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Antialiasing - SW or HW?

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Tom Orle

Usenet Poster
xspam.torle@comcast.net
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 1:45 PM

Post #1 of 24 (53 views)
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Antialiasing - SW or HW? Not logged in -   Reply 
Hi folks,

I know this topic has been discussed before. But now with more
powerful CPU's and GPU's available the situation may have changed from
the past where it was often recommended that the SW should handle it..

Anyway - I finished assembling my new PC with a E6850 CPU, presently
at 3.0 Ghz (to be overclocke to whatever it can take later) and an ATI
Radeon 2900 XT video card on a Gigabyte DS4 MB with 2G of memory. Both
are supposed to be powerful performers.
Hopefully this will eventually become my FSX box. Now I'm running FS9
on it.

That old question now raises its head again - should I allow FS to
handle antialiasing thereby tying up the CPU for that task or should I
let the video card handle it, freeing up the CPU (mind you, the CPU
has enough power to take care of it, but still why not let the GPU,
which cost me more than the CPU, do some of the work also Wink )

The same reasoning applies to all the other options like bi or
tri-linear filtering as well.

My basic testing showed no real difference in the fps readings between
the 2 options. But the testing so far was very limited as I'm still in
the setup phase of the new PC. Is there anything in particular I
should focus on?

Any thoughts on this subject would be welcome.

I still have to decide whether to RAID or not - the consensus seems to
be that RAID 0 increases performance only for large files and may
actually hinder the performance on small files because of the overhead
required to stitch all the file fragments from the multiple disks
together.

Thanks,

-=tom=-



"Vic Baron"

Usenet Poster
vgbaron@hotmail.com
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 2:13 PM

Post #2 of 24 (53 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to Tom Orle] Not logged in -   Reply 
 
"Tom Orle" <xspam.torle@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:vet8k3df28ejjab0v61p6hd1t98q8tj51r@4ax.com...
> Hi folks,
>
> I know this topic has been discussed before. But now with more
> powerful CPU's and GPU's available the situation may have changed from
> the past where it was often recommended that the SW should handle it..
>
> Anyway - I finished assembling my new PC with a E6850 CPU, presently
> at 3.0 Ghz (to be overclocke to whatever it can take later) and an ATI
> Radeon 2900 XT video card on a Gigabyte DS4 MB with 2G of memory. Both
> are supposed to be powerful performers.
> Hopefully this will eventually become my FSX box. Now I'm running FS9
> on it.
>
> That old question now raises its head again - should I allow FS to
> handle antialiasing thereby tying up the CPU for that task or should I
> let the video card handle it, freeing up the CPU (mind you, the CPU
> has enough power to take care of it, but still why not let the GPU,
> which cost me more than the CPU, do some of the work also Wink )
>
> The same reasoning applies to all the other options like bi or
> tri-linear filtering as well.
>
> My basic testing showed no real difference in the fps readings between
> the 2 options. But the testing so far was very limited as I'm still in
> the setup phase of the new PC. Is there anything in particular I
> should focus on?
>
> Any thoughts on this subject would be welcome.
>
> I still have to decide whether to RAID or not - the consensus seems to
> be that RAID 0 increases performance only for large files and may
> actually hinder the performance on small files because of the overhead
> required to stitch all the file fragments from the multiple disks
> together.

I've been playing with two raptors in a RAID0 and IMHO it hasn't improved
anything over a single raptor. However, it doesn't seem to have hurt
anything either. When I decide to put Vista back on this system, I'll split
the RAID so I can run FSX under either XP or Vista.

I agree with your logic re CPU time devoted to AA. With one exception years
ago, I've always had NVIDIA cards and have always let the GPU do the work.

I really think it's dealer's choice. I've not seen hard evidence to support
either option. MS Flight sim's run differently on different systems.

