Left 4 dead 2 anti aliasing

[rx33gundam]

ok… so I started to change my settings in Left 4 dead 2 from low settings and work my way up. I had cl_showfps 1 so I can view my fps.

Everything I turned to a higher setting cost fps but anti aliasing. What happened was quite the opposite of what I expected. When I had AA off, I had 22-32 fps but I turned it to 16x csaa (something like that) my fps became 42-49 fps. Can anyone tell me why?

My vga card iirc is
512mb
nvidia
8600gseries

[Ramirezoid]

Anti-Aliasing, espeically to that extent, usually murders my framerate.

I dunno what to tell you. It’s either magic or it just blows your video card’s mind

[Door]

Your video card has a plentiful supply of vaseline to apply to edges, obviously.

[p0rt1r]

it could be taking more load off the cpu?

[King_Kaddo]

Something is not right with your drivers. Update them.

[rx33gundam]

ok… so I tried the other types of anti-aliasing…
csaa - makes my fps higher
msaa - makes my fps lower
TBH I’m surprised that you guys don’t have the answer. I researched anti-aliasing and all I can get is the meaning of it but anyways I’m happy with it. :retard: I still have silver guns though when i set shaders to high or very high. My memory is just 1gb. I have duo core 2Ghz. I know it’s nothing compared to you guys but it’s what I can afford with MY OWN WITH MY OWN MONEY. I don’t like asking for money from my parents because I don’t like feeling guilty if they don’t have enough budget.

I found a site explaining msaa and csaa…
https://www.sunlitgames.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&p=47473

OK, so you have CSAA and MSAA.

MSAA = Multi-Sampled Anti-Aliasing, this is supported on both ATI and Nvidia hardware and has long been the default standard AA method for games, instead of taking 4 colour samples from each pixel in the original image, only one is taken, though still 4 colour values (Z samples) are stored in memory. Thus, MSAA is far less costly than SSAA as far as fillrate is concerned, however as four colour values are stored in memory the bandwidth and memory requirements remain the same. Now this is all hunky dory when a scene only contains geometric objects, but as is very common these days most scenes contain alpha textures. When alpha textures are used in a scene and MSAA is used, you can get adverse effects and artifacts. To solve those issues there are other forms of AA like TAA.

When you get to 8x and 16x MSAA, performance setbacks are very very severe and little return is made. For example, at 16xMSAA, 16 colour/Z samples are stored for every single pixel. This is essentially impossible today, even on modern graphics cards. As such an alternative is needed, this is where CSAA comes in.

CSAA = Coverage Sample Anti-Aliasing. This is found only on recent nvidia graphics cards (from the GeForce 8 series onwards, AMD has their own version of CSAA that is essentially the same thing). CSAA takes only 1 colour sample per pixel, the same as MSAA. The benefit to CSAA is that, as the coverage samples grow to 8x and 16x, instead of storing 8/16 colour/Z samples per pixel, only 4 are taken. This dramatically reduces bandwidth and memory requirements over MSAA.

Thus, at 16xAA, CSAA has a similar quality to MSAA but is far cheaper.

Now, 16xQ CSAA is the same as CSAA except 8 colour samples are taken from each pixel instead of 4 as in standard CSAA or 16 as in MSAA. As such it is of higher quality than regular 16x CSAA.

So, as per your question:
8xMSAA will take one colour sample and will store 8 values, and has a sample coverage of 8 (hence the 8x).
16x CSAA will take one colour sample, store 4 values and has a sample coverage of 16.
16xQ CSAA will take one colour sample, store 8 values and has a sample coverage of 16.

So, in conclusion, if you can use it, and your computer is capable of it, use the 16xQ CSAA.

[p0rt1r]

lol 1ghz dualcore cpu. i didnt even know that existed.
Definitely time for a new computer. you gfx card can barely render the game.
I built my own computer with my own money, hell i did it twice while i was still at highschool. first system was a athlon x2 4800+ 2.5ghz, 2gb ddr2 800mhz ram, radeon 2900pro.

second system was c2q q9650 3ghz, 4gb ddr2 1000mhz ram, radeon 4890 cyclone. im still using the second system today.
im fairly certain you could pickup something that would run as well as my system fairly cheap.

get a job or get more hours.

[rx33gundam]

@p0rt1r

lol 1ghz dualcore cpu. i didnt even know that existed.
Definitely time for a new computer. you gfx card can barely render the game.
I built my own computer with my own money, hell i did it twice while i was still at highschool. first system was a athlon x2 4800+ 2.5ghz, 2gb ddr2 800mhz ram, radeon 2900pro.

second system was c2q q9650 3ghz, 4gb ddr2 1000mhz ram, radeon 4890 cyclone. im still using the second system today.
im fairly certain you could pickup something that would run as well as my system fairly cheap.

get a job or get more hours.

sorry… it’s 2 Ghz.
how could I make that mistake?

[gibbelin]

Did you have a more strenuous AA setting in nhancer that might be overridden when you turn it on in the game? It seems like I had that problem with a game once.

[Calebmcghee]

It looks like more RAM would be beneficial.

[bobbo]

If you have a dual core… I assume you have ddr2 for ram… and it’s pretty cheap nowdays… you should look in to what your motherboard specs are and see what speeds you can upgrade to, then at least get another gig of ram. The gfx card you have is good enough to play the game… it should perform even better if you upgraded the ram.

[sersoft]

easy, you have aa turned on in nvidia control panel but not enforced, so the video game setting overrides the control panel setting

what’s so hard to understand

[rx33gundam]

@sersoft

easy, you have aa turned on in nvidia control panel but not enforced, so the video game setting overrides the control panel setting

what’s so hard to understand

Nice info but… why do I get better performance when I’m supposed to have poorer?

[Piefish]

Hit it with a hammer

[gibbelin]

@rx33gundam

Nice info but… why do I get better performance when I’m supposed to have poorer?

I think his point is the same one I was making above. If AA is turned on in the control panel or nhancer, it might be a more strenuous type of AA than the game uses. If you turn it on in the game, it’s possible that it would be overridden and therefore give you a better frame rate.

[sersoft]

Pretty much.