Whats x16Q?

[RandomUnknown]

hey quick question, whats the Q do in the AA option? tryed to google it and all i came up with was adds a blurring effect? doesnt sound like a good thing lol, does it make edges look smoother? just thought id ask here cause so far all my questions have been answers (=

 

[paperfox]

AA dose make a game look better by blurring the edges of the sides of an object to make them look sharper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-aliasing

the best example on this page that i notice in most games is the diamond (figure 3) in this wiki artice. the left diamond's edges dose not look as sharp because you can see the edge go vertical then horizontal in like a stepping motion. the right diamonds edges have been blurred through AA and looks more like a continuous line.

 

[RandomUnknown]

I understand what the Anti-aliasing does, just don't know what does the Q means? in alot of games ill have the option AA x16 or x16Q, is it a higher quality AA? thats all im wondering.

 

[randomizer]

Allow me to demonstrate. Spot the difference in image quality and framerate:

16x


16xQ


16xQ with transparency multisampling AA (will be similar to 16x with Transparency AA but probably lower framerate)

 

[RandomUnknown]

Wow i can see the difference in that last pic. i can barely see one between 1 & 2 though, but 3 looks a whole lot better. is transparency multisampling another option, ill have to poke around in some of my games options and see what all i find. sry for all my newbish questions >.<

 

[randomizer]

Transparency AA can only be enabled in the driver control panel. You can globally force it or force it for specific applications. There is multisampling and supersampling transparency AA. The performance difference is pretty negligible since it only affects objects with transparent textures (like the fence, but also trees and grass). Supersampling transparency AA might be a bit slower with alot of transparent textures though. Neither is really "better" for image quality in my opinion, but they do look a little different. Now high levels of fullscreen supersampling is the holy grail of AA, it's just dead slow, which is why we use fullscreen Multisampling instead



In order to antialiase the above image at 4x4 supersampling AA, it has to be upscaled by a factor of 4 in both X and Y directions, and then downscaled again (and antialiased during that process). Having to render every frame that large not only requires immense graphics horsepower, but also takes up huge amounts of memory.

 

[RandomUnknown]

I think that answers my question just about perfectly! thank you very much! i'm currently upgrading to a new rig so im gonna have
MSI 790FX-GD70 mobo
PhenomII 3.2 quad
HIS Radeon HD 4890 Turbo+ 1GB GDDR5
4gb DDR3 1600 ram
AZZA 850 watt psu

Will that card alone handle loads with supersampling, im thinking of getting 2 though? also if you have any suggestion as to what i should add/replace your opinions are appreciated.

 

[randomizer]

It will handle supersampling transparency antialiasing (or whatever ATI calls their equivalent, Adaptive AA I think), however high levels of fullscreen supersampling (SSAA) where every pixel is antiliased is impossible on any modern game. That is why multisampling (MSAA) is used, which only samples the edges of polygons (and therefore objects), but not inside the polygons like SSAA. You can get a similar level of edge-only antialiasing with MSAA as you can with SSAA, without the enormous performance hit.

For example, in Left 4 Dead without any AA I get >200FPS with a GTX275 in certain areas. With 16xQ MSAA (as that is what all games use without forcing SSAA in the drivers), this drops to around 150FPS. If I apply 4x4 SSAA this goes down to 21FPS, and that's without moving around. You may be able to run lower levels of SSAA without such a large performance hit, but it will still be larger than with MSAA and the edges of polygons will not be as smooth as with a high level of MSAA.

If you can stretch your budget, try and get a HD5850 as it will be better in the long run.