Good luck,

Vic




"Don Burnette"

Usenet Poster
d.burnette@clothes.comcast.net
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 2:19 PM

Post #3 of 24 (53 views)
Shortcut  

Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to Tom Orle] Not logged in -   Reply 
 


"Tom Orle" <xspam.torle@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:vet8k3df28ejjab0v61p6hd1t98q8tj51r@4ax.com...
> Hi folks,
>
> I know this topic has been discussed before. But now with more
> powerful CPU's and GPU's available the situation may have changed from
> the past where it was often recommended that the SW should handle it..
>
> Anyway - I finished assembling my new PC with a E6850 CPU, presently
> at 3.0 Ghz (to be overclocke to whatever it can take later) and an ATI
> Radeon 2900 XT video card on a Gigabyte DS4 MB with 2G of memory. Both
> are supposed to be powerful performers.
> Hopefully this will eventually become my FSX box. Now I'm running FS9
> on it.
>
> That old question now raises its head again - should I allow FS to
> handle antialiasing thereby tying up the CPU for that task or should I
> let the video card handle it, freeing up the CPU (mind you, the CPU
> has enough power to take care of it, but still why not let the GPU,
> which cost me more than the CPU, do some of the work also Wink )
>
> The same reasoning applies to all the other options like bi or
> tri-linear filtering as well.
>
> My basic testing showed no real difference in the fps readings between
> the 2 options. But the testing so far was very limited as I'm still in
> the setup phase of the new PC. Is there anything in particular I
> should focus on?
>
> Any thoughts on this subject would be welcome.
>
> I still have to decide whether to RAID or not - the consensus seems to
> be that RAID 0 increases performance only for large files and may
> actually hinder the performance on small files because of the overhead
> required to stitch all the file fragments from the multiple disks
> together.


Back when I had my ATI card, I got better performance, turning aa off in the
sim, and running aa on the card's drivers. You might try experimenting
between both, you will probably find the same results I did.
For whatever reason, I can't seem to achieve this with my Nvidia 8800 GTS,
so I just run it on in the sim.

For myself, I have never been attracted to setting up a raid array., I like
to keep things simple as I can in that regard.



--
Don






"pb"

Usenet Poster
arrob747@hotmail.com
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 4:02 PM

Post #4 of 24 (52 views)
Shortcut  

Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to "Vic Baron"] Not logged in -   Reply 
 
"Vic Baron" <vgbaron@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Gr%0j.11844$yV6.8794@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net...
>
> "Tom Orle" <xspam.torle@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:vet8k3df28ejjab0v61p6hd1t98q8tj51r@4ax.com...
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> I know this topic has been discussed before. But now with more
>> powerful CPU's and GPU's available the situation may have changed from
>> the past where it was often recommended that the SW should handle it..
>>
>> Anyway - I finished assembling my new PC with a E6850 CPU, presently
>> at 3.0 Ghz (to be overclocke to whatever it can take later) and an ATI
>> Radeon 2900 XT video card on a Gigabyte DS4 MB with 2G of memory. Both
>> are supposed to be powerful performers.
>> Hopefully this will eventually become my FSX box. Now I'm running FS9
>> on it.
>>
>> That old question now raises its head again - should I allow FS to
>> handle antialiasing thereby tying up the CPU for that task or should I
>> let the video card handle it, freeing up the CPU (mind you, the CPU
>> has enough power to take care of it, but still why not let the GPU,
>> which cost me more than the CPU, do some of the work also Wink )
>>
>> The same reasoning applies to all the other options like bi or
>> tri-linear filtering as well.
>>
>> My basic testing showed no real difference in the fps readings between
>> the 2 options. But the testing so far was very limited as I'm still in
>> the setup phase of the new PC. Is there anything in particular I
>> should focus on?
>>
>> Any thoughts on this subject would be welcome.
>>
>> I still have to decide whether to RAID or not - the consensus seems to
>> be that RAID 0 increases performance only for large files and may
>> actually hinder the performance on small files because of the overhead
>> required to stitch all the file fragments from the multiple disks
>> together.
>
> I've been playing with two raptors in a RAID0 and IMHO it hasn't improved
> anything over a single raptor. However, it doesn't seem to have hurt
> anything either. When I decide to put Vista back on this system, I'll
> split the RAID so I can run FSX under either XP or Vista.

Hoi Vic.

