[dsio]

Anti Aliasing is mainly to do with your memory bandwidth. Every time you step up your AA by doubleing the number of AA samples, you are doubleing the strain being placed on your memory bandwidth. Sooner or later there is a stage where a straw breaks the camels back.

Think of it this way. Say you are on a 1Mbit connection, and are streaming a movie.

At 256k / sec bitrate its fine, at 512k / sec bitrate its fine, at 1024k / sec bit rate its fine, but as soon as you go over that 1Mbit mark, it cant keep up. Anti aliasing is much like that. The good news is, there isnt a big difference between 4X and 8X AA.

There IS a massive difference between 0X and 2X, and there is a big difference between 2X and 4X, but after that its hard to notice.

On your card I would actually recommend using Quincunx anti aliasing, which is somewhere in between 2X and 4X, offering performance very close to 2X, with quality almost as good as 4X.

Other than that, stick to 4X and 4XS (4XS is actually very good)

8X is overkill. Similarly, there is a big difference between 4X anisotropic filtering, and 8X aniso, however there is practically no difference between 8X and 16X.

Seriously you should not bother using 16X AF, as in most cases it makes the image look unnatural rather than better. AF reduces blurring at long distance, and it does need to be up high, but 16X makes the distance too clear, which the eye isnt use to. This breaks the illusion of 3D in that your eye can tell that it is fake. So there is a fine balance between quality, and too much quality.

In some games, 4X AF looks better than 8X even, and 16X looks terrible.

Just to clarify, AA = Anti aliasing
AF = anisotropic filtering.


That aside, im glad to hear that driver worked. Try some benching when you get around to it and you may notice some improvements in 3dmark03/05. Even if it doesnt improve 3dmark, I can assure you, in game it will be noticeably faster, and the textures and direct X 9 effects clearer.

Make sure you check back regularly to pick up new drivers as they are released. we try to have the latest and best available as soon as they hit the net!