The significance of using AF with AA in gaming. Why are most benchmarks these days only based on AA?

[Apocalypse23]

Hello and happy new year to my fellow Anandtechers!

I've been looking at reviews of graphics cards these days and notice noone really uses Ansotropic Filtering (AF) in their benches in reviews these days. Especially for games like Crysis where it hampers performance. My question is why is AF not being used, has it become insignificant these days? Is all the gaming geared only towards AA (antialiasing)? From my experience in DX9 games like Oblivion, AF played a major role in showing more details in graphics. Maybe it's not worth it in DX10 games?

Thanks

 

[CP5670]

Maybe it's just assumed to be enabled? The performance hit of AF is negligible on modern cards. I have it on 16x all the time.

 

[nosfe]

AA removes jaggies while AF makes textures that are at an angle compared to your viewpoint crisper(like walls, the floor, etc). For me, AF is almost unnoticeable compared to AA

 

[lyssword]

I like AF, basically lets me see farther in cs:source and textures look less like bad jpegs

 

[Tempered81]

AF does a great job while not really impacting performance. Most reviews keep it on 16X - like CP5760 said. Traditionally AA made the bigger impact, and with newer drivers + hardware it's getting easier to use 2x, 4x, and 8x AA

 

[james1701]

Crysis uses POM, and edge aa. You can adjust these, and get better results than standard aa and af.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Apocalypse23
Hello and happy new year to my fellow Anandtechers!

I've been looking at reviews of graphics cards these days and notice noone really uses Ansotropic Filtering (AF) in their benches in reviews these days. Especially for games like Crysis where it hampers performance. My question is why is AF not being used, has it become insignificant these days? Is all the gaming geared only towards AA (antialiasing)? From my experience in DX9 games like Oblivion, AF played a major role in showing more details in graphics. Maybe it's not worth it in DX10 games?

Thanks

look carefully at the reviews

i don't think any tech site does not use it without mentioning it (in the newer reviews using the top cards]
[i could be wrong]

and many new games now enable it - automatically, by default - as you choose higher settings

 

[yusux]

Originally posted by: james1701
Crysis uses POM, and edge aa. You can adjust these, and get better results than standard aa and af.

they're different than AA and AF, enable POM destroys AF on ground, edge AA is for foliage, and trees only

 

[james1701]

exactly. POM is enabled at start. You have to disable it to get af to work properly. Edge AA needs to be turned on, but it makes the game look much better and you take a lot less performance hit by using it that regular AA.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: CP5670
Maybe it's just assumed to be enabled? The performance hit of AF is negligible on modern cards. I have it on 16x all the time.

^

This

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: nosfe
AA removes jaggies while AF makes textures that are at an angle compared to your viewpoint crisper(like walls, the floor, etc). For me, AF is almost unnoticeable compared to AA

I'm the exact opposite. AF really provides are noticeable increase in IQ to me, while I generally don't care about AA since most LCDs have pretty high native resolutions anyway. Plus, AF has a pretty tiny performance hit for what it offers back IMO.

 

[AzN]

Older games used to be horrid without AF. Blurry textures, etc... Now a days most games coming out looking sharp even without AF. I have AF on regardless. I hate blurry textures.

 

[dug777]

I have to have AF, AA not so much at 1600x1200.

 

[BFG10K]

Some reviewers are slack and don't use it, while others use it but don't say so.

I've been using 16xAF as a mandatory standard since 2002 when I got my Radeon 9700 Pro, so any reviews or benchmarks I post include said feature.

Originally posted by: james1701

Crysis uses POM, and edge aa. You can adjust these, and get better results than standard aa and af.

I can?t comment about POM but edge AA is definitely inferior to regular MSAA for edges. For vegetation it?s marginally better but it really doesn?t do all that much, certainly not even close to warrant regular MSAA not being used.

 

[CP5670]

Parallax occlusion mapping looks great, but it's a completely different effect from AF. There are other games that use it and work fine with AF.

 

[evolucion8]

EDGE AA makes the folliage looks much better, but doesn't do much with other edges, unfortunately I wasn't able to enable Super Sampling AA in Crysis With my HD 4870) the performance impact was there, but the jaggies still there. And while in other games the Narrow and Wide Tent Filter modes on HD 4800 hardware works fine, in Crysis looks terrible, looks so blurry, like if someone scrubbed your monitor (Or Eyeglasses) with Vaseline. POM makes the floor to look terribly blurry, and enabling AF doesn't do anything in the floor, but I don't know if it is working in other places like walls etc, but still good looking.

 

[nyker96]

i personally use 4xAA but no greater. don't see much more difference if i go higher than that. AF seems to make textures look better, but I use 4x 6x 8x but no higher since i can't really see much difference either. this of course depend on what game i play. but i think 2xAA is pretty much a must unless my gcard can't do it. anything less the edges becomes too pronounced.

 

[Leyawiin]

Originally posted by: nyker96
i personally use 4xAA but no greater. don't see much more difference if i go higher than that. AF seems to make textures look better, but I use 4x 6x 8x but no higher since i can't really see much difference either. this of course depend on what game i play. but i think 2xAA is pretty much a must unless my gcard can't do it. anything less the edges becomes too pronounced.

This is basically what I do with most new games with my GTX 260 @ 1680x1050. Oftentimes anything more than 4X with either one is kind of a waste for me - marginal improvement in IQ and not worth any further peformance loss. I do tend to use 8X AF a bit more than 8X AA though.