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Last
Updated on March 01, 2002
by Thomas
McGuire
Check for NVIDIA
GeForce based videocards prices here.
Now
select the Miscellaneous option from the drop-down menu.
OEM
NVIDIA control panel mode.
You can ignore this setting as you’ll be using NVMax to adjust your
Graphics card settings, leave it Unticked.
Intel
compatibility.
If you are having problems with your Graphics card on an Intel based
motherboard then you might want to try Ticking this option to see
if it resolves it, otherwise just leave this option Unticked.
Those without an Intel motherboard can obviously ignore this option.
Flush
input-output cache.
For the with ALi Motherboards enabling this option reportedly can fix
some stability issues, though those not experiencing any problems (Or
whom have a non-ALi motherboard) can ignore this option.
Windows
2000 + Athlon stability fix.
Those of you who have applied the Patch for AGP Applications on AMD
Athlon & Duron Processors for Windows 2000 available on our OS
Updates page can ignore this option, while those who haven’t are
recommended to. Those with Windows XP, 98SE, Me (Basically anything but
Windows 2000) can also ignore this option.
Hardware
accelerated cursor.
Leave this option Ticked unless you are experiencing problems
with the Mouse in some Games/Applications. Personally the only one
I’ve seen this cause a few visual errors in is No One Lives Forever.
Select
the directx tab & from the drop-down menu select the Anti
Aliasing option.
Anti-Aliasing
Mode.
This option specifies the Anti-Aliasing mode to be used in Direct3D
applications. Set this to Off to disable Anti-aliasing in
Direct3D, Auto will allow the Direct3D Application to determine
the Anti-aliasing mode used, e.g. as can be selected in Max Payne’s
Options menu. On the GeForce 3 & 4 multi-sampling FSAA is used for 2
Samples & Quincunx modes, which will provide fastest
performance of all available FSAA modes (Bar Off obviously). 4
Samples works by up-sampling the Horizontal & Vertical
resolutions by a factor of 2, then down-sampling by averaging the
colours of a 2x2 pixel block to form 1 pixel across the entire image.
The
images beneath illustrate the effect of each mode available in Max
Payne.
Off
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2
Samples
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Quincunx
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4
Samples
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4 Samples + 9 Tap
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As
you can see each mode has its own particular advantage, with Off
providing the fastest frame rate, 2 Sample offers some jaggy
alleviation (& a reduction in texture aliasing on the GeForce 3
& 4) with a small frame rate hit, with Quincunx offers much
improved jaggy & texture aliasing reduction, though the textures are
more blurry than with the other modes – the frame rate hit isn’t too
much greater than 2 Samples either. 4 Samples offers about
the same jaggy alleviation as Quincunx, albeit with the texture
blurriness though the frame rate hit is a lot greater. 4 Samples + 9
Tap seems to offer slightly more noticeable jaggy smoothing than 4
Samples, though in some Games appears to give blurrier textures.
In
the OpenGL section I’ll cover how each FSAA mode affects frame
rate, along with recommendations for settings.
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