Vid card tweaks

[Spin]

What exactly does anti-aliasing and the AF settings do?? lol

they put a lot of load on the PC to make things "pretty." sure it lets you see further more clearly, but unless you're blind there's no *real* reason to have them all the way up =)

FSAA and FSAF smooth up the lines around everything. the 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, etc... think of it like a scope on a gun. the greater the "times" the futher you can see.

hope that helps,
blood

[Spin]

yeah, thanks dude, that helped clear it up a ton, lol...i read 2 diff explanations of stuff but it was all technical..i need some stuff dumbed down fer me lol

[SacredTbag]

AA (anti aliasing) is the smoothing out of the edges of 3d objects. all 3d objects are rendered in 90* angles, that's the "jaggies" that you see with AA turned off. what AA does is it "blends" the edges of the 3d object with the surrounding image behind it to give it a clearer appearance. the different level of AA applied depends on how much it tries to blend it. on older gpu's it can be extremely taxing, but most modern gpu's, say made in the past year and a half, can handle it without much of a problem, especially in a dual card setup. just don't try transparency AA on anything except a 8800 series card ><

AF (antistropic filtering) is what keeps textures looking clean the farther away they are from the view point. think of it this way. you're looking down a railroad track. in a game, if you set the AF down low, the cross ties would look muddy and mashed together the farther away they went. with higher level's of AF, they keep their clarity the farther they go.

that's a pretty dumbed down version of them, especially AF. but that's about what it is. the higher the setting, the more your card or system has to work to render it.

[Spin]

cool thanks...i turned my AA upon bf2 to the max X4, and it only raised the temp of the card like 1-2 degrees (prolly cuz of the slot fan i have runnin next to it lol). and it def looks better.

[SacredTbag]

well it really won't make much of a difference temperature wise, but you're most definitely getting lower framerates now. download FRAPS ( http://www.fraps.com/ ) and run it while you're playing your games. try different settings, and what what your frame rate does.

[Hermes]

how long does ur card normally take to cool down to average after a few hours of play? I've only been able to test mine to 1-1/2hrs a time

[Spin]

not very long, mines usually cooled off within 20-30 mins...i spose alot has to do with several variables like how hot is the room the puter is in, are you next to a heat vent, how well you have your case ventilated.

[SacredTbag]

there's no real answer to that one Hermes. if you're using standard air cooling with the stock heat sink, then it may take quite a while to completely cool down. a better cooler with good case airflow will decrease the time it takes, and will also lower the overall temp. with water cooling the temp will drop to idle almost immediately once the load is taken off the card.