Anti-Aliasing

[Mom]

Anti-aliasing-- do you use it? Do you swear by it? Do you find yourself maxing out your gpu for the sake of having the highest amount of AA filtering possible only for the sake of pumping your e-penis?

 

 

Do you consider anti-aliasing efficient, or worthwhile? If so for what games, and why?

 

 

I was over at mac-rumors, and a guy made a topic about the new iMacs having the ability to play starcraft2 at full-screen or not with max graphical settings. A good amount of the people said they seriously doubted the mobility 4850 could play it at max resolution, until I had to go in that topic and disprove them with actual numbers. It seems like a good amount of people on that forum, and I'm sure elsewhere, would rather not play a game at max/native resolution only for the sake of having rather complex anti-aliasing-- which I think makes no sense. Anything will looks its best and sharpest at an LCDS's native resolution, you get a pixel for a pixel.

 

 

Would you sacrifice max resolution/ graphic quality for the sake of running higher anti-aliasing-- or hell, even one bit of anti-aliasing?

 

 

I will provide 2 pics of Dirt2 I've taken-- one with 4xaa and the other with no aa, just to start things off. I encourage others to post pics too! (Do note, the pics are at my computer's native resolution, but don't downscale them to fit to your computer's resolution. View them at full size for best quality)

 

 

Dirt2 (highest resolution and graphic settings, 4xaa: 28fps)

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/twisted_metal_2/dirt2-2010-03-30-19-21-49-4.jpg

 

Dirt2 (highest resolution and graphic settings, 0xaa: 35fps)

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/twisted_metal_2/dirt2-2010-03-30-19-22-10-8.jpg

 

 

EDIT: Armored Core

Edited March 31, 2010 by TMRaven

[Exorcet]

I can care less about graphics.

 

Jagged edges FTW

 

But yeah, I guess it's nice, but not if it hurts performance. Right now I can't play clouds in FC2 for whatever reason, so AA isn't my concern.

 

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk187/Exorcet/ScreenShot_000.jpg

 

And Niji's forum won't let me spam FC2 photos.

 

But now it does.

 

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk187/Exorcet/ScreenShot_002.jpg

Edited March 31, 2010 by Exorcet

[Rachis]

It just makes the pictures look cleaner. It's not necessary, but its nice. I prefer to play games the way the developer intended the game to be seen, but I'm not gonna spend more money to do so. I can live with scaling certain things back.

[Neko Arc Chaos]

I find it not necessary because of the fact that it causes slow-down on some systems. It's just worth it for the sake of being pretty.

[Mom]

Well, that's stating the obvious. All the other graphical settings and resolution settings slow the system down for the sake of being pretty.

 

 

My question tho, is it worth it over the other options? Like, would setting AA to 4x and texture to medium be worth it over AA to 0x and texture to high? If they both yielded around the same FPS that is. Or would you purposely play your game at lower resolution than screen just to run AA along with all your other settings maxed?

[Neko Arc Chaos]

Well, that's stating the obvious. All the other graphical settings and resolution settings slow the system down for the sake of being pretty.

 

 

My question tho, is it worth it over the other options? Like, would setting AA to 4x and texture to medium be worth it over AA to 0x and texture to high? If they both yielded around the same FPS that is. Or would you purposely play your game at lower resolution than screen just to run AA along with all your other settings maxed?

No I would rather have no anti alias and have everything else set to max at least that way I wont have to worry about slow down as much. Would it be worth it to have AA and texture to high? Only if you like pretty.

[Mom]

Unless you're running a 5970, would having both lots of AA and highest graphical settings be worth it, when you take a loss in FPS? Most modern games have polygon counts high enough that with AA you won't see much difference in effect.

 

About the only thing very noticeable in the Dirt2 demo I provided (a game that plays fast as is) is the antenna on the car.

[Harakiri Tiger]

If I had 5970, yah. Cuz with 5970 you're going to be hitting around 200 FPS in most games anyway. Since only a psychopath really needs more than 60FPS, it's best to optimize your video quality to be as high as possible while staying around the 60 marker. No reason not to, since you can't use those extra 140 FPS anyway.

 

Even if you are a psychopath and want huge frames, 100 is about as much as the human eye can see unless the object is moving very fast. Faster objects reflect light from multiple positions before our eyes can "refresh" causing a motion blur as our eyes try to compensate. In a game the object that's moving doesn't get that light reflection benefit, so moving very very fast can cause noticeable jitters, but its very uncommon. So 100FPS is really a max you should enforce on any game you play.

 

If you have more than 100FPS, it's time to turn the settings up.

[Tsuranga]

Here is orderofimportance for games

 

FULL RES textures > Full res screen > Full polygons > shaders and splarkly stuff > AA

 

I play kotor on my my tablet, full res and textures, no shaders or AA or anything and it looks BEUTIFUL. AA is like the LAST thing you should up on games, it's one of those "IF you can run everything else first, and it, go for it" sort of things. AA is mostly for REALLY high end gpu's like my desktop's GTX260. I don't even think onboard gpu's CAN do AA.

[SUMERIAN BLOOD GOD]

Isn't KOTOR like a million years old now? My phone can probably run it at max settings.

[Mom]

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooh.

