Anti-Aliasing and Anistropic Filtering Differences (LARGE Post)

[Dopefish]

I'm just going to post images of what AA and AF do.

They do not alter the shape of anything in the game. They do not touch polygons and increase their count or whatever.

Anti-aliasing, in simple terms, simply removes jagged edges.
Anisotropic filtering, in simple terms, improves texture quality at distances.

The base images (full resolution) can all be found here:
imk.cx: /screenshots/pc_games/counter_strike:_source/aa_af/base_images/
If you do go here, I recommend using Firefox and using the middle mouse button to open all the images in their own tabs. Then you can simply switch between the tabs to view the big picture and the impact it makes on the entire scene.


Here are some examples of AA.

0x AA (Completely Disabled)


2x MSAA


4x MSAA


8x MSAA


8x CSAA


16x CSAA


16xQ CSAA



Here are some examples of AF.

Bilinear Filtering


Trilinear Filtering


Anisotropic Filtering - 2x


Anisotropic Filtering - 4x


Anisotropic Filtering - 8x


Anisotropic Filtering - 16x



I use 16xQ CSAA, 16x AF, and other very high quality settings in the nVidia control panel (things that can't be set in-game).

Here are some Wikipedia links if you wish to read into all of this further.
Anti-Aliasing
Full Scene Anti-Aliasing (FSAA)
Supersampling
Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing (MSAA)
Coverage Sample Anti-Aliasing (CSAA - You need to read towards the end of the paragraph to read what's different)
Bilinear Filtering
Trilinear Filtering
Anisotropic Filtering

[K_Dog]

Great post.

[VincentVega]

I love how it works perfectly with my awp barrel shot. like buttah!

[Fish111]

Hmmm, well ive been thinking about shutting off AA in cs to improve my fps, but i know its not going to stop the lag and i like pretty things so i just left it.

Now AF I like because it *seems* like with what you said about texture being better at distances, players are easier to shoot farther away. I dont know it just seems that way, do u have any examples without the screen being blown way up? I mean its obvious what they do, but you probably need an entire ss to show what the effects are on the human eye

Also what is Qx AA? I cant adjust most of those things, because i have an ati card

Catalyst control panel has things called Adaptive and HD antialiasing... whatever that is

[Guntizzle]

its good someone laid these out for the n00bs about always asking what it is

[Relly]

Nice post.

[VincentVega]

everyone keeps tellin ya Feesh, it's because of your ancient cpu and motherboard. I have the same problem and I'm using an 8800 GTS. You would be wise to upgrade to one of those 3.0Ghz C2Ds, which is what i'm considering. you can find them, 1333FSB, for ~200. Hunt3r is good with the link for that

[Dopefish]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish111

I dont know it just seems that way, do u have any examples without the screen being blown way up? I mean its obvious what they do, but you probably need an entire ss to show what the effects are on the human eye

Read the top of my post, I gave a link to the full resolution screenshots.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish111

Also what is Qx AA?

If by "Qx" you are referring to "16xQ," then the Q literally means Quality. It's basically the same thing as 16x, but uses a slightly different algorithm to get more quality out of it.

If by "Qx" you mean "#x," then that is referring to just how many samples it makes. Obviously, the more samples it takes, the better the anti-aliasing, but more processing that's required.

[VincentVega]

What was the ATi hack that got a good result but was a lot less GPU intestive? QuinQunx or something? I thought that's what the Q was

[Dopefish]

Quote:

Originally Posted by VincentVega

What was the ATi hack that got a good result but was a lot less GPU intestive? QuinQunx or something? I thought that's what the Q was

Actually, you're right. I was thinking of something else when it came to the definition of Q. Or at least I've been thinking too hard today for anything to pop in my mind.

It's not an ATi hack (or at least ATi-specific if that's what you mean), it's a supported method with nVidia cards and always has been.

It's Quincunx. It's basically, like I said in my prior post, a different algorithm. It doesn't actually provide higher quality. Technically, it's quality is about the exact same (99.9% the same), but it uses less sample points/different pattern instead. The end result is almost perfect 16x quality with less of a performance hit.

Quincunx - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia