Graphics confusion

[killerkebab]

My current card is a X1800XT. My previous card was a 9700Pro so this is really the first card I've used high end effects on. However something confuses me.

In all games, as soon as I enable antialiasing, the FPS drops and is instantly locked to 30. No matter what happens in the game, or what level the antialiasing is at, 30 is the FPS. Is there something in the new cards which increases the quality of the effect whilst severely killing performance?

Also, trying to play NFS:Most Wanted and in some parts of the race my FPS drops a lot (From a constant 60 - antialiasing disabled now for above reason - to something like 40 which is REALLY noticable) for no real reason I can discern. Is there HDR in this game?

[Admiral Huddy]

So it's always 30 regardless of the AA setting? Are you using the latest Catalyst drivers? I've not had an ATI card for years so a little scratchy on the options. Is there not an option that allows the application to determine AA and AF settings?

It also depends on how high you are setting AA and AF upto and the resolution you are running.

[killerkebab]

I always run 1280x1024 (TFT native res) and the refresh rate is at 60Hz so if anything, I'd expect the FPS to be locked at 60.

This happens regardless of AA settings (although on some games when set at 6x the frame rate does dip below 30 a lot :p). Anisotropic filtering is usually on in most games I play, but the real pivotal point is the AA.

I heard some people mention ATi cards do 'HDR+AA'. Now I am a bit rusty on graphical terms but if my cards supports HDR and AA, is this a mode which is FPS limited, or do I need to dig deeper in the settings to find a culprit? Anyone else using Catalyst 6.9?

[Zirax]

Are you using the official ati drivers or omega drivers?

[killerkebab]

Official ATi. What do the Omega drivers do?

[Admiral Huddy]

Omega drivers are unofficial "beta" drivers.

I would try uninstalling the drivers and running a registry and CAB cleaner.. http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745

make sure all of the driver and any loose bits are out. Then install a previous catalyst driver to see if the problem is still there. If fixed, then the previous driver you were using was installed incorrectly or the driver itself has a bug.

If it doesn't work, try setting everything off and slowly turn every thing on one by one.. then test and so on. I'm not a great fan of HDR.. It's just white blob - pretty useless really and a waste of graphics power. HDR is a big over head so see if you can switch it off.