CoD 2 Image Quality

The image quality battle between ATI and NVIDIA continues with the latest iterations of their cards. Most intriguing and telling are the differences when both cards are running in full-feature mode, but there are a few details to be spotted with the goodies turned down.

CoD 2 0xAA 16xAF

The first difference is one we’ll spot consistently throughout the Call of Duty pictures. If you look at the telephone pole and directly left of it, at gun height, you will spot that the mortar in the brickwork on the NVIDIA shots is somewhat clearer and definitely a shade or two brighter. The shadow in the doorway on the left side of the screen is also darker on the ATI screen. This may be a gamma setting issue, but we’re inclined to disagree given that the textures are otherwise pretty much identical in brightness.

Radeon card 0xAA/16xAF

GeForce 7900 GTX 0xAA/16xAF

The results of the anisotropic filtering differences are intriguing. If you look directly to the left of the crates, where the road snakes up and away, on the ATI screen it looks smooth, but the NVIDIA image shows slight dimples indicating that the card is still trying to draw the gaps between the stones. This small advantage in favor of NVIDIA is arguably offset by the relatively drastic change in filtering on the cobblestones, alongside the lower arm of our avatar, just above the cufflinks and below the end of the sleeve. It’s interesting because both methods of filtering start the same, NVIDIA gains the edge in sharpness at the cufflinks, but suddenly transitions to a lower filtering mode due to their default optimization scheme. In screenshots, it can be argued either way – that the sharpness offsets the transition, but in motion, as you’ll see on the videos, the NVIDIA optimizations create a texture flashing/pixel crawl effect that can be distracting to some viewers.

CoD2 4xAA 16xAF

Radeon card 4xAA/16xAF

GeForce 7900 GTX 4xAA/16xAF

In our AA-enabled screenshots, we see the above results and of course the differences in AA algorithms. Generally they’re both very competitive with each other, but there are two slight differences, both along the telephone cables running above the battlefield. Specifically, near the hanging lamp, the ATI card does a poorer job of hiding the steps in the cable, while the NVIDIA card produces a nearly-smooth image. The top wire, after passing the far telephone pole, is also clearer on the 7900GTX as it passes from the pole through a brief section of sky before disappearing into the roof of the far house. On the other hand, ATI clearly does a better job with the same cable when it passes over to the house on the left as it curves upwards. Here we see more jaggies with NVIDIA than ATI.

CoD 2 4/6xAA 16xAF Transparency/Adaptive

Radeon card 4xAA/16xAF with adaptive AA

GeForce 7900 GTX 4xAA/16xAF with transparency AA

When we turn on Transparency AA and Adaptive AA for both cards, we see the same results as above, but with changes to the fence on the left. It loses some brightness with both methods, though the Adaptive AA on the ATI upcoming card seems to handle things somewhat better, and continues to draw the fence almost to the end, unlike the GeForce. Otherwise, pictures are identical and neither card gets help with the jaggies on the telephone cables.

The best image quality, bar none, is delivered by ATI in its 6xAA 16xAF mode with Adaptive AA turned on. It finally gets rid of the jaggies along the telephone cable, does the best job of all with the fence. The only areas where it lags somewhat behind NVIDIA is in the stone pattern behind to the left of the crates, and the mortar and brickwork to the left of the closer telephone pole.

Radeon card 6xAA/16xAF with adaptive AA