Where is x32 Anti Aliasing these days?

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silversix_

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#1 silversix_
Member since 2010 • 26347 Posts

I noticed that there's never more than x8 and in most games its x4 MSAA. Where is the x32 we used to see in early 2000 and such? Is x4 MSAA as good as x32 and the reason we don't see x32 these days?

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FelipeInside

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#2  Edited By FelipeInside
Member since 2003 • 28548 Posts

@silversix_ said:

I noticed that there's never more than x8 and in most games its x4 MSAA. Where is the x32 we used to see in early 2000 and such? Is x4 MSAA as good as x32 and the reason we don't see x32 these days?

You answered your own question. Now we have different types of AA which do a better job than massive amounts of old AA (like x32) used to do.

To be honest I never take any of them past 2x, or even 4x.... looks the same to me.

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horgen

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#3  Edited By horgen  Moderator
Member since 2006 • 127731 Posts

@FelipeInside said:

@silversix_ said:

I noticed that there's never more than x8 and in most games its x4 MSAA. Where is the x32 we used to see in early 2000 and such? Is x4 MSAA as good as x32 and the reason we don't see x32 these days?

You answered your own question. Now we have different types of AA which do a better job than massive amounts of old AA (like x32) used to do.

To be honest I never take any of them past 2x, or even 4x.... looks the same to me.

My experience as well. 2x is enough, although I see a small difference when going up to 4x.

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kraken2109

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#4 kraken2109
Member since 2009 • 13271 Posts

With modern resolutions there's little to be gained.

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NeoEnigma

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#5  Edited By NeoEnigma
Member since 2003 • 195 Posts
@kraken2109 said:

With modern resolutions there's little to be gained.

Well that's not true at all

@silversix_ said:

I noticed that there's never more than x8 and in most games its x4 MSAA. Where is the x32 we used to see in early 2000 and such? Is x4 MSAA as good as x32 and the reason we don't see x32 these days?

Rendering engines are different. You now have deferred lighting engines which can REALLY take a hit when you try to even apply something like 4xMSAA. And when you see 4xMSAA, you can't just compare that to 16xAA you used to see in games and say it's worse.

Nowadays, you have texture aliasing, transparency aliasing, sub-pixel aliasing, geometry aliasing, and shader aliasing. As you can see by their names, the things that cause them vary quite a bit, so you need different forms of AA to tackle them.

For example, transparency aliasing. This is what happens when you have a simple surface that uses a transparent texture to give the illusion of complexity. MSAA can not be applied to these traditionally, which is why it can't fix things like aliased chain-link fences or foliage. You need something that can specifically target transparency aliasing. Usually this requires a form of supersampling.

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jcknapier711

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#6 jcknapier711
Member since 2012 • 470 Posts

@kraken2109 said:

With modern resolutions there's little to be gained.

+1

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ShadowDeathX

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#7  Edited By ShadowDeathX
Member since 2006 • 11699 Posts

You can force x64 AA via your graphics control panel :p

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JangoWuzHere

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#8 JangoWuzHere
Member since 2007 • 19032 Posts

@NeoEnigma said:
@kraken2109 said:

With modern resolutions there's little to be gained.

Well that's not true at all

Uhh, yeah it is. jaggies are far less annoying playing at 1080p and above. I usually just leave AA off in most games. It's not worth the performance hit just to add detail I won't notice while playing.

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JigglyWiggly_

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#9  Edited By JigglyWiggly_
Member since 2009 • 24625 Posts

@FelipeInside said:

@silversix_ said:

I noticed that there's never more than x8 and in most games its x4 MSAA. Where is the x32 we used to see in early 2000 and such? Is x4 MSAA as good as x32 and the reason we don't see x32 these days?

You answered your own question. Now we have different types of AA which do a better job than massive amounts of old AA (like x32) used to do.

To be honest I never take any of them past 2x, or even 4x.... looks the same to me.

Actually they've gotten worse quality wise. MSAA is the bestFXAA looks horrible, CSAA is meh(this does look worse I compared)

I've found x16 MSAA is pretty much a jaggy free experience.

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_SKatEDiRt_

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#10 _SKatEDiRt_
Member since 2007 • 3117 Posts

Depends on the game for me. CSS i dont even need AA but i put it on just because i can (OCD)

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#11 Grey_Eyed_Elf
Member since 2011 • 7971 Posts

To be honest I can't tell the difference between no AA and 2X MSAA... What I do notice most is when a game lets you adjust the resolution like battlefield 4, playing Battlefield 4 on High with no AA or AAA and running it at 150% the game looks sharper and less jaggy also performs better than me running the game on ultra.

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horgen

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#12 horgen  Moderator
Member since 2006 • 127731 Posts

@Grey_Eyed_Elf said:

To be honest I can't tell the difference between no AA and 2X MSAA... What I do notice most is when a game lets you adjust the resolution like battlefield 4, playing Battlefield 4 on High with no AA or AAA and running it at 150% the game looks sharper and less jaggy also performs better than me running the game on ultra.

Running at 150%? Sure you mean FPS right? :P

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#13 wis3boi
Member since 2005 • 32507 Posts

@horgen123 said:

@Grey_Eyed_Elf said:

To be honest I can't tell the difference between no AA and 2X MSAA... What I do notice most is when a game lets you adjust the resolution like battlefield 4, playing Battlefield 4 on High with no AA or AAA and running it at 150% the game looks sharper and less jaggy also performs better than me running the game on ultra.

Running at 150%? Sure you mean FPS right? :P

BF4 lets you overcrank the resolution beyond your max.

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KHAndAnime

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#14 KHAndAnime
Member since 2009 • 17565 Posts

Probably absent due to the massive performance hit it would cause at the higher resolutions we use. I rarely use above 4x AA anyways. While I agree it's the highest quality AA, the vaseline effect on the jaggies becomes distracting past 4x. At that point the edges lose sharpness and everything starts to bleed into eachother.

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napo_sp

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#15 napo_sp
Member since 2006 • 649 Posts

2xSSAA + 2xMSAA + 4xSMAA probably the best combination for a modern hardware and games... unfortunately few games have those options

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mastershake575

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#16  Edited By mastershake575
Member since 2007 • 8574 Posts

@FelipeInside said:

To be honest I never take any of them past 2x, or even 4x.... looks the same to me.

Same here. 4x is usually the highest I will ever go

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#17  Edited By Ondoval
Member since 2005 • 3103 Posts

With the current resolution and different forms of AA the x2, x4 and x8 are more than enought. If you want even more IQ you can go and use supersampling (which meas to render the full image at higher resolution than the native and then downsample it to the monitor resolution. But using SS with a base res of 1080p/1440p/1600p usually involves a big hit in the performance of recent games, so either you build up a very powerful rig or just stand at native res with the usual x2 x4 AA.

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horgen

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#18  Edited By horgen  Moderator
Member since 2006 • 127731 Posts

@wis3boi said:

@horgen123 said:

@Grey_Eyed_Elf said:

To be honest I can't tell the difference between no AA and 2X MSAA... What I do notice most is when a game lets you adjust the resolution like battlefield 4, playing Battlefield 4 on High with no AA or AAA and running it at 150% the game looks sharper and less jaggy also performs better than me running the game on ultra.

Running at 150%? Sure you mean FPS right? :P

BF4 lets you overcrank the resolution beyond your max.

Ah, I didn't know.

Anyhow a question for this topic... Wouldn't 32x AA require extreme amounts of bandwidth?