Can you make the GA startup with AA and Texture Sharpening?
 

OK.

On my Nvidia GF4 Ti4200 with 128MB and 8X the program is visually "crappy" without turning on some combination of these things. I don't usually have these on in any program and most things look great.

With them on the thing is 100 times more believable, and is just plain pretty compared to just plain gritty.

Here is the GA with none of these turned on:
http://rmrcpa.com/lgk/ga/noaa.jpg
All the edges are ragged, and everything looks flat and like a cut and paste.


Here is the GA with 2X Antialiasing and Texture Sharpening on:
http://rmrcpa.com/lgk/ga/aa.jpg
Everything is smooth, no field effects, and the depth of objects really comes out.
(get similar results with the anisotropic filtering and various combinations of the three)


Here is a 3MB movie showing the plants moving in both settings. HUGE DIFFERENCE.
http://rmrcpa.com/lgk/ga/Movie_0002.wmv

In the GA, these settings have very little fps impact. In some other programs, I get a big slowdown. How can I make these settings go on for just the GA?? Is an option inside GA necessary to toggle these things? The GA absolutely, IMO, needs settings internally to toggle these driver options for just the aquarium if there is not some external way to make it happen.

I fiddled with these settings for a while on my G4MX440SE 8xAGP. I also found a significant improvement in the appearance of the edges using texture sharpening and anisotropic filtering, with no reduction in fps.

However, running in 1024x768x16 display, I found that 2x antialiasing caused the background to develop horizontal streaks and lines, and the fps was halved, so if implemented, it would have to be an optional feature.

I'd like to see all of the options available. Especially Texture Sharpening.

After some playing around, Texture Sharpening alone makes enough of an improvement in the backgroubd/plants to be tolerable and just barely messes with the fps.

Adding the AA or Anitsowhatever improves the fish more than the background/plants.

Soc,
I don't think I'll ever need Bat rays but help from West Hills, CA is something truly precious. Thank you very much for bring this to my attention. Lost about 1 fps at 1600x1200 and everything somehow looked twice as good. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

Happy Turtle

Wow!!! Socrates' movie convinced me to try it - and WOW!!Everyone who has made a comment regarding the background (including me) needs to try this - the plants look 100% better with Texture Sharpening enabled. IMHO - it should be enabled at default - with an option to disable if frames become an issue.


..and I ditto TT's - THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!! :)

Hmm, I always run with texture sharpening checked, I kinda wondered what you were talking about in some areas. My brain is dead some days. :(

And evidently mine and SunKing's on all the rest of the days ;)

/Happy Turtle

Guess my Intel 82845G/GL graphics controller doesn't give me the texture sharpening option. :(

Liath,

On the nVidia line of drivers there is an option/checkbox for texture sharpening. If I remember correctly its in the same area as the AA and so on.

Yup. It is.

Nope, it isn't (driver 4.13.01.3082). Haven't updated the driver for a while but if it can do this... or maybe my old GeForce256 does not support texture sharpening?

Forgive my lack of computer skills but just how (where) do you do these adjustments?

I have driver 41.09 for Nvidia.

On this driver, you go to:
Display Properties
Settings Tab
Advanced Button
"GeForce 4 Ti4200 with AGP 8X" Tab (Should be named after your Nvidia Card)
Preformance and Quality Selection Item

As a side note. In the past I have noted that the fish in MA look slightly better with AA on, but I never thought the performance hit was worth it, and the MA is completely believeble to my eye without it.

Texture sharpening seems to have no effect at all in MA2, at least on my PC.

I just turned on AA in MA2, and there was no fps drop at all with Vsync on... imagine that. That's definitely a new thing with MA2. In MA 1.1 it dropped off like a stone with AA on.

Mountainmaster,

Yep, thats the place, its in some of the later driver versions. I don't think you have that option in the drivers you listed. In addition, you may or may not be able to work with v-sync without enabling coolbits in different driver versions.

Hello all.

I'm wondering if my old Diamond Viper V550 (nVidia Riva TNT 16MB) has FSAA option.

I suppose i have to update my hardware very soon...

Thanks!.

Thanks Socrates, - Amazing!

I got the best results with:-

Performance ... Aggressive
Aantialiasing ... 4x ... (2x setting caused problems!)
Anisotropic ... Off
Texture Sharpening ... On ... (It didn't work at all without AA 'On')
Mimmap Detail Level ... Best image quality
Use up to 120 MB system memory
Texel Alignment ... Value: 0 - Center

I don't understand what is happening! :) ...... But it looks great! :TU: ...... Thanks a lot!

