Thought it might be nice to revisit this thread again after all these years.
- I've recently made yet another change to my video card, more on impulse than for any other reason, it's now a Gainward GeForce FX5700LE 256MB. The timing of this change coincided with the recent testing of the aquariums. And therefore I've done a fair amount of staring at my two screens!
I wasn't expecting, nor did I see, much difference at first, until I finally got the new card set up with the 'Detect Optimal Frequencies' on the nVidia manual overclocking settings. -
Then things almost started to jump off the screen at me! - (
Ok, slight exaggeration!)
I consider that I have moved on some since this thread was started, (with regard to both video cards,
and CPUs), and the image quality I now get is reaching that point where diminishing returns really starts to bite. But I still find that even with higher fps, and the improvements that all my various changes have made, the difference that calc normals makes seems to be even more obvious.
A more surprising conclusion that I have now arrived at, is that whilst my Sony 17" Flatscreen CRT is very very good! - My ViewSonic VP171s LCD flat panel, - is even better! - I have the ViewSonic carefully setup to balance with the picture on the Sony, and on axis, they are indistinguishable except that the ViewSonic is sharper. *** After using the ViewSonic flat panel for over a year, I would now say that the only advantage with CRTs is the wider viewing angle, and they are cheaper! - Usually.
Bottom line! ....
I can only describe the overall effect on the fish in the aquarium, as
tangible! - and calc normals 'On', is still IMO, an absolute must!
With the higher spec of current computers, compared to a few years ago, what earthly reason is there now to not use it ?
... I will now get down off my soapbox!
***
(The 1280 x 1024 LCD does of course require an anamorphic factor of 0.9300 in place of 1.000 to correct for stretching).