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Forcing AA and AF Works! Make WAR use MORE of your GPU
donjn
Member UncommonPosts: 816
This mainly pertains to users of high end video cards (Nvidia 8800GT and above) with better than average systems..
Guys, I am one of those classic naysayers who mention the phrase "placebo effect" when people make illogical changes and then claim their game runs better. For years I have ripped posts about people magically making their game settings higher and getting better frame rates.. There were too many variables as simply rebooting can cause an increase in FPS etc.
Recently on Warhammer Alliance I saw a couple posts about how people have noticed that Warhammer only uses something like 30 to 35% of your video cards power.
Then I saw people mentioning that bumping up all their graphics options improved their frame rate.
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
-Arthur Conan Doyle, Sr. quotes (Scottish writer, creator of the detective Sherlock Holmes, 1859-1930)
Keeping this great quote in mind I tried it. This actually works. Fire up your CCC (Ati users) or Nvidia control panel and go nuts with forcing some settings. Force Billinear Mipmaps, force 4xAA and 8xAF. Turn off a couple optimizations, etc.
Start the game up. You will not only be amazed at how smooth the game is but the graphics will look great. Your overall FPS will improve and most importantly, it will not go from super high to super low as bad. A nice, consistent framerate.
My theory is that this "unleashes" your video cards power and forces it's usage way above 35%. This also explains why people with low end computers run the game pretty good. Warhammer seems to be dynamic, and uses GPU on the fly based on need. If this is true, it is quite an interesting game engine..
Try it!
Comments
can you post some screenies showing the differences? i never really saw the difference at my resolution with AA and AF on (i play 1680x1050)
I have an ati 4850 and am forcing AA and AF. I will try what you recommend and bump everything. the game already looks good, except I'm not a big fan of the distance fog. But I will give your suggestion a try and keep my fingers crossed.
Also ATI came out with new drivers very recently so don't forget to upgrade if you haven't already. Take care
Perhaps tonight when I get home. But do you want the screenshots to show graphical improvement or a FRAPS reading?
What I am talking about is mostly the "smoothness" of the framerate. You need to walk around to see that..
Did they fix the issue with 8800 and only seeing 256mb of Video memory on 512 cards?
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How are you?" -Me
so wait...adding AA and AF actually increeases your smoothness of the gameplay? That is very odd.
Believe me, it hurts to say it, but yes, it does..
This may not work for everyone, but the game will run smoother..
This sounds crazy, maybe it will work lol, will have to try it when I get home.
I don't have a "kick ass" system, but in no way should it be stuttering as bad as it is.
Ati radeon 3870 HD
4 gigs ram
Phenom proc ( saved me 200$ and runs about 5% slower than my friends intel quad, so good buy imo)
I really don't get it, all my benchmarks are pretty damn good, running right up there with the best. I have tried everything, even a fresh windows install, old and new drivers, updated all drivers, turned off certain programs... even virus protection. Still stutters hard in populated areas and after an hour or so of play, just dies down to 10 FPS or lower until I relog.
I will let you guys know how it worked when I get home from work
.
This is a trick that was discovered in beta and makes no sense to me. The same thing happens/happened in Vanguard.
It might be prudent to add that disabling grass can significantly improve performance as well.
i tried the AA/AF forcing ... wow...graphics look...nice! was pleasently shocked. I would post some screenies, but i am at work atm and will do so tonight. As for performance, it did clear up a little hitching, i still get some when crossing over server boundaries, but i never really had a problem with performance in this game.
The graphics sure did improve though.
I have an ati 4850 as I mentioned above in this post, and for some reason the game is only utilizing about 27 % of my gpu according to my ati control center software. If this is indeed true I would think that unlocking the other 73% of my gpu's power would significantly boost performance.
That being said, I have been forcing AA and AF and it does make the game look much better without taking a hit to performance.
