Msaa, csaa, fxaa, smaa, sg-ssaa? Wtf!

In Skyrim I currently use a blend of AA methods and it gives nice on-screen results.

@2560x1600 I use 2x MSAA (set in the game), native FXAA turned off, nvidia driver FXAA turned on (using the allow function of nvidia inspector) and 2x SGSSAA.

Quite pleasing results and the driver FXAA seems far superior to what has been put into games and injectors.

 

Why would you use FXAA at all if your using MSAA and SGSSAA. Just those 2 options should give you a great image!

I'm using 8x MSAA (in-game) & 4X SGSSAA in Skyrim myself and it looks fantastic!

 

Thanks, now I am a little more "informed":banana:

 

In some games, there's still some texture shimmering even with SGSSAA, especially if low amounts of SGSSAA is being used. When down sampling, FXAA is a great way to improve the AA effect without severely cutting into video memory.

 

Because the FXAA helps, that's why. 2x AA by itself isn't enough, it needs some help. I was running MSAA 4x, SGSSAA 2x, but that is too costly with large view ranges, high LOD settings, hires textures and grass modded to 100% density.

Looks just as good as the old setting too. The only time I notice any aliasing at all is on the models in the loading screens, none in game. So, if it looks as good and performs better, why not use it?

I find MSAA above 4x to be a waste unless you have very angular high contrast geometry that really shows off aliasing easily. I'd much rather put the cost 8x MSAA incurs into some SGSSAA instead since that addresses all aliasing, not just edge aliasing.

 

I gave it a shot in L.A. Noire because there will still jaggies with 4xMSAA+2xSGSSAA and 4xMSAA+FXAA. 2xMSAA+FXAA+2xSGSSAA removed all the jaggies. Performance was the same and it added a little blur but overall the IQ is much better.

I'm now using different combinations of MSAA, FXAA, SMAA & SGSSAA in most of my games.

 

This whole options of AA types are very confusion indeed. I tend to use x4 MSAA (its the old fashion AA, correct?) or x8 if my cards allow it. Do you guys agree it is good enough or am I missing something?
I dont like to read so many guys saying FXAA makes stuff blurry and that it should only be used by who as GPU´s that cant handle the normal AA load so I havent even tried yet...is this true?

Cheers

 

For most games 4xMSAA is enough when combined with SMAA injector, in-game FXAA, Nvidia FXAA or 2xSGSSAA. Just have to find which one is the least blurriest. On a good system, performance should be fairly consistent with any of the above combinations.

Hopefully TXAA will make things easier but it could be a couple of years before it becomes standard.

 

You have a similar setup than mine. What settings do you use in BF3, Batman, Dirt 3, for instance? Dirt 3, for example, only lets me choose one type of AA. How do I chose FXAA along with 4xMSAA, like you sugested?

 

I set maximum AA in Dirt 3 and in Nvidia Inspector - Prefined FXAA Usage (Allowed) & Toggle FXAA on or off (Enabled). 4xSparse Grid Supersampling looks even better than FXAA if you can maintain 60fps.

I find in-game FXAA looks better for BF3 but the game crashes all the time for me so I can't test it properly.

Skyrim looks awesome with 4xMSAA and Nvidia FXAA.

 

wait -- hasn't the complaint always been that Post Processing AA looks better in screen shots vs movement?

Few things look better than being able to use 4x AA with 4x TrSSAA +

 

How did you enable FXAA in Bioshock 2? Injector? I wonder if FXAA from new nvidia R300 drivers would work.

So these two values should be set to 0? (disabled) Could you elaborate. I am about to replay Bioshock 2 and would like to do it in best quality possible (I have GTX560Ti)

 

yeah, just add the bioshock2sp.exe in the nvCP and enable FXAA for it's profile. you could just enable it in the global profile but i prefer to enable and disable things per application.

yeah, it's either 0 or false. probably not necessary tbh, but the way i see it if you're going to use hardware filtering you may as well disable in-game filtering.
also, in the nvCP Bioshock 2 profile set Texture filtering - Quality to High Quality, Texture filtering - Negative LOD Bias to Clamp and disable Anisotropic sample optimization and Trilinear optimisation.

 

Thanks a lot!, I remember FSAA support was always problematic in Bioshock series, especially the first one in DX10. Any tips for the first Bioshock in DX10? FXAA, or something else? (i remember renaming the executable, but I am not sure this will work with Steam version).

 

Good thing in most games they only say AA. Just select max and it's all fine. I never cared about all the different AA, as long as the edges are smooth that's all that matters. To tell the truth, i don't really see the difference between most of em, except for performance drops.

 

Yeah, me too. I tend to use x4 or x8 MSAA, it is still the best way to smooth the edges. And I dont understand why they dont implement only one way of doing it in the game settings...all this options just confuses me. (QSAA, MSAA, FSAA, FXAA...)

 

Yea, they should implement something like just one standard AA, but as far as i know MSAA is the most FPs dropping one (or one of the worst)

 

Actually it is the least FPS dropping but also the least effective.