Soldato
I used to envy AA and have it disabled by default because I never had a graphics card powerful enough for it (going back to, like, FX5200 in the family computer days). Now games seem to be based around it and jaggies seem a thing of the past and It's great I can turn up the AA in most games despite having memory muscle telling me not to do it (kind of like disabling start up programs when windows launches - not really needed but running XP on old HDDs trained me to do it!)
However, it might just be my eyes but modern games all appear to be smudged compared to no AA or old types of AA like SSAA / FSAA. (I understand that old school FSAA / Screen Space AA basically does the same thing as upscaling the internal render resolution beyond your display resolution that modern games can do)?
So anyway I did some comparisons on AA types in a couple of games to see what they all looked like because I have lost track of all the different types and whether they're a CPU based 2D post-process or a GPU based 3D rendering technique and how 'expensive' they are etc.
RDR2 has some interesting options for AA:
In particular zoom into the tree and slate roof on the centre right, middle distance. All 3 images are taken at 193% zoom of the 4k BMP image, even if the images cropped to slightly different sizes:
TAA High Setting (59fps)
150% resolution (34fps)
No AA at all (60fps vsync and 63% GPU usage)
Just FXAA (59fps, not sure this makes sense)
TAA almost makes it look like a watercolour painting or something! I think I prefer FXAA as it takes the edge (literally...?) off the antlers attached to the hut but without making the tree leaves one giant blob. The slates look awful in TAA High but do the best job of sorting out the antler jaggies (noting the high zoom level)
Here is another angle but a standard 100% zoom of the 4K image
TAA High (59fps)
150% Resolution (34fps)
No AA at all (60fps 63% GPU usage)
FXAA (59fps)
TAA smoothes out the angled fence but at this view isn't materially better than even FXAA, only No AA has any noticable, to me, jaggies on the fence.
The building doesn't look materially different in any of the images - even the 45% angled roof which should be a worst case for anti aliasing? edit - actually TAA easily looks best on the right hand side of the house roof line contrasting with the grass behind it.
TAA The tree line in the distance is just a blob of green whereas the other methods, even FXAA, keeps what definition the LOD allows. Grass blades in the mid ground blend together in TAA to the extent that it could be lower quality grass setting!
The nearground top-left tree is just a blob of leaves and the transparency effect on the twigs of the tree looks just as bad if not worse than jaggies.
The horses are quite jaggy without any AA presumably due the contrast between brown and green.
Assassins Creed Odyssey
High AA setting uses "TAA using the native resolution of the screen". I noticed when I ran the game without AA (for performance reasons at 4K) that I could see leaves more clearly and this made me want to do this experiment. The "SSAA" image is at 160% resolution of 4K.
TAA (53fps)
No AA (55fps)
1.6x Supersampled (27fps)
Kassandra's hair looks better under TAA where it is dense. However the bronze/black 'pattern' on her armour is smudgey in comparison to noAA and the supersampled image. The round blobs on the bow have two thin lines of brown, but TAA blurs this into one. The tree leaves follow the pattern set out in RDR.
Honestly I think I prefer FXAA in these two games - I clearly can't afford supersampling at 4K with a 6800XT and I'll take the slightly worse jaggy performance over the smudged look of TAA. But when I play on my 1440p monitor maybe I'll super sample instead of running TAA.
I do have a 2070 Super so I might add DLSS into the mix for RDR if I can be bothered swapping GPUs.
Anyway having spent a cold and cloudy Sunday afternoon typing this out I think it has been useful and at least answered by question about whether my eyes are working.
However, it might just be my eyes but modern games all appear to be smudged compared to no AA or old types of AA like SSAA / FSAA. (I understand that old school FSAA / Screen Space AA basically does the same thing as upscaling the internal render resolution beyond your display resolution that modern games can do)?
