Anti Aliasing in ARMA 3

[KrazyBee 8]

Quick question.Do you guys prefer AA on while playing this game??In my case i can run arma 3 all maxed out even with AA 8x besides my distance=2000 and object=1000.But today i noticed that keeping AA all the way up to 8x or 2x wont hamper any visual beauties of this game.I also notice that if i put AA to 2x i can run arma with distance=3800 and object =3200.The game looks more beautiful because of the draw distance.What do you guys prefer?Do you think AA in this game is worth to turn all the way to 8x if your graphics card is capable of and compromise on the distance and object?

[lonesquad 10]

I can't play without maxed AA - the flickering power lines, fences, etc. would ruin the game for me.

[jumpinghubert 49]

I run a strange combination of external downsampling, 4xAA, maxed atoc and fxaa ultra. Native 1680x1050 of my 22"er monitor gives me in combination with fxaa ultra and 8xaa/maxed atoc a strong mesh effect on grass so I use 1920x1200 downsampling. It smoothes a little bit the image but not so much like smaa wich ruins the sharpness of textures. When I run this downsampling with 8xaa my fps goes down to 30fps when I zoom on grass with the acro scope of mx rifle. So I reduce it to 4x to get still 50fps in scoped view onto the grass line.

[Sneakson 1]

If I were you I'd FSAA x2 and high draw distance. Don't forget FXAA maxed too.

[KrazyBee 8]

yeah i dont see the big difference with 8x to 2x.my game looks awesome with 2x and 4x with everything maxed out even disance=3800 and object=3200 i think

[the_demongod 31]

how does it affect you guy's performance? is it worth it?

[KrazyBee 8]

im getting over 60 with ease..u dont need 8x or 4x even if capable of using it.2x is good enought with smaa and fxaa and maxed out distance and stuff.games just looks way cooler

[lonesquad 10]

It is definitely worth it.

2x, 4x, 8x.

Everything except FSAA is on Ultra. See the roof of the wooden shed on the left? The white lines? It doesn't seem to be that much of a problem, but it is a real nuisance when moving. If your screen is moving while edges like this are in your view, these lines will "move around" as well and you will see them from great distance. Everything else looks alright, but as I said, edges like this one, power lines, fences etc. ruin the atmosphere (at least for me).

Higher AA will give you less frames, obviously. But if you have a strong GPU, you should turn it up.

Also, why are you bringing up view and draw distance? As I understand, AA should mainly affect the GPU and the draw distance is a CPU killer.

Object visibility hurts the GPU as well, I would imagine. So if you have to decide between 2x FSAA with 3000 object visibility and 8x FSAA with 1000 ov, I would go for higher visibility as well.

By the way: 3000 is an insane value if you are not flying, imho.

[KrazyBee 8]

yeah good point but it just looks so awesome with the visibility maxed out u know especially if the cpu is oced

[jumpinghubert 49]

I prefer 3000 od/3000 vd instead of 3200 od/3800vd to avoid far away popping objects.

If you are using FXAA ultra plus driver activated 16xAF you will see the difference between fsaa x4 and fsaa x8 @ 1920x1200. Not on screenshots but less flickering of grass and vegetation in motion. The objects are more "stable" and less "mesh-effects" on grass line (atoc maxed).

In a few situations on altis scoping to grass line with object and landquality on ultra I get with 8xfsaa slow downs to min. 34 fps instead of 4x fsaa were i get 54fps.

[KrazyBee 8]

cool ill try that settings

[P0ci 10]

FXAA gives horrible image quality.

MSAA gives too much of a performance decrease

SMAA seems to be the right balance.

[lonesquad 10]

I disagree. FXAA sharpens the textures quite a bit and looks far from "horrible". SMAA on the other hand simply blurs the whole image. Do not use it if you care for image quality.

[P0ci 10]

I disagree. FXAA sharpens the textures quite a bit and looks far from "horrible". SMAA on the other hand simply blurs the whole image. Do not use it if you care for image quality.

