Upgrading graphics card

[steve threlfall]

Originally posted by Axion
you dont need a dx9 card to play either game
a 4800se will play both games

so whats your point?

he means you need direct x 9 to take advantge of the effects such as AF i think.

Lets face it a 4800se is gona take a much brigger perf drop than a radeon 9600pro when AF and FSAA are enabled

[Bindibadgi]

Only thing dx 9 gives is stuff like pixel shader 2 and extra colours etc.

AA/AF arent direct x, they are graphics card specific.

[Austin]

That's true BUT the later cards of which are all DX9 happen to have the best AA+AF to date, so although it isn't dependent upon DX9 as such it does come hand in hand.

GF4TI only take a 15%ish perf hit when enabling 2xAA or QxAA (nVidia's fast but blurry 4xAA type effect). That's a pretty small hit but 4xAA hits you loads more (50%ish) and is generally unusable, much better to up the res to rid the jaggies IMHO. As for AF that's far better on the DX8 Radeons than GF4TI, not quite as high quality but close and at only half the perf hit. A GF4TI takes around 10%ish for 2xAF and 25%ish for 8xAF. So a GF4TI is definitely fine for 2xAA and low AF although I doubt you'll run with anything on in HL2 or DoomIII but they should still be decently playable.

The DX9 cards all take much smaller hits for AA+AF, IIRC the mid-range DX9 cards can do 4xAA+16xAF and still take a smaller hit than a GF4TI with 2xAA+2xAF (or was it 4xAF?). Of course the bottom GF4TI, the 4200 is as fast as the pro/ultra mid range DX9 cards (9600pro & FX5600ultraV2) before AA+AF! DX8.1 & 9 offer a LOT more efficiency though which both HL2 and DoomIII should impliment which may leave the 4200 in 5600 and 9600 nonPRO/ultra speed .... still not bad

[Bindibadgi]

that's cause they are usually faster then the previous generation, have faster memory controllers and tweaked AA/AF engines - nothing todo with direct X.