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My thing is...how much AA does one need?
I play on a 40 inch 1080p TV that's about 4 feet from my face and anything over say 4xAA Quality or 8x AA I don't even notice a difference.
I look at some games that have 32xSQADAA (or some non-sense) and it just makes me go "Why?"...like whats the point? Especially for people that use high-res screens or smaller screens...just makes no sense.
Because we uhh..you know..notice the aliasing? Just because you don't notice it, doesn't mean we don't. And 4 feet is probably 4 times the amount most people sit from their screen.
you sit a foot from your screen? That's not good...and you have to keep in mind that my monitor is FORTY INCHES...so even at 4 feet away its still visually larger than your 23" monitor. Actually just measured 3ft 8in. from my eye balls to the center of my screen.
I agree with what I think is the crux of JoeUser's argument, that if you are actually PLAYING the game these extreme levels of AA seem a little ridiculous. I haven't seen "crawling jaggies" in a game in ages. Yes, if you stop, stare and take a screenshot, they may be there... But once in motion it becomes secondary. Sure the type of game can change how aliasing is perceived. Maybe there aren't enough people here that have played games at 320x240 on a 13-15" monitor :-P
That being said. I also agree that people all perceive the world differently and some would be more sensitive to these things.
...as for me, I've seen enough of those gifs that swap between two shots with one at 8xAA and one at 16xAA....and I always seem to think.....it that difference REALLY going to ruin my gaming experience?
I use max FXAA and I really can't tell the difference...
My thing is...how much AA does one need?
I play on a 40 inch 1080p TV that's about 4 feet from my face and anything over say 4xAA Quality or 8x AA I don't even notice a difference.
I look at some games that have 32xSQADAA (or some non-sense) and it just makes me go "Why?"...like whats the point? Especially for people that use high-res screens or smaller screens...just makes no sense.
But working MSAA is always the prerequisite, no matter if you use Nvidia or AMD. When SGSSAA is selected, it "overwrites" the MSAA but uses the same sample positions. Best use matching sample numbers, so 4xMSAA + 4xSGSSAA = 4xSGSSAA
Is there a chart or something that keeps track of what the alphabet soup of AA's mean, what they do, etc.? It's getting a little ridiculous/out of hand
That being said. I also agree that people all perceive the world differently and some would be more sensitive to these things.
...as for me, I've seen enough of those gifs that swap between two shots with one at 8xAA and one at 16xAA....and I always seem to think.....it that difference REALLY going to ruin my gaming experience?
........aaaaaand I'm back.
Temporarily anyways. It's time for one of my trademark wall-of-text posts.
That's a subjective topic.
For MSAA/CSAA samples I agree with you. If your resolution is over 1MP nearly all geometry aliasing is gone by the time you hit 8 samples on a sparse or jitter grid.
Adding SSAA does offer a very noticeable benefit over MSAA/CSAA though. Especially in modern titles which are filled with shader aliasing, which MSAA/CSAA won't alleviate.
AMD cards use rotated/jittered grids for their SSAA.
It's a bit out of date since I haven't worked on it in almost two years but here you go:
http://naturalviolence.webs.com/ati.htm
http://naturalviolence.webs.com/nvidia.htm
http://naturalviolence.webs.com/generalaa.htm
There are two things to consider here as far as I'm concerned:
1. Most aliasing is temporal and cannot be seen in screenshots.
2. Your brain filters out aliasing fairly well after you've been exposed to it for awhile. Playing with high levels of AA on a regular basis for awhile will adjust your brain so that it becomes highly sensitive to it. Just as playing with no AA on a regular basis for awhile will adjust your brain to not notice it.
I also disagree with the common assertion in this thread that SGSSAA is the best form of AA currently available on nvidia cards. HSAA (the xS modes) are clearly better.
If you have an nvidia card there are three forms of SSAA that you can use. OGSSAA, HSAA, and SGSSAA. You will rarely ever encounter a game that works well with all three so just use whichever one works and doesn't cause blurring due to conflicts with post-processing shaders (if that's even possible). If you happen to find a game engine (mostly older game engine) that works well with all of them I would strongly suggest HSAA.
Of course TXAA is going to blow HSAA out of the water. Too bad I don't have a 600 series card.....