This is not a question about agree or disagree, this is not a matter of opinion. If you knew how FXAA actually works you wouldn't be making that statement. FXAA simply blurs jaggy edges to get rid of them, it is the crappiest form of AA but also it performs the best due to this. SMAA on the other hand uses video card shaders to detect and remove jaggies, not as well as MSAA but it performs much better. You mention image quality if you want that then run MSAA or better yet SSAA.

[Gera_CCT 12]

This is not a question about agree or disagree, this is not a matter of opinion. If you knew how FXAA actually works you wouldn't be making that statement. FXAA simply blurs jaggy edges to get rid of them, it is the crappiest form of AA but also it performs the best due to this. SMAA on the other hand uses video card shaders to detect and remove jaggies, not as well as MSAA but it performs much better. You mention image quality if you want that then run MSAA or better yet SSAA.

FXAA do not blur anything. It sharpens the image.

[lonesquad 10]

P0ci, you're still only voicing your opinion without bringing any facts to the table. You should also refrain from using ad hominem arguments, as this is immature and doesn't add anything of worth to the conversation.

This is SMAA Ultra: Link

This is FXAA Ultra: Link

Look at the blurry textures of the SMAA variant. Even the ground looks blurred. Why is this supposed to be superior?

Threads like this one are supposed to help the community, so please elaborate you arguments and bring proof. Everyone will happily accept an opinion if it is convincing.

[P0ci 10]

P0ci, you're still only voicing your opinion without bringing any facts to the table. You should also refrain from using ad hominem arguments, as this is immature and doesn't add anything of worth to the conversation.

This is SMAA Ultra: Link

This is FXAA Ultra: Link

Look at the blurry textures of the SMAA variant. Even the ground looks blurred. Why is this supposed to be superior?

Threads like this one are supposed to help the community, so please elaborate you arguments and bring proof. Everyone will happily accept an opinion if it is convincing.

I love when people ask for proof, its like having a stamp on your forehead saying im a n00b.

I don't need to prove anything to you. Its well known in the entire PC gaming community that FXAA while giving great performance destroys image quality. And if you want proof Im not going to waste my time to someone who is just a casual gamer and barely grasps the concepts on different rendering techniques. Go read radeonpro manual if you want explanations.

Anyways heres a quick rundown, and both state my "opinion"

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

http://www.iryoku.com/smaa/

Happy?

Both links state the FACTS I already mentioned

Edited April 12, 2014 by P0ci

[St. Jimmy 272]

I love when people ask for proof, its like having a stamp on your forehead saying im a n00b.

I don't need to prove anything to you. Its well known in the entire PC gaming community that FXAA while giving great performance destroys image quality. And if you want proof Im not going to waste my time to someone who is just a casual gamer and barely grasps the concepts on different rendering techniques. Go read radeonpro manual if you want explanations.

Anyways heres a quick rundown, and both state my "opinion"

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

http://www.iryoku.com/smaa/

Happy?

Both links state the FACTS I already mentioned

But still in Arma it's like this:

FXAA Ultra with 8xFSAA

SMAA Ultra with 8xFSAA

They've maybe bugged the SMAA but still this is how it looks in Arma. FXAA is the best.

Edited April 12, 2014 by St. Jimmy

[Sneakson 1]

I love when people ask for proof, its like having a stamp on your forehead saying im a n00b.

I don't need to prove anything to you. Its well known in the entire PC gaming community that FXAA while giving great performance destroys image quality. And if you want proof Im not going to waste my time to someone who is just a casual gamer and barely grasps the concepts on different rendering techniques. Go read radeonpro manual if you want explanations.

Anyways heres a quick rundown, and both state my "opinion"

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

http://www.iryoku.com/smaa/

Happy?

Both links state the FACTS I already mentioned

Don't be a douche.

In order for anyone to hear you out and take you seriously you have to show evidence for everything you say in case of a disagreement and if you’re not going to then you may as well stay off the internet because it’s quite meaningless to write on the internet if no one is going to take you seriously anyways.

It’s not well known in the entire PC gaming community that FXAA destroys image quality either. I’ve been online gaming and communicating for 10 years never having heard of this and I urge you to give us a single source saying so.

