ATI X1000 Graphics Family
Anisotropic Filtering Performance Scale
When testing the performance of ATI's different anti-aliasing modes a couple of pages back, we stepped through each successive level of AA while benchmarking FarCry at resolutions of 1280x1024 and 1600x1200. The results on this page were attained using a similar methodology, but we altered the level of anisotropic filtering being applied to the images instead. Anti-aliasing was disabled throughout this batch of tests to isolate the effect anisotropic filtering alone was having on performance.
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As expected, as the level of anisotropic filtering being applied to the scene was increased, performance decreased. But unlike the anti-aliasing results, where adaptive AA dragged performance down significantly, ATI's new high-quality anisotropic filtering modes had a negligible impact on performance, at least in FarCry. In fact, the difference in performance between the no-aniso tests, and the tests where 16x high-quality anisotropic filtering was applied was less than 10%. We'd have to do more extensive testing with a multitude of games to make any broad, sweeping statements, but initially, it seems like there is no reason not to enable high-quality anisotropic filtering on the X1000 family of cards. There in a minimal effect on performance, but a noticeable increase in image quality while gaming.
