Some comparison screen shots in SS3. FXAA and SMAA are great.For good quality and keeping good FPS All screens have SS3 in game settings maxed. Only AA different 8x Multisample anti-aliasing 8x Multisample anti-aliasing and 4x Supersampling Custom Shader FXAA 2x Multisample anti-aliasing and 4x Supersampling Custom Shader FXAA 2x Multisample anti-aliasing Custom Shader FXAA FXAA Tool Max AA Quality and 2x Multisample anti-aliasing FXAA Tool Max AA Quality FXAA SMAA 1.2 SMAA 1.2 and 2x Multisample anti-aliasing
First of all, adding FXAA does make things noticeably more blurry. I played an entire level with just the "Ultra" settings as default, and kept wondering why everything had a 'haze' over it. When I dug in to the settings, and discovered FXAA was on, I turned it off and things were instantly clearer. Preferences for the look and performance impacts aside, it's a noticeable downgrade in quality over MSAA. Maybe it's something that has to be seen in motion instead of in screenshots, which brings me to my second point. There's no way to objectively compare the differences with your horrible screenshots. Your images are mangled with compression. Fine if you want to show some neat pics from the game, but useless for comparing image quality settings that are subtle to begin with. I know its in a contrasting area, but look how bad your Afterburner overlay text is. If it's that blurry and fuzzy, what's the compression doing to the rest of your image?
All the screens are 1920x1080 taken on a 50" plasma.My eyes are bad I guess if they are horrible screens. Well what would be your suggestion to make my screens good then. 580 SLI 3GB cards should be able to produce a better screen.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with your hardware, and your display size/type doesn't matter aside from the resolution when taking screenshots. Just don't use .jpg to capture them, or convert them to. Use png or bmp from the beginning since you're only linking here with thumbnails. I'm sure there are ways to squeak out better jpg's, but the easiest way is to not compress them so much in the first place. I'm not trying to be a dick, but look at them for yourself, full screen on your same display. Do they look the same to you as the game does? Of course not. Again, for just showing off the game, it's great, but there's no way to do a comparison of something as subtle as AA types when they're compressed that heavily. I do appreciate that you've taken the time and effort to map out all of the different AA types like that and make identical screens to compare, so thank you for the effort- I'm sure it took some time. It's just going to waste with those screenshots, and leading people to draw conclusions that might not be accurate about the game, or antialiasing in general.
All is good and it is really just some screens in a game.Thank you for your input. Was wondering if you have any settings I should explore for better quality in-game. I still like SMAA 1.2 and MSAA So I took some PNG'S at the same spot,I do not see too much difference except better FPS.For the most part I think thats what people want. The game is not playable maxed out with 8x Multisample anti-aliasing and 4x Supersampling for me. SMAA 1.2 and 2x Multisample anti-aliasing Uploaded with ImageShack.us 8x Multisample anti-aliasing and 4x Supersampling Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Here is a review of the settings in ss3 with performance relative to visual splender http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/12/21/serious_sam_3_bfe_performance_iq_review/1
Wow, so much better screens, thanks. I can def see the 4xSS shot looking clearer and losing a little of that 'blur' that the other has, but agreed that the performance hit is too much to be practical. I've been using 8xMSAA and no SS, no FXAA, ultra settings, unlimited rendering, at 19x12 and have been very happy with the quality so far, but again, I'm pretty sensitive to FXAA's blurriness. SMAA I suppose is a better compromise.
