GeForce GTX260+ vs Radeon 4850 Part 2: Image Quality
Anisotropic Filtering
Lastly, I’ll cover AF. Usually it’s almost impossible to demonstrate differences in anisotropic filtering with screenshots, but I found a good example by accident when I was checking some Doom 3 screenshots.
4850 (16xAF)
260+ (16xAF)
You can see the interior horizontal lines inside the beam are much rougher on the 4850 than the 260+, and this is an area that won’t be impacted by regular AA because it’s texture aliasing. Also the curved lines to the right of the yellow light are smoother on the 260+ than on the 4850.
Because nVidia’s image looks blurrier, many would assume it is worse, but this is incorrect. During in-game movement you’ll find the lines in question crawl and wiggle more on the 4850 than on the 260+, so image quality will be visibly worse on ATi’s card.
nVidia provides visibly superior anisotropic filtering, and ATi needs to lift their game in this area.
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 .
Hello there,I enjoy reading through your article post – GeForce GTX260+ vs Radeon 4850 Part 2: Image Quality | AlienBabelTech, I wanted to leave a little comment to support you and wish you a good continuation……All the best for all your blogging efforts.