Do you use the raidcontroller for two disks and how big are the disks?
I have such a raidcontroller on my mainbord and want to learn to use it.

pieter




"Vic Baron"

Usenet Poster
vgbaron@hotmail.com
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 4:12 PM

Post #5 of 24 (52 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to "pb"] Not logged in -   Reply 
 
"pb" <arrob747@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:z111j.11426$Hv4.183@amstwist00...
>
> "Vic Baron" <vgbaron@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:Gr%0j.11844$yV6.8794@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net...
>>
>> "Tom Orle" <xspam.torle@comcast.net> wrote in message
>> news:vet8k3df28ejjab0v61p6hd1t98q8tj51r@4ax.com...
>>> Hi folks,
>>>
>>> I know this topic has been discussed before. But now with more
>>> powerful CPU's and GPU's available the situation may have changed from
>>> the past where it was often recommended that the SW should handle it..
>>>
>>> Anyway - I finished assembling my new PC with a E6850 CPU, presently
>>> at 3.0 Ghz (to be overclocke to whatever it can take later) and an ATI
>>> Radeon 2900 XT video card on a Gigabyte DS4 MB with 2G of memory. Both
>>> are supposed to be powerful performers.
>>> Hopefully this will eventually become my FSX box. Now I'm running FS9
>>> on it.
>>>
>>> That old question now raises its head again - should I allow FS to
>>> handle antialiasing thereby tying up the CPU for that task or should I
>>> let the video card handle it, freeing up the CPU (mind you, the CPU
>>> has enough power to take care of it, but still why not let the GPU,
>>> which cost me more than the CPU, do some of the work also Wink )
>>>
>>> The same reasoning applies to all the other options like bi or
>>> tri-linear filtering as well.
>>>
>>> My basic testing showed no real difference in the fps readings between
>>> the 2 options. But the testing so far was very limited as I'm still in
>>> the setup phase of the new PC. Is there anything in particular I
>>> should focus on?
>>>
>>> Any thoughts on this subject would be welcome.
>>>
>>> I still have to decide whether to RAID or not - the consensus seems to
>>> be that RAID 0 increases performance only for large files and may
>>> actually hinder the performance on small files because of the overhead
>>> required to stitch all the file fragments from the multiple disks
>>> together.
>>
>> I've been playing with two raptors in a RAID0 and IMHO it hasn't improved
>> anything over a single raptor. However, it doesn't seem to have hurt
>> anything either. When I decide to put Vista back on this system, I'll
>> split the RAID so I can run FSX under either XP or Vista.
>
> Hoi Vic.
>
> Do you use the raidcontroller for two disks and how big are the disks?
> I have such a raidcontroller on my mainbord and want to learn to use it.
>
> pieter
>

Yes, Pieter - I have an NVIDIA 680i with built in raid controller. I have
two 74G WD Raptor drives in a RAID 0 configuration which gives mea single
138G volume.

Vic




"pb"

Usenet Poster
arrob747@hotmail.com
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 4:19 PM

Post #6 of 24 (52 views)
Shortcut  

Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to "Vic Baron"] Not logged in -   Reply 
> Yes, Pieter - I have an NVIDIA 680i with built in raid controller. I have
> two 74G WD Raptor drives in a RAID 0 configuration which gives mea single
> 138G volume.
>
> Vic
If I understand you well then I need two disks of the same size connected
to the raidcontroller on my mainboard.
Do I have to do a setup in the bios after connecting the disks?
And what would be the benefit related to the speed of the sim?

pieter




"Vic Baron"

Usenet Poster
vgbaron@hotmail.com
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 5:20 PM

Post #7 of 24 (52 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to "pb"] Not logged in -   Reply 
 
"pb" <arrob747@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:kh11j.11430$Hv4.2440@amstwist00...
>> Yes, Pieter - I have an NVIDIA 680i with built in raid controller. I have
>> two 74G WD Raptor drives in a RAID 0 configuration which gives mea single
>> 138G volume.
>>
>> Vic
> If I understand you well then I need two disks of the same size connected
> to the raidcontroller on my mainboard.
> Do I have to do a setup in the bios after connecting the disks?
> And what would be the benefit related to the speed of the sim?
>
> pieter
>
>

Yes, you have to enable the RAID in the BIOS - you will then get a dialog to
configure the RAID strip size etc. In order to do a RAID 0 you need two
drive of the same size, however, I believe that if they don't match you can
still set it up but the combined size will be no more than twice the size of
the smallest drive.

