is AA or AF better? Can anyone max both?

[Shephard]

Ok a long time ago I use to think AF was better but now I hear everyone say AA is better.

To my knowledge AF sharpens the picture and AA smooths any jagged edges.

Higher AA takes a hit on performance where as AF not so much.

I heard it's better to have Trilinear AF with a higher AA, over 2/4/6/16x AF and low AA.

What is your opinion?

Is it possible for anyone to actually max AA because every benchmark I have seen is usually only 2x MSAA.

When you look at 1440p resolution 2x MSAA with a card like a 7970 ghz the fps is only in the 40s for certain games. So I don't think anyone can actually play ultra settings because that would mean max MSAA.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

They do completely different things. 16xAF is not that taxing anymore. AA has a pretty big performance hit. Most modern GPU's can handle max AF no sweat.

 

[mikeymikec]

Can anyone find a good guide for defining anisotropic filtering? Initially I was going to explain it myself, then thought that a guide would be better as it would have 'before and after' images , and then the guides I scan-read seemed to talk about it as a workaround for mip-mapping, which I had no idea at all about as I thought AF was more about the ability to give surfaces less regular-shaped surfaces.

 

[thescreensavers]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2005/07/04/aliasing_filtering/1

 

[mikeymikec]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2005/07/04/aliasing_filtering/1

That was one of the ones I had looked at already If people consider that to be the best / most definitive explanation then I'll just have to accept it and assume that whatever I read once perhaps confused me into believing one bit of tech had a different name. If anyone knows what I'm referring to in my previous post, I'd like to know To expand on my previous post, I mean the ability to give a less regular contour to a surface, so instead of say the side of someone's face looking like a super-smooth surface, that when it is zoomed in then one can see irregularities to the shape of the surface.

 

[BFG10K]

What is your opinion?

Turn on 16xAF globally in the control panel and forget about it.

Is it possible for anyone to actually max AA because every benchmark I have seen is usually only 2x MSAA.

It depends on the game, your GPU, your target resolution, and your definition of max AA.

 

[Shephard]

Turn on 16xAF globally in the control panel and forget about it.


It depends on the game, your GPU, your target resolution, and your definition of max AA.

what is the difference between 16 AF in nvidia or amd control panel vs in game?

my definition of max AA is just that max AA. Am I missing something? That would be 16x MSAA unless the game only has like 8. Every benchmark I see only has 2x MSAA on 1440p or 1080p.

 

[BFG10K]

what is the difference between 16 AF in nvidia or amd control panel vs in game?

Driver AF forces it across all surfaces while games often reduce the work according to their engines.

That isn't really the point of my comment, though. The point is the performance hit is so small while the gain in IQ is massive, so it makes no sense to run without it.

Your question is like “which do I need more for my car, petrol or an engine?”

my definition of max AA is just that max AA. Am I missing something? That would be 16x MSAA unless the game only has like 8. Every benchmark I see only has 2x MSAA on 1440p or 1080p.

16xMSAA doesn't exist and 8xMSAA is not max AA, it’s max MSAA.

8xMSAA is middling (or even low) compared to the other types of AA out there.

 

[cmdrdredd]

what is the difference between 16 AF in nvidia or amd control panel vs in game?

my definition of max AA is just that max AA. Am I missing something? That would be 16x MSAA unless the game only has like 8. Every benchmark I see only has 2x MSAA on 1440p or 1080p.

16x AF in game or in the control panel doesn't make a difference. It applies the same thing. Some games though will apply it differently if you set it there. The Control panel will force it across all textures.

Max AA can be different depending on the AA mode. MSAA has varying levels from 2x to 8x and then you have FXAA and MLAA which have no levels to adjust. It's on or off only. You also have SSAA, OGSSAA, SGSSAA etc. These are super sampling techniques that apply AA differently than MSAA. The performance is decreased for an increase in IQ level. Nvidia also has CSAA which is a method based on MSAA but generally has a lower memory cost and performance reduction at the expense of image quality.

In summary super sampling provides the best image quality with the biggest performance hit, MSAA is the next best quality with a lower performance penalty, CSAA is next in line, followed by FXAA and MLAA which in most games blur the image noticeably.

quote from Nvidia developer zone.