 

 

He just said your tablet pc sucks.

[Tsuranga]

My tablet isn't for gaming, but I was just using an example of a nice classic game that I like to play on the go like at work and school. The point was that even on a low-end GPU games can look amazing if you know what settings to focus on;res and textures.

[Rachis]

Your tablet isn't for anything. It's a waste of money.

 

The point being yeah you may be right about the priorities on settings, but you used a terrible example with KOTOR and your tablet. Nobody cares. If you are going to use examples you need to use ones that are more relevant to the topic. There is nothing "beautiful" about older games and now is the time where we are seriously seeing large pushes in technological and programing capability. Not the previous decade.

Edited April 2, 2010 by Wrenchis

[Tsuranga]

lololololol,I love how everyone takes every opportunity to flame me when all I did was make a valid point about graphics priorities with an example of an extreme case in proper gpu management. And old games are beautiful, kotor1 wa a masterpeice and at full res and textures it LOOKS great.

 

 

 

 

Example: This was on my desktop, so the only diff from my tablet is the 8xAA

 

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/theaegis/swkotor-20090303-171350.jpg

 

IT may have a low polycon count, and noe of the glitz and sparkle of modern games. BUT it did have wonderful tetures and a beatiful palatte of low-saturation tones of grays and colors, with the occasional dash of birght glow. for a 6 year old game, you can't say it isn't Beatutiful and crisp. If anything I like pre-HDR and frame buffer effects and shit. All those effects are used to do is bask crapp textures in modern games. Take falloud 3 for example, the textures in it are SHIT, if you were to just take off all the sparkles you would see that the texutres were heavily skimped on and just covered up with shader effectes and a high polygon count. Most ps3 games are like this too, shit textures with lots of sparkle to cover them up. Has anyone REALLY taken a good look at an armored core in ac4/fA? they're textures are blotchy and bland.

 

Textures >> Everything else.

[SUMERIAN BLOOD GOD]

I'm pretty sure that all of us said AC4/FA textures were bad. Anyways, we weren't flaming you; we were attacking what you said. There's a difference. Saying "That's stupid" is not the same as saying "You're stupid." An attack on an opinion is not necessarily an attack on the holder of that opinion.

 

Anywayyyyys, I don't care about graphics in games unless they're absolutely shitty and the game's not good enough to make up for it. This applies to computer and console gaming; if the game's good enough, graphics don't really matter to me. I still play PS1-era Final Fantasies and those characters are made of like 8 polygons.

Edited April 2, 2010 by Gary the Tennis Coach

[Harakiri Tiger]

AC4 garage textures were exceptionally high quality. Terrain/Environment textures and in-mission AC textures were poor. FA just had poor texturing all around. You guys probably don't know what a texture file even looks like or how it works, haha.

 

Anyway. KotOR is good, yah. I've been playing it on my laptop recently. Since last week or so. It's really easy to run, but it's textures aren't very large. The game uses a very simple layering system and low polygon count, which makes solid color textures look better to do perceived depth. Due to the game naturally being very square-ish and metal in the major locations it's not too hard to pull off simple clean textures. If those same textures had been 1024x1024 instead of 512x512 and they had a larger color variety to them KotOR would have a much harder time running.

 

I run KotOR with max settings, 16xAF, and 8xAA on my laptop and still hit up around 90FPS. Anti-Aliasing really shows it's value in older games, though. Due to low polygon counts and large screen resolutions, mostly. The higher the polygon count and the larger the texture file is, the less you need AA.

 

 

 

EDIT: I have taken some screenshots to compare AA and it's benefits between 2 different games. Both games are kind of old, though. KotOR and Oblivion.

 

KotOR Pictures:

Max Settings, 0xAA

Spoiler! --Click Here to View!--

http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/95011772-4.jpg

Max Settings, 8xAA

Spoiler! --Click Here to View!--

http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/95011790-4.jpg

 

Oblivion Pictures:

Max Settings, 0xAA

Spoiler! --Click Here to View!--

http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/79030420-4.jpg

Max Settings, 2xAA

Spoiler! --Click Here to View!--

http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/79030716-4.jpg

Max Settings, 4xAA

Spoiler! --Click Here to View!--

http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/79030886-4.jpg

Max Settings, 24xAA

Spoiler! --Click Here to View!--

http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/79031174-4.jpg

[Mom]

Less talk of old games and more pics/comparisons/numbers on new games!

[Rachis]

lololololol,I love how everyone takes every opportunity to flame me when all I did was make a valid point about graphics priorities with an example of an extreme case in proper gpu management. And old games are beautiful, kotor1 wa a masterpeice and at full res and textures it LOOKS great.

 

 

Not to beat a beaten horse, but I agreed with your point. Just not your example. I was just trying to help. If you felt like I was flaming you then I'm sorry. That wasn't my intent. I'm curious how console games come into the conversation though. They don't incorporate adjustable graphical settings and they are limited to 720p anyways regardless of what the box says (this is what I've heard, tell me if I'm wrong).

 

And uh...your game looks terrible. It probably looks better from a distance which would have helped your argument, but you decided to go with the IN YO FACE pic approach. Just saying broseph.

[Harakiri Tiger]

(this is what I've heard, tell me if I'm wrong)

 

You're not.