Full Anti-aliasing?

[Cycrow]

the bigger the res generally, the more of a performance hit u get from AA and the less difference it actually makes.

at high res, some ppl cant even tell the difference with it on or off, whereas others can notice the difference between even level.

every game i've played recently have been at 1920x1200 with graphics on full and full AA and i dont get any slow down.

admittedly i havn't played any of the really demanding games yet like crysis or metro 2033

 

[r0cky]

Personally I believe af is more essental to image quality then aa.

Running without af makes images look flat and layered (try a racing game like tmnu as an example of how crappy the track will look with af off).

Running without decent anisotropic filtering is criminal!

 

[coughs]

Running without decent anisotropic filtering is criminal!

why?

 

[snowdog]

why?

Blurred textures in the distance, turn it on and off in an open world game, especially in a city environment, and compare the screenshots, especially roads look rubbish without.
Perfect example here.
While barely AF affects performance...

I don't see a reason why one wouldn't force 16x AF for all his games, I did anyhow.





AA is also essential with my eyes, jaggies in my eyes often make the game look 5-10 years older than with aa, there are few exceptions but generally AA is the option I care most about in games, I'd rather even completely disable things like shadows in favor of AA.

 

[Marvin]

though in COD: MW using any amount of AA seemed to make no difference to performance to speak of, anyone else notice that?

I think that's due to the frame rate limiter in the COD games (certainly MW and MW2), you're capped at 90fps, so assuming the card is good enough to be truly playing at 120fps or so, you won't notice the difference.

 

[nalla]

@nalla

dazzerd said there's a need for AF (Anisotropic Filtering FYI) in racing games, not AA (AntiAliasing). He also said that 2xAA is enough for him at 1080p.

but the op is asking about aa, which i said does make a difference even at my res, which up until getting gtx 480's i didnt think it would make a difference, i personally can tell the difference with it on/off espescially in car games.

I think that's due to the frame rate limiter in the COD games (certainly MW and MW2), you're capped at 90fps, so assuming the card is good enough to be truly playing at 120fps or so, you won't notice the difference

not sure what this frame rate limiter is you speak of in the cod games as i get a constant 190 - 220 fps in mw2.

 

[snowdog]

Afaik AA is a massive hit in games with a lot of post processing effects, of which codmw2 has none or little of.

 

[Boozebeard]

Forcing AA on in the control panel will overwrite any in game settings right? Or do I have to make sure I turn AA off in game for it to work?

 

[Final8y]

Forcing AA on in the control panel will overwrite any in game settings right? Or do I have to make sure I turn AA off in game for it to work?

Driver AA override in game but does not always work & can lead to worse performance than letting the game set it or even lead to no AA at all..

 

[bfar]

8x AA or more is a bonus, but I feel 4x is good enough in practice. It used to be a bigger deal when we played in lower resolutions. Nowadays it's hard to distinguish more than 8x on a moving image, as res increases.

AF is different - always 16x for the win.

 

[Final8y]

I think that's due to the frame rate limiter in the COD games (certainly MW and MW2), you're capped at 90fps, so assuming the card is good enough to be truly playing at 120fps or so, you won't notice the difference.

That Cap can be set to whatever you like from the console.