So I decided to make a thread about Anti-aliasing, hopefully people can learn something from it.

MSAA (Multi Sample Anti Aliasing) basically just renders geometry at a higher resolution.
SSAA (Super Sampling Aniti Aliasing) Just renders everything at a higher resolution.
FXAA (Fast Approximate Anti Aliasing) Pretty much just blurs the whole screen.
SMAA (Subpixel Morphological Anti Aliasing) Detects edges and blurs them.
TAA (Temporal Anti Aliasing) Takes information from previous frames

MSAA and SSAA:
If you are using MSAA or SSAA (or something that behaves in a similar manner) it is fantastic.
With MSAA and SSAA you are just rendering at a higher resolution and using the information to output a more accurate image.
This is kinda the one way to do it, if you want the best results.
Depending on the resolution used and how much AA you apply (4xMSAA, 16xMSAA, ect) you may or may not remove all the aliasing, but you will not harm image quality.
The image will not be blurry.
Both methods are super expensive, especially for a tablet.

FXAA:
It sucks.
It blurs everything, even the textures.
It is a post process effect that is pretty much just a blur filter.
It has next to no performance penalty.

SMAA:
It is similar to FXAA but it detects edges in the final render and blurs them.
It is a post process effect that sometimes harms textures, but is otherwise decent.
It has a limited performance penalty.

Temporal Anti-aliasing:
Essentially takes previous frames and the new frame and averages the results.
It is, perhaps, the most complex mainstream AA method.
Downsides include Blur and Ugly artifacting.
Artifacting is most prominent when the camera moves or there are fast moving objects in a scene.
Textures are harmed by this method.
It can look really good in stationary scenes, it does a really good job at removing jagged edges.


So to put the major AA methods in order of what I personally would use:
SSAA, it really is the best
MSAA, it is a good compromise if you cannot afford SSAA
SMAA, it works and does not harm the image quality too much
FXAA, it is better than having temporal artifacts
Temporal anti-aliasing, destroys the image in motion but can be really good if nothing is moving

When people say: "why doesn't Nintendo use AA".
Well this is why.
AA is complicated, if you don't have the power to do it properly, you risk image quality.
That being said, they should give people the option to enable SMAA.

I remember reading a great article on anti-aliasing before, I can't remember what it was though. I also personally can't tell which form of AA a game is using if I'm not told which.

Yeah, unless they use SSAA or MSAA I'd rather they not even bother, especially if the base resolution is 1080p or higher. Doom for the Switch is an example of a game that goes way too far with the anti-aliasing.

To be fair, there are a lot of methods.
These are just the big ones.

But da Ninteendo obviously hates AA xdddddddd

Good thread, I didn't remember all the details anymore (and I'm not sure I ever had enough information on temporal AA anyway).

Anyway, I'm OK with FXAA. As far as I've seen, it doesn't really make the image too blurry but it does eliminate the jaggies well enough. Of course I prefer better methods if I have the processing power, but I'd much rather use the extra power for more noticeable things than better AA. Whenever given the exact choice, I rarely go above 2xAA because it seems to be the biggest help and I don't care about further improvements enough to bother playing with the settings to see if I can go higher. Of course with older games, the choice is easy: I can go higher, period.

SMAA is subjectively better than FXAA, and is only a slight bit slower.
I recommend giving it a shot.
Both methods have almost zero impact on PCs (consoles too, but they don't often get a say in the matter).

Temporal AA is cool, but is has too many downsides in the implementations I have seen.
Hopefully some day in the future we can get a smarter, more accurate method of doing it.
Developers could probably devise a method that uses it only in slower scenes, or on select portions of the screen.

Adaptive Temporal Anti-Aliasing, sounds pretty cool.

SSAA, and MSAA shouldn't really blur the image at all if implemented properly (without bugs.) They work by rendering the entire image or specific assets at higher internal resolutions and then using an average of the colors provided by the extra pixels to output to the screen as a single pixel, which makes the pixel transitions look smoother than they would otherwise. SSAA does this to the whole image, while MSAA does it only to those parts which require it the most. 

Post-processing AA effects are a different category really -- they only blur the image in different ways so that hard-edges and shimmering aren't noticeable, but often with a loss of sharpness. Which is probably what you are noticing. 

Console games used to use MSAA (in the seventh generation), but because of the way game engines are designed these days, and because it might be worth it to just render the game at a higher resolution this has gone out of favor. Now console games mostly use crappy FXAA, temporal AA, or SMAA. 

Personally, since they are post-processing effects, I think they should ALWAYS be optional. 

MSAA won't work on on things like foliage unless it is real geometry.

Thanks for making me and that other guy a thread...I guess...Not that I needed someone to explain to me what the different types of AA are or explain that they require resources...but thanks.

Nintendo doesn't use AA to the degree other companies do because they don't prioritize it. That's all. Every developer needs to decide how to best allocate their resources and Nintendo doesn't value AS. For me, as someone who is really sensitive to aliasing, it bugs me.