Anti Aliasing and Antriscopic Filtering

[EvilMike]

I recently bought a brand new, custom built computer (p4 2.8ghz 800fsb, 1gb dual channel 400mhz DDR memory, 36gb WD Raptor HD, 120gb WD HD, Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb) and I've begun to learn a lot more about computers and video cards and the such. My old graphics card was a dinky PCI Geforce 4 MX POS so this is quite a HUGE upgrade. Anywho, I read earlier here about AF and AA and I was wondering what exactly do they do and how do they effect the image. I've read benchmarks and usually AA/AF hender frame rate but does it increase image quality greatly?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

To answer your last question first, yes AA and AF does make most images look better to MOST people.

Here's a few links to help describe them.

AA:

<A HREF="http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?lp=de_en&url=http://www.3dcenter.de/artikel/anti-aliasing/" target="_new">Very detailed, but a little hacked-english from the 3Dcenter</A>

<A HREF="http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/multisamp/" target="_new">Pretty Good Description of Multi vs Super sampling @ Firing Squad</A>

<A HREF="http://www.firingsquad.com/guides/fragmentaa/default.asp" target="_new">FiringSquad explains Fragment AA (as used primarily in Matrox Cards)</A>

<A HREF="http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/tech_info/pdfs/parhelia/faa_16x.pdf" target="_new">MATROX's PDF file with good explination of AA and Fragment AA (nice visuals), of course a little Matrox-centric, not that that's a bad thing </A>

<A HREF="http://www.visionengineer.com/comp/antialiasing.shtml" target="_new">Another OK explination with a little AF thrown in</A>


AF:

<A HREF="http://www17.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030306/radeon9800pro-07.html" target="_new">THG's quick take as part of a review of the R9800/9600/9200</A>

<A HREF="http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?lp=de_en&url=http://www.3dcenter.de/artikel/grafikfilter/" target="_new">3Dcenter doing a good job again, but it's translated so engrish no best.</A>

<A HREF="http://www.ping.be/powervr/Anisotropic.htm" target="_new">A Quick and simple AF bit from B3D (their link to)</A>

<A HREF="http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,548248,00.asp" target="_new">Extremetech does a good job explaining and comparing</A>

<A HREF="http://www.digit-life.com/articles/digest3d/itogi-video-ani.html" target="_new">Digit Life's USUAL impressive view of things</A>

Hope that helps.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! <A HREF="http://www.redgreen.com" target="_new"><font color=green>RED</font color=green> <font color=red>GREEN</font color=red></A> GA to SK

 

[LtBlue14]

GGA gave you a lot more information than i'm about to, but i'm going to answer you in a sentence: AA (also known as FSAA or full screen antialiasing) makes it so that when you see the "steps" or "jaggies" on a diagonal line in a game, it will appear smoother, <A HREF="http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/sapphire_radeon_9700/ut2003_default_image.jpg" target="_new">here</A> are the jaggies if you don't know what i'm talking about.

ok fine 2 sentences. aniso makes long surfaces at small angles appear more clear, i.e. the floor at a distance in a game looks blurry without aniso. aniso makes the floor look crisper. same applies to walls. <A HREF="http://www.3dretreat.com/reviews/ut2k3/images/Phobos2-1.jpg" target="_new">here</A> is one example of a floor that could use some aniso, <A HREF="http://web.planet.nl/game/foto/ut2003/ut2003_4-gr.jpg" target="_new">here</A> is maybe another. aniso is less noticeable, to me, than anti aliasing in most cases. also, when looking at all of those screenshots, remember to maximize them in IE if it autominimizes the pictures so you don't get any distortion

fine, 2 paragraphs =)

----------------------------------------------
this signature area is too dern short, no space to put your system specs