Simply,In a normal situation you'll get increased read/write speed from a
RAID 0 array when using large blocks of data. Since FSX and flight sims in
general use lots of small files, there really shouldn't be any benefit. I
tried it both ways and in casual testing I didn't notice any increase. I
left my system in the RAID array because it was the last on I tried and it
worked fine. When I reinstall Vista I'll break the array and have a
separate copy of FSX on each drive.

HTH,

Vic




"Ian D"

Usenet Poster
taurus@nowhere.com
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 5:20 PM

Post #8 of 24 (52 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to Tom Orle] Not logged in -   Reply 
 
"Tom Orle" <xspam.torle@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:vet8k3df28ejjab0v61p6hd1t98q8tj51r@4ax.com...
> Hi folks,
>
> I know this topic has been discussed before. But now with more
> powerful CPU's and GPU's available the situation may have changed from
> the past where it was often recommended that the SW should handle it..
>
> Anyway - I finished assembling my new PC with a E6850 CPU, presently
> at 3.0 Ghz (to be overclocke to whatever it can take later) and an ATI
> Radeon 2900 XT video card on a Gigabyte DS4 MB with 2G of memory. Both
> are supposed to be powerful performers.
> Hopefully this will eventually become my FSX box. Now I'm running FS9
> on it.
>
> That old question now raises its head again - should I allow FS to
> handle antialiasing thereby tying up the CPU for that task or should I
> let the video card handle it, freeing up the CPU (mind you, the CPU
> has enough power to take care of it, but still why not let the GPU,
> which cost me more than the CPU, do some of the work also Wink )
>
> The same reasoning applies to all the other options like bi or
> tri-linear filtering as well.
>
> My basic testing showed no real difference in the fps readings between
> the 2 options. But the testing so far was very limited as I'm still in
> the setup phase of the new PC. Is there anything in particular I
> should focus on?
>
> Any thoughts on this subject would be welcome.
>
> I still have to decide whether to RAID or not - the consensus seems to
> be that RAID 0 increases performance only for large files and may
> actually hinder the performance on small files because of the overhead
> required to stitch all the file fragments from the multiple disks
> together.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -=tom=-

I have an nVidia 7950GT. With AA set on the card only, AA works
in full screen mode only. If I set it both on the card and in FSX it
works in full screen and windowed modes. No FPS hit in either case.




"pb"

Usenet Poster
arrob747@hotmail.com
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 5:36 PM

Post #9 of 24 (52 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to "Vic Baron"] Not logged in -   Reply 
 
"Vic Baron" <vgbaron@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:oa21j.62213$RX.13390@newssvr11.news.prodigy.net...
>
> "pb" <arrob747@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:kh11j.11430$Hv4.2440@amstwist00...
>>> Yes, Pieter - I have an NVIDIA 680i with built in raid controller. I
>>> have two 74G WD Raptor drives in a RAID 0 configuration which gives mea
>>> single 138G volume.
>>>
>>> Vic
>> If I understand you well then I need two disks of the same size connected
>> to the raidcontroller on my mainboard.
>> Do I have to do a setup in the bios after connecting the disks?
>> And what would be the benefit related to the speed of the sim?
>>
>> pieter
>>
>>
>
> Yes, you have to enable the RAID in the BIOS - you will then get a dialog
> to configure the RAID strip size etc. In order to do a RAID 0 you need two
> drive of the same size, however, I believe that if they don't match you
> can still set it up but the combined size will be no more than twice the
> size of the smallest drive.
>
> Simply,In a normal situation you'll get increased read/write speed from a
> RAID 0 array when using large blocks of data. Since FSX and flight sims in
> general use lots of small files, there really shouldn't be any benefit. I
> tried it both ways and in casual testing I didn't notice any increase. I
> left my system in the RAID array because it was the last on I tried and it
> worked fine. When I reinstall Vista I'll break the array and have a
> separate copy of FSX on each drive.
>
> HTH,
>
> Vic
thanks for your answer Vic.
I have two disks and I will give it a try in he next weeks.
Let you know...

