck and should be avoided...the Edge-Detect filter is apparently the best but I don't understand how it works

can I check the 'Use Application Settings' box and also select the Edge-Detect filter?...by doing this will my games be using this new filter?...if I select 'use application setting' I notice I cannot use the slider anymore so I was wondering if it still takes effect when using the in-game AA setting

or do I have to uncheck 'use app setting' to get the edge-detect filter to work?...is there a huge performance hit if I crank it up to 8X (24X) using edge-detect?...I have AA Mode currently set to Super-Sample AA as well

or should I just leave it at the default 'Box' Filter?

 

[Andrmgic]

Edge detect can be used while using the application's AA settings.. it will just change the kind of AA that the card will apply when AA is enabled in a game.

How much of a performance hit depends on the game in question.. in some games it can be pretty large and in others it could be negligible.

edit:

super sample will be a very large performance hit.. in dx 9 mode for RE 5, super sample drops my framerate from over 100 down to the 30s.

 

[polonyc2]

Edge detect can be used while using the application's AA settings.. it will just change the kind of AA that the card will apply when AA is enabled in a game.

How much of a performance hit depends on the game in question.. in some games it can be pretty large and in others it could be negligible.

edit:

super sample will be a very large performance hit.. in dx 9 mode for RE 5, super sample drops my framerate from over 100 down to the 30s.

so if having to choose between a very high Edge-Detect Filter, lets say 8X (24X) or Super-Sample AA, which would give the best image quality?

 

[rennyf77]

24x super sampled edge detect aa. adaptive aa is ati's version of transparency aa that you would have seen in the geforce drivers, you can have it on or off just like in those drivers. this feature eliminates the jaggies on transparency textures like fencing or foliage. edge detect aa puts to work un-utilized stream processors and can sometimes take little to no penalty. how do you know when you have available stream processors? you don't; all you can do is try to force 12x if you seem to have good performance at 4x aa or 24x when you see good performance with 8x aa.

 

[Yoda4561]

Once they fix the LOD "bug" supersampling is the absolute best image quality you can get. It eliminates texture and shader aliasing, which multisampling can't do.

Application AA should be the best, if the developer put enough thought and effort into it. It should use the most effective AA method in the most efficient way possible depending on the scene/surface. Note the term "should", the vast majority just toss in basic multisampling modes.

Quite frankly edge detect is just an "icing on the cake" setting when you have more performance than you need. The visible difference between 8xMSAA and 8xMSAA+ ED (24x) is minimal (nice when you can afford it though). Supersampling's hit I'm told is even higher, but if you can use it, there's more potential for IQ improvement.

If there's not enough performance for SSAA, then check the Adaptive AA setting, this will apply AA to alpha stuff like trees and foilage, chain link fences, etc. You've probably used a similar mode on nvidia hardware, and it usually looks great without the big performance penalty.

I'm gonna have a new 5770 on the way here soon, so I'll be doing lots and lots of testing at my native 1280x1024 res. If you hop on over to Rage3d's reviews section they do some 8x multisampling tests on the 5870, at 1680x1050. http://www.rage3d.com/previews/video/ati_hd5870_performance_preview/index.php?p=11 The hit is big, but depending on your tolerance it may be playable. In some titles like Grid there's obviously plenty of performance overhead for supersampling.

 

[polonyc2]

Application AA should be the best, if the developer put enough thought and effort into it. It should use the most effective AA method in the most efficient way possible depending on the scene/surface. Note the term "should", the vast majority just toss in basic multisampling modes.

so when setting AA to 'Use Application Settings' along with the Edge-Detect filter, lets say I choose to set my in-game AA setting to 8X, will this then use the Edge detect filter sample rate of 24X?...or is the only way of getting that by unchecking the 'use app setting' checkbox and manually setting my AA level in the Catalyst Control Center?

sorry for the confusion but ATI's settings are more complex then Nvidia's

 

[polonyc2]

so when setting AA to 'Use Application Settings' along with the Edge-Detect filter, lets say I choose to set my in-game AA setting to 8X, will this then use the Edge detect filter sample rate of 24X?...or is the only way of getting that by unchecking the 'use app setting' checkbox and manually setting my AA level in the Catalyst Control Center?

sorry for the confusion but ATI's settings are more complex then Nvidia's

 

[rennyf77]

don't know. whenever i've been able to use edge detect, i've always forced aa from catalyst rather than use in game. the caveat is that some games don't respond to aa forced from the drivers.

 

[Yoda4561]

Any custom filter settings are universal. You can check those off, same with adaptive AA and high quality AF, and they will carry over when using application settings.