16x Anistropic Filtering, will it ever go higher?

Discussion in 'Videocards - NVIDIA GeForce' started by jbscotchman, Dec 15, 2017.

  1. jbscotchman

    jbscotchman Guest

    Messages:
    5,871
    Likes Received:
    4,765
    GPU:
    MSI 1660 Ti Ventus
    Currently playing the Serious Sam Fusion beta and it is gorgeous, but in the many large and open areas there is a sever lack of AF. The textures are great, but it would be nice to see them at 32x level AF. If I'm missing something please let me know.
     
  2. -Tj-

    -Tj- Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    18,095
    Likes Received:
    2,601
    GPU:
    3080TI iChill Black
    Force driver AF instead, and disable it in-game?

    Maybe extra negative Lod on top of it, -0.375
     
  3. warlord

    warlord Guest

    Messages:
    2,760
    Likes Received:
    927
    GPU:
    Null
    Impossible. The amount of power needed for that in real 3D gaming scenarios would be enormous. And not needed detail. It's like asking why Antialiasing cannot go more than 128X.
     
  4. RealNC

    RealNC Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    4,894
    Likes Received:
    3,168
    GPU:
    RTX 4070 Ti Super
    [​IMG]
     
    Neo Cyrus and warlord like this.

  5. cryohellinc

    cryohellinc Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    3,535
    Likes Received:
    2,974
    GPU:
    RX 6750XT/ MAC M1
    Use sharpening on top of x16. You don't need more than that.
     
  6. JonasBeckman

    JonasBeckman Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    17,564
    Likes Received:
    2,961
    GPU:
    XFX 7900XTX M'310
    16x forced should be so far out that going higher shouldn't be needed (Even if it was possible which I don't think it is.) unless the game overrides the function. If it's done from the game it could also be that it only applies AF selectively compared to setting the driver to forcing it.

    I tend to keep it to 16x driver forced and then it can be disabled selective for certain games (Hello idTech5) if it causes problems, performance hit is pretty much minimal on any recent GPU though though if there are exceptions 8x also looks pretty good.
    This could also be due to specular aliasing, texture shimmering or tiling if the texture repeats which anisotropic filtering won't be too helpful with.
     
  7. tsunami231

    tsunami231 Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    14,702
    Likes Received:
    1,843
    GPU:
    EVGA 1070Ti Black
    not sure if it applies but imo alot games do AF terrible, Skyrim is one them, its 16x AF didnt even compare to 4x AF forced from drivers, there many other games like this too
     
    Agonist likes this.
  8. Agonist

    Agonist Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    4,283
    Likes Received:
    1,312
    GPU:
    XFX 7900xtx Black
    Its Warlord. Sadly, I swear he is serious.

    Driver force 4xAF is better then most games 16xAF like tsunami231 said.
     
    warlord likes this.
  9. adabiviak

    adabiviak Master Guru

    Messages:
    806
    Likes Received:
    37
    GPU:
    Gigabyte GTX 980Ti
    Maybe Serious Sam has larger open spaces with textures where you can see it, but I barely notice the difference past maybe 10. I usually put it at 16 because I don't notice a difference nor a performance hit. Can you post a picture of what you're seeing?
     
  10. Shadowdane

    Shadowdane Maha Guru

    Messages:
    1,464
    Likes Received:
    91
    GPU:
    Nvidia RTX 4080 FE
    Force AF in the driver and set it to High Quality mode.. some games use mixed AF or have it turned down on some surfaces.
    I've seen this a few times were setting 16x in the game compared to forcing 16x in the driver will yield different results.
     

  11. Apparatus

    Apparatus Master Guru

    Messages:
    429
    Likes Received:
    73
    GPU:
    3080 ti Vision OC
    Forcing 16AF in the driver has better results most of the times.
    But if you force it globally then it's better to turn off any AF in the in-game settings to prevent a potential conflict.
    So you have to try what is the best AF strategy for every single game.
    I fell that I 've had enough of this in my long gaming carrer.
    I don't also have the time anymore.
    That's why I set it to application controlled in the driver, enable it in the game menu, and don't care much.
     
