JoeRudi26 Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 Since (finally) upgrading to a new video card, I went back into video options and turned on MSAA & MSAA Quality to see if there was going to be much of a difference, and just thought I'd post it here to let people know what kind of impact it has in game. If you're able to turn it on without taking a massive frame rate hit, I recommend it. These pictures don't do it 100% justice, but it does make a significant difference in the game, and if you can max it out at 8x and 2 (although 4x wasn't much different), it does a decent job of smoothing out most jagged edges on the screen. MSAA & MSAA Quality Off: MSAA - 8x MSAA - 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maestro23 Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 Can see the difference. Looks good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeRudi26 Posted March 21, 2009 Author Share Posted March 21, 2009 Can see the difference. Looks good. If you look closely, you can see the difference in the player models as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maestro23 Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 If you look closely, you can see the difference in the player models as well. Yep, I see them. The little setting makes a world of difference, and you say it doesn't affect your framerate. That's good stuff. Might have to look into finding your card on newegg. I need to upgrade in a bad way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fenway389 Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 Thanks for the heads up. Gave it try and noticed a big difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paceee Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 my msaa is set at 8x, but my msaa quality cannot be changed... it's stuck at N/A :S i have an ati 4850 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitchleague Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 thanks for posting this! I had been wondering what MSAA did in the game. I couldn't notice except for a slight framerate issue, so I turned it off. I can see the difference in your pictures so I'll have to play around and see if I can get it to work without the framerate hits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeRudi26 Posted March 21, 2009 Author Share Posted March 21, 2009 I'll have to play around and see if I can get it to work without the framerate hits. No prob. If you notice in the top pic, my Shadow Settings are on medium. I changed it to Ultra High and lost about 25 FPS in the Pitcher/Batter interface screen. On medium, I'm getting 60FPS there and throughout the rest of the game, and to be honest, I couldn't see a bit of difference. Either way, I figured maxing out the MSAA & MSAA Quality would have caused more of a slow down than shadow settings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MalibuKiller Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 my msaa is set at 8x, but my msaa quality cannot be changed... it's stuck at N/A :S i have an ati 4850 Maybe it's only aviable for nvidia cards , I have an ATI4850 and can't turn msaa quality to anything either . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maestro23 Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 Maybe it's only aviable for nvidia cards , I have an ATI4850 and can't turn msaa quality to anything either . I believe with ATI cards, that it defaults to some value automatically. Remember reading this when NBA 2k9 came out. Check your config file in your Saves folder. Haven't taken a look at it yet to see if it can be changed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MalibuKiller Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 I believe with ATI cards, that it defaults to some value automatically. Remember reading this when NBA 2k9 came out. Check your config file in your Saves folder. Haven't taken a look at it yet to see if it can be changed. Forcing it to "2" in the config files makes the image even worse. I think it is a Nvidia Cards only mode: CSAA, the answer to running 16xAA. CSAA (coverage sampled AA) is a Geforce 8 series only feature. Whereas MSAA was a direct response to SSAA being far to expensive performance wise, think of CSAA as a response to MSAA being too costly as we move beyond current AA levels and onwards to 8x and 16x AA. Even with the increase of gpu performance, 16xMSAA is still far too demanding. You will recall that MSAA cuts the fill rate strain by only sampling one colour value per pixel. CSAA does similar things. In the above table taken from the G80 white paper, you can see how the different methods decrease the performance hit as you increase the AA levels by detaching the sample types and making them independent. With CSAA 16x you have the same amount of colour and Z samples taken as with 4xMSAA, but coverage samples are extended from 4 to 16. The benefit claim NVIDIA, is that CSAA offers similar image quality to MSAA but with much less of a performance penalty, so for the first time we find 16x AA possible on mainstream graphics cards. AMD currently have nothing to rival this, but expect something similar with R600. On the 8 series, you will find the following modes of AA, and i've included the amount of samples used for each in order of colour, Z, and coverage: 2x = MSAA (1, 2, 2) 4x = MSAA (1, 4, 4) 8x = CSAA (1, 4, 8xQ = MSAA (1, 8, 16x = CSAA (1, 4, 16) 16xQ = CSAA with (1, 8, 16) To enable the CSAA modes is a bit annoying at present. The first thing you need to do is to enable AA in the game you wish to play (any mode will do). By doing this you make sure that AA is ran as the developer intended. Then in the NVIDIA Control Panel find "antialiasing - mode" and select " enhance the application". Now choose the CSAA level you want to use under "antialiasing - setting". By doing this, you make sure AA is ran as it should be for the game (by making sure an AA level is chosen in the games menu) and then selecting you desired CSAA level in the control panel. Yes its annoying and tedious, but it's the only way to get it to work in current games. Future titles will allow you to select all modes of AA, including CSAA in the game menu's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkB Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 I have a 4670 HD and although I have AA at 8x, my MSAA quality is also stuck at N/A. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolie Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 Forcing it to "2" in the config files makes the image even worse. I think it is a Nvidia Cards only mode: CSAA, the answer to running 16xAA. CSAA (coverage sampled AA) is a Geforce 8 series only feature. Whereas MSAA was a direct response to SSAA being far to expensive performance wise, think of CSAA as a response to MSAA being too costly as we move beyond current AA levels and onwards to 8x and 16x AA. Even with the increase of gpu performance, 16xMSAA is still far too demanding. You will recall that MSAA cuts the fill rate strain by only sampling one colour value per pixel. CSAA does similar things. In the above table taken from the G80 white paper, you can see how the different methods decrease the performance hit as you increase the AA levels by detaching the sample types and making them independent. With CSAA 16x you have the same amount of colour and Z samples taken as with 4xMSAA, but coverage samples are extended from 4 to 16. The benefit claim NVIDIA, is that CSAA offers similar image quality to MSAA but with much less of a performance penalty, so for the first time we find 16x AA possible on mainstream graphics cards. AMD currently have nothing to rival this, but expect something similar with R600. On the 8 series, you will find the following modes of AA, and i've included the amount of samples used for each in order of colour, Z, and coverage: 2x = MSAA (1, 2, 2) 4x = MSAA (1, 4, 4) 8x = CSAA (1, 4, 8xQ = MSAA (1, 8, 16x = CSAA (1, 4, 16) 16xQ = CSAA with (1, 8, 16) To enable the CSAA modes is a bit annoying at present. The first thing you need to do is to enable AA in the game you wish to play (any mode will do). By doing this you make sure that AA is ran as the developer intended. Then in the NVIDIA Control Panel find "antialiasing - mode" and select " enhance the application". Now choose the CSAA level you want to use under "antialiasing - setting". By doing this, you make sure AA is ran as it should be for the game (by making sure an AA level is chosen in the games menu) and then selecting you desired CSAA level in the control panel. Yes its annoying and tedious, but it's the only way to get it to work in current games. Future titles will allow you to select all modes of AA, including CSAA in the game menu's. interesting will try this out, I did notice before that 16xQ didn't work in Nvidia control panel. I'll try with the enhance application enabled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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