pieter




"Don Burnette"

Usenet Poster
d.burnette@clothes.comcast.net
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 5:55 PM

Post #10 of 24 (52 views)
Shortcut  

Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to "Ian D"] Not logged in -   Reply 
 




"Ian D" <taurus@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:GcadnS6pi_iLMtnanZ2dnUVZ_vOlnZ2d@giganews.com...
>
> "Tom Orle" <xspam.torle@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:vet8k3df28ejjab0v61p6hd1t98q8tj51r@4ax.com...
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> I know this topic has been discussed before. But now with more
>> powerful CPU's and GPU's available the situation may have changed from
>> the past where it was often recommended that the SW should handle it..
>>
>> Anyway - I finished assembling my new PC with a E6850 CPU, presently
>> at 3.0 Ghz (to be overclocke to whatever it can take later) and an ATI
>> Radeon 2900 XT video card on a Gigabyte DS4 MB with 2G of memory. Both
>> are supposed to be powerful performers.
>> Hopefully this will eventually become my FSX box. Now I'm running FS9
>> on it.
>>
>> That old question now raises its head again - should I allow FS to
>> handle antialiasing thereby tying up the CPU for that task or should I
>> let the video card handle it, freeing up the CPU (mind you, the CPU
>> has enough power to take care of it, but still why not let the GPU,
>> which cost me more than the CPU, do some of the work also Wink )
>>
>> The same reasoning applies to all the other options like bi or
>> tri-linear filtering as well.
>>
>> My basic testing showed no real difference in the fps readings between
>> the 2 options. But the testing so far was very limited as I'm still in
>> the setup phase of the new PC. Is there anything in particular I
>> should focus on?
>>
>> Any thoughts on this subject would be welcome.
>>
>> I still have to decide whether to RAID or not - the consensus seems to
>> be that RAID 0 increases performance only for large files and may
>> actually hinder the performance on small files because of the overhead
>> required to stitch all the file fragments from the multiple disks
>> together.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> -=tom=-
>
> I have an nVidia 7950GT. With AA set on the card only, AA works
> in full screen mode only. If I set it both on the card and in FSX it
> works in full screen and windowed modes. No FPS hit in either case.

I can't get mine to work that way, with my 8800 GTS, if I set to overide the
application settings, turn off in the sim, my pop up menus get hidden behind
the 3d screen.
I run it in full screen, virtual cockpit. I have to set it, to application
controlled, and set aa on in FSX.



--
Don









"Ibby (The Artist Formerly Known as Chris)"

Usenet Poster
cjibbotson@tiscali.co.uk
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 6:13 PM

Post #11 of 24 (52 views)
Shortcut  

Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to Tom Orle] Not logged in -   Reply 
 
>
> I still have to decide whether to RAID or not - the consensus seems to
> be that RAID 0 increases performance only for large files and may
> actually hinder the performance on small files because of the overhead
> required to stitch all the file fragments from the multiple disks
> together.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -=tom=-


I have found on my system RAID seems to run slower especially in
Vista. Having done a lot of benchmarks on my system whilst
overclocking and originally running 2x500GB Satas in RAID0 I added
another to the RAID. f course I had to reformat and reinstall the OS
but I couldnt believe it when PC Mark05 gave me a smaller score than
using the two drives. Perhaps there is better software to test but
the free versions does carry out hard disk performance tests so I
thought it was a usefull tool in rating the performance difference
betwen the setups.

As for AA under any of my FS9 installations and various NVidia cards I
have had to turn iton in the sim for it to work at all.

Ibby





"Ibby (The Artist Formerly Known as Chris)"

Usenet Poster
cjibbotson@tiscali.co.uk
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 6:15 PM

Post #12 of 24 (52 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to "Vic Baron"] Not logged in -   Reply 
I wonder does a dedicated addon RAID controller perform better than
software controllers which I presume are what you get if built onto
the board?

