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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Anti-Aliasing: A VGC Thread

 

What is your prefered AA method?

SSAA 8 53.33%
 
MSAA 3 20.00%
 
SMAA 2 13.33%
 
FXAA 0 0%
 
TAA 2 13.33%
 
Total:15
caffeinade on 05 December 2017
curl-6 said:

I think you're a bit too harsh on FXAA and Temporal AA, caffeinade.

I've played plenty of games using these methods; many of them have good image quality, and never once did I feel they looked worse than the same resolution without any AA.

Maybe so, but in their current implementations they are harmful to image quality.
Perceiving a game using the stated methods, to have good image quality is subjective (temporal AA could get better in the future, but FXAA is what it is).

I try to keep an objective perspective on graphics, though of course: I am human and I will falter on occasion.

FXAA is pretty bad for image quality, I am not going to budge on that.
If a developer makes a clear artistic choice to use it (implement it in gameplay, in some fashion) I am willing to forgive its use; as an AA method it is surpassed by SMAA.

Temporal AA is clearly still in its infancy, and does show some promise; I do hope for the best, but given what I can observe now: it is not there yet.



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caffeinade on 05 December 2017
pokoko said:
TAA is a vile thing and should be burned from this earth.

I finally figured out that it's the main reason why some games give me terrible headaches. I don't mean the kind that go away with a couple of Tylenol, I mean the kind that make me feel physically sick and destroy me for an entire day. I tried all the other fixes, like POV and turning down settings, but I'm positive it's TAA at this point because everything is fine until I move the camera.

I've been trying to figure out a way to play Skyrim or Fallout 4 again without turning off AA and the world looking like a dirty fish tank.

What kind of system are you using.
You may be able to force the use of SMAA with relative ease.

Also it is my understanding that that implementation of temporal anti-aliasing is pretty bad.
Doom's TSSAA is much better.

Last edited by caffeinade - on 05 December 2017

curl-6 on 05 December 2017
caffeinade said:
curl-6 said:

I think you're a bit too harsh on FXAA and Temporal AA, caffeinade.

I've played plenty of games using these methods; many of them have good image quality, and never once did I feel they looked worse than the same resolution without any AA.

Maybe so, but in their current implementations they are harmful to image quality.
Perceiving a game using the stated methods, to have good image quality is subjective (temporal AA could get better in the future, but FXAA is what it is).

I try to keep an objective perspective on graphics, though of course: I am human and I will falter on occasion.

FXAA is pretty bad for image quality, I am not going to budge on that.
If a developer makes a clear artistic choice to use it (implement it in gameplay, in some fashion) I am willing to forgive its use; as an AA method it is surpassed by SMAA.

Temporal AA is clearly still in its infancy, and does show some promise; I do hope for the best, but given what I can observe now: it is not there yet.

They're not as good as MSAA, but to use for example Xenoblade 2 which I am playing now, its image quality, while not perfect, is much superior to 720p without AA, which generally means jagged pixel crawl everywhere.



caffeinade on 05 December 2017
curl-6 said:
caffeinade said:

Maybe so, but in their current implementations they are harmful to image quality.
Perceiving a game using the stated methods, to have good image quality is subjective (temporal AA could get better in the future, but FXAA is what it is).

I try to keep an objective perspective on graphics, though of course: I am human and I will falter on occasion.

FXAA is pretty bad for image quality, I am not going to budge on that.
If a developer makes a clear artistic choice to use it (implement it in gameplay, in some fashion) I am willing to forgive its use; as an AA method it is surpassed by SMAA.

Temporal AA is clearly still in its infancy, and does show some promise; I do hope for the best, but given what I can observe now: it is not there yet.

They're not as good as MSAA, but to use for example Xenoblade 2 which I am playing now, its image quality, while not perfect, is much superior to 720p without AA, which generally means jagged pixel crawl everywhere.

But it also damages the rest of the image.

At a standstill, I thought it was 900p, which I guess is a good thing.
In motion it is almost painful.

I don't have the ability to take high quality screenshots or video to show you what I mean.
You are just going to have to trust me on this one.



curl-6 on 05 December 2017
caffeinade said:
curl-6 said:

They're not as good as MSAA, but to use for example Xenoblade 2 which I am playing now, its image quality, while not perfect, is much superior to 720p without AA, which generally means jagged pixel crawl everywhere.

But it also damages the rest of the image.

At a standstill, I thought it was 900p, which I guess is a good thing.
In motion it is almost painful.

