Supersampling AA on DX10/11 on Radone 7000 cards

[Ross Scott]

I guess this is old news, but I only recently heard about it:

 

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/catalyst122precertifieddriver.aspx

 

Apparently Radeon 7000 series cards now support supersampling antialiasing in Directx 10 / 11 applications. This is good news all-round for trying to improve image quality in gaming. Nvidia doesn't support SSAA at all officially. It's capable of it with the program Nvidia Inspector, but I've never been able to get it to work in DirectX 11 game. While I think with enough tweaking, Nvidia cards have greater AA compatibility than AMD ones for DirectX 9 games and below, this may push AMD ahead for better AA compatibility on DX11 games.

 

If anyone out there actually owns a Radeon 7000 card and is willing to make some screenshot tests, please message or email me, I'd love to compare the quality or see how compatible it is.

[Alyxx Thorne]

I've been wanting to get my hands on one for a while, but money is a problem for me.

[BTGBullseye]

I'm not planning on getting any AMD cards... Holding out for more money and the GTX 6XX series cards...

[Alyxx Thorne]

I stick to AMD.

[Humin]

I think the 700 series is to be released shortly after the 600 series.

[BTGBullseye]

Lets put it this way... The new GeForce cards have DX12 listed in some of their specs...

[Humin]

Oh, wait, 3rd quarter of 2013, Not 2012. Hehe, my bad.

[BTGBullseye]

Yeah... If I end up having to wait, I'll be going for the GTX 700's. (not a fan of AMDs video cards at all, and Nvidia has much better business practices)

[Ross Scott]

Yeah... If I end up having to wait, I'll be going for the GTX 700's. (not a fan of AMDs video cards at all, and Nvidia has much better business practices)

I plan on going to to the 600 series at some point too, but I've used cards from both companies before and really it comes down to AA quality that determines which cards I gravitate towards. I'd argue Nvidia EASILY has better high-end AA options and compatibilty options, but only with 3rd party tools, and mostly just for DX9 or below. ATI has more AA options out of the box than Nvidia, but less overall. This DX10/11 supersampling is a wildcard however, since so far I haven't been able to get SSAA to work in DX11 games at ALL with Nvidia cards. If I had to make a judgment today, I'd say Nvidia has better AA options for DX9 and below, but with these new drivers, AMD has better AA options for DX10 and above. It's an interesting split.

 

As for better business practices, I'd say both companies (ATI v Nvidia) have done sleazy things before, both companies have had big software issues, and both companies have come out with innovations the competition simply didn't have at the time. I don't think there's enough evidence to really say one has better business practices over the other. For every good / bad thing you name about AMD / Nvidia, I can probably name something else from the other camp. I think it really only comes down to specifics as to which side is better at what.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Yeah, like Ross said, they are pretty even. I just prefer AMD because it's what I've been using so far and can't say there's anything wrong with it.

[Ross Scott]

Ha, this is a little tangential, but I just had to post this after the "better business practices" comment:

 

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/linus_torvalds_tosses_f-bombs_middle_fingers_and_general_disdain_nvidia

 

Again, ATI is no saint either, they both have their pros and cons.

[sheridanm962]

I was going to get an HD 7000 series card but I thought PCI-E 2.1 would be better on my Motherboard, I also learned that they were backwards compatible. It sounds to me like I could actually get one since it's only $6 more to buy a Sapphire Radeon HD 7750 1GB Graphics card than an HD 6750 so there isn't much that I would have to lose. On the PLUS side I read that PCI-E 3.0 isn't really implemented that much until later Motherboard models or so, I don't know if that's true or not.

 

 

Seems to me like $163 NZD instead of $157 NZD isn't so bad after all for $6 extra.

 

EDIT: That's a funny article of Linus Torvalds since it may explain why there isn't much support anymore for Nvidia's drivers inside Linux.

[Ross Scott]

I wouldn't worry about PCI express 3.0:

 

http://www.overclock.net/t/1188376/hardwarecanucks-hd-7970-pci-e-3-0-vs-pci-e-2-0-comparison

[Doublenature]

A little oftopic here: Can a sapphire HD 7770 handle bf3 on highest ?

 

edit: no, I dont have any idea about the HD cards.

[BTGBullseye]

Can a sapphire HD 7770 handle bf3 on highest ?

Only if you're going to get 2 and run them in Crossfire... Then again, that's the same with everything lower than the 7970... (or the GTX 670 for Nvidia) You're gonna get <15 FPS on highest with that card.

[Doublenature]

Can a sapphire HD 7770 handle bf3 on highest ?

Only if you're going to get 2 and run them in Crossfire... Then again, that's the same with everything lower than the 7970... (or the GTX 670 for Nvidia) You're gonna get <15 FPS on highest with that card.

 

 

Ok thanks. (Getting another computer so I was just gonna check)

[Ross Scott]

Can a sapphire HD 7770 handle bf3 on highest ?

Only if you're going to get 2 and run them in Crossfire... Then again, that's the same with everything lower than the 7970... (or the GTX 670 for Nvidia) You're gonna get I haven't played it, but at high quality with AA , Tom's Hardware is reporting closer to 30fps, 45 with AA off:

 

 

Not sure if they're reporting on a skewed situation, but that's over double the speeds you're claiming. So it just depends on how smooth you want it. At 1680x1050, you get about a 5fps boost on top of that.

 

EDIT: Never mind, looks like these are for high and he was talking about ultra, I wasn't aware of the divisions for BF3.

[\\Vincent Vega]

my system

 

Core 2 Duo e8400 at 3.6Ghz Stock Voltage with CMaster Hyper-N 520

GTX 460 1GB 256bit OC'ED to 830-CORE 2000-MEM 128GB/s Bandwidth

4 Gigs of Patriot gaming ram 800mhz - 960mhz OC'ED

Corsair TX 850m PSU

 

i get 40 plus FPS in BF3 on ultra NO AA 1080p

so GTX 670 is overkill

[Humin]

i get 40 plus FPS in BF3 on ultra NO AA 1080p

so GTX 670 is overkill

 

I can't stand playing a game without anti-aliasing. For me, having a game on high without using AA defeats the purpose of using the high setting.

[BTGBullseye]

my system

 

Core 2 Duo e8400 at 3.6Ghz Stock Voltage with CMaster Hyper-N 520

GTX 460 1GB 256bit OC'ED to 830-CORE 2000-MEM 128GB/s Bandwidth

4 Gigs of Patriot gaming ram 800mhz - 960mhz OC'ED

Corsair TX 850m PSU

 

i get 40 plus FPS in BF3 on ultra NO AA 1080p

so GTX 670 is overkill

I would genuinely like to see the Fraps of that since GTX 570's get in the neighborhood of 49 FPS at those settings.

 

I can't stand playing a game without anti-aliasing. For me, having a game on high without using AA defeats the purpose of using the high setting.

That's what FXAA is for... 1-3 FPS drop for very decent AA...