AA & AF not working?

[furiousV]

i have set Anti Aliasing to 6x and AF to 16x, resolution is 1024x768 and all settings high, water at world only, Vsync off.
i definetly notice a massive change in the way the game looks, the corners on walls are smooth.
however, when i look at a fence (to be exact: when u first wake up and meet alyx, and look out the window to the right, the fence on the bridge) its all jagged. i thought AA/AF are meant to smooth that right out. also the plants arent any better than i thought.

somewhere in this forum somebody posted pictures of hl2 with AA and AF enabled and disabled. by plants dont look anything like that.

am i expecting too much, is something wrong with what im doing, or am i just blind?
o btw, latest ATI drivers, fresh from format. and in graphics card properties, AA, AF, Trueform, Vsync are all set to application preference, and texture detail and mipmap to high.
get decent framerates actually.

any suggestions/comments/explanations appreciated.

my setup:
Pentium 4 Prescott 2.8GHz
1024MB PC3200 Corsair Dual channel (2x512)
Asus P4P800E Deluxe (i865PE chipset)
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (256bit)

 

[Laivasse]

I'm afraid I don't have the answer to your question, but I would like to point out the injustice in how your specs aren't too different from my own, yet I get atrocious fps with AA&AF set to just 4 each...

So I hope that makes you feel better at least

 

[furiousV]

should have mentioned
before my format (about a week ago) even enabling either of those to 2x could kill my fps to about 5fps, major stuttering, and totally unplayable during large outdoor areas, such as the plaza in city 17.
even de_dust had trouble right from spawn (thats CSS)

 

[Asus]

ATI and Nvidia currently use adaptive AA for the most part. It will vary how much it alters the image based on the angle of depth of the line. A line at 45 deg. angle away from the player (like streets/curbs going into the distance) would get more attention than the fence lines which you are probably viewing face on (a perpendicular wall). That would be my take on it. Try turning to view the fence so it's on your sides running with the direction you are looking. See if it improves.

Nvidia does have an AA mode that goes over the image twice and makes those types of jaggies disappear but it is a big hit on performance, basicly unplayable.

Post if you don't think that is what's happening.

 

[Laivasse]

should have mentioned
before my format (about a week ago) even enabling either of those to 2x could kill my fps to about 5fps, major stuttering, and totally unplayable during large outdoor areas, such as the plaza in city 17.
even de_dust had trouble right from spawn (thats CSS)

Sorry to semi-derail again, but did you find out what the problem was, or did you end up just having to format? I tried formatting in part to solve my own graphics problems, but the format went wrong and I only just managed to make my computer bootable again.

I'll probably format again soon but can't tell if it will help me fully.

Specs:
AMD Athlon 64 3400+
MSI K8MM-ILSR mobo (MSI 6741)
2x512 PC2600
Radeon 9800 SE 256Mb

In 1024x768 with AA and AF set to only very modest levels (say, 4 and 2) , my fps drop to 20 and under every time an NPC takes a breath. Tried overclocking my FSB by only 5Mhz, and it caused an overheat...

 

[Laivasse]

To add something that's actually on-topic, I think it's normal that AA doesn't unjaggify absolutely everything. I tried setting stuff to 6xAA to see how it looked, and depending on the angle you approach certain things (esp lines at shallow angles), the jagged increments are still noticeable. I don't there's much that can be done, until tech advances again.

 

[furiousV]

about my format:
my hard drive failed, and it must have caused a critical file to go corrupt, so i could not boot from it. when doing a safemode boot, it tells u the files being loaded, came to the 7th file and that was said to be missing or corrupt. i will be ordering a hard drive cooler(maybe a few actually) this friday once i get my nice paycheque and tax return

about AA/AF again. could it be possible that setting to 6xAA only gets your video card to do as much as it is capable off doing. maybe the X800 doing a better job than the 9800. nah thats me just being stupid

il be ordering a new cooler for my CPU then il be doing a little overclocking.