Overkill for 1080P gaming?

[bystander36]

What?? AA is now a 'specialised feature' akin to PhysX? You have to be joking?? I've been using AA for over ten years as well as anisotropic filtering (I imagine you consider that a 'specialized feature' too). Don't tell me, as far as you're concerned a full colour (32 bit) display is a 'specialised feature'.

I view AA more like a resolution setting. These are generic settings on the graphics card. Some games just allow for what ever your graphics card has, while others may tune it down. I personally find 4x MSAA to be all you ever need for any noticeable benefit. It is also a setting you can force higher from your graphics control panel. You also frequently have different AA choices with different weaknesses and advantages, so which is the "maxed out" AA choice is a little difficult sometimes.

I realize some include those into their "maxed out" settings, so I always qualify it. I believe when saying "maxed out", you also need to include resolution and AA settings to avoid confusion.

Crysis 1, Dirt 2 and other games, even offer different AA settings depending on the graphics brand you use, so that can make things a little tough to compare sometimes.

 

[Jacky60]

Well then maxed should not be used as a term, period. If it's a movable feast it means nothing. For me maxed means maximum possible graphical settings in game AND in CCC and whatever Nvidia's equivalent is.
I understand if for others 'maxed' means quite a bit less than that. I guess you could define 'maxed' as the image filling the entire screen.:\

 

[bystander36]

Well then maxed should not be used as a term, period. If it's a movable feast it means nothing. For me maxed means maximum possible graphical settings in game AND in CCC and whatever Nvidia's equivalent is.
I understand if for others 'maxed' means quite a bit less than that. I guess you could define 'maxed' as the image filling the entire screen.:\

Maxed out what is in the CCC? What about Nvidia's control panel? They have different available options. AMD has the ability to had MLAA, or SSAA. Nvidia doesn't have SSAA, but lets you turn up transparency AA (AMD doesn't have this feature). Nvidia has different max AA options than AMD.

Neither company has the highest texture filtering on by default either.

Does not having a 4k resolution mean you aren't maxed out in settings? That is also another option that has to be tracked.

The reality is, "maxed out" isn't a full description. It does take a little extra explaining, as at least the resolution has to be mentioned. You may also have to include if you are using Nvidia or AMD to know if certain settings are even available.