In supersampling for example, each sample represents shaded color, stored color/z/stencil, and coverage, which essentially amounts to rendering to an oversized buffer and downfiltering. MSAA reduces the shader overhead of this operation by decoupling shaded samples from stored color and coverage; this allows applications using antialiasing to operate with fewer shaded samples while maintaining the same quality color/z/stencil and coverage sampling. CSAA further optimizes this process by decoupling coverage from color/z/stencil, thus reducing bandwidth and storage costs.

 

[toyota]

Turn on 16xAF globally in the control panel and forget about it.

bad advice as that can conflict with some games or apps. FEAR 2 was a good example of that and I know there have been a couple other games over the years.

 

[DiogoDX]

Driver AF forces it across all surfaces while games often reduce the work according to their engines.

That isn't really the point of my comment, though. The point is the performance hit is so small while the gain in IQ is massive, so it makes no sense to run without it.

Your question is like “which do I need more for my car, petrol or an engine?”

16xMSAA doesn't exist and 8xMSAA is not max AA, it’s max MSAA.

8xMSAA is middling (or even low) compared to the other types of AA out there.

Radeons can do 16xMSAA.

Full article about the AA types: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/anti-aliasing-nvidia-geforce-amd-radeon,2868.html

 

[Ben90]

my definition of max AA is just that max AA.

There really isn't such a thing as "Max AA" because you can always pick more points inside a pixel. Analog to what is the biggest number in the world.

 

[Kalessian]

I know it can change from game to game, but in general, for nvidia, what is the sweet spot for IQ to performance? I forgot.

I think there's a sweet spot right around 4xMSAA using CSAA instead with slightly lower IQ but much better performance, then there's some combo around 8x that looks better than 4xMSAA and performs the same. Or have things completely changed?

 

[cmdrdredd]

In some games I can run 8x SGSSAA with 8x MSAA. Other games I can't run SGSSAA at all because it's slow. It is game dependent.

 

[videogames101]

16x AF always, AA as high as you can afford

 

[Shephard]

I thought most games only had the choice of AA, FXAA, or MSAA? I thought MSAA was the newest one and AA was only on old games. FXAA on some games.

 

[djsb]

I thought most games only had the choice of AA, FXAA, or MSAA? I thought MSAA was the newest one and AA was only on old games. FXAA on some games.

No. AA is a catch-all term for anything that reduces aliasing (jaggies).

MSAA is a common type of AA, and one that is not as supported in recent games as it used to be.

FXAA is a post processing technique that blurs parts of the image, and is less taxing than MSAA. It was developed recently (past few years), and has improved since it first came out, so for games that have it built in, quality can range from sinfully ugly to pretty decent. (I think Max Payne 3 does it best, if I recall.)

 

[Ken g6]

Can anyone find a good guide for defining anisotropic filtering? Initially I was going to explain it myself, then thought that a guide would be better as it would have 'before and after' images , and then the guides I scan-read seemed to talk about it as a workaround for mip-mapping, which I had no idea at all about as I thought AF was more about the ability to give surfaces less regular-shaped surfaces.

Wikipedia's explanation is fairly decent. Though I think I can do better.

Imagine you're in a room adjacent to a long hall. There are pictures hanging along the wall on one side, and doorways like the one you're looking through on the other. Standing in the doorway, you look across the hall at a picture. It looks sharp and clear. Now turn around, go to the other side of the room, and look back at the doorway and the picture. It looks a lot smaller. If you were in a game, the texture wouldn't need as many pixels to render well at this distance. That's MIP mapping.

Now go out into the hall, and turn right. You see pictures along the left site of the hall, but they look sort of squashed. Especially if you close one eye. Looking up and down you can see a lot of resolution to each picture. But looking left and right there isn't much resolution at all. MIP mapping each picture would require either too much horizontal resolution or too little vertical resolution. The solution is anisotropic filtering: a texture that provides a lot of resolution one direction, but less in another direction:

16x AF would allow the texture to have 16 times as much resolution one direction as it does in the other direction.

