3dfx's Visit to AnandTech - Voodoo4/5 in Action

The biggest effect 3dfx was boasting as they showed us countless demos of their 5500 was the use of the T-Buffer in order to achieve Full Scene Anti-Aliasing.  The main reason for this is because FSAA is automatically implemented in any available Direct3D or OpenGL game as long as the feature is turned on in the drivers.

The way the VSA-100 does FSAA is that it renders either 2 or 4 frames at once and blends the pixels together in essence forming a smoother picture with virtually no jagged lines and no pixel popping.  You’ve probably heard the terms 2 sample FSAA and 4 sample FSAA from 3dfx in the recent past: those two terms are just referring to the number of frames rendered at once (or sampled).  As you can guess, the more samples taken, the better the image will end up looking, which makes the VSA-100’s 4 sample FSAA the most desirable from an image quality standpoint.

The biggest problem for 3dfx is convincing people that FSAA, regardless of whether it is 2 sample or 4 sample, is more than just a little feature that you’ll never notice.  If anything, that was the main purpose for their visit to us, to essentially show us the light.  And it is the same reason that they have been touring the country visiting various online publications in order to get the word out that FSAA is more than just smoothing out a few lines.

The biggest problem for us is convincing you all, the readers, that there is indeed a noticeable difference between a Voodoo 4/5 with FSAA and your current GeForce cards.  Since we only had a limited time with 3dfx, we are only able to provide you with the screen shots that 3dfx themselves supplied that demonstrate the benefits of FSAA.  While these screen shots aren’t exactly the most descriptive, they function as a basic indicator of what FSAA does on a frame by frame basis.  But believe us when we tell you that this isn’t an accurate depiction of the difference in actual gameplay between a setup with FSAA enabled and FSAA disabled. 

Descent 3 Screen Shots - 1.4MB Zip

Shogo Screen Shots - 686KB Zip

For starters, if you’re the type of gamer that plays first person shooters exclusively, then FSAA as well as the rest of the T-Buffer features aren’t exactly geared towards your gaming genre.  While FSAA can definitely make a difference in something like Quake III Arena or UnrealTournament, those two games aren’t examples of the technology at its best.

If you’re a fan of flight simulators and racing games (Need for Speed 5: Porsche Unleashed comes to mind), to name a few types, then FSAA will definitely have a much greater impact on your overall gaming experience.  One of the biggest complaints we’ve always had and we’ve always heard about games like Need for Speed or MS Flight Simulator was that the jagged lines and pixel popping that occurred during gameplay were simply very distracting.  If the game was good enough, you could usually ignore those two nuisances, but with FSAA, especially 4 sample FSAA, you won’t have to any longer. 

The analogy we used to describe FSAA in games is that it is like the age old 32-bit vs. 16-bit color debate with a twist.  Once games started taking advantage of 32-bit color depths/textures, there didn’t seem to be a need for it from those users that had never played a game in 32-bit color, but those that had the opportunity to run at 32-bit color never went back.  It is our opinion that, for most users, once they experience FSAA in real world gameplay, they’ll never want to go back.