I seem suffer quite a big FPS hit when I turn on AA. Without AA I get about 50-60FPS around Blackwood, but when I turn AA to 2x, my FPS falls to about 30-40? Is this what you would expect?

My system is

AGP Radeon 9550 256MB
Athlon XP2000+
512MB RAM

I'm using the Catalyst 6.2 drivers, although had the same problem with the 5.7 version.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

neither your vid card nor your processor is able to handle the load that AA exerts on your system

Yes, your video card is definitely at fault here. Don't know if the CPU has that much impact, though.

The cpu has definitely no impact on performance under AA, but surely the GFX board.

Vain

Low-end video cards are not made to be used with high-quality image filtering.

Do you mean that the GFX card just isn't up to the job, or has some kind of fault?

Thx

Your GFX card is an old budget card, propably not meant for AA/AF usage in the first place. But isn't 40fps still playable for you?

Quote from MrGrumpy :

Do you mean that the GFX card just isn't up to the job, or has some kind of fault?

Former.

I have almost the same specs (AXP2200+/1GB/9500Pro) and I'm running 1024x768 with 4xFSAA and 4xAF. In the beginning of the race with 20 cars it's always a 10-15 diashow but it wouldn't be much smoother (I mean totally smooth) anyway without FSAA/AF so I don't care. For usual race sitations it's 40-60 FPS. I've turned off only the most unimportant details like mirror trees etc.

Quote from deggis :

I have almost the same specs (AXP2200+/1GB/9500Pro) and I'm running 1024x768 with 4xFSAA and 4xAF. In the beginning of the race with 20 cars it's always a 10-15 diashow but it wouldn't be much smoother (I mean totally smooth) anyway without FSAA/AF so I don't care. For usual race sitations it's 40-60 FPS. I've turned off only the most unimportant details like mirror trees etc.

IIRC the 9500 Pro was a very good card at the time, and with the correct (Omega?) drivers would unlock to 9700 Pro speeds if you got a 'goodun'.

I used these options with my old system (AXP2500+, 9600 Pro) and had similar frame rates to you, but on my new system (A64 3500+, X800) I can run 1280x1024 with everything in LFS and AA/AF maxed and get from 40 on a busy start grid up to 80+ depending on the track.

9500 Pro is something completely different than 9550. If you want to play with AA/AF you should consider buying a new graphics card. Nothing else you can do about it.

Celeron 2.4@3.0, Radeon 9550SE, 4xAA 4xAF, 40-60 fps 720x576, looks a whole lot better then 1024x768 0xAA 0xAF

Quote from falcon5 :

9500 Pro is something completely different than 9550. If you want to play with AA/AF you should consider buying a new graphics card. Nothing else you can do about it.

ive got a 9600 XT 256 Mb, should i attempt aa/af on that? i have tons have hi-res dds files on it, and it stays at 60-80 (normally 75) fps

Well, just try it

If it stays over 40-50 fps you can greatly enjoy the much better image quality...

I have an NVidia GeForce 4 FX5600 with 256mb, would that be enough to turn on AA&AF too?

W00T! I just turned both of them off, and now i get 110 fps with 4 AI cars hehe

edit: Both off sucks, so I put AF back to 8x

Meh, the GF FX series is considered pretty mediocre, but it should be good enough to atleast handle low AA/AF values. Personally I can't play LFS without AA/AF anymore - it just looks horribly jaggy that way.

Quote from AndroidXP :

Well, just try it

If it stays over 40-50 fps you can greatly enjoy the much better image quality...

ill try, but the ATi Tray Tools doesnt like to autostart...

9600 XT should be very close to 9500 Pro or even better (afaik) so it should be enough to play with FSAA/AF e.g. 4x.

Quote from AndroidXP :

Meh, the GF FX series is considered pretty mediocre, but it should be good enough to atleast handle low AA/AF values. Personally I can't play LFS without AA/AF anymore - it just looks horribly jaggy that way.

I agree. Some games like LFS needs FSAA/AF to look good.

My problem is lame. I have an AMD64 3000+, an nVidia 6600GT and a SATA drive. The game runs fine etc.. sometimes up to 150fps. The stupid bit is when I try to record with Fraps. With AA off, it records comfortably at a fixed 30fps. With AA on, I get no better than 8fps.

That's a severe hit. Anyone any ideas as to why this would be, or suggestions how to fix it?

FPS drop while recording via fraps is absolutely common. You cannot do much about it other than putting in a faster processor. Well you could lower the resolution to 800x600 for recording. Maybe that helps.

Quote from Jakg :

ill try, but the ATi Tray Tools doesnt like to autostart...

Jakg if using tray tools try just rightclik the icon and select D3D profile "quality" see how lfs performs after that

SD.

Quote from SparkyDave :

Jakg if using tray tools try just rightclik the icon and select D3D profile "quality" see how lfs performs after that

SD.

no, when i run windows t only atostarts 10% of the time, and until i recently re-installed it it wouldnt even run!

Quote from AndroidXP :

Meh, the GF FX series is considered pretty mediocre, but it should be good enough to atleast handle low AA/AF values. Personally I can't play LFS without AA/AF anymore - it just looks horribly jaggy that way.

yeah but you get those damn lines on the road on certain tracks? I like to play lfs with 6xAA and 16xAF but on some tracks the lines are just so destracting i cant.

yay! 1024x1204 @ 4AA & 4AF with average 60 fps!