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Which AA modes

V1N

V1N

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29 Jul 2006
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Hi there.

I'm a fairly new GeForce 8 owner.

Happy with it, but I don't know what some of these new AA modes are.

I just loaded a Source game.
Stuck everything on max of course.
When it came to AA, I had new choices, the old 2x and upwards.

Now I have CSAA, which I selected.

I looked in the NV CP afterwards, and saw alongside the old modes ,8xQ and 16xQ

What is the Q?
Is this the same as is called CSAA in the source engine?

Because the AA in GOW is so poor, I thought I'd try the Enhance the Application Setting mode.

I was then presented with more options of which AA to use, again, from 2x-16x and 8xQ and 16xQ.

Furthermore, I have antialiasing transparency to choose, with Multisampling and Supersampling. I get that multisampling is the quicker, and supersampling is the higher IQ.. but does this get applied to all AA modes, or, just when 8xQ or 16xQ is selected, or 16x CSAA in Source for example?

Sorry for the newbie questions.
I'm usually quite fine with setting up the graphics cards, but these are new modes to me, so I'd like to be sure I'm getting the best out of my new card.

Many thanks
V1N.

EDIT: So a bit more googling (I did try before, honest!) ;) and I found this

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/coverage-sampled-aa.html

So, yes, 8xQ and 16xQ IS CSAA. It was just the different names that threw me. And they reckon these new 8xQ and 16xQ modes are much more efficient, so you shouldn't see a hit, much more than 4x normal AA would give. I'm still not sure about the Multisamling/Supersampling/off, but I'll keep looking - this is to do with the older style of AA though? Off = normal AA. and multi/supersampling adds to that, giving nicer IQ but more performance hit?
 
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