 

[BFG10K]

bad advice as that can conflict with some games or apps. FEAR 2 was a good example of that and I know there have been a couple other games over the years.

Both vendors will block driver AF where necessary.

As for Fear 2, that artifacts the same way even without AF.

Radeons can do 16xMSAA.

Last time I checked, 16xMSAA is limited to multi-GPU configurations only. So it's still 8xMSAA on each card but with different offsets, then combined.

But if you have evidence showing it works on a single GPU then I'll be happy to look at it (Tom's didn't list their hardware setup anywhere).

 

[toyota]

Both vendors will block driver AF where necessary.

As for Fear 2, that artifacts the same way even without AF.


Last time I checked, 16xMSAA is limited to multi-GPU configurations only. But if you have evidence showing it works on a single GPU then I'll be happy to look at it (Tom's didn't list their hardware setup anywhere).

it can be turned on in some cases where a conflict can arise such as FEAR 2. and FEAR 2 artifacting I am referring to was ONLY related to forcing AF from driver.

 

[BFG10K]

it can be turned on in some cases where a conflict can arise such as FEAR 2. and FEAR 2 artifacting I am referring to was ONLY related to forcing AF from driver.

By default control panel AF is blocked in Fear 2 on nVidia's parts, and I'm pretty sure it's blocked with AMD’s too.

As for the artifacts, if you're talking about the black lines in mid-air, those are visible even with app AF, and IIRC I reported this to nVidia a while ago.

I observed no other problems in the two times I played through the game with driver AF.

The only other game I’ve had issues with is Rage, and again, control panel AF is blocked there by default on nVidia’s parts.

 

[toyota]

By default control panel AF is blocked in Fear 2 on nVidia's parts, and I'm pretty sure it's blocked with AMD’s too.

As for the artifacts, if you're talking about the black lines in mid-air, those are visible even with app AF, and IIRC I reported this to nVidia a while ago.

I observed no other problems in the two times I played through the game with driver AF.

The only other game I’ve had issues with is Rage, and again, control panel AF is blocked there by default on nVidia’s parts.

maybe its blocked in newer drivers but it was not for quite while. and we are talking about a global setting so forcing it will apply it unless something in the drivers is blocking it from there. and again what I am referring to for FEAR 2 was only an issue when forcing AF. it gave little lines around the lighting. I used to force AF globally until that happened in FEAR 2 so I remember it well.

EDIT: and no its not even blocked from the game program settings in cp so I am not sure why you are saying it is.

 

[BFG10K]

it gave little lines around the lighting. I used to force AF globally until that happened in FEAR 2 so I remember it well.

I'm not doubting you, but I personally never saw that problem.

EDIT: and no its not even blocked from the game program settings in cp so I am not sure why you are saying it is.

The default profile has blocked it (PREVENT_CPL_AF) on 306.97. So you can set the value but it won't have any effect in-game.

 

[Zodiark1593]

Even on something as lowely as a Radeon 5450, I've noted very little performance hit going from no AF to 16x AF. On older cards, using it hurt quite a bit, but the texture units are probably many times more efficient nowadays. The IQ improvement seems to diminish quite a bit going from 8x to 16x when I compared myself, however, considering the very minute performance cost anyhow.

AA is a much different story. Love it when my laptop's 6370 can actually use it (Source games), but it hurts oh soo much anywhere else. Any GPU with low memory bandwidth is gonna be begging for mercy when you crank up even MSAA. And the deferred AA in Battlefield 3 feels like the performance hit of SSAA, with the IQ of standard MSAA. :|

 

[jimhsu]

Don't forget TXAA, SMAA, MLAA, ....

The new thing these days are version of post-processed AA that can offer imaging quality comparable (or better) than MSAA/SSAA but with much less processing power. And certain tradeoffs (i.e. sharpness) that can also be fixed with post-sharpen filters.

Yes it's more complicated now, but that can be a good thing.

PS And it's not exactly true that post-processed AA is not adjustable (only that most game designers don't enable adjustment of the settings). SMAA for instance is quite adjustable with thresholding, sample area, % antialias to corners or diagonals, projection frequency, color matching, and a whole lot of other stuff that I forgot.