Anti-aliasing - Do Gamers Insist on Excellent AA?

[Aderes Devorah]

Hi all

This was mentioned to me recently and I wondered about the extent to which gamers out there feel that it is essential (that a card does it well).

Also, for about £200 - £250 is it possible to get good AA in a card. Which cards do a decent job of it (without a remortgage).

Many thanks.

Best

 

[arc@css]

7950 will handle x 4 or better well. Best value for performance card there is.

 

[Chrisoldinho]

Yes £250 would get you a very nice 7950 which is just ahead of a 670, and on a par with a 680 when overclocked. A lot of "injector" style AA filters like FXAA and SMAA actually have a very minor FPS hit, so much so I cannot even notice when I enable SMAA, and only notice a couple of FPS with FXAA.

 

[arc@css]

Make sure your cpu is overclocked to allow it stretch its legs as much as it can.

 

[IceShock]

Depends, back in the day playing counter strike source etc, had to have a excelent card to play it with AA or else it looked terrible..

where as now a days with motion blurs, and all the different filters and stuff, 2x aa looks silky smoothe.

but i just got my 7950 today, upgraded from a 4870x2, and its double the performance and more in most games and benchmarks.

and my 4870x2 was about 3x faster than my 2900xt which is equiverlant to a 8800gts.

its the best card iv ever owned yet. cant fault it.

hope that helps

 

[Aderes Devorah]

Cheers

Depends, back in the day playing counter strike source etc, had to have a excelent card to play it with AA or else it looked terrible..

where as now a days with motion blurs, and all the different filters and stuff, 2x aa looks silky smoothe.

but i just got my 7950 today, upgraded from a 4870x2, and its double the performance and more in most games and benchmarks.

and my 4870x2 was about 3x faster than my 2900xt which is equiverlant to a 8800gts.

its the best card iv ever owned yet. cant fault it.

hope that helps

Thanks.

The 7950 is getting great referrals from all, it seems.

So if I save a few quid and got a 7870 it would be foolish, you'd say?

Best

 

[Rroff]

I just need enough that it (mostly) eliminates my perception of jagged edges. I don't tend to notice how well its implemented or how good the AA quality is when actually playing aslong as it removes the almost sub-conscious effect of jaggies breaking immersion.

 

[arc@css]

I find FXAA suits me fine, though it doesn't hold up so well under scrutiny when viewing screen shots.

 

[spoffle]

I prefer FXAA, no jagged edges, and any other differences aren't very noticeable.

The lack of a performance hit more than makes up for any differences in image quality there might be.

 

[Aderes Devorah]

Cheers

I just need enough that it (mostly) eliminates my perception of jagged edges. I don't tend to notice how well its implemented or how good the AA quality is when actually playing aslong as it removes the almost sub-conscious effect of jaggies breaking immersion.

Makes sense...

Thanks (and to all)

 

['Wes]

Thanks.

The 7950 is getting great referrals from all, it seems.

So if I save a few quid and got a 7870 it would be foolish, you'd say?

Best

Depends on your resolution tbh, but the 7870 is a good card, and it's close behind the 7950 in the benchmarks i've seen.

 

[Yaayuh!]

Thanks.

The 7950 is getting great referrals from all, it seems.

So if I save a few quid and got a 7870 it would be foolish, you'd say?

Best

I'd say it'd be silly to save a few quid by getting the 7870 if you can afford the 7950. In a years time you would regret not spending that little bit more.

4xAA is the least i would apply. Especially as i don't like FXAA in most games, just seems to blur-up everything, it's not as sharp.
Just remember, it depends on the game. 4xAA is easy in CS:GO but not so easy in Metro/BF3/Crysis 2/Sleeping Dogs, with the eye candy up performance will take a hit.