Opinions: Higher tessellation or higher AA?

[spinejam]

So which "eye-candy" do you prefer while gaming?

***1680x1050+ resolutions***

1) Extreme Tess. w/ no or 2xAA
2) High Tess. w/ 4xAA
3) Disabled / Normal Tess. w/ 8xAA

 

[lopri]

What game are we talking about?

I think we will encounter this issue (tessellation v. AA) more often as the future games start taking advantage of hardware tessellation.

 

[Scali]

Ironically, tessellation will probably improve AA quality.
Namely, currently a lot of geometry detail is simulated with bumpmapping and parallax occlusion map techniques.
Since MSAA only works on polygon edges basically, this simulated geometry detail does not benefit from AA.
With tessellation, you get actual polygon detail, so MSAA has a lot more polygon edges to perform its magic on.

 

[Keysplayr]

Why not both?

 

[spinejam]

What game are we talking about?

I think we will encounter this issue (tessellation v. AA) more often as the future games start taking advantage of hardware tessellation.

**** Metro 2033



Why not both?

***** Sure, if your 'puter is up to the task (470_480sli / 5870xfire / 5970).

 

[MrK6]

I think it depends on the resolution you play at. If you're talking about Metro 2033, at 2560x1600 Adaptive AA was more than enough for me, and the 4x MSAA option blurred the hell out of everything. I did run it with tesselation on, but that's because I had 5850CF. If it was off I wouldn't have missed it. I guess some AA and tesselation if it's feasible, but I haven't played a game yet where tesselation was make or break.

 

[BFG10K]

I run a minimum of 2xAA in every game, and in-game features will be reduced if I can't get acceptable performance. That includes tessellation.

 

[0roo0roo]

screenshots?

 

[HurleyBird]

Option 2. There's a huge difference between 2x and 4x AA, and while it is nice to have some tessellation, but there isn't going to be much visual difference between normal and extreme. Same thing goes for 4x and 8x AA, there might be a bit more noticeable difference vs. tessellation, but its still quite small.

 

[Sylvanas]

AA > Tess at the moment. Until they create scalable Tessellation/ Displacement maps and we say goodbye to sprites for distant geometry, this will be the case.