Does AA make any difference to you?

[Flobberknock]

In every benchmark each one has maxxed out AA, and over loads of forums, I read about all the different AA techniques, and how each one differs from the other and how it makes the game look SOOO much better. 

 

But for me, I see absolutely minimal difference for the performance hit I take. I'm on a 24" screen at 1080p, so it's not like I have a crazy high resolution on a tiny screen, surely I should be able to notice the difference!

 

That's a lie, I do notice the difference, if I sit there and stare at the edges of objects, turning AA on and off and going "Meh, I can kinda see it". 

 

So my rule of thumb is, never turn on AA, the benefits do not outweigh the performance hit for me. 

 

What is everyone else's thoughts? I'm genuinely interested to find out if I'm a weirdo for not using it, or if it is a common thought that it's not as worth it as some people make it out to be.

[minibois]

I don't use it, because my PC is too radical for AA   

But I do notice the difference with an without AA. The pixel edges are real.

[samcool55]

I put it on if i can, i like it.

I have a 1080p 23" screen, and i try to get 2x or 4x out of it if it's possible.

Anything higher than that also looks like a waste to me. In the end it's all personal.

But at least try to play it as the devs meant it to be played...

[ShadowCaptain]

I notice a massive difference, but due to its taxing nature I generally run it on lower levels unless its a well optimized or older title

 

I like to get at least 2x AA on at least, it just helps clean up the image (this is on a 1440p 27" monitor) do games look ok without it? sure.. but I do notice

[SirRoderick]

Some games are worse than others for me. I like to have it on if I got the spare power.

[AlwaysFSX]

Yeah, because I'm not as blind as a bat.

[GrimNeo]

I don't use it that much because I'm use to consoles not using it that much or it or none of it. Does it matter? Well everyone is different. I run the bare minimum.  

[typographie]

So my rule of thumb is, never turn on AA, the benefits do not outweigh the performance hit for me.

 

It's obviously pretty subjective. If you're happy without AA, by all means keep it off. I will say personal tolerances change as you get used to different things. When I had a very low-end PC for a long time I was much more tolerant of these sorts of things than I am now.

 

Personally I need some anti-aliasing in most games. The difference between none and some is usually huge to my eye. That said, there are diminishing returns. Using MSAA for a somewhat outdated example, 2x MSAA was a huge improvement. I could notice the difference at 4x if I sat around and looked. I'd usually need side by side zoomed in screenshots to notice the move from 4x to 8x. These days I'm usually happy if I can enable SMAA or 2x of some sort of AA.

 

I will add, a lot of games these days have FXAA built-in to some of their video settings. Metro, for instance, only allows you to tweak SSAA settings, and doesn't look particularly jagged with SSAA off.

[Sauron]

At 4k, I can confortably live without it. At 1080p I used to turn it on, but only the lighter versions since the difference is not that noticeable (such as smaa 2x).

[Flobberknock]

Interesting replies, thanks guys, I'm going to turn it on for a few games (ones that aren't so demanding that the frame rate drop makes me cry) and see if I notice it more during gameplay. It has been a while since I stopped turning it on (and I've got glasses since!) so I may now notice it (like you typographie, I used to run on an old card where I then came to this opinion).

[boboman342]

I notice a massive difference, but due to its taxing nature I generally run it on lower levels unless its a well optimized or older title

 

I like to get at least 2x AA on at least, it just helps clean up the image (this is on a 1440p 27" monitor) do games look ok without it? sure.. but I do notice

Do you think you would need aa at all on a 25in 1440p monitor like this acer one? It's so cheap I might pick it up

[ShadowCaptain]

Do you think you would need aa at all on a 25in 1440p monitor like this acer one? It's so cheap I might pick it up

 

Not a bad deal, AA is completely subjective and depends on the game engine

[typographie]

Do you think you would need aa at all on a 25in 1440p monitor like this acer one? It's so cheap I might pick it up

 

With no AA at all you might notice some jagged edges in some games, but it's going to come down to what you're personally willing to tolerate. If I had to guess, something simple like SMAA or FXAA would be all you'd need for most games. If you're gaming at 1440p, I assume your video card is able to handle that without much performance difference.

[boboman342]

Not a bad deal, AA is completely subjective and depends on the game engine

Yea, will probably have to test it out for myself.

 

With no AA at all you might notice some jagged edges in some games, but it's going to come down to what you're personally willing to tolerate. If I had to guess, something simple like SMAA or FXAA would be all you'd need for most games. If you're gaming at 1440p, I assume your video card is able to handle that without much performance difference.

Well I do run my gtx 970 at 1582MHz on the core, but would still not max games with aa at 1440p. Better than 1080p right?

 

Cmon pascal, come faster!

[typographie]

Well I do run my gtx 970 at 1582MHz on the core, but would still not max games with aa at 1440p. Better than 1080p right?

 

I don't really believe anyone really needs to "max" out AA, aside from maybe for benchmarking/stress testing purposes. As I said earlier, even at 1080p, I don't see much purpose in anything beyond SMAA or 2x of something. That probably goes double for 1440p @ 25 inches.

