Simviation Forum - AA on the card and in the Sim?

Aug 4^th, 2006 at 9:33am

Harold Offline
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Quote:

Only enable Anti-aliasing on your card, not the sim. You will tend to lose alot of performance if you have it on both... Wink

Hi guys, I just read this post and can anyone explain how this works and why it is a sucker for the speed of the sim ...

I know what AA is and how it works but I'd like to have an explanation on the comment above ...

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Reply #1 - Aug 4^th, 2006 at 9:46am

EirePlane Offline
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From what I have heard people say before, the AA in the sim just doesnt work

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Reply #2 - Aug 4^th, 2006 at 10:01am

FridayChild Offline
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AA in game is done in software = slow and sucks up system resources
AA at driver level is done in hardware if the vcard supports it = faster
AFAIK this is the difference.
Unless the AA option in FS acts just like a switch to turn on hardware AA if available. But I don't think so, and even if it was this way, you couldn't set the desided level of AA that way, just turn it on or off.

Founder of A.A.A.A.A.A.A. (Aircraft Amateurs' Association Against Absurd Aviation Acronyms) My system specifications: FLIGHT SIMULATOR 2004 - AMD Athlon 64 3200+ CPU - 3 GB PC-3200 DDR400 dual channel RAM - 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm SATA-II hard disk - Sapphire Radeon HD 5750 1 GB PCI-E graphic card - Logitech Wingman Force 3D joystick + Logitech Formula Force pedals My FS whereabouts: low and slow, small single engine prop GA, Italy airfields.

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Reply #3 - Aug 4^th, 2006 at 11:11am

Nick N Ex Member

Quote:

Hi guys, I just read this post and can anyone explain how this works and why it is a sucker for the speed of the sim ...

I know what AA is and how it works but I'd like to have an explanation on the comment above ...

1. Disable AA in the sim and run it from your video card settings. Generally, 4xAA and 16xAF with vertical refesh set to ON will deliver a great visual.

2. Enable "Render to Texture" in the sim

3. Enable "Trillinear Filtering" in the sim

4. Enable "Transform and lighting"

5. Mip Quality to "4" for ATI (usually no higher) and higher for Nvidia (depends on the card)

6. Hardware render lights to 8

7. Set Global texture size to MASSIVE (highest if your card can handle it)

Set the resolution to the native resolution of your monitor... higher will kill resources and make sure it is set to x32.

AA in the sim is software render... AA on your video card is hardware accelerated.

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Reply #4 - Aug 5^th, 2006 at 6:19am

Harold Offline
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Thanks guys! Very helpfull! Cheesy

I think I now understand the difference.
So if you let the sim do the rendering you loose performance. Right?

Makes sense ...

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Reply #5 - Aug 5^th, 2006 at 7:41am

FridayChild Offline
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Every load you put on the CPU degrades performance, and software AA is particularly demanding.

Founder of A.A.A.A.A.A.A. (Aircraft Amateurs' Association Against Absurd Aviation Acronyms) My system specifications: FLIGHT SIMULATOR 2004 - AMD Athlon 64 3200+ CPU - 3 GB PC-3200 DDR400 dual channel RAM - 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm SATA-II hard disk - Sapphire Radeon HD 5750 1 GB PCI-E graphic card - Logitech Wingman Force 3D joystick + Logitech Formula Force pedals My FS whereabouts: low and slow, small single engine prop GA, Italy airfields.

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Reply #6 - Aug 5^th, 2006 at 2:11pm

Nick N Ex Member

Quote:

Thanks guys! Very helpfull! Cheesy

I think I now understand the difference.
So if you let the sim do the rendering you loose performance. Right?

Makes sense ...

That is correct.. AA in the sim takes up CPU cycles where AA on the video card uses the GPU. Since your CPU is already tied up with other processes and the GPU is dedicated to the graphics sub system, setting AA in on the video card allows for greater performance and visual appeal.

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Reply #7 - Aug 7^th, 2006 at 5:08am

Harold Offline
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Thanks again guys! Very helpfull! I now understand completely.
Let's put that Radeon 9800 XT PRO to work Wink

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Reply #8 - Aug 7^th, 2006 at 11:18am

Nick N Ex Member

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Thanks again guys! Very helpfull! I now understand completely.
Let's put that Radeon 9800 XT PRO to work Wink

On a 9800 pro you will probably want to keep AA @ 4 and AF @8 instead of 16 with Catalyst AI on ADVANCED and the vertical refresh set to "3".

