The best AA?

V4NT0M

V4NT0M

V4NT0M

Soldato
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So many different games have so many different AA configurations and setting some work better than others. What AA does everyone use? Is it best to force a certain type of AA from the driver control panel?

On AMD atm, but sure Nvidia users will still want to discuss :)
 
Whichever smooths edges enough for you and gives you good performance still.

It's very much a personal preference.
 
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Afaik nvidia has always performed better fps wise when using high aa compared to ati/amd. Not sure the reason but its what i hear tho this was a year or two ago when i heard it.

FXAA for me mostly is enough if it isnt then 2-4x aa. I dont have a 6xx series so cant try that new AA method for them cards which i hear is nice.
 
From a pure image quality perspective and completely ignoring performance I would have thought that downsampling a huge amount would be the best way to go. putting performance back into the equation probably gives you better options though
 
TXAA is the best, but not many games support it. With FXAA on alongside it to smooth jaggies in chain link fences and air vents and things like that which usually jaggy up like hell.
 
FoxEye said:
Depends on the size of your screen, naturally.

But for a 23" 1080p screen I agree; AA doesn't make much difference to my eyes.
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Same here. I can sometimes tell with online images of differing levels of AA, but usually in game I can't at all. So I tend to stick with 2x or none at all.

My eyes aren't the best, however, and I game at 1920x1080 on a 23" tn.
 
FoxEye said:
Depends on the size of your screen, naturally.
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Exactly this, playing 1080p on 27" and it's definitely needed.

I think the query I has was more what is THE best looking, I have plenty of games that are maxed way past my screen refresh and looking for ways to max out the visual quality.
 
If I am playing something like BF3 or any other online FPS even WoW I will turn off AA or set it to low as to be honest not going to notice a little jaggy line as I leg it from a grenade.

Something RPGish I will enable AA as its more slow paced.
 
Omaeka said:
TXAA is the best, but not many games support it. With FXAA on alongside it to smooth jaggies in chain link fences and air vents and things like that which usually jaggy up like hell.
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from the demo's of TXAA that i have seen, it is by far the worst for image quality. While it does remove all the jaggy edges, everything goes so blurry that it makes me feel like I need glasses
 
I'm fairly sure the best quality will still be super sampling or as already mentioned, high res and downsampling (though the methods of employing this latter method seem a bit questionable/awkward).

A lot of the fancy new AA modes basically provide something close to supersampling for less performance loss... I think. I might be a bit out of the loop.

Personally I don't bother with AA much on my 1440p 27" screen. If I was back at 1080p I might use it more...but I like consistent FPS personally.

Reaper 392 said:
from the demo's of TXAA that i have seen, it is by far the worst for image quality. While it does remove all the jaggy edges, everything goes so blurry that it makes me feel like I need glasses
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Assuming that it works like MLAA it will be awful yeah. I don't know how anyone can stand that blurbomination of an excuse for AA.
 
It tends to be a trade off, I almost always customise graphics settings in games anyway but personally I'd rather have lovely smooth animations than prettier graphics especially at 1080p on a 27" HDTV as I can barely notice the difference from one setting to the next.

I'm all about minimising slow-downs when large explosions or lots of elements are on screen at once rather than having them all look stunning but a little jerky,
 
Reaper 392 said:
Here's Nvidia's demo of it: http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/the-secret-world-txaa

blurry as hell, like you said
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blur.png
 
I used to just stick good old 4x MSAA on every game I could, for years. However, since discovering SweetFX and the SMAA that comes as part of that, I'm a total convert to this now. (Note, not SSAA, which is total power hog).

I'm no expert on this, but I think SMAA has similar performance impact to FXAA (which is tiny) but without blurring everything, which FXAA does. I like everything to be as crisp as Gary Lineker's crispy crisp-based bank account
 
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