I haven't seen this setting in other games, what exactly does it do / is it for?
Supersampling - what is it exactly?
- Thread starter Nounverber
- Start date
I's a bit like AA but works on areas that AA would miss I think.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1329979/anti-aliasing-the-basics
A good description of the different types of Anti-Aliasing techniques and their impact on your frame rate.
A good description of the different types of Anti-Aliasing techniques and their impact on your frame rate.
That was exactly what I needed. +1 and my thanks!
No problem, AA can be one of those amorphous things...very complicated with so many options. Choosing the right one can be tricky if you do not know the differences between the methods they use. Personally I use FXAA as it is a post processing effect that takes place after the frame is rendered. It is faster and offers some good quality visuals without significant loss of frame rate. But people with beefier hardware may prefer one of the other methods.
Basicly Super sampling is the technique of forcing your graphics card to draw each frame in a higher resolution than your monitors native.
So imagine a picture on an A3 sheet being printed with tiny dots. Then imagine that your screen can only show an area the size of A4 but made of tiny dots the same size as used on the larger A3 image.
Clearly the larger image won't fit. However it is used as a reference for the smaller image. So imagine that a single dot on the smaller image represents what takes 4 dots on the larger one.
When the image is resampled or shrunk the average colour of the 4 dots is used for the single dot. This is has the effect of anti aliasing but is not the same thing. It can really help to improve the overall image quality but this is at the expense of a much heavier work load for the graphics card.
For this reason it generally takes a dual card or better setup. Whilst anti aliasing can be seen as a similar solution to jagged edges it is a diffrent processes and has a diffrent result.
Anti aliasing is a method of reviewing an image which is the correct size for your screen before it is shown.
There are various methods which can be used which favour diffrent outcomes such as preserving small but important extremes of colour set on a majority contrasting surrounding colour. Imagine the red tip of a match on a black table in a dark room.
Anti aliasing scans an image for the the points where 2 distinct colours meet. Imagine looking at an image as a series of dots on a line being read like words in a book. When the colour changes the 2 colours are mixed together and the average is used. Each line is read and the averages put in place at the joins.
When the whole image has been read and amended from top to bottom this is one complete anti aliasing 're sample'.
When you see in graphics settings such as 4x anti aliasing then after each 'read through' the image is reviewed again and the now average colours are then processed again. Generally on a low resolution screen the more times this is done the softer the jagged edges look. But the overall image looks softer or a little blurred like when you squint your eyes.
In summary super sampling creates a generally sharper image than anti aliasing with the reduction of jagged edges at the cost of graphics card demand.
So imagine a picture on an A3 sheet being printed with tiny dots. Then imagine that your screen can only show an area the size of A4 but made of tiny dots the same size as used on the larger A3 image.
Clearly the larger image won't fit. However it is used as a reference for the smaller image. So imagine that a single dot on the smaller image represents what takes 4 dots on the larger one.
When the image is resampled or shrunk the average colour of the 4 dots is used for the single dot. This is has the effect of anti aliasing but is not the same thing. It can really help to improve the overall image quality but this is at the expense of a much heavier work load for the graphics card.
For this reason it generally takes a dual card or better setup. Whilst anti aliasing can be seen as a similar solution to jagged edges it is a diffrent processes and has a diffrent result.
Anti aliasing is a method of reviewing an image which is the correct size for your screen before it is shown.
There are various methods which can be used which favour diffrent outcomes such as preserving small but important extremes of colour set on a majority contrasting surrounding colour. Imagine the red tip of a match on a black table in a dark room.
Anti aliasing scans an image for the the points where 2 distinct colours meet. Imagine looking at an image as a series of dots on a line being read like words in a book. When the colour changes the 2 colours are mixed together and the average is used. Each line is read and the averages put in place at the joins.
When the whole image has been read and amended from top to bottom this is one complete anti aliasing 're sample'.
When you see in graphics settings such as 4x anti aliasing then after each 'read through' the image is reviewed again and the now average colours are then processed again. Generally on a low resolution screen the more times this is done the softer the jagged edges look. But the overall image looks softer or a little blurred like when you squint your eyes.
In summary super sampling creates a generally sharper image than anti aliasing with the reduction of jagged edges at the cost of graphics card demand.
Did you really have to type all that out when an article linked an hour earlier explained it simplier and better XD
It's the most computationally inefficient but highest quality AA technique available. Frankly, I'd only consider using it if I had a wild excess of GPU horsepower compared to display resolution - and at that point you should really seriously consider buying a better display.