AA and AF

[[46] pushit [2]]

What exactly do AA and AF do? Are they really necessary for good graphics, or do they just add some sweet eye candy? Also, i'm running a

P4 2.0 Ghz
768 MB ram
ATI Radeon 9600XT 128 MB

should i upgrade RAM or go for a 9800 PRo 256? i don't really have enough money for the new X800s, so those are not an option right now. i'm only getting 30-50 FPS in CS:S. is that average or low?

 

[Rando]

Anti-Aliasing is the jagged edges on curves and diagonal lines in a bitmap image. Anti-Aliasing is the process of smoothing out those jagged edges. Another term commonly used is font smoothing. Without Anti-Aliasing, diagonal edges appear jagged, like staircases, which may be noticeable on a low resolution display. The default for this setting is "Application Preference". Increasing this setting to 2x or more may improve overall image quality while having the possibility of degrading gaming performance.

Anisotropic Filtering makes it easier for the viewer to see the quality of textures on surfaces at greater angles. If you are using an older video card and have Anisotropic Filtering enabled, you may take a huge performance hit. The default for this setting is "Application Preference". Increasing this setting to 2x or more may improve overall image quality at a distance while having the possibility of degrading gaming performance.

 

[Ecthe|ioN]

What exactly do AA and AF do? Are they really necessary for good graphics, or do they just add some sweet eye candy? Also, i'm running a

P4 2.0 Ghz
768 MB ram
ATI Radeon 9600XT 128 MB

should i upgrade RAM or go for a 9800 PRo 256? i don't really have enough money for the new X800s, so those are not an option right now. i'm only getting 30-50 FPS in CS:S. is that average or
low?

If you can afford an upgrade it wouldn't hurt getting more ram. 1GB total is enough for now. A 9800Pro would also be nice, but it will be bottlenecked by your CPU. It will still perform much better than the Radeon 9600XT though. If you decide to upgrade your RAM to 1Gig and your GPU to a Radeon 9800 Pro, I would recommend saving up some money for a new CPU at a later time.

 

[hi_ted]

with a 9600xt (like me) you should aim to not turn on any AA or AF settings unless everything else is running well.

 

[Cole]

actually ted without i can score upt o 45fps
But iwth 6xAA 8xAF I can get around 38fps. Not to much of a performance hit on me(Yes i to use a 9600XT)
But I do keep them off for when bigger fights break out. Cs:S dosn't look nearly as bad as CS does without AF. So its all good. With a decent res you wont notice the jagged lines in Cs:S either, but either way its not something thats mandatory.