Test 3 – Frames Per Second
The final test will consists of comparing and contrasting the average Frames Per Second of all possible Antialiasing and Anisotropic Filtering settings. To make a general comparison I have compiled a graph of the 3D Mark05 score of each AA and AF combination. This should give a pretty good idea of how the combinations compare to each other and help us pick which AA and AF settings are going to produce the best picture while maintaining optimal FPS.
You will notice a general trend of decreasing FPS while the AA and AF increase. This is because your graphics cards have to work harder to produce the crisper and sharper images. By working harder, the cards cannot continues to throw out as many FPS as they can when you lower the AA and AF settings.
Conclusions
Do you notice that AA SLI 8 and AA SLI 16 show around a 50% decrease in FPS than the rest of the AA settings? And do you remember that AA SLI 8 and AA SLI 16 rendered images which were visually the same as AA 8xS? I think this means we can forget about using either AA SLI 8 and AA SLI 16 because it shows no noticeable gain and sacrifices performance drastically.
Now, which Antialiasing and Anisotropic filtering settings will most efficiently render quality graphics while maintaining optimal frames per second? For me, I have reduced the selection from 35 possible combinations to 2 combinations. I feel that AA 4x paired with AF 16x or AA 8xS paired with AF 8x are the two optimal settings choices.
Antialiasing 4x + Anisotropic Filtering 16x
I selected AA 4x and AF 16x because the results from the previous experiments show us that AA 4x is the second-best Antialiasing setting in terms of being the least jagged. When paired with the most effective Anisotropic Filtering available, the image is rendered with outstanding quality. Additionally, the AA 4x and AF 16x combination returned a very good 3D Mark score in comparison to its competition. When testing AA 4x and AF 16x I noticed no jumpiness/lag, and only a few visibly blurred areas.
Antialiasing 8xS + Anisotropic Filtering 16x
I selected this option for those who don’t mind sacrificing a few FPS to get more eye candy and a more life-like rendering. From the first experiment, we proved that AA 8xS developed the most impressive Antialiased image; equal to that of SLI AA 8 and SLI AA 16. However, like I stated, there are some drops in FPS. I could not tell that the FPS had gone down, and for the most part none of my games turned out jumpy. Thus, making this a good choice for optimizing your SLI rig.
Now, It’s Time to GAME!
I had chosen to write about optimizing AA and AF on a SLI rig because I was having my own difficulties discovering which AA and AF settings would produce the best overall gaming experience I could get out of my dual 6800′s. As stated earlier through my interpretation of the multitude of AA and AF combinations, I feel that AA 4x & AF 16x or AA 8xS & AF 8x are the two optimal choices for you rendering with SLI. I encourage you to test out these settings on your SLI rig, and I hope you will be as pleased with the image quality as I am.
Thank you for your time, and please feel free to leave a comment or two,
Ryan Passey (ryan124712)
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