Nothing strange about that really... It's the AF that makes it run smoother. Myhtic overtiled the terrains, 4 256x256 textures actually do run slower than 1 512x512 (if they are the same of course). Usually when terrains are overtiled, and you look into the distance, you just see a bunch of pixels (each pixel being one of the details on the map, heh). And AF just filters those pixels, making it look smoother, which increases performance. I won't get technical about it, barely understand how AF works myself, but overtiling is a serious problem. The worst part is, Mythic probably thought smaller textures on the terrain will increase the performance, but it didn't.
On a side note, if the textures were bigger, and they got bigger than the plygons of the terrain, performance would be even worse. For some reason stretching textures goes better than squeezing them....
You know it, the best way to realize your dreams is waking up and start moving, never lose hope and always keep up.
I know the game has some type of automatic throttling enabled to adjust graphics settings based on what is going on in the game. This is to help crowded areas without having the user manually adjust things.
Forcing the card to run at Max might be removing the throttling and might actually be improving performance for those with good systems... instead of swapping back and forth because it thinks things will become too tough for the hardware to handle.
Hrm... still doesn't sound like i'm saying it right, but I have noticed the terrain change alot when I spin around quickly or hit large crowded areas.
I'll bet my lag, whenever I get it... it is not very common, isn't from my system but from this throttling that is going on.
I'll try it when I get home.
ooh did they? Thanks for the heads-upTerranah. I'll go check.
I've been forcing 4x AA and 16x AF in my drivers from day one. It makes the game look SO much better at 1680x1050.
So I have an nVIDIA graphics card.. how would someone that doesn't know what you are talking about do this? I'd like to try it
Tried forcing AA and AF in CCC and didn't notice a difference. I still have jaggies, I must not be doing something right. I got it set up so its not using the application settings, is there something else that im forgetting to do? Any help would be awesome.
Well, AF beats some cards to death.
It's likely that older cards don't have what it takes... The 4XXX series got a lot of AA/AF enhancements, cards previous to those might suffer... They might suffer more than what AF actually gives in return.
You know it, the best way to realize your dreams is waking up and start moving, never lose hope and always keep up.
Well, AF beats some cards to death.
It's likely that older cards don't have what it takes... The 4XXX series got a lot of AA/AF enhancements, cards previous to those might suffer... They might suffer more than what AF actually gives in return.
I have a 4850 , so I should have no problem on that part. I just think im forgeting to do something. Im not seeing a change in framerate, or anything at all.
I have a 4850 , so I should have no problem on that part. I just think im forgeting to do something. Im not seeing a change in framerate, or anything at all.
Ain't that much you can forget really... How much are the AA and AF on?
You know it, the best way to realize your dreams is waking up and start moving, never lose hope and always keep up.
Thanks !! That work great looks much better and runs smoother ; why are these option not in the game client?
I have a 4850 , so I should have no problem on that part. I just think im forgeting to do something. Im not seeing a change in framerate, or anything at all.
Ain't that much you can forget really... How much are the AA and AF on?
I have AF x16 and ive messed with AA from x4 to x8 with edge detect filter and still see no difference in the game. I read that on other forums that you cant force those two with ATI cards for some reason. Im not the only person having this problem I guess.
You should have a control panel that comes with the drivers and software you installed with the card. Open the panel and go to 3D settings. You will see Antialiasing and Anisotropic Filtering settings. A lot of the time these are defaulted to application controlled, which means the game will set them based on the in-game video settings. You can force them by switching from application controlled to the settings you want which will make your card keep those settings when the game loads.
First one is with no forced AA or AF
Second one AFx16 AAx24 which is x8 with edge detect filter on.
I just can't see any difference. I most certaintly shoudln't see those jaggies on highest AA. My framerate stays the same. Well, I guess ill just have to wait till they put those settings in game so I can use them.
How do you see your FPS in Warhammer?
there is no in game FPS meter...i use fraps just to see how i am doing, though fraps itself sucks and is a bit of a hog. I am sure there are other progs that will tell you this information though