The joy of antialiasing

People think AA is just about killing jaggies, but I feel it is much more than that.

You can have all the high end graphics in the world, if it has jaggies the illusion is broken. Put 4/8/16x AA on a game and suddenly everything feels solid, that it is not just a load of polygons but a physical world.

Try this out, if you have the Spore CC and a GPU with enough power crank up the res and AA to 4x or more. Go to the creature preview window (the only place in the CC AA works) and look at your creature, with 1680x1050 and 16x AA it feels like I can almost touch it.

Who else loves AA?

I guess you can't play Mass Effect.RK-Mara

Games on UE3 are examples of games that have almost no AA but are "solid" enough :P.

I guess you can't play Mass Effect.RK-Mara

I said I love AA, not that I cannot play without it :P

Although I like antialiasing, I will readily sacrifice it for a performance boost if necessary.BlueBirdTS

I strongly agree. AAing delivers near-reality graphics but it cost tons of our GPU performance. I hope someday someone will found the next-generation for AA, of course with less performance cost....

Put 4/8/16x AA on a game and suddenly everything feels solid, that it is not just a load of polygons but a physical world.

Try this out, if you have the Spore CC and a GPU with enough power crank up the res and AA to 4x or more. Go to the creature preview window (the only place in the CC AA works) and look at your creature, with 1680x1050 and 16x AA it feels like I can almost touch it.

AnnoyedDragon

No. More than 4x looks like ass to me (and in some games, 4x is even too much). At 8x, I start feeling like I've got 20/200 vision. At 16x, it's equivalent to smearing vasoline on my screen. Everything loses its definition and contrast.

I can see it feeling more like a physical world to someone who already has awful vision and major depth perception problems in real life, or just has a weird concept of what looks more realistic or atmospheric. I do think that 2x and sometimes 4x AA gives the effect you're talking about, but too much just looks terrible.

[QUOTE="BlueBirdTS"]Although I like antialiasing, I will readily sacrifice it for a performance boost if necessary.Icicle_MX

I strongly agree. AAing delivers near-reality graphics but it cost tons of our GPU performance. I hope someday someone will found the next-generation for AA, of course with less performance cost....

I believe DirectX 10.1 is designed to address that.

I must say this thread surprises me because I never use it. No AA doesn't hurt my gameplay experience at all. AF (anisotropic filtering) on the other hand, I always crank up as high as it will go.BLKR4330

Same here. I only put on AA once im hitting over 60 FPS. I can't stand any game without atleast 16x AF.

No. More than 4x looks like ass to me (and in some games, 4x is even too much). At 8x, I start feeling like I've got 20/200 vision. At 16x, it's equivalent to smearing vasoline on my screen. Everything loses its definition and contrast.

I can see it feeling more like a physical world to someone who already has awful vision and major depth perception problems in real life, or just has a weird concept of what looks more realistic or atmospheric. I do think that 2x and sometimes 4x AA gives the effect you're talking about, but too much just looks terrible.JP_Russell

I found this response rather strange; what you're describing AA doesn't do, smearing vaseline on the screen? You might want to get that checked out.

yeah AA is awesome altough for conventional computer monitors u dont really need more then 4xAA the quality increase doesnt justify the framerate hit. johnny27

4X is usually the maximum I'll go up to in games as well, I mentioned 16x because you can get away with it in the Spore editor easily.

Although I like antialiasing, I will readily sacrifice it for a performance boost if necessary.BlueBirdTS

As do a lot of developers. You see it more and more nowadays with video games, whether it's PC, consoles, or handhelds. Developers would sacrifice AA for performance. In a perfect world, I would like to have both but we're not in one, now are we?

[QUOTE="JP_Russell"]No. More than 4x looks like ass to me (and in some games, 4x is even too much). At 8x, I start feeling like I've got 20/200 vision. At 16x, it's equivalent to smearing vasoline on my screen. Everything loses its definition and contrast.

I can see it feeling more like a physical world to someone who already has awful vision and major depth perception problems in real life, or just has a weird concept of what looks more realistic or atmospheric. I do think that 2x and sometimes 4x AA gives the effect you're talking about, but too much just looks terrible.AnnoyedDragon

I found this response rather strange; what you're describing AA doesn't do, smearing vaseline on the screen? You might want to get that checked out.

