Anti-aliasing sample pattern analysis
G70's multi-sample and super-sample sample grids aren't any different to NV40's. I'll quickly run through them for reference and you can see the old images we generated on NV40's launch, here.No anti-aliasing
One geometry sample (red) and one texture sample (green) equals no anti-aliasing of any kind.
2x RGMS anti-aliasing
Two geometry sample points, rotated 45°, means the most efficient coverage in both horizontal and vertical directions. It samples twice in the horizontal plane, twice in the vertical, using two samples. This is the same 2X MSAA sample grid that GeForce FX uses, too.
2XQ mode, 2X Quincunx AA using the sample grid above, also does some neighbouring pixel sampling in the DAC, before output. It doesn't show up with the D3D FSAA viewer application that presents the sample grids you can see above. It's a simple blur in the DAC, more anti-aliasing than pure 2X MSAA, but at the expense of overall image quality.
4x RGMS anti-aliasing
G70's sample grid for 4X MSAA gives optimal coverage of the pixel being sampled with the four sample points covering four horizontal and four vertical sub-pixel planes.
8x RGMS + OGSS anti-aliasing
4x RGMS (rotated-grid multi-sampling) plus 2x OGSS (ordered-grid super-sampling) gives four sub-pixel geometry samples and two sub-pixel texture samples for combined MS and SS anti-aliasing. It's a high-quality mode offered by NVIDIA hardware. High-end NVIDIA hardware can make use of this mode due to an abundance of rendering power. Two texture samples means you halve texture fillrate, so there needs to be plenty to begin with, making it a nice mode for SLI users.
