GeForce GTX260+ vs Radeon 4850 Part 2: Image Quality
TrAA/AAA (Serious Sam 2)
Serious Sam 2 was also another title where the 4850 administered a beating to the GTX260+. My second suspicion was that ATi was reducing AAA’s workload at long range, so the next set of images are of palm trees and tree leaves at a very long range relative to the player.
Here’s an image of the 260+ with TrAA off, along with TrAA/AAA (super-sampling) enabled on each vendor:
260+ (Off)
260+ (4xTrAA)
4850 (4xAAA)
When compared to the reference image (off), both vendors clearly anti-alias the foliage, squashing my second theory that ATi isn’t applying AAA at long range.
Firstly, checking the dark green tree leaves to the left, we see the 4850 smoothes the edges and also fattens up the image again, but the interior has less blurring than the 260+. nVidia’s edges are clearly smoother though and the interior of the leaves are also blurrier, again likely suggesting that nVidia is doing more work to the tree.
Moving onto the palm tree leaves to the right, both vendors’ edges look better depending on where you look, so it’s probably a wash there. nVidia’s leaves are again a bit more blurred which means they’re doing more work to the interior of the image.
This is the best image quality comparison I’ve seen regarding the 4800s and GTX 200s. As always, great job BFG, and thanks for all of the hard work.
Damn, i have to agree. i was lucky to get a preview of this review and i learned a lot from it. BFG10K has been working on and polishing this review for quite some time and his hard work and effort really shows in a deep but very clearly understandable article. He does not waste a single word yet covers what he intends expertly.
Thanks for your support everyone. It’s the readers like you that make it all worthwhile.
I Used to be a die hard nvidia fan – loved my BFG 7950GT,Had a truly fabulous Zotac 8800GT AMP, But my last graphics upgrade has been my first to cross over to ATI and the HD4850. I now have 2 in crossfire (mainly because nvidia motherboards are quite frankly terrible ! Having been unfortunate enough to own a couple i include the Striker 2 extreme in that). I have friends still scared to try anything but NVIDIA or Infact made by BFG -(Great cards,incredible warranty – but have you ever had a gfx card for more than a couple of years ?)- They own 260’s and 280’s but i wouldn’t swap the ATI’s because the gaming performance and picture quality is i’m afraid to dissapoint you – BETTER WITH ATI 4800 SERIES GRAPHICS CARDS. These things happen AMD were great and overclocked for england ,Intel topped them with the core 2’s, Nvidia 8 series were great, GTX200 series came out too expensive and ATI struck gold with the RV770 chipset , swings and roundabouts gentlemen , What counts above all else is FPS per £/$ and that means ATI 4800 .
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