AA blurs edges. 8x and 16x do a great job of getting rid of jaggies, but they also destroy contrast on all lines and start to make things blend together too much.

AA blurs edges. 8x and 16x do a great job of getting rid of jaggies, but they also destroy contrast on all lines and start to make things blend together too much.JP_Russell

That is why there is AA gamma correction in your driver options.

Ok here are two 1280x800 UT3 screenshots in png format for lossless quality (hope you have broadband), one has no AA while the other 16X.

http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/918/ut32008070320390139iy7.png

http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/1538/ut32008070320423739hu0.png

I honestly don't see the image quality impact you are talking about, just less jaggies.

[QUOTE="JP_Russell"]AA blurs edges. 8x and 16x do a great job of getting rid of jaggies, but they also destroy contrast on all lines and start to make things blend together too much.AnnoyedDragon

That is why there is AA gamma correction in your driver options.

Ok here are two 1280x800 UT3 screenshots in png format for lossless quality (hope you have broadband), one has no AA while the other 16X.

http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/918/ut32008070320390139iy7.png

http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/1538/ut32008070320423739hu0.png

I honestly don't see the image quality impact you are talking about, just less jaggies.

As Daniel said, UE3 must not be too hot at AA or something, because I've seen better jaggy elimination from 4x AA in most games.

The effect I'm talking about isn't as apparent in a screenshot, anyway; it's easier to see in motion. But as an example, if you look at the left side of the screen, at that marble-like material on the wall under that large pillar, and look at the right edge where it meets the wooden section of wall, you can see that it's very defined in the screen with no AA, and has a blurred look to it in the one with it.

Also, in the middle of the screen where there are multiple roofs close to each other in the near distance leaving only little patches of the sky visible, you can see the effect there. It's something especially noticeable anywhere there are many edges together with a distance behind them. And like I said, it's much easier (for me) to see in motion, where angles are changing and lines are moving and being contrasted against one another..

It's an effect that's very much like having degraded eyesight in real life (I know this, being someone with 20/50 vision), where sharp edges are no longer perfectly defined and blur slightly against the other colors around them.

[QUOTE="johnny27"]yeah AA is awesome altough for conventional computer monitors u dont really need more then 4xAA the quality increase doesnt justify the framerate hit. AnnoyedDragon

4X is usually the maximum I'll go up to in games as well, I mentioned 16x because you can get away with it in the Spore editor easily.

well for older or less demanding games then yeah crank up the AA :D.

Just wondering, does Mass Effect have any support for AA? I couldn't see it in the options!!biggest_loser

it doesnt try forcing it through ur graphics control panel appretnyl UE3 doesnt have built in AA support :(

[QUOTE="biggest_loser"]Just wondering, does Mass Effect have any support for AA? I couldn't see it in the options!!johnny27

it doesnt try forcing it through ur graphics control panel appretnyl UE3 doesnt have built in AA support :(

How odd, I am sure that the AA option was available with Bioshock...

I don\t remember Bioshock having specific 2x,4x,8x,etc AA, maybe just an option for detail or something.

Here's something interesting about UE3.

I saw no difference so far, but if they say so :roll:

+ You can't force AA on UE3 games because it won't work and how Bioshock became the most polished and solid UE3 game instead of an Epic game, I don't know. It shows how much Epic cares for PC these days.

4x->8x-16x aa is useless. No change at all, why do you even bother. Not to mention it makes even less of a difference if your playing on a higher resolution.

I can play several games at max settings on 1280x1024, and changing the AA from 2x to 4 doesnt change much, anything past that does nothing at all.diped

It smoothes out the edges a lot. Try using it with the game FEAR - it makes good use of it!

I guess you can't play Mass Effect.RK-Mara

I use 4xAA in Mass Effect...

I don\t remember Bioshock having specific 2x,4x,8x,etc AA, maybe just an option for detail or something.

Here's something interesting about UE3.

I saw no difference so far, but if they say so :roll:

+ You can't force AA on UE3 games because it won't work and how Bioshock became the most polished and solid UE3 game instead of an Epic game, I don't know. It shows how much Epic cares for PC these days.

DanielDust

Good article, the main take away is that if you play alot of UE3 based games, you should have Vista.