AA

[ukprojectorking]

Hi, Sorry to sound dumb, I know AA is a video card term but what does it actually do?
A brief explaination would be fine.

Many Thanks

 

[biostud]

removes jaggies

click to see difference

 

[Jeff7181]

AA = anti-aliasing

Aliasing is the jagged "stair-step" look. It's easier to show you than it is to see... the top image is an example of aliasing, and the bottom image is what anti-aliasing does.

image

 

[ukprojectorking]

brilliant,
cheers for the info, are there any other terms that i should look out for when i buy my new card?

Thanks

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: ukprojectorking
brilliant,
cheers for the info, are there any other terms that i should look out for when i buy my new card?

Thanks

Well AF kinda goes along with AA. AF stands for anisotropic filtering. That's also more easy to show than to explain, but I don't have a picture handy so I'll try to explain.

When you have a texture (image) that's say, 256x256 pixels, and it fits on the side of a model that's also 256x256, it looks fine. But when you look at that model at an angle, that 256x256 texture might only be seen on an area of the screen that's 128x256... so some of the detail from the image is omitted to get it to fit on that smaller area. That causes it to be blurry. Anisotropic filtering attempts to sharpen the image and bring back the detail. I'll take a couple screen shots in game right now for you where you'll easily be able to see the difference.

Here's a zip file with two pictures, one has no anti-aliasing and no anisotropic filtering, the other one has 4XAA and 16XAF.