Resolution/AA/AF = Fun ?

In my case i ll have a asus G2S (2.2 core2duo GF 8600m GT 3GB ram, 160GB 7200RPM) it comes with 1900x1200 native resolution widescreen

i think the resolution is too high to run games at maximum options, like FEAR,
BF2142, so whats the best thing to do ?

1- Lower the Resolution (like 1024x768 but adding 8xAA 16xAF)
2- Turn off AA and AF filters(or turn on the minimal AA if that works?)
3- Stay at native resolution(1900x1200) and turn off Filters
4- any ideas ?

which do u guys think is the best option this notebook? considering i want Beautiful screens and smooth gaming
so whats the best thing to sacrifice if i start to get lag and low FPS?

ideas will be appreciated im not an expert but i do understand the Hardware but not so well the software and gaming stuff

thx =)

 

Well, BF 2142 only runs at 1600x1200. I think you have to change some files to go higher than that. You could probably run BF 2142 at a decent FPS either way. If you turn off AA you can probably leave everything else on high easily enough.

Having not used that particular set of hardware though, I can't really tell you anything else other than play with the settings once you get the machine.

Just to give you an idea, here are some screenshots of BF2142 at its maximum officially supported setting with and without AA. This is on a Sager NP 9260 with XP, a Core 2 Duo at 2.4 ghz, 4GB of memory (yes. XP only sees 2.8 gigs), and SLI GeForce 7950 GTX's. The game is on maximum detail settings. You won't see FPS quite as high as this because I have two cards that are individually more powerful than the 8600M GT in DirectX 9 games. This is just to give you an idea.

Without AA: With AA:

 

Your best bet would be to have moderate amounts of everything. For example, if you played at 1280x800 (still keeping with 16:10 widescreen aspect ratio, just with fewer pixels), 2xAA and 8xAF, I think the 8600M GT would be able to handle most games pretty well.

If a game offers Soft Shadows (like FEAR or Oblivion), disable it. Soft Shadows can greatly decrease performance for only a marginal increase in image quality.

If, at those settings, your framerate still isn't as high as you'd like, begin by disabling shadows altogether (especially in a game with a lot of dynamic lights, like FEAR, where disabling shadows greatly improves your framerate, and after a while you don't even notice they're gone). And if that's still not enough, then disable AA (not recommended, since AA greatly improves image quality (see my other post to see the difference AA can make))

 

hmm.. ic, so AA gives better quallity image then Higher resolution ? if i had to choose what would be the best to sacrifice, the resolution rather then AA ?
i ll take a closer look to the links, so the more AA the best it gets but resolution is not as much noticiable for the cost of performace?

thx again ^^

edit:this screen with AA is like 8xaa ? can u post a 2xAA or 4xAA ?

im mean the difference is huge 0.o and beautiful

 

AA is typically the first thing I turn off, but then, I've been a few generations behind on graphics cards until very recently. I would prefer to play at the native resolution without AA than lower the resolution and use AA. AA also tends to be a bigger performance hit so disabling it may get you more FPS than lowering the resolution.

 

The screen with AA only uses 4x. The settings in the game only go up that high and I didn't feel like enabling 8x in the nVIDIA control panel.

 

but AA + AF = so nice image, the screen just flows within the game, well
hope it works on a geforce8600m GT 256mb
but the native resolution looks a waste of performace and FPS so i´d prefer AA + AF instead, am i wrong ? considering its a widescreen notebook LCD

 

Well higher resolutions typically make up for AA but its all preference. My personal preference if I don't need to see a lot on the screen is to chose option 1. My preference is AA/AF > resolution.

In my opinion nothing short of top of the line cards are really worth it for WUXGA, WSXGA because you just won't get great framerates with the latest games without sacrificing AA/AF or resolution.

 

Its really all personal preference. You have a rather powerful card regardless. If you had the GS version I would be a little more concerned.

I messed with the same thing in BF2 once and I found the lower resolution made everything really blurry, and the HUD was absolutely huge, obscuring a good part of the screen.

Edit: Oh yea, if it really bothers you, you can always buy an external monitor that has a lower resolution. I highly recommend the Samsung 6 Series. 2Ms response times, and they are really, REALLY bright. Probably much better than any screen your going to see on a laptop anytime soon. I just purchased the 226BW for around $350. 22" at 1650x1050. I'm absolutely in love with it. The 19 inch screens are quite a bit cheaper. They run around $200 and have a 1440x900 resolution. This can be a good way of lowering your native resolution when your playing at home.

 

dam, so u think 1024x768 ll get blurry ? or any resolution ll get blurry but the native(1900x1200), i cant afford an external Lcd, i m in love with G2S all money and upgrades are going in it, but this resolution stuff make me think =/

 

It might depend on the game, but generally speaking, running outside your monitor's native resolution is fine. Very, very few laptop GPU's could handle 1920x1200 w/4xaa and 16xAF with a high framerate (except perhaps SLI Go 7950 GTX's). Most people who play games on laptops run below the native resolution out of necessity. You'll be fine. As long as the resolution keeps the same ratio (i.e., 1024x768 (a non-widescreen 4:3 ratio) would look stretched out on your widescreen monitor, but 1280x800 (16:10 widescreen ratio) should look fine on your screen).

 

hm thx ^^

offtopic: Asus G2S 17" works at 62hz refresh lcd rate,
and BF2 works with 60hz so i'v seen people complaining about that they cant play it, unless they they mess with the BF2 configuration and force it to accept 62hz

so im thinking, will 62hz refresh rate be a problem for some games ?

 

When possible, it's best to run an LCD at its native resolution. The image is best when at native resolution.

I tend to favor higher resolution than AA. First, higher resolutions make the need for AA slightly less. Also as I mentioned, native resolution = best if you card can handle it. Mid-range cards tend to have difficulty with AA performance, especially in newer games.

AF I'll apply. For most middle to high-end cards, AF is almost free. There's really no reason not to enable it in that case. A higher resolution doesn't help the quality of a rendered scene so AF is still quite important.

 

I really only use the AA if the game is maxed on resolution and I have fps to spare, the image looks better in the native resolution, some games gets too blurry outside the native resolution, others do very well, since it's a nvidia video card you can stretch keeping the aspect ratio witch is a very good thing

 

can i strech to lower resolutions or stretch what ?
what about the 62hz refresh monitor rate issue?

ty

 

Having got the G1s recently, I have to say that at its native resolution of 1680x1050, or as near to that as you can get in the particular games you are looking at, everything works pretty well with most options on high, 2/4xAA and 2/4xAF. Since the graphics card is the same as the G2s, you could try this res for smoothly playable games. If the resolution is high enough, you would need to have pretty good ideas, I feel, to see the effect of AA. Recall AA smooths sharp/jagged lines by calculating multiple sub-pixels for each pixel, and then averaging them together for a smoother result. That's one step below going to a higher resolution anyway.

Well, with F.E.A.R, Doom 3 and C'N'C 3 at least. I can't comment on games I don't own that seem popularly mentioned here, like S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Oblivion and Supreme Commander.