Antialiasing or Anisotropic Filtering?

Which do you prefer?

I personally perfer anisotropic filtering. Except in a few rare circumstances, such as rather jaggedy shadows, I can't discern any improvement from antialiasing, while anisotropic filtering tends to result in noticeable improvements in detail as far as I can tell.

 

I always use ASF before antialiasing in games. It makes the textures look much sharper and detailed, and it doesn't take as much rendering power as antialiasing.

-J.B.

 

i dont think we can compare anisotropic filtering with antialiasing. they are not intended to bring the same graphics effects. its like comparing processor and ram. both are complementary to each and cannot be preffered over the other.

 

Agreed, I didn't vote as there was no option for both. It's like asking if you prefer muddy textures in the Z dimension, or jagged edges.

 

One thing is for sure though; AA is extremely demanding on graphics power and offers little in return. At least, that is based on my experiences.

 

I know what antialiasing is...but whats Anisotropic Filtering?

 

Anisotropic Filtering

 

A filtering technique that helps keep textures sharp when moving into the Z-dimension.

For example, Look at the stones on a floor (or wall or whatever) in a corridor in an FPS. Higher AF levels help the stones look like individual objects rather than blending into a gray smear as you look into the distance. The higher you set it, the better a job it does at this.

 

Very cool. Definitly more understandable with the picture. Thanks Crimson + Tony
Anti-Aliasing

Anisotropic Filtering

(left is no AF, right is with AF)

 

Both, so no vote.

Though I usually push 8x or 16x Anisotropic before I mess with AA, because most GPUs can add Ansiotropic without much a performance hit. I usually don't go above 2x AA unless I have consistent FPS above 35. Besides, with either setting, the first and second option (2x and 4x) always yield the highest graphical improvement. Subsequent levels usually don't make as much of a discernible impact.

 

Even that both processes return different products, I prefer anisotropic filtering over AA following bc135's line of thought: it is less demanding, so giving a more noticeable result for less power.

 

I rarely use AA because of the huge performance hit. AF is always my preference.

 

I usually have AF at 8 or 16X, AA at 2 or 4X.

AA may a big performance hit, but I can't stand the "sparkle" effect on edges of moving objects with no AA. It's like a blown pixel on an LCD, once you realize it's there, you get annoyed all out of proportion by it.

 

But they can.

Both improve image quality and both cause a performance hit and sometimes we are forced to make a choice between different image quality enhancing techniques to maintain respectable FPS.

Its a valid question.

I often run AF maxed with performance settings and will give up AA because its benifits visually are not worth the big performance hit. Especially at high resolutions, where jaggies aren't as noticable.

 

I always choose AF before AA, since I try to play at the highest possible resolution,except for new games(crysis,UT3 etc).
But then again, when I can handle it, AA to the max

 

I think the OP is asking which is most important to crank up, 8x AF is the minimum for me, 16x preffered, with 2-4x AA

 

Pretty much, yeah. They both impact graphical quality (if in different ways), so I was curious which one most people preferred. In particular it seems Antialiasing gets much more glitz and coverage (as Waterwizard11 demonstrated), yet for what seemed to me to be no apparent reason. The results thus far seem to align with what I've seen graphically, if not in media coverage.

 

both, so no vote here.

 

Anisotropic Filtering preferred. If the game is old and my GPU is relatively new, then Antialiasing!

 

AA has a larger impact on performance usually esp at higher settings and while jagged edges are not so great, if the whole sceen has the same look you will uventully not notice it. With no AF tho having a harsh very visible line where textures change is very noticable and very annoying. AF > AA IMO. However I usually just do max AF and 2x AA its enough to kill any major jagged edge and not hurt performance too much. You dont need max AF eather but I hardly notice much difference in performance so I just max it out.

 

With my measly go 7300 i tend not to have to worry about this too much. I tend to go for a balance e.g. 2x AA and 2xAF.

 

if im running a game at 1920 x 1080 i have my anti-aliasing on 2x, and my antiscropic on very nigh, this is because at such a high resolution on any modern games theres virtually no difference. 2x AA gets rid of the noticeable stuff for me, this is in the cases of CSS, HL2, COD 4, etc.

if im running a super demanding game like crysis or oblivion or something, i run it at 1440 x 900, and have AA on 4x (or 8x) and antiscropic at mediumish, this is because on a lower resolution, especially on crysis, u get funny edges everywhere because its so demanding, so i prefer the good edges too super good textures.

personel preference i suppose.

 

AF First ! Than AA (if performance is good with 8x AF)