I am only getting 15 fps, - but it's wonderful! ..... The fish are beautiful!

The weak part is now the rock, - I didn't like the colour before, - but now it looks out of focus also!

My problems now are, - I had to load 41.09 drivers - (they cause Problems in Photoshop Elements!)
(The drivers I normally use, 31.40, don't have the 'Texture Sharpening' option!)
And I have to have an almost black background in GA, to cover up the 'banding' caused by AA!

Now if I can only solve this blacked out graph in Photoshop Elements, I'm on to a winner! .............

http://www.cjmaddy.co.uk/camera/fish/settings5.gif

GA Version N442.0.9.510 .....
CPU ........ AMD K6-2 500MHz 448RAM
Windows .... 98SE
Motherboard. TMC AI5VG+ 100Mz (VIA MVP3)
Video card . GeForce4 MX440 64mb AGP (Driver 4.13.01.3140) .... 41.09 on test!
Sound card . Sound Blaster AWE-32 (Driver 4.38.16)
DirectX .... Version 8.1b

I thought the newest driver available is 4.14.01.4345 for nVidia.

Socrates

Thanks for the help. I like, I like.

Edgar,

There are 43.45 drivers available, but the "Latest" isn't always the best. We try and run them for awhile and get results from other places before we recommend drivers. 41.09 has worked well for me and several others for some time, so those are the ones we recommend at this point.


Cliff,

Are you running at 16 bit or 32 bit? 32 might take care of the banding problem if you are in 16 bit. As far as the drivers go, I have used 41.09 in PS for some time now and never had any problems at all.


Sergales,

You can load the latest drivers and see what happens. nVidia drivers are unified and are supposed to work with all. You might not be able to take advantage of some options though, in that case the settings might be grayed out and unavailable.

Well forget about that. I installed the 43.45 drivers on top of 30.82 and after the reboot the 30.82 ones were still there. No sign of 43.45!
Now I know it is common practice to uninstall your old drivers first, but when the FAQ says you don't need to... :confused: So I uninstalled 30.82 going through the 640 x 480, reshuffled icons, Mondrian painted desktop routine :mad: and after that 43.45 installed fine. Next another hour of desktop redesign, reconfiguring the color correction, making blackice understand that the driver files are updated and not infected by a virus. :contract: Then applying coolbits to the registry to get advanced tweaking back and finally placing the checkmark for Texture Sharpening. On to GA, but oddly enough it suddenly runs in 1280 x 960 instead of the 1280 x 1024 that it was set to before :confused: The same with MA2 and MAT. I wonder if that's a bug. Well, back to GA at 1280 x 1024 and finding to my disappointment that it looks just slightly better with loss of 5 fps. :(
And now while checking some other screensavers I am running into a BSOD which I barely managed to escape for now. Signing off for a reboot, to be continued...

Sorry if caused anybody headaches with the question of new nVidia Drivers. I hope nobody else messed up by upgrading. So the lesson is, if current version works, keep it.

Michael,

Brilliant! - Changed to 32 bit. ...... banding, - gone! :):):) - Thanks !!!
This is getting better and better! - all we need now is s decent rock in the centre, and it will be almost perfect! :)


Edgar,

I'm still using the old steam driven Win98SE ! :) ....... The drivers are different!
I think the 43.xx's are for WinXP/2000 only. - 43.51 definitely are, - I've just tried them!


Mountainmaster,

Why not give 41.09 a try, ...... they seem to have been successful with a number of people!

I've changed nvdia driver forward, backward, and sideways more times than I can count.

The only problems I've ever had are with specific programs, not with the installation or removal of the drivers themselves.

In general I like to use the installer versions, but sometimes you have to use the old fashioned method of going into device manager and pointing to the exact driver you want installed.

MM, have you tried the 41.09 drivers?

It took a while to get back but not because of any problems. I was testing a few games and got a little carried away. :D Apart from 1 screensaver all seems to be fine. And for all I know it might as well have been the DirectX 9.0 upgrade I did some weeks ago that is causing it. I haven't used that screensaver, the Virtual Intelligence Matrix 4 - or any other saver than MA, MAT and GA for that matter - in a long time, so it is hard to tell.

Yes, maybe I should give the 41.09 drivers a try. But then again, the 3 aquariums are ok and it's just so much trouble. :drool:

Going backwards with drivers can create some problems, make sure that you get every bit of the latest ones you are running deleted or you will run into major headaches from all the problems. Its also generally a good idea to reinstall your DX version after changing drivers.

