Which AA setting do devs recommend?

adam

A
I wonder if the devs currently have a recommended AA setting for the best possible visuals.

I 'think' that if you have a high performance machine and you don't take too big a fps hit, then 4x MSAA is supposed to be best.

What if 4x MSAA is too big a fps hit?

Is it recommended to use FXAA, SMAA, or 2x MSAA ?
 

Abraxis

Abraxis
SMAA looks the best to me out of the available options. They're all post-processing, so they're not going to have as great results as "true" AA.

Also, MLAA (which is in the game) and MSAA (which is not, but might be forced through the drivers?) are often mixed up.
 

Fourdee

F
adam said:
Is it recommended to use FXAA, SMAA, or 2x MSAA ?
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SMAA > FXAA > MSAA

- I believe FXAA is the fastest in terms of performance, however, it has a tendency to "blur" the overall image.
- SMAA is a iteration of FXAA, provides cleaner overall image than FXAA with slightly less performance.
- MSAA, never use this. Its performance impact does not warrant the visual quality it provides.

- 2x will provide you with the best performance, whilst still giving you the visual effect.
- 4x will look great, but the performance impact is multiplied somewhat when compared to 2x.

Or, disable it if you dont want input latency.
 
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Cmdr Irenicus

Cmdr Irenicus
SMAA is your best option. Far better than FXAA with very little (if any) difference in performance.

Those saying they prefer to turn off AA in every game either have low-end hardware or just like to look at jaggie things.

PS MLAA in game does not work
 

TimYersidies

TimYersidies
FoxTwo said:
I don't need any sort of AA in my games!

My eyes do it better, and they're natural :p
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Yup, I am long sighted with a slight stigmatism, everything receives a nice gentle blur. I honestly cannot tell the difference between the settings without my glasses on.
 

FoxTwo

FoxTwo
Cmdr Irenicus said:
Those saying they prefer to turn off AA in every game either have low-end hardware or just like to look at jaggie things.
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Wrong on both counts, at least as far as I am concerned. I have a mid-range PC (i5-4690, GTX 770) and I have it off. See my post above for the reason. And no, I don't see any "jaggies".

TimYersidies said:
Yup, I am long sighted with a slight stigmatism, everything receives a nice gentle blur. I honestly cannot tell the difference between the settings without my glasses on.
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Hah yeah... the only thing I can see are screen-tears... and VSync is always on for games that do ("Rage" being the worst - need Adaptive Sync on). ED hasn't needed VSync yet... maybe because most of the time I'm in space and I can't see the screen tears across the blackness of space :)
 

Abraxis

Abraxis
FoxTwo said:
Wrong on both counts, at least as far as I am concerned. I have a mid-range PC (i5-4690, GTX 770) and I have it off. See my post above for the reason. And no, I don't see any "jaggies".
Click to expand...

Perhaps a very low quality display or bad eyesight then? CPU and GPU are hardly indicative of whether you should expect to see aliasing or not. I see plenty of it on a 46" screen at 1920x1080 even with FXAA/MLAA/SMAA on.
 

Asp Explorer

Asp Explorer
Cmdr Irenicus said:
Those saying they prefer to turn off AA in every game either have low-end hardware or just like to look at jaggie things.
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I actually like seeing pixels. My hardware is hardly low-end, but I'll happily agree it's midrange at best. AA simply adds a falseness to the view which I find kind of disturbing - I want my monitors to show what they are natively instructed to.
 

Zacam

Zacam
I turn off most built-in/in-game AA in favor for Control Panel/Inspector forced settings, since I'll generally manage a setting superior to what the game will offer and usually not suffer nearly as much of a performance impact.

That being said, ED has a problem respecting AA as it begins to apply to distance (regardless of method used) so it is probably much more consistent to turn it off entirely or operate with a larger resolution scaled to screen resolution.
 

Demonic Squid

Demonic Squid
Is it better to use the options in the nvidia control panel to set AA up or better to leave that alone and fiddle in-game?

I usually have it turned off to max out performance, but as I'm getting decent performance (bootcamping a mac) as it is, I fancy a fiddle...

Tarman said:
I like my AA to be at least 40mm quad.
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You'll be wanting AAA for that then... (Anti-Aliasing Artillery)
 

Tarman

Tarman
FoxBat said:
Is it better to use the options in the nvidia control panel to set AA up or better to leave that alone and fiddle in-game?

I usually have it turned off to max out performance, but as I'm getting decent performance (bootcamping a mac) as it is, I fancy a fiddle...



You'll be wanting AAA for that then... (Anti-Aliasing Artillery)
Click to expand...

I'm oldschool, it's just Anti Aircraft for me thanks. :) I won't post the wiki link for you, that's too far. TOO FAR MAN!

I don't have strong preferences about the ingame AA though, if it looks better and doesn't kill my framerate then sure, I'll press any of the Shiny buttons, really. If any of the extra visual toys start to bbq my actual gameplay then I don't use them. I really haven't noticed Elite to look too much better with it on myself though. I've used Zacam's trick of the larger res scaled to screen res, and that seemed to give me a lot better look generally than anything ingame has produced.
 

tlr3715

T
Better Anti Aliasing?

I feel the Anti Aliasing options currently offered within Elite Dangerous (I've tried them all) perform well in terms of frame-rate, but leave the image quite pixilated on a 1080 monitor. I tried to override the antialiasing method using Nvidia Control Panel to something more aggressive like 8X or 16X, but the settings to not seem to take. Has anyone been able to override antialiasing settings using an Nvidia card with Elite Dangerous?
 
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