720p 4x aa and 1080p no aa.

Yosiah · 7 Oct 2010 at 21:39

Does 720p with 4xAA, which i use when playing on my 1080p HDTV (1080p is too small fonts etc) use less GPU power than 1080p with no AA?

Just wondering how AA affects the performance of a certain resolution.

I'm playing FFXIV at 720p with 4xAA because 1080p gives me really bad stuttering :< Does 720p with 4xAA use less GPU ram? My card is only 512mb.

Hudzy · 7 Oct 2010 at 22:06

It depends a lot on the type of AA being applied.

Supersampling will essentially render the frame at a higher resolution anyway and then downsample it to the resolution displayed. I'm not sure how much bigger though but I'd imagine 720p with 4x is comparable, if not more heavy, in memory usage to 1080p without any AA.

Other AA techniques can be better optimised which makes it difficult to say for sure which uses more memory.

Quixote · 7 Oct 2010 at 22:09

Unfortunately, it will vary on a game by game basis (infact, some decent games don't even support AA) - some engines and graphicsa cards pay a higher price than others for AA, to further complicate matters there are different types of AA.
The only way is to test. In general though, AA is VRAM hungry, so if you are short on VRAM, but have spare graphics power you can turn up other settings.

I'd say 720p 4* AA might just look better than 1080p no AA. but again it depends on the game.

Kenai · 7 Oct 2010 at 22:10

Virtually nothing these days will use supersampling AA though, as it is horrendously inefficient.

MeMeMeMe · 8 Oct 2010 at 00:18

If you're playing at 720 with AAx4 to avoid the stuttering you get at 1080 with no AA, you've just answered your own question. In that game, the 1080 mode is more demanding.

As quixote points out, this varies game by game.

One performance-saving trick you can do: the scaling on HDTVs is usually pretty good, so if 1080 is too demanding, try a resolution just one or two small steps down from 1080 without AA. This will smooth out the edges somewhat, and can appear to provide some level of AA, and a performance boost at the same time. How well this works does vary with the game, too.

HangTime · 9 Oct 2010 at 21:23

1080p is more than double the resolution of 720p so I would expect it to be slower even without AA.

chaparral · 9 Oct 2010 at 23:19

MeMeMeMe said:
One performance-saving trick you can do: the scaling on HDTVs is usually pretty good, so if 1080 is too demanding, try a resolution just one or two small steps down from 1080 without AA. This will smooth out the edges somewhat, and can appear to provide some level of AA, and a performance boost at the same time. How well this works does vary with the game, too.

Yes this is what i do myself..
If i need higher FPS then i run the game at 1680x1050 on my 1920x1200 monitor..