[Avalon]

For those of you with Nvidia graphics cards playing SC2, I'd like to forward a question to you.

"NVIDIA's override anti-aliasing for StarCraft 2 applies AA to the entire scene, including HUD elements. Do you believe AA improves image quality on the StarCraft 2 HUD elements, or would you prefer it was only applied to the non-HUD elements (which would increase frame rates)?"

Your answers would be very helpful.

[madhatter256]

Who's asking this question? nvidia?

[Avalon]

Yes.

So no one is playing SCII with an Nvidia card?

[TerranUp16]

Your wording is cryptic, lol. As is your unwillingness to give away the source reason why you are asking this here.

But meh, putting my two cents forward running SC2 @1920x1200 w/4x MSAA + 16x AF @Ultra settings on a GTX 280, image quality is perfect atm. Performance is also quite good, although improvements would be nice, fixing-up the 2D elements is actually working really well atm. Usually that comes at the loss of sharpness or etc, but nVidia's algorithm here is being uncannily good.

Really, right now it is by far the greatest image quality improvement in the game.

[madhatter256]

newegg is having kick-ass sales on their 4xx series cards in promotion of SC2.

I'm holding out for Diablo 3. If I want a better game from Blizzard, I hold out until that comes out.

[Avalon]

TerranUp16, on 30 July 2010 - 01:34 PM, said:

Your wording is cryptic, lol. As is your unwillingness to give away the source reason why you are asking this here.

But meh, putting my two cents forward running SC2 @1920x1200 w/4x MSAA + 16x AF @Ultra settings on a GTX 280, image quality is perfect atm. Performance is also quite good, although improvements would be nice, fixing-up the 2D elements is actually working really well atm. Usually that comes at the loss of sharpness or etc, but nVidia's algorithm here is being uncannily good.

Really, right now it is by far the greatest image quality improvement in the game.

Well, this is calling attention specifically to the HUD. Can you try playing with and without AA, and give an opinion on whether or not the HUD looks differently?

Or did you mean to refer to the HUD as 2D elements? That would be good info I could forward along.

Nvidia is trying to assess whether or not gamers would prefer the extra performance of not anti aliasing the HUD, versus anti aliasing the entire scene including the HUD (so long as gamers perceive the HUD to receive an image quality boost for being anti aliased).

This post has been edited by Avalon: 30 July 2010 - 03:21 PM

[madhatter256]

AA on everything, even the HUD is always good, just don't drop the FPS.

[TerranUp16]

Yeah, since I played the beta for quite awhile and forcing AA didn't work with that, I didn't even realize I could force AA w/the release version until after I'd spent like 20 hours with the game, lol. Once I did force it though, I was rather shocked. Game went from looking pretty crappy (you really can't take your eyes off those HORRIFIC jaggies) to looking quite good. HUD AA definitely provides a nice enhancement to that and is noticeable, although I presume anyone with a GTX 260 or something of similar performance (category below the GTX 280) would vastly prefer an option to turn off HUD AA and to only AA the 3D (since really, that's where it matters most).

Tbh though, where they could really work on focusing their AA optimization is Zerg creep (not bad with forced AA on, but not amazing either; definitely has an impact) and stacked units. Those are the two instances I've noticed where AA seems to be doing more work than it needs to (again, my framerates are great, but I do notice some consistent, small drops from those that seem like optimization could tidy those up for a more consistent experience).

[Avalon]

Cool, thanks Terran. That will probably be pretty darn helpful.

[Whiplash]

Its nice but annoying. Please just have it in game and not on the GUI/Minimap. That is all.