Does Aliasing Really Bother You?

[PlayModeOn]

Hello,

 

Just a general discussion and census here.

Do aliasing really bothers you?

 

Because me I came from consoles to PC, I'm so used to having aliasing in my screen all the time that I never really notice them. But resolution and frame rate does matter to me because it makes the overall experience look more clear and smooth. But aliasing never really faciors.

 

So when I play games on PC, If my PC can handle 60FPS at like 8xMSAA then I'll leave it on. But if I get below 60 and stuttering then I just turn anti-aliasing off completely (not even 2xMSAA or FXAA, just OFF).

Also there are some games that just have bad aliasing because they use deferred engine rendering such as Need for Speed Shift 2, Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs. These games have no MSAA options because you cannot implement it. Only games with deferred engine bothers me because of their really bad aliasing as they seem to sacrifice a bit of clarity to have more light source in a single scene.

 

And also I wonder why SMAA is rarely an option for games since it barely result in performance loss like FXAA. I use SMAA for Need for Speed Shift 2 and Tomb Raider and it seems to do a better job than downsampling (SSAA).

 

But what is your thoughts?

Please share them below!

[Samfisher]

I turn other stuff down to accommodate for AA, so yes it is hugely important.

[SirRoderick]

I would rather turn down things like fancy lighting effects to maintain a good framerate if the game has a lot of jaggies. They are really distracting sometimes.

[Jamdude]

Absolutely.  I don't understand when people say AA isn't needed at 1440p when it's definitely noticeable when enabled and visually makes a big difference.  AA is one of the first things I sacrifice for higher fps though.

[ManWithBeard1990]

I like AA, but my pc doesn't have the power to do it.

[Marvzl1357]

I really can't stand jaggies, so I tend to tone down graphics to medium with some things on high so I can have some form of AA at ~60fps.

For multiplayer fps, 60 fps is key, so that's where graphics goes down and AA goes up.

For single player, 60 fps is not so important, so that's where graphics go up and AA goes up as well  but of course 60 fps would be nice even on single player.

 

Idk, each game varies slightly.

[Sauron]

Sometimes it does, but honestly on a 4k monitor it's not a problem ^^ I wouldn't sacrifice performance for the sake of antialiasing if that's what you mean.

[ShadowCaptain]

I find AA important, even at 1440p, I try and have it as high as possible, if a game has poor AA implemented then I will use DSR and downsample from a higher res

[Lord Pantaloons]

Jaggies can ruin the experience more than low texture quality can, I run as much as possible.

[soaringchicken]

I do the exact thing, if AA is bringing my system down I just turn it straight off

[Hatsune Miku 「 」]

Forcing DSR on all my games.

[colonel_mortis]

I will always try to leave some AA on, because having some AA is much better than nothing, but the really high AA settings are the first things I will sacrifice to get a better frame rate.

[PlayModeOn]

I tried to downsample 1440p to my 1080p monitor but it results in flickering. Is that because HDMI 2.0 (or whatever HDMI I am even using) only allows maximum of 1080p?

[Photonic]

Anti alaising is a must have for me before i had my GTX 760 i turned on FXAA through nvidia control panel if i could not run the in-game anti aliasing 

[RatedBlam]

No not really. A game can look pretty much like ass for me. The one thing distracting me is bad distant textures and bad texture popping.

Jaggies, not really.

I remember long time ago, sometime soon after the launch of this forum I think there was a similar thread.

I gave the same answer and oh boy the amount people that just had to quote me and say how much they love AA.

[-TesseracT-]

Yes!!! Though 1080p without AA is totally playable.

[shadowblitz3]

yes, it bothers me a lot actually

[NinjaStyle013]

Aliasing gives me the shits

[PlayModeOn]

Thanks for the reply guys. It seems like 1 for every 10 people don't mind aliasing which is quite surprisingly. The thing I do not like about anti-aliasing is that it feels like an artificial way of dealing with aliasing. Increasing the resolution is the "natural" way of reducing aliasing but does not remove them (only reduces) and big performance hit.

 

Meh it does not bother me, if my PC can play certain games maxed settings at 200 FPS then I'll bump up the anti-aliasing.

I guess its slower games or big open world games that aliasing becomes an issue, like I mentioned Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs you can stop at anytime to examine the scenery. Or in racing games the track and environment looks so jagged in the distance that its hard to see the upcoming turns.

[Bhav]

I cant manage without it. Jaggies are horrible.

[killertek78]

Jaggies, they ruin stuff that would otherwise not be so bad. Overhead wires/fences/bridges in the distance. It's the flickering of said elements that usually catches my eye and distracts me.

[Syraz]

I always turn down/off shadows to get more aa..just looks nicer..and shadows usually hit the gpu hard

[Humbug]

i wish it didn't bother me, But it does. Ruins immersion. As mentioned above flickering is worse than jaggies. Screen tearing also bothers me. For now at 1080p my r9 290 is strong enough that i can crank up the AA in all the games I've tried including crysis 3.

[FloRolf]

A poll wouldve been nice but yeah, it bothers me A LOT!

[IrshaadH]

I don't have 20/20 vision, so @ 1080p aliasing is unnoticeable. I always turn of AA and max out everything else.