FSAA Peformance

At 640x480x32 2X FSAA, the MX400 loses 34% ( of its performance. And although going to 4X FSAA ( from no FSAA ) makes the MX400's performance plummets by 60%, 45.9 frames per second is still very playable. Quake3 running 640x480x32 4X FSAA is definately playable on the MX400. Plus overclocking it gives a decent 10% boost.

The Geforce2 Ti on the other hand, virtually doenst experience a drop when going to 2X FSAA. At 4X FSAA however it suffers a 27% loss in frame rate drop. Overclocking the Geforce2 Ti offers no tangible performance gain on the 2X FSAA setting, on the 4X FSAA setting it gains just over a 13% frames per second.

Bumping the resolution to 1024x768x2, greatly degrades the performance of both cards. Here we see the MX400 perform at less than half of its original frame rate when switching to 2X FSAA. Bandwidth requirements begin to greatly hamper the MX400's performance. Its drop from 72.5 frames per second to 30.2 frames per second, equates into a 58% loss! A 17% performance gain from overclocking helps a little, but at 35.3 frames per second it still isn't performing well, in these particular game ( Quake 3 ). The MX400 simply doesnt have enough horsepower ( bandwidth ) to allow 4X FSAA this resolution. If running 4X FSAA on 1024x768x32, had not been disabled in the drivers ( Det. 22.50 ) the MX400 would deliver single digit frame rates here.

With FSAA turned off, the Geforce2 Ti delivers an incredible 108.1 frames per second at 1024x768x32. Only showing how much power this card holds. However we immeditely see a huge drop in performance ( 46% drop ) as we turn on the 2X FSAA setting. It's still very playable at 2X FSAA especially when overclocked. The next step however really makes the Geforce2 Ti kneel on its knees. Switching to 4X FSAA ( from no FSAA ) reduces its performance by an alarming 67% at 35.9 frames per second. Overclocking the Geforce2 Ti really gives the performance it needs, especially at the 4X setting where it got a very respectable 42.6 frames per second.