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Transparency Antialiasing

R

Ree

n00b
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
36
If I set "Antialiasing - Transparency" option to Multisampling or Supersampling, when exactly does it apply?

1. Game does not support AA or AA is turned off in-game. AA forced in Nvidia control panel.
2. AA turned on in-game. AA is set to "Application Controlled" in Nvidia control panel.

In which cases will the setting take effect?
 
Both actually, depending on the game engine of course. Think of it as being two different sets of AA algorithms that are BOTH being applied. So you have regular AA and transparency AA both being applied to a scene. I'll give you an example, I play company of heroes. I use the in game AA which I have set to 16xQ MSAA, I can then set transparency AA to off, multisampling, or supersampling in the nvidia control panel. Regardless of my choice the game will still apply 16xQ MSAA to nontransparent surfaces. But if I select off no AA will be applied to transparent surfaces and I will get about 75 fps, with transparency AA set to multisampling it will use multisampling on transparent textures and I will get 60fps along with a boost to the IQ of transparent surfaces. If I set it to supersampling it will murder my framerate down to 15fps in exchange for ridiculous IQ on transparent surfaces.

I highly reccomend you set it to multisampling since it has a relatively low performance hit yet greatly improves image quality in games that have lots of transparent surfaces. Supersampling will improve IQ even further in some games but it will murder your framerate and is not supported by most game engines.
 
Thanks for replying.

Both actually, depending on the game engine of course.
Click to expand...
What does the game engine have to do with it? Are you saying that some engines won't allow transparency AA to be applied even though AA is enabled in-game and transparency AA enabled in Nvidia CP?

Btw, if a game does not support AA and AA is set to Application Controlled in Nvidia CP but transparency AA is turned on (multi/super), I assume the latter setting won't have any effect, right?
 
What does the game engine have to do with it? Are you saying that some engines won't allow transparency AA to be applied even though AA is enabled in-game and transparency AA enabled in Nvidia CP?

Btw, if a game does not support AA and AA is set to Application Controlled in Nvidia CP but transparency AA is turned on (multi/super), I assume the latter setting won't have any effect, right?
Click to expand...

Oh man, your questions are hurting my head. Most people don't dig this deep into it, they just accept it and move on without understanding it. I'll answer the second part while I think about the first part. The answer is no. The reason it will have no effect is because as you said the game does not support AA, it doesn't matter whether the AA is applied to transparent or nontransparent surfaces if it doesn't support AA it doesn't support ANY kind of AA on ANY kind of surface.

As for your first question I mainly used that answer so that I wouldn't be attacked by someone saying "no, that's not true. If I use these settings in this game it doesn't work". It's a scenario that only effects like 1% of games. Some game engines support full scene supersampling but not transparency supersampling, and some vice versa. A few games have very odd engine specific methods of applying AA and do not support transparency AA at all, however these games also cannot have AA forced through the drivers due to their odd way of doing AA so it doesn't matter. But technically yes, you are right, when you say
Are you saying that some engines won't allow transparency AA to be applied even though AA is enabled in-game and transparency AA enabled in Nvidia CP?
Click to expand...
it happens on the rare occasion for the same reasons that it happens with regular AA, some games engines are just weird and don't like the driver methods.
 
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