[Ellis_D]

I'm a total anti-aliasing snob and even with 8X MSAA, I could still notice jaggies on my old 1920x1080 23" display. I'll usually max out Anti-Aliasing and even use DSR to run the game at higher resolutions if I can get a way with it.  Frankly, I would rather run a game at 30fps than have it look jagged.  no joke 

 

I have noticed that the higher the resolution and pixel density, the less noticeable aliasing becomes and I can comfortably lower my settings. Now that I own a display with 110pp, It's much more tolerable just to use a cheap method like SMAA or only 4X MSAA.  I still can't tolerate running a game without any form of aliasing though.

a

 

s for different methods

 

- SSAA:  Close to the most ideal solution but fine detail can be lost when down-scaling the super-sampled render.

- MSAA:  8x the old standby  method but it's not perfect and the amount of resources it uses makes it hard to justify.  4x is acceptable on demanding games but there is noticeable aliasing, especially in objects that are scaled at a distance and 2x just isn't worth it at all.

- SMAA:  This is probably the best "bang for the buck" option and I'll choose this over 4x MSAA when a game supports it

- TXAA:  Of the few games I've played that use it, I've never noticed it improving the image quality.  I seen no point in this method

- FXAA:  Complete garbage.  It does nothing in regards to aliasing and instead, it tries to mask it by making the screen appear blurry and muddy.  This method is completely unacceptable.

- DSR:  Quickly becoming my new favorite method because it maintains fine-detail a lot better than SSAA.  It can also be used in conjunction with cheaper methods such as SMAA to produce the best quality image possible.  Easily the most resource-taxing but use of this on older games produces image quality that's absolutely impeccable.  4K DSR with 8XMSAA is what I consider perfect, 4K DSR with SMAA is ideal, and 4K DSR with no other AA method is suitable for most things.

[GoldSrc]

It makes a difference, but it's kind of "meh" when you're playing.

At 1080p 4X is more than enough, and at higher resolutions AA is not really needed, unless you want to take some pretty screenshots.

[SeriouslyMikey]

At 1080p, I notice a huge difference when I am playing at low settings. Of which I do play at that setting most the time. When I play at ultra, I tend to turn AA off because it becomes demanding. Though I notice a difference, I don't really care. 

[othertomperson]

I'm a total anti-aliasing snob and even with 8X MSAA, I could still notice jaggies on my old 1920x1080 23" display. I'll usually max out Anti-Aliasing and even use DSR to run the game at higher resolutions if I can get a way with it.  Frankly, I would rather run a game at 30fps than have it look jagged.  no joke 

 

Why? Between 4 samples and 8 you're getting such a slight difference in overall colour it's not going to affect the image much beyond a placebo. Any AA also blurs particle effects so there will be fidelity loss with any AA on to varying amounts depending on the type.

 

If jaggies bother you that much then you need higher resolution and higher DPI, not AA. At 4K I can slightly notice the difference between off and 2x MSAA, but not enough to particularly care. I think 6K will probably be the stage of there being literally no difference at 28".

[ACatWithThumbs]

The difference is obvious so, yes.
I use it as much as I can if the performance overhead is there but my GTX670 is starting to show it's age so I don't use it on newer games anymore.

[Ellis_D]

Why? Between 4 samples and 8 you're getting such a slight difference in overall colour it's not going to affect the image much beyond a placebo. Any AA also blurs particle effects so there will be fidelity loss with any AA on to varying amounts depending on the type.

 

If jaggies bother you that much then you need higher resolution and higher DPI, not AA. At 4K I can slightly notice the difference between off and 2x MSAA, but not enough to particularly care. I think 6K will probably be the stage of there being literally no difference at 28".

 

If you say so but I can clearly see a difference between 4 and 8 samples on 1080p monitors.  Maybe my eyes are just better than average.  And I also mentioned why DSR was my preferred method because it's the best at upscaling while retaining the original fidelity.

[othertomperson]

If you say so but I can clearly see a difference between 4 and 8 samples on 1080p monitors.  Maybe my eyes are just better than average.  And I also mentioned why DSR was my preferred method because it's the best at upscaling while retaining the original fidelity.

 

I would be interested to see what amount of a colour difference four more samples make on a pixel: I would be very surprised if it's not less than most monitors can accurately display.

 

And even with DSR you're still losing the most granular particle effects.

[kipper]

If i cannot afford AA, i attempt SMAA or FXAA, otherwise i just enjoy it without.

 

I can play CSGO with no AA... but i need AA in Fallout.

[kenjigreat]

In every benchmark each one has maxxed out AA, and over loads of forums, I read about all the different AA techniques, and how each one differs from the other and how it makes the game look SOOO much better. 

 

But for me, I see absolutely minimal difference for the performance hit I take. I'm on a 24" screen at 1080p, so it's not like I have a crazy high resolution on a tiny screen, surely I should be able to notice the difference!

 

That's a lie, I do notice the difference, if I sit there and stare at the edges of objects, turning AA on and off and going "Meh, I can kinda see it". 

 

So my rule of thumb is, never turn on AA, the benefits do not outweigh the performance hit for me. 

 

What is everyone else's thoughts? I'm genuinely interested to find out if I'm a weirdo for not using it, or if it is a common thought that it's not as worth it as some people make it out to be.

I don't use it , but that's because I run games at Ultra at 4k.

[sgtcool]

2x msaa looks like crap