Currently it’s two screenshots directly from ARMA3 versus your Wikipedia article that doesn’t say FXAA destroys image quality anywhere.

FXAA clearly makes the image sharper above.

[lonesquad 10]

[...]And if you want proof Im not going to waste my time to someone who is just a casual gamer and barely grasps the concepts on different rendering techniques.[...]

You are hilarious. Pathetic, but hilarious. ;)

+1 to Sneaksons post and thanks to St. Jimmy for the screenshots. I really don't understand why SMAA is still an option in its current state.

Edited April 12, 2014 by lonesquad

[oldy41 61]

AFAIK (!) the point with FXAA and SMAA is, that both blur textures.

In many other games SMAA yields more pleasing results than FXAA.

However, the additional sharpening step available in the A3 implementation of FXAA completely changes this. In A3 I definitely prefer FXAA with sharpening due to the crisp textures.

But I am a bit surpised that a very annoying bug related to AA has not yet been mentioned in this thread. This bug is causing a lot of flickering and aliased lines in sunny town scenes despite any selected AA options:

Issue 1353

I really hope to see that fixed soon... :(

[Greenfist 1863]

But I am a bit surpised that a very annoying bug related to AA has not yet been mentioned in this thread. This bug is causing a lot of flickering and aliased lines in sunny town scenes despite any selected AA options:

Issue 1353

I really hope to see that fixed soon... :(

I was actually just about to post about it. But I thought it was a bug only on my end. I'm "glad" that it's a global issue.

I've seen that ticket before but didn't really get it until I upgraded my GPU to actually be able to even enable AA. And now it's really bugging me seeing everything else antialiased so nicely but shadows on object edges being full of ugly shining jaggies.

Is there any way to alleviate it? I've tried full AAs and even higher render resolution to no avail whatsoever.

[oldy41 61]

Is there any way to alleviate it? I've tried full AAs and even higher render resolution to no avail whatsoever.

Sorry, no. I tried everything for quite a while.

Well, you can disable shadows. This helps a bit, but it does not "cure" the problem completely, since the effect is still there for surfaces averted from the sun.

(So now I mostly play my own scenarios in the editor setting the weather to overcast. Gets a bit depressing over time though... :( )

[MavericK96 0]

Yeah, the weird white outline around objects with AA is a glaring issue. Voted up the ticket.

[P0ci 10]

Don't be a douche.

In order for anyone to hear you out and take you seriously you have to show evidence for everything you say in case of a disagreement and if you’re not going to then you may as well stay off the internet because it’s quite meaningless to write on the internet if no one is going to take you seriously anyways.

It’s not well known in the entire PC gaming community that FXAA destroys image quality either. I’ve been online gaming and communicating for 10 years never having heard of this and I urge you to give us a single source saying so.

Currently it’s two screenshots directly from ARMA3 versus your Wikipedia article that doesn’t say FXAA destroys image quality anywhere.

FXAA clearly makes the image sharper above.

Umm I stated FXAA blurs jaggies, and that's all it does. Wikipedia confirms this, theres your proof.

You are hilarious. Pathetic, but hilarious. ;)

+1 to Sneaksons post and thanks to St. Jimmy for the screenshots. I really don't understand why SMAA is still an option in its current state.

Because its a better alternative then FXAA, the above poster claims gaming for 10 years, which means jack shit, I been gaming for 15 years on PC and neither one of these AA techniques were available back then.

AFAIK (!) the point with FXAA and SMAA is, that both blur textures.

In many other games SMAA yields more pleasing results than FXAA.

However, the additional sharpening step available in the A3 implementation of FXAA completely changes this. In A3 I definitely prefer FXAA with sharpening due to the crisp textures.

But I am a bit surpised that a very annoying bug related to AA has not yet been mentioned in this thread. This bug is causing a lot of flickering and aliased lines in sunny town scenes despite any selected AA options:

Issue 1353

I really hope to see that fixed soon... :(

Exactly, and I have compared both a million times and Ill take SMAA over FXAA any day of the week. FXAA is like a cheap fix.