Reason of why review sites only test up to 4x AA... ???

[kpablo]

Why in the most of the GPU reviews the test only are up 4x Anti Aliasing?

In all the reviews that i have read (TPU, Guru3D, etc) they test from 0x AA to 4x AA. what is the reason? I would like to see some more tests at 8x AA at least.

[zalbard]

Not many people use 8x since 4x already presents a very good picture.

[Frag Maniac]

I think a lot of it is they cater mostly to avid gamers, many of whom play at pretty high res where there's less need for AA. Native resolutions of 1920x1080 are becoming the norm, and even many monitors 24" and smaller support it now at a reasonable price. In those cases the pixel pitch is also very tight, which means all the less need for high AA. When it comes right down to it it makes more sense to invest in a high res display than buy hardware that can handle 8-16x AA.

[demonkevy666]

Why in the most of the GPU reviews the test only are up 4x Anti Aliasing?

In all the reviews that i have read (TPU, Guru3D, etc) they test from 0x AA to 4x AA. what is the reason? I would like to see some more tests at 8x AA at least.

yeah it annoys me

Not many people use 8x since 4x already presents a very good picture.

I do what annoys me more is that I can see on some games things aren't getting AF on them or AA. so turning it up to 4x dosen't change anything unless it's on the ground or a building.

I think a lot of it is they cater mostly to avid gamers, many of whom play at pretty high res where there's less need for AA. Native resolutions of 1920x1080 are becoming the norm, and even many monitors 24" and smaller support it now at a reasonable price. In those cases the pixel pitch is also very tight, which means all the less need for high AA. When it comes right down to it it makes more sense to invest in a high res display than buy hardware that can handle 8-16x AA.

I think running threw all AAx2-16 and AF2-16AF is best.
older reviews use to do this.
everyone always complains about poor 4 card scaling but they never both boosting up the AA and AF and thats where 3-4 card shines.

but somewhere along the way in between the DX10 and DX9 I guess it was not to be used anymore.

[THOMO]

Another reason may be higher resolutions. The higher definition an image has the less AA is required.

I recall 32x AA was available when sli from nvidia first came along, ain't seen it mentioned for a while though.

[kpablo]

But still i think they have to use more AA then anisothropic filters... since AAF, if i am not totally wrong, depends in some way to the quantity of the RAMs. So, always a less RAMs VGA will be in disvantage against VGAs with more RAM.

Something Like 8X AA and 8X AAF?

[STEvil]

I always max out AF first. AA comes second since 2x is usually enough in most decently paced games.

[Orion24]

In the past, ATI and NVIDIA had a bit different way of doing AA when you wanted more than 4x. I remember some years back ATI had 6x AA and NVIDIA had 8xS AA. Back then it would not be an apples to apples benchmark if you were benchning more than 4xAA. Right now you probably could do an apples to apples at 8x, but I'm still not so sure of that. Maybe it is still safer to benchmark at 4x. Plus the fact that they have other different approaches (TASS, or morphological).

[skier]

pretty sure 8x MSAA is the same for both camps since 5xxx at least, dont think any games even go any higher than that if you have an AMD GPU

[STEvil]

You can mod the drivers to get 16x, but lots of the time AA over 8x fails due to framebuffer limitations. Even 8x fails sometimes.

[kpablo]

Still not convinced why not bench at 8x AA... There must be a reason for not doing it... current vcard are 100% capable to do it in the most of the games...

[STEvil]

At 1680x1050, sure... top end hardware at 1920x1080 in some games, sure. 2560x1600, no.

[Kingcarcas]

I want to know why they don't use older cpus, so we can see when a new Gpu becomes a bottleneck and have to upgrade. Do they assume we upgrade platforms every time? That's even more expensive than a new video card.

[Frag Maniac]

I think running threw all AAx2-16 and AF2-16AF is best.
older reviews use to do this.
everyone always complains about poor 4 card scaling but they never both boosting up the AA and AF and thats where 3-4 card shines.

Realistically they'd be catering to a scant few elitist gamers were they to base their tests on 3-4 card scenarios. The average avid gamer into SLI or CF is only going to be running two cards. You don't typically get good scaling beyond 2 cards and even when you do, it's hit and miss. Some games might do well with it, but most don't. I'm a firm believer in two fairly strong GPUs vs 3 or 4 mediocre ones. Leaves you more MB space too, and sometimes even less heat and power consumption.

The main problem I have with the way some tests are run is they'll be slanted toward one camp or another with clever little deceptions that influence many people when they don't look at the fine details of how they were conducted.

[darckhart]

i find this very annoying too because i'm pretty sure they're just using MSAA most of the time too. i think the 4xMSAA is just to appease the masses as it gives a significantly perceptible reduction in jaggies over 2xMSAA. however, if you're like me, you're probably tweaking AA modes per game, sometimes per environment within game, to get the image quality where you like it, so 4x or 8xMSAA is moot unless you're just gauging the fps hit you're going to take every time you step up the setting.

and higher res does not automatically preclude the need for AA. some games look like crud at any res. afaik, even the hd res monitors have dot pitch around 0.27 which means, for example, aliasing in UE3 is prolific and atrocious.

[Blkout]

pretty sure 8x MSAA is the same for both camps since 5xxx at least, dont think any games even go any higher than that if you have an AMD GPU

16x MSAA is available with crossfire GPU's, at least in the 5xxx series I can confirm since I have dual 5850's. The 16x MSAA option is available in the ATI CCC.

[kpablo]

But still i think they have to use more AA then anisothropic filters... since AAF, if i am not totally wrong, depends in some way to the quantity of the RAMs. So, always a less RAMs VGA will be in disvantage against VGAs with more RAM.

Something Like 8X AA and 8X AAF?

Still not convinced why not bench at 8x AA... There must be a reason for not doing it... current vcard are 100% capable to do it in the most of the games...

Still i could not get any convinced reason of this 2 questions...

[ragejg]

Check my GTX 580 review out at NV News to see NV's new GPU tested at a boatload of AA modes.

[Andrea deluxe]

I always max out AF first. AA comes second since 2x is usually enough in most decently paced games.

quote...

for sure...

over 4x is useless....

[kpablo]

quote...

for sure...

over 4x is useless....

Ok, but why? Why over 4X AA is useless?

[STEvil]

Because at high resolution you dont need as much AA and if a game has a decent pace you wont be spending time staring at chain link fences.

[Blkout]

quote...

for sure...

over 4x is useless....

I disagree unless you're talking about SSAA, but everyone is different.

[it_is_me]

Why in the most of the GPU reviews the test only are up 4x Anti Aliasing?

In all the reviews that i have read (TPU, Guru3D, etc) they test from 0x AA to 4x AA. what is the reason? I would like to see some more tests at 8x AA at least.

i've found one very extensive review of GTX580 with AA up to 32. It's in russian, but you can google tranlate it. they also 'decrypt' nvidias meaning of AA regimes:
* 2x - MSAA 2x
* 4x - MSAA 4x
* 8x - MSAA 4x + CSAA 8x
* 8xQ - MSAA 8x
* 16x - MSAA 4x + CSAA 16x
* 16xQ - MSAA 8x + CSAA 16x
* 32x - MSAA 8x + CSAA 24x