Ibby




"Ibby (The Artist Formerly Known as Chris)"

Usenet Poster
cjibbotson@tiscali.co.uk
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 6:22 PM

Post #13 of 24 (52 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to "Vic Baron"] Not logged in -   Reply 
 
>
> thanks for your answer Vic.
> I have two disks and I will give it a try in he next weeks.
> Let you know...
>
> pieter- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

You will have to reinstall your OS after creating the array.
If using XP you will need RAID driver disks from your motherboard
manuafactures website. After enabling RAID Controller in BIOS and
enabling the two individual drives you should get a message just after
the pc POSTs saying to press a key combination to enter the RAID
setup. Here you can choose Stripped Array (RAID0) or other versions
like RAID1 (Mirrored I think). When created your drives will
effectively be wiped clean. Booting from the Windows cd you will see
option to Press F6 to load Raid Drivers which you will need to do.
After these are loaded you will get the option to install to your new
Raid Hard drive. If using Vista you still follow the first steps for
creating the array but when but you can continue the installation
without Raid drivers and install these later once everything is setup.

Ibby



"Ibby (The Artist Formerly Known as Chris)"

Usenet Poster
cjibbotson@tiscali.co.uk
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 6:26 PM

Post #14 of 24 (52 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to "Vic Baron"] Not logged in -   Reply 
 

I forgot to say if you have it all setup and ever need to reset your
BIOS to default settings remember to enable the RAID controller and
relevant drives again (no need to enter the RAID setup beyond this)
otherwise Windows will fail to boot as I found out once and paniced
until I realised what needed done. Its an easy fix but can scare you
at first.

Ibby



Chris Thomas

Usenet Poster
cthomas@mminternet.com
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 6:37 PM

Post #15 of 24 (52 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to "Ibby (The Artist Formerly Known as Chris)"] Not logged in -   Reply 
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:15:30 -0800 (PST), "Ibby (The Artist Formerly
Known as Chris)" <cjibbotson@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

>I wonder does a dedicated addon RAID controller perform better than
>software controllers which I presume are what you get if built onto
>the board?

One would expect this to be the case. but I do a lot of RAID
benchmarking for work, and I've been burned so many times by false
vendor claims I no longer believe anything but: build it, try it, draw
conclusions when dealing with RAID.

I've even seen hw RAID controllers that are sensitive to the data on
the disk! On UNIX (my usual environment), one commonly formats disks
with blocks of zeros for testing (beause it's one cmd). I did this
and ran a whole series of benchmarks with good results. We then put
the array into production and got horrible results. Did a lot more
testing because we couldn't believe the results, and decided the RAID
card was just a lot slower when handling real data than when handling
files of all zeros. Talked multiple times to the vendor and never got
anything approaching an explanation, just "Try this new microcode".
Eventually crossed them off our approved vendor list.

/Chris T



"pb"

Usenet Poster
arrob747@hotmail.com
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 6:55 PM

Post #16 of 24 (52 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to "Ibby (The Artist Formerly Known as Chris)"] Not logged in -   Reply 
 
"Ibby (The Artist Formerly Known as Chris)" <cjibbotson@tiscali.co.uk> wrote
in message
news:fefca6ed-b4dd-44df-ba79-16b34a5021b6@v4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>
>
> I forgot to say if you have it all setup and ever need to reset your
> BIOS to default settings remember to enable the RAID controller and
> relevant drives again (no need to enter the RAID setup beyond this)
> otherwise Windows will fail to boot as I found out once and paniced
> until I realised what needed done. Its an easy fix but can scare you
> at first.
>
> Ibby

Hello Ibby,

I saved the answers on this thread on my computer so I can use that
in coming weeks.
Thanks a lot for the answers also to Vic.

pieter




"pb"

Usenet Poster
arrob747@hotmail.com
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 6:57 PM

Post #17 of 24 (52 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to Chris Thomas] Not logged in -   Reply 
 