I don't have the ability to take high quality screenshots or video to show you what I mean.
You are just going to have to trust me on this one.

It can cause some blur and artefacting, but these are nowhere near as prominent or detrimental as the nasty in-your-face jaggies of no AA.



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caffeinade on 06 December 2017
curl-6 said:
caffeinade said:

But it also damages the rest of the image.

At a standstill, I thought it was 900p, which I guess is a good thing.
In motion it is almost painful.

I don't have the ability to take high quality screenshots or video to show you what I mean.
You are just going to have to trust me on this one.

It can cause some blur and artefacting, but these are nowhere near as prominent or detrimental as the nasty in-your-face jaggies of no AA.

Well, that is subjective.
It is perfectly fine to prefer the the results of temporal AA and FXAA to a raw image.
I am not a fan of these methods, and that is fine too.

FXAA and temporal anti-aliasing does harm image quality, this is not really something that can be debated.

Players should always have options to tweak the game to their desired settings.
In the case of Xenoblade 2, I would either, do without AA or use SMAA (Or play on PC, if really given options).



curl-6 on 06 December 2017
caffeinade said:
curl-6 said:

It can cause some blur and artefacting, but these are nowhere near as prominent or detrimental as the nasty in-your-face jaggies of no AA.

Well, that is subjective.
It is perfectly fine to prefer the the results of temporal AA and FXAA to a raw image.
I am not a fan of these methods, and that is fine too.

FXAA and temporal anti-aliasing does harm image quality, this is not really something that can be debated.

Players should always have options to tweak the game to their desired settings.
In the case of Xenoblade 2, I would either, do without AA or use SMAA (Or play on PC, if really given options).

It's also not debatable that aliasing harms image quality.

Any assessment of which is more/less pleasant will of course, by the very nature of individual perception, be subjective.

At the end of the day, AA is standard in nearly every modern game for a reason.



pokoko on 06 December 2017
caffeinade said:
pokoko said:
TAA is a vile thing and should be burned from this earth.

I finally figured out that it's the main reason why some games give me terrible headaches. I don't mean the kind that go away with a couple of Tylenol, I mean the kind that make me feel physically sick and destroy me for an entire day. I tried all the other fixes, like POV and turning down settings, but I'm positive it's TAA at this point because everything is fine until I move the camera.

I've been trying to figure out a way to play Skyrim or Fallout 4 again without turning off AA and the world looking like a dirty fish tank.

What kind of system are you using.
You may be able to force the use of SMAA with relative ease.

Also it is my understanding that that implementation of temporal anti-aliasing is pretty bad.
Doom's TSSAA is much better.

i5 6600k, GTX 950

I've read conflicting things about forcing AA, though, so I don't know.  I intend to look into ReShade but I need to find some kind of guide to tell me what I'm doing.  I don't care much about graphics, to be honest, but this TAA thing is basically QoL for me.  

The hyper-blur totally unfocuses my eyes and, I assume, confuses my brain.  It's a shame because it looks great when perfectly still.



caffeinade on 06 December 2017
pokoko said:
caffeinade said:

What kind of system are you using.
You may be able to force the use of SMAA with relative ease.

Also it is my understanding that that implementation of temporal anti-aliasing is pretty bad.
Doom's TSSAA is much better.

i5 6600k, GTX 950

I've read conflicting things about forcing AA, though, so I don't know.  I intend to look into ReShade but I need to find some kind of guide to tell me what I'm doing.  I don't care much about graphics, to be honest, but this TAA thing is basically QoL for me.  

The hyper-blur totally unfocuses my eyes and, I assume, confuses my brain.  It's a shame because it looks great when perfectly still.

Hmm, you probably don't have enough GPU overhead to use MSAA (if available) or a form of SSAA.

Skimming through, these don't seem like bad solutions:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/3z16j4/injecting_smaa_to_games/
http://www.tweakguides.com/Fallout4_1.html

Hopefully all goes well; I don't own or care all too much for Fallout 4, so I am not able to give detailed instructions.



Lawlight on 06 December 2017

Is AA needed now that we’re moving towards 4k?

And here’s what Digital Foundry had to say about InFamous:SS’s AA:

Also worthy of note is the implementation of state-of-the-art anti-aliasing, believed to be a variant of SMAA T2X, as found in Crysis 3. This is one of the best post-process anti-aliasing techniques we've seen, combining a new take on MLAA with a temporal element.