  12. jbscotchman

    jbscotchman Guest

    Messages:
    5,871
    Likes Received:
    4,765
    GPU:
    MSI 1660 Ti Ventus
    I always keep AF 16x enabled in the Nvidia control panel. I just can't believe after years it hasn't gone up.
     
  13. IceVip

    IceVip Master Guru

    Messages:
    914
    Likes Received:
    224
    GPU:
    MSI 4090 Liquid X
    I actually wondered the same thing a while back, Difference in fps in most games between x8 and x16 is always in the 0.X % , so why not go x128
     
    jbscotchman likes this.
  14. __hollywood|meo

    __hollywood|meo Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    2,991
    Likes Received:
    139
    GPU:
    6700xt @2.7ghz
    anisotropic filtering scales any given texture based upon the oblique viewing angle, & thusly, the mipmaps distortion. think about it this way, OP: 16x filters angles twice as steep as 8x, which filters angles twice as steep as 4x, etc etc. how many steeply angled degrees for a texel are there?? the answer is veeeeery few, so unfortunately, higher levels of AF wont do much to improve perceptible image quality in theory

    yeah, sounds like an issue with the engines implementation of AF rather than the x16 filtering algorithm built into drivers. the only thing that will help is negative LOD bias, which will increase mipmap shimmering/oversharpening effect at long range to varying extent. make sure you have AF optimizations turned off in your driver control panel.

    no. it just increases bandwidth slightly.
     
    Susahamat likes this.
  15. Susahamat

    Susahamat Master Guru

    Messages:
    376
    Likes Received:
    208
    GPU:
    RTX 3060ti
    i dunno maybe higher than 16x cause heavy texture shimmering, just use sharpening reshade/sweetfx or in game if support
     

  16. Susahamat

    Susahamat Master Guru

    Messages:
    376
    Likes Received:
    208
    GPU:
    RTX 3060ti
    yup forcing 16x through driver helping poor quality AF for some games , like ac origins and witcher 3
     
  17. -Tj-

    -Tj- Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    18,095
    Likes Received:
    2,601
    GPU:
    3080TI iChill Black
    Yeah, I have a few games with poor AF
    -avp2010
    - ***** zombie army.
    ^ anything from this dev has "issues", sniper elite looks better with driver AF too..

    -gta5
    -crysis2
    -serious sam3
    -few u3e games
    -dead by daylight (u4e)
    -dying light
    - skyrim
    -rift
    -the division
    -RE6
    -bf3, 4
    -are a few that looked better with driver forced AF..

    About that shimmer and negative Lod, yes it use to be but lately not much, I only use negative Lod by few games with postAA, Dead by daylight has rather lower textures and this boosted it too. + Cfg.ini tweak to force higher downsample.
     
  18. Apparatus

    Apparatus Master Guru

    Messages:
    429
    Likes Received:
    73
    GPU:
    3080 ti Vision OC
    You guys who force AF in the driver,
    do you force it globally or per game basis ?
    Do you care of turning it off in the in-game settings to avoid potential conflicts, or you just force it on the driver and you are good to go ?
     
  19. -Tj-

    -Tj- Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    18,095
    Likes Received:
    2,601
    GPU:
    3080TI iChill Black
    I only in game profiles.

    Global is best left alone. Maybe just for Image quality, certain power settings, thats about it.
    I have nvinspector for profiling/backup so its not really a big deal, once its set its set and forget. :)

    And yes disable ingame AF if forced in driver. If a game doesn't have a AF option and still "uses" it, then like you said force in driver and nvm..
     
  20. Cyberdyne

    Cyberdyne Guest

    Messages:
    3,580
    Likes Received:
    307
    GPU:
    2080 Ti FTW3 Ultra
    Personally, I just enable 16x globally. If I were to have issues I would rather disable it per game rather than bother to enable it per game. But, I have not had issues doing this. I'll typically disable AF ingame as well, if I see the option to.
    Most games use a mixture of different AF levels depending on the specific texture. They use measures like, how far a specific texture will ever be used, or how small it is. But as other people pointed out, games seem to get too heavy handed a lot of the time and ruin the point of 16x AF. If I had a mid range or lower end GPU I would use the built in AF as a "why not". But I'll take whatever performance hit on an expensive GPU, it's worth it, and it's usually minimal.
     

Share This Page