"Chris Thomas" <cthomas@mminternet.com> wrote in message
news:4pf9k31b0vjgtq16g8kj8ju6j8rl8r5mi6@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:15:30 -0800 (PST), "Ibby (The Artist Formerly
> Known as Chris)" <cjibbotson@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>I wonder does a dedicated addon RAID controller perform better than
>>software controllers which I presume are what you get if built onto
>>the board?
>
> One would expect this to be the case. but I do a lot of RAID
> benchmarking for work, and I've been burned so many times by false
> vendor claims I no longer believe anything but: build it, try it, draw
> conclusions when dealing with RAID.
>
> I've even seen hw RAID controllers that are sensitive to the data on
> the disk! On UNIX (my usual environment), one commonly formats disks
> with blocks of zeros for testing (beause it's one cmd). I did this
> and ran a whole series of benchmarks with good results. We then put
> the array into production and got horrible results. Did a lot more
> testing because we couldn't believe the results, and decided the RAID
> card was just a lot slower when handling real data than when handling
> files of all zeros. Talked multiple times to the vendor and never got
> anything approaching an explanation, just "Try this new microcode".
> Eventually crossed them off our approved vendor list.
>
> /Chris T

thanks Chris

pieter




Mxsmanic

Usenet Poster
mxsmanic@gmail.com
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 7:03 PM

Post #18 of 24 (52 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to Tom Orle] Not logged in -   Reply 
Tom Orle writes:

> That old question now raises its head again - should I allow FS to
> handle antialiasing thereby tying up the CPU for that task or should I
> let the video card handle it, freeing up the CPU (mind you, the CPU
> has enough power to take care of it, but still why not let the GPU,
> which cost me more than the CPU, do some of the work also Wink )

FS never handles antialiasing; it just turns it on or off in the hardware (or
at least it should--FS9 doesn't seem to work in that respect).

> The same reasoning applies to all the other options like bi or
> tri-linear filtering as well.

See above.

> My basic testing showed no real difference in the fps readings between
> the 2 options.

Because FS isn't doing it, the video card is (if it's done at all).

> I still have to decide whether to RAID or not - the consensus seems to
> be that RAID 0 increases performance only for large files and may
> actually hinder the performance on small files because of the overhead
> required to stitch all the file fragments from the multiple disks
> together.

RAID is pretty useless for something like MSFS.



Flagstaff Frank

Usenet Poster
FrankLoC@vfm.net
Posted on:
Nov 21, 2007, 7:36 PM

Post #19 of 24 (52 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to Tom Orle] Not logged in -   Reply 
I have the E6850 and an ATI X1950XT 512MB and see no difference in fps
whether it's on in the sim or through drivers, so I leave it on with ATI
tools so it's on for both fs9 and MS TrainSim as well.

However you must have trilinear filtering set in FSX or else the skies
will look like hell, among other things. Just leave the AA box unchecked.

As for RAID(0) I've tried both - with it (stripe size 64k) and none and
I don't see a nickel's worth of difference other than in benchmarks in
like HD Tach et al. I just don't see enough benefits in a RAID config to
justify the pain in the ass it is starting with loading the drivers
(press F6) at Windows installation.




Tom Orle

Usenet Poster
xspam.torle@comcast.net
Posted on:
Nov 22, 2007, 1:15 PM

Post #20 of 24 (50 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to "pb"] Not logged in -   Reply 
"pb" <arrob747@hotmail.com> wrote:

>If I understand you well then I need two disks of the same size connected
>to the raidcontroller on my mainboard.
>Do I have to do a setup in the bios after connecting the disks?
>And what would be the benefit related to the speed of the sim?
>
pieter,

It depends on the MB, I guess.
My Gigabyte BIOS expects you to select RAID, AHCI or disabled, which
defaults to SATA/PATA.
Then there are 3.5 pages in the MB manual on how to set up RAID:
You have to define a RAID volume name, identify which disks will be
part of the RAID array, define the size stripe block size and the
total array capacity. Surprisingly one still needs a floppy drive to
install the RAID/AHCI drivers.
(This led to an amusing review of a MB which had no onboard floppy
connector, yet the box contained a floppy with the needed RAID
drivers!)
The big caveat with RAID0 is that if one disk goes bad, all data on
all disks that are part of that RAID array is lost! Therefore regular
backups are a must!