But not quite perfect. :)
I'm still working on getting rid of the jaggies on the plants which shift as they move, even after turning on texture sharpening - very distracting - but that aside, the only aspects I think need improvement in addition to the rock are the silver scales on Oreo and Ginger, which need to shimmer as the fish move (like the shimmering on Jim Sachs's Copperbanded Butterfly), and I think those back fins get shimmied a bit too often. Though not having kept exotic goldfish before (just the type you used to be able to get at fun fairs :o), I don't know if this is a feature of the species involved, so I won't complain too much about that.

Nice job, though.

I tried to upgrade to the latest n' greatest at home (previous comments was about the work system) from MSI supplied drivers. Me and the box are back to almost normal now, but it had me pulling my hair there for a while. I'm using two monitors – The main is a 19" Nokia run at 1600x1200@85Hz and the secondary is a 15" Hyundai at considerably lesser rez. Well, the new drivers decided that the Hyundai was the Nokia and tried running it at 1600x1200 (resulting in a black screen) and naturally the Nokia showed up at that 1152x8?? resolution the other one should've run at.

The nView settings were set so that new windows primarily should pop up on the bigger screen which now was black. This made it impossible for me to enter the Display properties to change the monitors back to the way they should be. Dang!

After fiddling for a while I realised I could just switch the two connectors at the back of the vid card and I was back on the road again. Somehow my little Hyundai didn't like being told to work at 1600x1200 and now it won't go higher than 800x600. :( Guess I need a replacement...

The GA looks great though ;)

Still Happy Turtle

Tiny, - Sorry to hear about your problems! ...... Rest assured your are not alone! :)

I think there must have been a jinx around last night! - I had been reading Mountainmasters problems, (BSOD etc) and had just posted my 're-install' report, - (saying everything now seemed fine!) ...... then WHAM!! .....

BSOD's, lock-up's, couldn't get into Windows, or anything! ........... By 2:15 am, after re-installing drivers, directX, etc. etc. etc! - and more re-boots than you would believe! ..... I finally, after 3 hours, got to bed! :asleep:

I really have my doubts about video drivers !!!!!! :hmad:

Thanks, 67. Being one hour after you would mean we managed to hit the sack just about the same time...

/Still Happy Turtle

The next version should tweak the AA correctly. Plus there will be some other things improved, and perhaps some new features.

This is why we are doing this beta, we are doing a lot of new things, and although they work perfectly on our machines, that is the great thing about Microsoft standards…there are so many to choose from.

That is the newest drivers and they support and are direct x9a compatible. I have been using those for about 3 months now and all my games and fishtanks look and work great. No problems here at all with 4345 and direct x 9a.

Thanks!

My opinion of the product changed from nay to yay the second I discovered the difference.

It is mesmerizingly realistic with the proper filtering on my card.

Question for all you hardware heavyweights!!!
I have an ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 w/64mb graphics card in a winbook J4 notebook. The ATI display control panel does have the anti-aliasing option...but no texture sharpening option that I can see. Is there a chance it might be called something else by ATI or am I just &%$ out of luck? Any suggestions?

Rob

I would say it depends on which card and drivers you have. Here is a sample of layout for a 9600 card. To me it would seem that the Texture Preference is there, but it might not be on yours.

I find with the antialiasing on The GA has the banding in the background and does not when it is off.

Great observation Socretes. It does look a lot better with Texture Sharpening and Anistropic Filtering enabled. I do wonder if you just started this thread just to use Movie Maker ...hehe

Anyway, I thought I would throw in my 2 coins worth. All tests ran at 1600x1200 with Vsync unclamped. Limit fps is unchecked. 5 fish enabled

Goldfish N422.0.9.510
47 fps
42 fps + Texture Sharpening
39 fps + AF 8x
37 fps + Texture Sharpening + AF 8x
23 fps + Texture Sharpening + AA 2x
23 fps + AA 2x

Findings: AA by itself looks just about the same as having AA, AF and Texture Sharpening off. Texture Sharpening all by itself looks the same as AF 8x all by itself. I never saw any kind of banding or lines on the background.

WindowsXP SP1
DX 8.1
512 PC2700
Asus A7V333
Athlon 2200+
Geforce 3 w/41.09
Santa Cruz Sound

loub516, - Try this:-

Quote from Michael, ..... see top of this page!

Thanks Cliff, that worked. I remember reading that now. Guess my memory isn't what it used to be.:)