why is the 3870 poor at aa ?

[chaotic_uk]

it is

 

[From_Nowhere]

Vsync enabled?

 

[chaotic_uk]

no i never use it

 

[imperialreign]

i have a spare mobo which seemed better than my new ga-ma770-ds3 , it supports crossfire so would this be a way to go ? . i have always wanted to try crossfire and a mate has a week old 3870 spare , would this increase performance a little ? . i wanted this system to be all amd/ati this time around , did i make a mistake ?

no, I can't say that you have - your CPU is a little bit old, but still very respectable (and dual core, if I'm not mistaken . . . sorry, I'm not up on AMP procs).

adding a second 3870 will offer a nice boost, for sure. If the motherboard supports PCIE2.0, that would be even better.

still, though, I would expect that you'd see at least a 25% increase over how it currently runs by adding a second card.

 

[Kursah]

What resolutions do you game at? That card even with DDR3 should still be pretty potent at some higher resolutions...
Did you try the Catalyst 8.4 drivers by chance?
I believe you said the rest of your system is not overclocked, correct?
MB is the only difference between your old rig and new one?
Do you have any bench programs like Aquamark or 3DMark05/06 installed by chance? What OS are you on? What runs in the background while you game? Antivirus/adware?

I'm just trying to get a little more of an idea of what you're working with...you may have answered some of these before, but if you don't mind answering them again I'd like to see you gaming where you should be...dunno if the answer in in any of the questions above or not, but at this point it can't hurt to look!

 

[Laykun]

why is the 3870 poor at aa ? , i tried it while playing bioshock @1680x1050 with 2x aa and 16x af . the result was 2 fps , is it the 3870 or something else ?

An architecture problem. On previous cards like the X1900 series AA was done through the ROPs, however on the HD2xxx and HD3xxx series cards the ROPs are broken in the respect that they can't perform AA resolve on the ROP hardware, meaning they perform AA on with the shaders themselves, which CAN dramatically decrease performance compared to doing it on the ROPs. It does however mean that you can create any type of AA you want for your card, although theoretically this is capable on any card with the right shaders (lots of games that use deferred rendering have their own internal shaders that reproduce the effect of AA).

You'd think that this wouldn't have TOO much of a hit on performance, in some games it doesn't but in Unreal 3 engine games I found it has a huge hit on 2 and 3 series cards. I'm not certain exactly why, but it probably has to do with the inefficient design of the core, where they pack 5 shaders into a single unit that all work on one thread. There's probably an issue with the way Unreal 3 engine games render, that together with this design, produces poor results.

This has been fixed with the HD4xxx series.

 

[chaotic_uk]

i have downloaded cat 8.4 but not installed it yet , my specs are to the left (system specs) . yes mobo is the only difference and i am using xp pro sp3 . i do have vista 32bit , should i give it another go or not ? . here are my 3dmark 2k6 results , i do have an anti virus running . i wish i had the money to buy a 4870 , i just do not like the temps people are getting on the 48xx series

 

[Aceman.au]

Umm... Just lower down the AA? You dont have to have maxed out graphics

 

[MadClown]

the reason stalker runs fine(for the most part) is that it has no support for AA(it has fake AA, but it doesnt work good at all) just turn of AA, the only games that seem to work well with AA on a 3870 are source games

 

[Kursah]

i have downloaded cat 8.4 but not installed it yet , my specs are to the left (system specs) . yes mobo is the only difference and i am using xp pro sp3 . i do have vista 32bit , should i give it another go or not ? . here are my 3dmark 2k6 results , i do have an anti virus running . i wish i had the money to buy a 4870 , i just do not like the temps people are getting on the 48xx series

With the ammount of RAM you have, you should really consider x64 if you're going to Vista...my experience with Vista x64 has been more pleasant than x32(x86)...just imo though.

I'd say try the 8.4's, from what I've read, it seems some users have gone back to them until better drivers are released...nothing too astonishing though...but it can't hurt at this point, maybe to a completely clean install too..uninstall 8.6, run drivercleaner for ati vid drivers, then restart and install 8.4's? Maybe run DXWeb DX9 installer to ensure most recent files are installed, don't think that'd be the cause of your issues here tho.

You're getting around 10.3k it seems in 3dm 06, you should be doing okay in games...

I believe you said the rest of your system is not overclocked, correct? - You have an X2 at 3.0, that really should be pretty good for not bottlenecking your HD3870 imo.

I really don't know if it's the card to blame or what is going on, but I'd say start with older drivers, ensure you have the most updated chipset drivers for that board, maybe there's a BIOS update concerning to this?? (doubt it, but maybe worth a look...) I wish I had more experience with 3870's, I would figure that they should still play decently though, it's a pretty popular card...hopefully someone has a good answer for ya...seems more bad news about the HD38xx than good news in this thread, but there has to be something good for them out there otherwise so many people wouldn't be running them imo.

 

[mullered07]

i have downloaded cat 8.4 but not installed it yet , my specs are to the left (system specs) . yes mobo is the only difference and i am using xp pro sp3 . i do have vista 32bit , should i give it another go or not ? . here are my 3dmark 2k6 results , i do have an anti virus running . i wish i had the money to buy a 4870 , i just do not like the temps people are getting on the 48xx series

thats easily fixed with ati ccc profile edit or an aftermarket cooler

 

[chaotic_uk]

could it be my psu ? , i know ezcool are not great but at the time it was the best they had . what wattage would i need for my setup ? , it would need to last and when i have saved i will get a 4870 . so it would need to power this also

edit : would this psu power my system ok ?

 

[Mussels]

could it be my psu ? , i know ezcool are not great but at the time it was the best they had . what wattage would i need for my setup ? , it would need to last and when i have saved i will get a 4870 . so it would need to power this also

i havent read the rest of this thread, but to answer the PSU questions:

any 450W or greater brand name PSU will be enough for your PC. mine uses a LOT more than yours, i can imagine, and its only 320-350W when measured at the wall.

Christine/calvary1980 would tell you to get a corsair unit, most likely the 450vx. I agree with that as a good unit, and also offer the OCZ gameXstream/stealthXstream series. ones been powering my system for a looooong time now without a hitch, as well as most of my friends systems.