Anti-Aliasing

[nadim615]

Anyone know what anti-aliasing does? Just wondering...

 

[Thegeek]

It basically makes objects in games and many other things look smoother. If you play a game, for example Call of Duty, and you notice that around the edges of the gun are, well, jagged, anti-aliasing will smooth them jagged edges and make the gun look better. Sorry, I'm not much of a person to explain things very well.


There are loads of sites that give you explanations on how it works.

 

[Gman450]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Aliasing
Here's a little explanation on Anti-aliasing.
Basically what it does is that it reduces the amount of pixels in the image. It can reduce the 'jaggies' making it, in a way, pixel perfect.
For example.

There you can see the difference between the two.

 

[julius 85]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Aliasing
Here's a little explanation on Anti-aliasing.
Basically what it does is that it reduces the amount of pixels in the image. It can reduce the 'jaggies' making it, in a way, pixel perfect.
For example.
http://www.gemaga.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/anti-aliasing.thumbnail.png

There you can see the difference between the two.

It doesn't reduce the amount of pixels. It just alters their colors.

 

[Gman450]

Did I just say reduce the pixels !!
I meant it increments them. Sorry !
Alter colors ? In what way ?

 

[Thegeek]

So when you said " increments them ", you mean that it will add more pixels to create that smooth effect on a game and its surroundings?

 

[jaguarskx]

As explained above, anti aliasing smooths (AA) out "jaggies" for any lines that are absolutely horizontal or vertical. The outline of a circle can look jagged as well when there is no AA used.

The higher you set AA to the smoother outlines will look. However, AA also needed a lot of processing power from the graphics card. Therefore, the higher you set AA to, the lower your performance will be.

For example, I was testing out my Lenovo IdeaPad Y470 which comes with an i5-2410 CPU and nVidia GT 550m GPU. I decided to test the Intel HD 3000 graphics core that is built into the CPU. While playing Crysis 1 on low settings @ 1366x768 and using no AA, I was generally able to get 18 - 24 frames per second most of the time. Switching AA to x2 (the lowest without having it off), I was only able to get 8 - 11 FPS most of the time. It might have dropped to as low as 6 FPS.

 

[Rocking_Star101]

Most of the points are already mentioned.
Anti-Aliasing (AA) smooths out the lines & edges of objects & images, making them much more smoother. However, it uses a LOT of power from your graphics card.

Usually the maximum advised is 8x, more than that will use too much power & not give you much more smoothness compared to 8x (in most cases).

Another example, one guy who had made custom graphics for GTA IV was using AA at 16x, he was getting only about 21-35 FPS, with a i7 950 @ 3.2GHz, 6GB Ram, 1x nVidia GTX480 1536MB (for Graphics processing), 1x nVidia GTX275 1792MB (for Physics processing), & a resolution of 1920x1080 @60hz.
Whereas, without AA, he would've got about (my approximate) 70-150 FPS

 

[Thegeek]

From what I've heard, AA isn't really necessary if you are playing games at high resolutions. Personally, the only game I use with AA is Dragon Age: Origins.

 

[nadim615]

Ok thanks for all the answers guys!

 

[nadim615]

Best answer selected by nadim615.

 

[Gman450]

From what I've heard, AA isn't really necessary if you are playing games at high resolutions. Personally, the only game I use with AA is Dragon Age: Origins.

+1 to that.
AA at higher resolutions is simply an FPS killer.

 

[Rocking_Star101]

From what I've heard, AA isn't really necessary if you are playing games at high resolutions. Personally, the only game I use with AA is Dragon Age: Origins.

Also true, since higher resolutions will already mean more pixels. Therefore, each image (for eg. a gun) will include more pixels, which means more smoothness. So, it'ld be just a waste to use AA at very high res.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

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