The benefits for the sim, from what I've read, is that the initial
load of the fs will be a bit faster. But while flying, you really
don't see much of an improvement because the scenery and other files
fs needs to load are relatively small.

Others with more experience with RAID may contradict this statement.

-=tom=-




Tom Orle

Usenet Poster
xspam.torle@comcast.net
Posted on:
Nov 22, 2007, 1:26 PM

Post #21 of 24 (50 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to "Ian D"] Not logged in -   Reply 
"Ian D" <taurus@nowhere.com> wrote:


>I have an nVidia 7950GT. With AA set on the card only, AA works
>in full screen mode only. If I set it both on the card and in FSX it
>works in full screen and windowed modes. No FPS hit in either case.

Ahhh - I forgot about that Full screen/windowed mode differences.
Thanks for reminding me.

I wonder if enabling it in the sim as well as on the vid card will
cause visual anomalies since you're trying to apply AA on data that's
already been AA'd possibly using a different algorithm.

That's like zipping a file then using RAR or the old ARC to compress
it again.

-=tom=-




Tom Orle

Usenet Poster
xspam.torle@comcast.net
Posted on:
Nov 22, 2007, 1:55 PM

Post #22 of 24 (50 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to Mxsmanic] Not logged in -   Reply 
Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@gmail.com> wrote:

>FS never handles antialiasing; it just turns it on or off in the hardware (or
>at least it should--FS9 doesn't seem to work in that respect).

What you're saying is that the sim does not contain any AA code.
Actually that makes sense.

Thanks for that revelation Wink.

With regards to the tri-level filtering - my ATI card has nothing with
that name. However turning it on or off in the sim does have a
noticeable affect.

-=tom=-



Mxsmanic

Usenet Poster
mxsmanic@gmail.com
Posted on:
Nov 22, 2007, 3:34 PM

Post #23 of 24 (50 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to Tom Orle] Not logged in -   Reply 
Tom Orle writes:

> What you're saying is that the sim does not contain any AA code.
> Actually that makes sense.

It would be horribly expensive for the sim software to handle antialiasing,
which is extremely processor intensive. All it does (or tries to do) is turn
the AA on and off in the hardware.

> With regards to the tri-level filtering - my ATI card has nothing with
> that name. However turning it on or off in the sim does have a
> noticeable affect.

With FS9, I've never noticed much of anything when adjusting the FS9 graphic
settings. I do notice, however, that if I turn AA on in the hardware from the
nVidia control panel, there's an obvious change in the image quality in FS9.
Unfortunately, I can't use AA when I'm using VATSIM.



"Ian D"

Usenet Poster
taurus@nowhere.com
Posted on:
Nov 22, 2007, 9:01 PM

Post #24 of 24 (50 views)
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Re: Antialiasing - SW or HW? [In reply to Tom Orle] Not logged in -   Reply 
 
"Tom Orle" <xspam.torle@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:pvhbk3tdr3b77uf066nndrr52qe7j4m8m4@4ax.com...
> "Ian D" <taurus@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I have an nVidia 7950GT. With AA set on the card only, AA works
>>in full screen mode only. If I set it both on the card and in FSX it
>>works in full screen and windowed modes. No FPS hit in either case.
>
> Ahhh - I forgot about that Full screen/windowed mode differences.
> Thanks for reminding me.
>
> I wonder if enabling it in the sim as well as on the vid card will
> cause visual anomalies since you're trying to apply AA on data that's
> already been AA'd possibly using a different algorithm.
>
> That's like zipping a file then using RAR or the old ARC to compress
> it again.
>
> -=tom=-
>
There's no FPS reduction, so it's using only the hardware AA in both
the windowed and full screen modes. You need to be in windowed
mode to use the Tools menu items. I found that in FS9 I only need to
enable AA on the video card for AA to work in both modes. This is for
an nVidia card.




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