Every year, gaming enthusiasts from all over the world look forward to new games. I know I do. Most of these games are presented during the Electronic Entertainment Expo E3. For instance, CD Projekt Red — the company behind the Witcher game series — unveiled its newest title, a game that nearly every gamer has been waiting for since its teaser in , Cyberpunk The same goes with other games.
Some gamers are already looking forward to experiencing the top-notch visuals that newer — and more demanding games — have to offer. Turning it off means your game can run more smoothly because it demands less out of your computer. Most passionate gamers are not too keen on doing this, however, as they want to make sure they take in the absolute best that their games have to offer.
While this term is no longer a stranger to long-time gamers, some users might need more information to understand what it is and what it really does. Unfortunately, I do. Video games started out as colorful pixels on-screen and I still enjoyed hours looking for the princess, castle after castle, after all. Well, video game graphics still use pixels now.
The difference is that the pixels now are much, much smaller, so they form smoother images. This technology blends the edges of the pixels with other surrounding pixels to try to create the illusion of a smoother edge.
If you think this task is a piece of cake, you are mistaken. There are different methods of anti-aliasing that vary based on the amount of computing it needs and how it actually blends the image pixels.
This type of anti-aliasing method is the most commonly used in this list. This is because it gives the perfect balance between quality and performance. What it basically does is that it takes each pixel and manipulates the edges so that it becomes a color that is somewhere in between the two pixels with different colors. This creates a blending effect that gives the illusion of smoother, curved edges rather than tiny squares. More commonly, you can set it up to 2x, 4x, or 8x sampling.
The higher the value, the better your in-game graphics will be. This type of anti-aliasing utilizes MSAA and combines it with filters that are commonly used in computer-generated images CGI , the same technology used in blockbuster movies with fancy, mind-blowing effects. It uses samples both inside and outside each pixel. This can make smooth transitions, which can look great in games with moving foliage. Be wary, though, because it demands a higher level of performance from your computer.
Games that were released in or earlier look great using this anti-aliasing method. This anti-aliasing method, just like the TXAA, is a filtering technique that occurs post-processing. Using color data, it actively looks for the jagged edges in images through the differences among the pixels.
It is much more efficient at balancing quality and performance as it only uses what is necessary. The downside to this method is that it can sometimes be faulty when it comes to blending, mixing up background and foreground portions of the overall image, sometimes resulting in distorted text. With FXAA you can apply an anti-aliasing filter on nearly any program even if the program itself does not have regular anti-aliasing support.
FXAA also requires less power than an equivalent multiplier setting on MSAA, making it an alternative option for less powerful video cards. With high-end cards you can combine both a traditional anti-aliasing method with FXAA to have the strongest anti-aliasing filter possible. While some programs support FXAA natively, in most cases you must enable it in your video card's driver settings. Note that using FXAA can cause text to look blurry, so do not use it in programs that heavily feature text.
All types of anti-aliasing come in varying strengths, indicated by a numerical multiplier such as "2x" or "4x.
Multiplier numbers do not have an objective measure between types of anti-aliasing. Apart from graphics anti-aliasing, Windows itself can use anti-aliasing to improve the appearance of text on a computer screen. ClearType improves the resolution of text by working with sub-pixels rather than entire pixels on your monitor.
ClearType does not offer detailed options or settings, but you can turn it on or off by clicking "Adjust ClearType text" in the Display control panel. ClearType affects the text on icons, in folders and in compatible programs including many office suites. Though anti-aliasing improves the perceived quality of graphics, it does so through averaging and blurring.
This means that an image you see does not precisely match the actual image file, which can cause inaccuracies in some types of work such as photo editing and drafting. Aaron Parson has been writing about electronics, software and games since , contributing to several technology websites and working with NewsHour Productions. By Aaron Parson.
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