Next, I will test the differences between the levels of Anisotropic Filtering, which can be enabled on your SLI rig. I will be testing with Guild Wars and the Antialiasing will be permanently set at AA 4x throughout the test. If you remember from the earlier trials with Battle Field 2, AA 4x produced a substantial amount of blur, specifically in the areas that were Antialiased – this is true for Guild Wars too. Hopefully we will be able to visualize the difference in quality of the rendered images through Anisotropic Filtering.
Trial 1: AF Off
With Anisotropic Filtering off on Guild Wars you can easily pick out the blurred and rough looking patches. Pay close attention to the branches of the trees – the tree it self looks pretty decent, but the branches are nothing more than blurry lines. Lets see how this is cleaned up by altering the AF level.
Trial 2: AF 2x
At a glance, AF 2x does not look any better than rendering without AF. Yet, you can notice improvements in certain areas such as the tips of the branches and the edges of the branches. However, this slight improvement is more or less unnoticeable while playing; it wasn’t till I browsed and scrutinized the screens shots that I could tell AF 2x yielded the minute improvement over AF off.
Trial 3: AF 4x
Finally, the structure and colors of the branches are becoming visible. Within seconds it is obvious that AF 4x cleans the blurred areas much better than the prior two trials. The distinct color changes and transitions between colors also appear to be crisper.
Trial 4: AF 8x
Again, the precision of the edges increases and there is little to no visible blur. Additionally, in the areas where the sunlight is reflected are realistic, displaying real world features such as glare, bright areas, and contrasts. Visually, AF 8x develops a very photo-realistic quality image.
Trial 5: AF 16x
This image appears identical to AF 8x. Even when zooming into the screen shot I could not find a difference between AF 16x and AF 8x. There are no visual gains due to rendering with this Anisotropic Filtering setting, making this an impractical choice.
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