ATI Super AA vs. NVIDIA SLI Anti-Aliasing

8x/14x/16xAA Screenshots

Radeon X1800 XT 8xAA/16xAF

GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB 8xAA/16xAF

Under each card’s respective AA modes, both continue to excel in the areas we looked at previously. In the case of the X1800 XT, the air intakes on the F-15C clearly favors the ATI card, whereas the left wing still looks sharper on GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB. Therefore instead of going head-to-head, ATI versus NVIDIA, let’s look at the progression of going from 4xAA to 8xAA on both cards.

First ATI:

Radeon X1800 XT 512MB 4xAA (left) vs 8xAA (right)

Now NVIDIA:

GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB 4xAA (left) vs 8xAA (right)

Take a look at the F-15C’s shadow just underneath the plane’s wing. Both ATI and NVIDIA’s 8xAA modes clean up the jagged edges on the shadows just a little better under the 8x setting than under 4xAA. When you crank it up to 16x, the visuals get even sharper:

Radeon X1800 XT 14xAA/16xAF

GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB 16xAA/16xAF

Radeon X1800 XT 512MB 8xAA (left) vs 14xAA (right)

And from another portion of the F-15C:

Radeon X1800 XT 512MB 8xAA (left) vs 14xAA (right)

See how that one access panel line sparkles on the center of the F-15C’s fuselage with ATI’s 8x setting? It lies just behind the air intake, to the right of the F-15C’s aerial refueling door and the blue camouflage. Under 14xAA the sparkling is gone. Let’s take a look at the GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB:

GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB 4xAA (left) vs 8xAA (right)

And from another portion of the F-15C:

GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB 4xAA vs 8xAA

Edges along the F-15C’s air intake look sharper once NVIDIA’s 16xAA is applied. Particularly at the top.

We also took some screenshots with Half-Life 2 and Quake 4, although they don’t illustrate the differences quite as well as LOMAC: