MSAA vs FXAA in Destiny 2

[josh1002]

I’m wondering which one should I use cause when I use FXAA it makes my display and graphics blurry and on MSAA they are very shiny and sharp. Is this suppose to happen or is it my monitor?

 

[Dragos Manea]

Yes FXAA is a blurring AA, the best AA is MSAA but it has the biggest performance impact. FXAA has the least performance impact among the AA techniques but how you noticed it is based on blurring pixels(same as TAA).

 

[Karadjgne]

Use whatever makes you happiest. If you don't like FXAA, use MSAA, or use none of them. I've noticed in some of my games that MSAA makes faces especially to angular, FXAA on @3/4 use can smooth a lot of that out and gives faces a 'roundness' that MSAA can't, in other games MSAA clarity is much better for clear details on things like weapons and armor etc. So it's a balance only you can decide, and how much you apply it according to your game settings.

Being a personalized setting, what's good for you might not be good for me, or anyone else, but there is no right or wrong, it's a visible choice you must decide for yourself.

 

[Rdslw]

take highest that looks good and have playable performance. As you noticed FXAA is not a good choice in this example, MSAA x4 or x8 might be a good choice.

 

[josh1002]

Yes FXAA is a blurring AA, the best AA is MSAA but it has the biggest performance impact. FXAA has the least performance impact among the AA techniques but how you noticed it is based on blurring pixels(same as TAA).

So is msaa suppose to be really shiny?

 

[Karadjgne]

Yes and no, that's just how that particular anti aliasing responds on that particular game at those particular settings. It's a software issue, not in any way a hardware issue, so absolutely is not a problem with the gpu or your monitor, just in how you have your settings.

 

[Dragos Manea]

Yes FXAA is a blurring AA, the best AA is MSAA but it has the biggest performance impact. FXAA has the least performance impact among the AA techniques but how you noticed it is based on blurring pixels(same as TAA).

So is msaa suppose to be really shiny?

How Karadjgne said. MSAA, supposed to be the best technique from the common AA techniques but the implementations by the devs matters a lot more. Any technique can create issues if it is not properly written. The most effective is SSAA but performance costing one that's why it's not really used . For SSAA 4X means that it will scale the resolution 4 times from the current one and display it at your current resolution, meaning that at Full HD (1920x1080) it will make it 4k and display it on you full hd monitor but you need hardware to run games at 4k.
How other people said, use which it looks the best to you, eventually try to apply AA from Nvidia control panel or amd control center.

 

[josh1002]

Ok I was just concerned that my monitor was bad. It’s a TN panel. I just got it a month ago.

 

[Karadjgne]

Heh, nope, your monitor is fine. That said, even your monitor is not exact/perfect right out of the box, there's always a chance the gamma/color is a little off. That's normal behavior. There's also different settings, for game, normal, cold, warm, movies etc that'll change things, maybe even auto color corrections or facial enhancements that might need enabling or disabling. Once you start getting into the nicer equipment, there's a lot more that's user definable and a lot less that's simply plug and play with no adjustments possible.

So if you want to keep using MSAA, see what tweaks and options are available to maybe remove or lower the shine. Might be as simple as changing from game mode to normal or movie etc.