Which anti-aliasing method/setting do you prefer?

[It's Not Lupus]

For competitive multiplayer games, I prefer no AA since sometimes the player models blend into the background at long distances. For single player games, 2x MSAA seems adequate at 1080p.

FXAA makes the image blurry. Not too familiar is other post-AA methods.

 

[f1sherman]

4A Games AAA( Analytical Anti-Aliasing) and Crytek's SMAA T2X.
These 2 giveth the best IQ/performance ratio for me!

 

[Arkadrel]

To me it seems like SMAA beats out FXAA.

However I usually only use 2x MSAA @1080.

Edgies arnt that big a deal to me. I rather have image quality in the games I play, than play at lower settings and then be able to use higher MSAA rates.

For that reason FXAA/SMAA can be better if its a demanding game.
I guess this depends on how fast your GPU is, mine is starting to show its age.

 

[BrightCandle]

Really depends on the game. Some games have a sharpening filter as part of their FXAA implementation and it turns out they look better with that than with anything else. Other games no AA really seems necessary or some games I can run SSAA and get really decent quality AA at a substantial performance cost. I use everything on offer including combining multiple ones sometimes.

 

[skipsneeky2]

I prefer no AA at all, especially no MSAA as it just kills performance but sometimes i may apply it if there is enough performance but won't if my fps dips below 60fps like in shooters like BF3.

 

[el etro]

SMAA and no AA. When i want to see all the eye-candy i go for MSAA(MLAA or FXAA as alternatives).

 

[Black Octagon]

No AA, as it's just expensive lipstick. I prefer high PPI and high resolution textures (both of which can be a challenge to get these days, I admit)

 

[bystander36]

It definitely seems game dependent, but on average, I use 4x MSAA the most.

 

[Lonbjerg]

SSAA

 

[Leyawiin]

Whatever in-game settings are the max. Never do it via Nvida or Catalyst control panel. I'm just not that fussy about it. Lone exception - Oblivion (when I still played it). Had to override the settings in a control panel if I used HDR (since it didn't support it in game).

 

[mindbomb]

I think we're in the post AA era. It costs so much less performance to do AA with shaders nowadays.

 

[Teizo]

I've actually grown fond of the softness/smoothness that TXAA adds.

 

[Silverforce11]

4x MSAA, in most games is only a 25% performance drop in my own experience. Thats actually onpar with shadow effects such as HDAO, which looks nicer? 4x MSAA infinitely over "softer/darker" shadows which you won't even notice in fast FPS games. Jaggies? They are always noticeable, especially in movement.

 

[omeds]

SSAA>MSAA>SMAA in that order, or a combination of. If I cant use one I will try the next.

I must have AA, not only for the jaggies but also to remove shimmer in motion. Games just look messy without it imo. I have never seen a display that doesn't need AA yet but I imagine 2x would be enough at 4k on a sub 30" display.

 

[BertolomeoDiaz]

on 2560x1080 (21:9) monitor i use downsampling from 3200x1300 (1,25x1,25)
higher sadly won´t work, but it looks very good
+ what the ingame settings offer (fxaa or something, or 2-4xmsaa)
depends onthe game, but the downsampling goes for everything

on 3x full hd + bezel corretion 6000x1080 i use ingame 2x msaa or fxaa, whatever the game offers
no downsampling, 2GB 770s won´t be good for more than that

i play mostly mmorpgs, don´t need 60fps all the time
i´d rather have more/maximum eye candy

on three monitors, the immersion/wide angle is the eye candy, but i want full details, too

no AA at all, i cannot tolerate

 

[Ajay]

8x MSAA usually looks good enough for me, but I'll drop it to get my FPS up (so, I guess I use 4x the most). If I had a 120/144 Hz monitor, I'd probably use no AA for maximum FPS.

 

[Lonbjerg]

I think we're in the post AA era. It costs so much less performance to do AA with shaders nowadays.

Shader AA still dosn't give the same I.Q as SSAA...so sad people are content with lower I.Q.

 

[Anarchist420]

driver forced 4x sgssaa with a very slight leftshift to texture lod bias, followed by application txaa, then driver forced 8xS/16xS. fxaa and smaa are the worst.

dont know why there is so much hate against txaa for blurring the textures when fxaa looks like vaseline was smeared all over the screen.

 

[Anarchist420]

Shader AA still dosn't give the same I.Q as SSAA...so sad people are content with lower I.Q.

FXAA sucks, but it gets the edges better than OGSSAA alone.

 

[CakeMonster]

4x MSAA, in most games is only a 25% performance drop in my own experience. Thats actually onpar with shadow effects such as HDAO, which looks nicer? 4x MSAA infinitely over "softer/darker" shadows which you won't even notice in fast FPS games. Jaggies? They are always noticeable, especially in movement.

Agreed. HDAO is also overdone these days, in Far Cry 3 they take it to absurd levels.

 

[blastingcap]

4x MSAA here unless framerate takes too much of a hit, then 2x MSAA. But if I had higher pixel density I'd go without AA.

 

[It's Not Lupus]

I must have AA, not only for the jaggies but also to remove shimmer in motion.

Yes, definitely. AA makes movements look smoother.

 

[SirPauly]

Ideally prefer? SGSSAA! However, that isn't practical in all cases and aliasing encompasses a great deal of different artifacts.

So my answer would be to have flexible tools to alleviate the different artifacts; have the choice of many samples to choose; have different methods with differing performance and memory footprint costs. Gamers have different subjective tastes, tolerances and thresholds; different platforms and resolutions. So my answer is simply Anti-Aliasing flexibility!

 

[Wall Street]

Recently I have been using 8x CSAA in Quake Live. It is great in that it looks almost like 8x MSAA quality but doesn't require much more horsepower than 4x MSAA. I know that my GTX 570 can run 8x MSAA without dropping the framerate but with CSAA the fan hardly even spins up.

 

[Pottuvoi]

SSAA, if the game allows it and GPU has enough power.
After that, methods which allow subsample information for geometry and resolve intelligently. (SMAA 2xT 4x, TXAA etc.)
Then MSAA as it allows decent/good subsample information.
Last all those single buffer post solutions FXAA, SMAA 1x, MLAA etc.

Even with good post AA or SSAA games should use a shader AA like Lean Mapping with area lights to minimize specular aliasing.

We should see plenty of new methods now that games start to decouple shading and Mantle and such allow access to AA subsamples.
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I hate any method which forces crappy sharpness filter on top of resolved image.
If one needs sharp image render or resolve image into a the final resolution.