So anyway I did some comparisons on AA types in a couple of games to see what they all looked like because I have lost track of all the different types and whether they're a CPU based 2D post-process or a GPU based 3D rendering technique and how 'expensive' they are etc.
RDR2 has some interesting options for AA:
https://i.ibb.co/yQrtRh1/RDR2-FXAA.png
https://i.ibb.co/TMGJW87/RDR2-MSAA-2-X-FXAA.png
https://i.ibb.co/w6zXjy5/RDR2-MSAA-4-X.png
https://i.ibb.co/61bzk2h/RDR2-No-AA.png
https://i.ibb.co/khpBqL2/RDR2-SSAA-150.png
https://i.ibb.co/554rSyK/RDR2-TAA-High-Default.png
https://i.ibb.co/FwXPz2S/RDR2-TAA-High-Sharp.png
https://i.ibb.co/TMGJW87/RDR2-MSAA-2-X-FXAA.png
https://i.ibb.co/w6zXjy5/RDR2-MSAA-4-X.png
https://i.ibb.co/61bzk2h/RDR2-No-AA.png
https://i.ibb.co/khpBqL2/RDR2-SSAA-150.png
https://i.ibb.co/554rSyK/RDR2-TAA-High-Default.png
https://i.ibb.co/FwXPz2S/RDR2-TAA-High-Sharp.png
In particular zoom into the tree and slate roof on the centre right, middle distance. All 3 images are taken at 193% zoom of the 4k BMP image, even if the images cropped to slightly different sizes:
TAA High Setting (59fps)
150% resolution (34fps)
No AA at all (60fps vsync and 63% GPU usage)
Just FXAA (59fps, not sure this makes sense)
TAA almost makes it look like a watercolour painting or something! I think I prefer FXAA as it takes the edge (literally...?) off the antlers attached to the hut but without making the tree leaves one giant blob. The slates look awful in TAA High but do the best job of sorting out the antler jaggies (noting the high zoom level)
Here is another angle but a standard 100% zoom of the 4K image
TAA High (59fps)
150% Resolution (34fps)
No AA at all (60fps 63% GPU usage)
FXAA (59fps)
TAA smoothes out the angled fence but at this view isn't materially better than even FXAA, only No AA has any noticable, to me, jaggies on the fence.
The building doesn't look materially different in any of the images - even the 45% angled roof which should be a worst case for anti aliasing? edit - actually TAA easily looks best on the right hand side of the house roof line contrasting with the grass behind it.
TAA The tree line in the distance is just a blob of green whereas the other methods, even FXAA, keeps what definition the LOD allows. Grass blades in the mid ground blend together in TAA to the extent that it could be lower quality grass setting!
The nearground top-left tree is just a blob of leaves and the transparency effect on the twigs of the tree looks just as bad if not worse than jaggies.
The horses are quite jaggy without any AA presumably due the contrast between brown and green.
Assassins Creed Odyssey
High AA setting uses "TAA using the native resolution of the screen". I noticed when I ran the game without AA (for performance reasons at 4K) that I could see leaves more clearly and this made me want to do this experiment. The "SSAA" image is at 160% resolution of 4K.
TAA (53fps)
No AA (55fps)
1.6x Supersampled (27fps)
Kassandra's hair looks better under TAA where it is dense. However the bronze/black 'pattern' on her armour is smudgey in comparison to noAA and the supersampled image. The round blobs on the bow have two thin lines of brown, but TAA blurs this into one. The tree leaves follow the pattern set out in RDR.
Honestly I think I prefer FXAA in these two games - I clearly can't afford supersampling at 4K with a 6800XT and I'll take the slightly worse jaggy performance over the smudged look of TAA. But when I play on my 1440p monitor maybe I'll super sample instead of running TAA.
I do have a 2070 Super so I might add DLSS into the mix for RDR if I can be bothered swapping GPUs.
Anyway having spent a cold and cloudy Sunday afternoon typing this out I think it has been useful and at least answered by question about whether my eyes are working.