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It's too subjective to answer - it depends on what bothers you. FXAA can cause texture blurring, but MSAA can miss some edges - so it depends which limitation bothers you more. You really need to test it yourself and see which you prefer. FXAA is much better for performance though, so that is the deciding factor for a lot of people.
SMAA. Both FXAA and MLAA are terrible solutions, with MLAA being slightly worse.
MSAA is categorically superior to FXAA in terms of image quality and this fact is beyond dispute. SMAA very nearly approaches MSAA image quality with a dramatic increase in performance.
FXAA has awful image quality: it blurs the whole picture and looks worse the higher the resolution you use. It's a quick fix from the console arena that NVIDIA is pushing because it's easy to implement and has little performance hit. MSAA + Transparency still yields the best IQ. SMAA might get there if it's further developed.
FXAA has awful image quality: it blurs the whole picture and looks worse the higher the resolution you use. It's a quick fix from the console arena that NVIDIA is pushing because it's easy to implement and has little performance hit. MSAA + Transparency still yields the best IQ. SMAA might get there if it's further developed.
Beyond dispute? I think it's disputed quite often. MSAA can't touch shader-based aliasing or transparency aliasing, whereas MLAA (which FXAA is a subcategory of) can nearly eliminate it. I enable 2x MSAA and I can't tell the difference from it disabled. I enable 4x MSAA and geometry edges are smooth, but transparent edges are jagged as a serrated blade and my frame rate is suddenly down by 20%. I enable MLAA or FXAA and now all edges are clean yet my frames are still high.
Let the disputing begin.
Neither is "better" than the other, they're just different and they can even be complimentary as some have pointed out running both types of AA at the same time. You can't label something as better without having defined criteria and even then its going to be subjective depending on the user. Its like judging a beauty pagent, how can one woman look "better" than another when the decision is so subjective?
MSAA looks ugly in most games with trees... just look at crysis. unplayable with MSAA
MSAA is "crisper" in terms of edge image quality but misses transparent textures so some combination of light FXAA + 2-4x MSAA is what I prefer, when I have the performance to do so.
Some people do not realize FXAA doesn't apply well to certain games and the major "blurring" they think applies to all games, and it doesn't. In LOTRO I force FXAA on it's like I took off my glasses the entire scene is a blurr... In Skyrim where's it supported it's fine, in Borderlands it's a bit in the middle. It really varies, I asume if the game utilizes it ingame it snould be a boon in performance. And I agree with Kyle, it softens or AA the glare of specular lighted surfaces where most AA methods don't. I could be wrong in that.
FXAA far from perfect but it's the step in the write direction for good IQ with less performance loss. I'm hoping we have just 1 AA mode that the MS,SM,SS, yetyt, werweutt, HT or whatever varieties... I mean beside gaming euthusists most general gamers have no clue what AA is and unlikely have it on, like my roomate... playing games for years on PC not realizing you can pump up the eyecandy... he's scared to touch video settings and plays his games on default settings often in low default resolutions...
MSAA is better. FXAA makes the screen so blurry it feels like my eyes aren't in focus. I can't use it in any game.
So in the nvidia control panel thing, i should set my FA and MS to auto? Since they're different for every game?
I would leave them both at default settings and then change them on a per-game basis. Here's a rudimentary guide:
-If a game has in-game AA settings, use them. If a game supports only MSAA, try to use 4xMSAA (or just 4X as it's sometime listed), then in the NVCP change it to 16xCSAA (enhance in-game setting). This gives you 4x multi-sampling with 12x coverage samples. This gives you much better AA quality than 4x but performance penalty over 4x is negligible.
-If a game supports FXAA in-game, give it a try. It's typically better than driver-forced.
-If a game does not offer in-game AA settings and it's DX9 or older, you can force MSAA in the NV CP without issues. If it's DX11, forced AA generally won't work, but FXAA will. DX10 is hit or miss.
-When using MSAA as opposed to FXAA, it's a good idea to try transparency anti-aliasing. This will smooth out those edges that MSAA doesn't touch (it's called adaptive AA on AMD/ATI cards).
I've played with that all before. The problem is not every game engine seems to play nice with SGSSAA or SSAA. I had problems with Mass Effect 3, and Diablo 3. For those games I used standard MSAA. Conversely using MSAA+TrAA is a great option, but it's not always practical at 6080x1200 (which is my multimonitor resolution), although on single screen resolutions I can crank pretty much any AA setting I want.I would advise that you try another combination just to explore your horizons:
-Go into your NV CP and look at the setting for transparency AA
-If you have more video memory than you need, use the super-sample options (newer cards allow 2x/4x/8x whereas older cards only have on/off)
-If you have memory bandwidth to spare, use the multi-sampling option
-Mix the above with either 4xMSAA or 16xCSAA, and turn off FXAA
Given that you're on 680 SLI, the performance hit on this WILL be worse than your current combo, but it may still be within tolerances. IMO, it will look much better than 2xMSAA + FXAA. Please give it a shot and report back.
I've played with that all before. The problem is not every game engine seems to play nice with SGSSAA or SSAA. I had problems with Mass Effect 3, and Diablo 3. For those games I used standard MSAA. Conversely using MSAA+TrAA is a great option, but it's not always practical at 6080x1200 (which is my multimonitor resolution), although on single screen resolutions I can crank pretty much any AA setting I want.
When playing at multimonitor resolutions, I would rather play with all the visual settings enabled, and less AA, than have to turn off graphics options and enable MSAA. In those circumstances FXAA is quite nice because of the smaller performance hit and memory usage compared to MSAA.
, I currently run it with 16xCSAA and 8xTrSSAA. No problems, runs beautifully.
Mainly playing BF3 lately, and I notice the crap that FXAA is in that game. 2x MSAA plus FXAA high isn't that bad though.
Wait, FXAA is crap in BF3, but MSAA + FXAA isn't bad?
High is too high in BF3 - try medium instead, works just as good on the aliasing but not nearly as much blurring.
Sorry i dont trust you.
Your trust doesn't matter.
I got 2600K@ 4.8, and GTX680@1280 + SSD and i still got dips to 40 fps/stutter withonly 4X SGSSA + 4XMSAA and AO at very high, its not possible to play Diablo III without fps dips on those settings hence "no problems and running beautifully" is lying.
It is maybe, if you dont use AF/AO/And high quality filtering forced, which i doubt since you use SSAA + 16xCSAA.