What is 3D resolution?

[Earmack]

Hello,
I just plan play in 3D (IZ3D & DDD), but I see the game have in video options "3D resolution", for what this option?:j:

[[FRL]Myke]

This is the resolution the scene is rendered. After that it is downsampled to your set screen resolution. The effect is some kind of fullscreen antialiasing. However, it needs a fast GPU to use it but in return you might reduce AA and AF settings a bit. It takes some time to play around with different settings to find the perfect balance between performance and quality but it is worth it.

[Earmack]

Thx 4 answer:)

[kylania]

It's basically how awesome you want things to look. :)

[PendragonUK]

It used to be called "fill rate" didn't it?

[[HUD]Dorph]

I have had some troubles too of fully understanding this option.
So whats the difference in running the game in for example:
1280x768 with a 3d resolution set to 800x600 vs running the game in plain 800x600 (3d res at 100%)?
Whats the advantage of running the 3d res different than native res ? To me it all looks blurry/unsharp when setting 3d res lower than 100%.

[mrcash2009]

You dont go lower than 100 to be honest, its mainly better to go higher than the screen resolution.

For example for me to get decent FPS I set my res to monitor native res and then up 3d res to 125 percent and then drop my AA setting to low.

This way I get a smooth look for trees and grass and a high AA milky smooth look without the FPS hit of having ATOC settings on or high AA.

And yes before early patches it was called fill rate.

Just play around with it and see what you get without any AA and ATOC and up it higher to native res and then test out FPS vs eye candy differences.

[[FRL]Myke]

Settings below 100% indeed look blurry but goin below 100% might help if a PC is too weak for high resolutions. So you can play fullscreen but with lower (calculated) resolution. If it's worth it...well, everyone has to decide for himself. Myself i play on 150% with AA disabled which gives me a better overall result with acceptable FPS hit to play with.
If the GPU can handle it, i would always prefer higher 3D res instead of AA but this is my personal opinion.

[PendragonUK]

Back when we all ran CRT Monitors you had the flexibility to run at lower screen rez. Thing is most flat panel monitors don't like running and anything other than the native screen rez. This option lets you mess about with things more.

As has been said before if you computer is weak you can run a the native rez of your monitor but run the game at a lower rez. This looks a bit crap but will make life easer on your hardware. Most people would say you should run at 100% but if you can't you can't. It might make the difference for some people. As with a lot of things with this game having a full range of settings allow you to find your own compromises. By lowering the 3D rez you might be able to turn other things up, you could mask some of the "nastiness" with post-processing.

I have read that ATI's don't handle the AA settings too well. So if you have the power you can set the 3D rez higher than the screen rez and get a sort of whole screen AA going for you.

I have done some testing and found the in-game setting for AA to cause too many problems so I have it off. Morphological filtering ON in the driver profile and the 3D rez set to 125%. I see only a small drop in fps (5fps) but things like power lines look much much better than with 3D set to 100% and AA off. Now that works for me, I'm not saying it will work for everyone, that's part of the compromise I was talking about...

[Leon86]

its also to keep the interface sharp if you play at lower res.

[Derbysieger]

Yes, ATI cards don't cope well with AA. I get more fps with 150% 3DRes and AA off than playing with aa on normal and 3DRes on 100%