deferred vs post AA

[Minmaster]

can someone tell me the pros and cons of the two AAs? with post, it looks kinda blurry. should i be using deferred instead? in what cases should you use one or the other AA methods?

[Anarchy1]

Re: deferred vs post AA

Post AA applies the AA after the image has been rendered, deferred AA is the "normal" AA which applies it as you go. Post AA does look blurry, but it isn't as much of a resource hog as deferred AA. Post AA is good if you want AA but your computer can't handle deferred (and you can put up with the blur).

[Anarchy1]

Re: deferred vs post AA

Here are some screenshots:

No AA: http://i.imgur.com/UTSTp.jpg
High Post AA: http://i.imgur.com/aEUcY.jpg
4x MSAA: http://i.imgur.com/Ym0Tw.jpg

(I couldn't find anywhere that showed it off very well so I just picked the spot where I was standing when I gave up looking)

Anyway, as you can see, with both AA's off, there are a lot of noticeable jaggies. Not a lot in this frame to be honest, but when running around, they are very noticeable. I suggest looking at the leaves and the short wall on the left in these comparisons as they show it off the best. With post AA on high, the textures are noticeably more blurry, but the jaggies are completely gone. And then finally, the 4xAA. I'm not sure if 4xAA is the highest, but it was the highest I could go (seems low to me). Some jaggies remain, mainly on the trees, but texture quality is perfect.

The real question IMO is the performance. I forgot to run a benchmark while doing this and I will try to do so later because I want to know the results, but I felt no performance difference between no AA and high post AA. On the other hand, 4xAA caused a huge hit in performance.

Personally, I didn't even notice the blurry textures with post AA until I took a screenshot and compared it side-by-side with the other images. Even then, I still don't feel like the textures are too blurry in-game. I never really notice texture quality while playing, but on the other hand, jaggies stick out at me like a sore thumb, so I prefer using the post AA over no AA.

[Eagle101]

Re: deferred vs post AA

I dislike AA, all it does is soften the lines and cripples performance sometimes. As well as it does not make much of a difference, its like turning HBAO off.