You can try 16x but it will really depend on the system. The higher the AF the better the visual quality. You do not need to exceed 4x on AA because the visual difference will not be worth the loss of performance.

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Reply #9 - Aug 8^th, 2006 at 5:35am

Harold Offline
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Ah ... OK! Good tips! I'll try that. Thanks Nick!

Does it help to tell you that I'm on a Dell Dimension 8300, 3.2 Ghz. HT with 2 GB RAM.
The OS is Windows XP Pro SP2 and I'm running Omega drivers version 3.8.252.

I run with all settings maxed (on the card and in the sim). Once I'm airborne I get decent performance of about 15-20 FPS. Sometimes my FPS goes up to around 30 as I locked them to that value.

The problem occurs when I'm approaching an airport. Then my FPS drop to 6 or 7.

And that is not funny Undecided

Any further tips would be greatly appreciated!

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Reply #10 - Aug 8^th, 2006 at 10:17pm

Nick N Ex Member

Quote:

Ah ... OK! Good tips! I'll try that. Thanks Nick!

Does it help to tell you that I'm on a Dell Dimension 8300, 3.2 Ghz. HT with 2 GB RAM.
The OS is Windows XP Pro SP2 and I'm running Omega drivers version 3.8.252.

I run with all settings maxed (on the card and in the sim). Once I'm airborne I get decent performance of about 15-20 FPS. Sometimes my FPS goes up to around 30 as I locked them to that value.

The problem occurs when I'm approaching an airport. Then my FPS drop to 6 or 7.

And that is not funny Undecided

Any further tips would be greatly appreciated!

That card wont handle a 30FPS lock... drop that lock to 22-24. I use to run 24 max on that card. I am afraid your going to have to scale back on the FS9 graphic settings a bit with that card.

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Reply #11 - Aug 9^th, 2006 at 12:06am

cheesegrater Ex Member

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AA in the sim is software render... AA on your video card is hardware accelerated.

Never knew this. I thought when you turn on AA in FS9, FS9 turns AA at the hardware level. I never even knew AA can be software rendered. Does this mean I can buy a non-AA card, and turn on AA in the game and AA will work? Just a hypothetical situation, don't worry I'm not crazy. Cheesy

Quote:

That card wont handle a 30FPS lock... drop that lock to 22-24. I use to run 24 max on that card. I am afraid your going to have to scale back on the FS9 graphic settings a bit with that card.

I would turn off AA. Grin

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Reply #12 - Aug 9^th, 2006 at 12:58am

Nick N Ex Member

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Never knew this. I thought when you turn on AA in FS9, FS9 turns AA at the hardware level. I never even knew AA can be software rendered. Does this mean I can buy a non-AA card, and turn on AA in the game and AA will work? Just a hypothetical situation, don't worry I'm not crazy. Cheesy

I would turn off AA. Grin

His card will handle 2-4x AA but no higher in FS9. I would not run without AA... the graphics would be horrible.

Although sim AA does use a software algorithm it must have a base to work with in hardware so the answer to you question is no, without 3D rendering chip the AA setting in the sim would not work but then again neither would the sim. As long as you had a 3D card, even if it does not support FSAA changes, it would render a better image, just not what you would expect from hardware AA.

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Reply #13 - Aug 9^th, 2006 at 6:06am

Harold Offline
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That card wont handle a 30FPS lock... drop that lock to 22-24.

Thank you Nick! I'll give it a try tomorrow!
I did't have a chance to test it last night and won't be able to test it tonigt.

But I'll let you know what the results are ...

I'm waiting for FSX but I'm also considering to get a 7950 GX2.
I would appreciate your opinion on that card ...

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Reply #14 - Aug 9^th, 2006 at 2:40pm

Ashar Ex Member
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1. Disable AA in the sim and run it from your video card settings. Generally, 4xAA and 16xAF with vertical refesh set to ON will deliver a great visual.

Sorry to hijack this thread...Nick, see my sig for my card...and I don't see Vertical Refresh on the nVidia settings tab...I see Vertical Sync...could this be the same thing? It is currently application controlled... ???

&&SS Lazio Website

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