A really really easy question for you smart people!

[beanstalk]

What exactly is Anti-Aliasing? Whats the difference between 2x AA and 4x AA etc.
What does it do? Does it require a powerful GPU to enable it? Does it affect gameplay?

[Oli]

Re: A really really easy question for you smart people!

I know that Anti Aliasing is the piece of "technology" so to speak that stops the graphics like objects, buildings and vehicles from being pixelated at the edge. Not sure about the 2x 4x stuff.

[Jimmy42000]

Re: A really really easy question for you smart people!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-aliasing

[beanstalk]

Re: A really really easy question for you smart people!

Thanks Jimmy, but then I still dont get the 2x, 4x, and 6x part. What do those mean?

[solofowaffles]

Re: A really really easy question for you smart people!

Thanks Jimmy, but then I still dont get the 2x, 4x, and 6x part. What do those mean?

well the higher it is the more smoother it is
:)

[Jimmy42000]

Re: A really really easy question for you smart people!

Yeah, just increases the quality of the AA. With 2x, 4x, 16x, whatever.

[camper.]

Re: A really really easy question for you smart people!

I can't believe you've got 1000+ hours in this game and don't know what that is...

Let's focus on its opposite, aliasing. Aliasing is bad. Aliasing is sharp. Aliasing is blocky. Aliasing is edgy. Aliasing makes my eyes burn. Aliasing is not good. It takes a reasonable amount of GPU power to enable it. Anything above a 7600GS or X1600 should be able to enable anti-aliasing. It simply removes aliasing, i.e. those ****ing pixellated edges that make you feel like you're playing Doom, and with varying degrees of success.

Basically, while you have a game engine underneath that could render in 2 billion x 2 billion resolution, your monitor and GPU obviously can't. Meaning, that the image will be pixellated, because the resolution is too low for the amount of visual information (i.e. pixel colours) that would show no aliasing. 2x refers to 2 sub-pixel grid samples being taken, and the pixel's colour is calculated to be an average of these sub-pixels. 4x means 4 of these samples will be taken, and so on.

Resolution also comes into play. 800x600 with 2xAA is still going to look like crap compared to 2560x1920 with no AA, for obvious reasons. BUT - at 2560x1920, there will still be those ****ing jaggies, just that they'll be further off in the in-game distance (which is why Source engine games which have short in-game distances can be ran at high res without AA whereas BF2 still looks like trash). Meaning, the best thing is a balance of the two.