What is anisotropic filtering?

[NicholasNicholasNicholas]

I cant see the difference between x8 and x16

[Bransonb3]

 

[tp95112]

level of detail at far range, also this is a question you can literally google and find the answer faster then a forum post

[Mira Yurizaki]

32 minutes ago, Nickathom said:

I cant see the difference between x8 and x16

Then don't worry about it.

[Ryoku]

1 hour ago, Nickathom said:

I cant see the difference between x8 and x16

This is one of those settings that you can bump down from the highest setting with minimal loss to quality.

[typographie]

This may just be my own my perception, but I think it's been many, many years since I've seen 16x anisotrophic filtering make any difference whatsoever to a game's framerate. Even if the visual difference between 8x and 16x is minor, I struggle to think of a scenario when you'd ever turn it down if you have anything approaching a modern discrete video card.

 

I've seen a couple of games that have relatively poor texture filtering, so I usually just leave 16x AF forced globally in my Nvidia driver. I've never seen it cause a problem, and there have been a couple of times when it's an improvement.

[Frankenburger]

There are a few games where using in game AF settings yields poorer results than forcing AF through drivers. For example, GTA V's 16x AF looks more like 4x AF to me. Forcing 16x AF for GTA V through NVCP greatly improves the quality of the game's textures over the in game settings.

 

Generally speaking, AF doesn't cost much to max. Oddly enough, Rainbow Six Siege seems to have a fairly decent hit in performance when using 16x AF.