Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 Video Card Preview

Anti Aliasing in games is extremely expensive and is one of the first things to get disabled when framerates are no longer smooth.  FXAA is a control panel based AA system that promises to deliver smoother graphics over the MSAA option and do so with higher framerates and be less expense to the entire system.  Since this is a control/driver based technology it can be enabled in any game, and likewise be disabled with a mouse click..

TXAA is a film-style AA that acts on the frame as it is generated to improve image quality and leverage the built in texture performance of the GTX 680.  Implementation of TXAA is dependent on game developer support so look for it in upcoming titles such as MechWarrior Online, Borderlands 2 and both the Unreal 4 and Crytek engines.

As hardware enthusiasts running competitive benchmarks or a hardware reviewer testing a GPU we often disable VSync to get an idea as to how fast the GPU can process a scene.  The problem with this is it can introduce texture and partial frame tearing which can be rather distracting in the middle of a fire fight.  To battle these gamers will enable VSync so that the generated frames are synchronized with the refresh rate of the display.  If you have adequate hardware that can stay above 60 fps there will be no issues but when things get dicey, and the fps drops, you will get a noticeable stutter while the GPU recovers and resynchronizes with the display.

Adaptive VSync will automatically disable VSync when framerates drop below the threshold and enable it again when things return to normal.  This won't remove the shutter completely but will minimize it depending on your hardware configurations. 

GTX 480 and 580 both introduced a 3D technology that would expand your gaming experience across 3 displays.  However, due to a hardware limitation you were required to run two or more cards in SLI to fully support 3D Vision Surround.  This could have been driven by a performance concern but the truth of the matter was each card only came with two video outs meaning you needed that second card to drive the third monitor.

GTX 680 features an all new display engine that is capable of driving four displays at the same time which allows to you run 3D Vision Surround from a single card and still have a fourth display available to show things like email or IM.