Is it just me or is anti-aliasing pretty ineffective in this game?

[OUT FOX EM 10]

I've tried all AA settings, and even on the highest (8) I still get a TON of jaggies. It's honestly not even worth the performance hit I take by enabling it:

I notice it a lot on the shadows, which maybe AA doesn't touch. If that's the case then that's fine. However, it's also terrible on objects and models too. Does everyone else notice this too?

Also, I noticed when I turn my visibility up to 10000 it doesn't let me choose higher terrain detail. Is this also a normal limitation?

Edited June 27, 2009 by OUT FOX EM
Resolved

[Brendon 0]

What's funny to me is that it won't let me touch the AA option at all and it stays on disabled, and even then, I have more AA then you.

[nodunit 397]

Ditto, I also remember trying to configure setting for PR to have some anti aliasing but I wasn't making anything less jagged even at max. Using the video cards control suite however did fix the problem.

[Potatomasher 0]

Yeah it seems that shadows don't have AA and it's not very dramatic AA as in some games. Though i don't mind because the impact on performance is very minimal probably because of these features.

[OUT FOX EM 10]

I've tried forcing AA (all the way up to SLI 32xQ) through the Nvidia control panel and it doesn't change a thing. I've tried both options -- override the application setting and enhance the application setting -- and nothing changes. It only will change when I adjust the in-game settings, and of course I posted a screen shot of how well that works out.

I don't know how to get this game to not be jagged.

Edited June 27, 2009 by OUT FOX EM

[Apocca 10]

Ehhh, you realize AA has no effect on shadows, right? Shadow fidelity is something completely different. AA only softens the edges along 3d objects.

[scottw 0]

Ehhh, you realize AA has no effect on shadows, right? Shadow fidelity is something completely different. AA only softens the edges along 3d objects.

What he said ;)

[OUT FOX EM 10]

Ehhh, you realize AA has no effect on shadows, right? Shadow fidelity is something completely different. AA only softens the edges along 3d objects.

What he said ;)

Tweedle dee and tweedle dum huh? I circled more than shadows, and even mentioned it in my post. I guess it's too much to ask for you to read the post.

Anyway, I found out a work-around. Not exactly a solution but it'll do for now.

I had post-processing disabled to eliminate the blur and ridiculous bloom, but once I put it back on then the jaggies magically disappeared. I have it on low (and somehow the bloom is still outrageous) but at least the jaggies are gone.

[Sath 10]

does work for me, i installed the new 1.02 over the old one and activated "normal" anti-aliasing in game. Nvidia driver setting is set to override application and manually set to 4x, it looks really good. 16:10 flatscreen 20' monitor, menu resolution is 1680x1050, ingame resolution is 1470x917 (87% fillrate). View distance 4000 meters (targets become visible at 1500 meters). Textures quality "normal", shadows low.

2.6 ghz quadcore, nvidia 8800 gtx, 3 gigs of ram, Vista.

[Flanker15 0]

Well it's better than no AA which was the origonal plan, it was added in thanks to our whining. They said that it works ok except around the shadows and possible artifacting, all the circles in the screen are jaggies on shadows and there's some artifacting around the power poll.

[Trocan 10]

not that I'm certain the original poster will read this, but we'll see...I've also got the same issue, postprocessing is turned off, and there is absolutely NO difference between disabled AA and High AA on my system, I'll try his work-around, even though it's not a preferable solution, it may work.

I have a Radeon 4870, 3ghz dual core processor, 4gigs ram.

[InFireBaptize 0]

i don't know if i noticed the difference in graphics but when i set AA high ingame my fps drops!

[Lovehandles 10]

I have AA settings on Low..you have it on 8. I think it's almost the same thing but on my system the Low setting works ok.

I think I have done about 1 week of tweaking to get the best settings for my system.

I really had a Love/hate relation with AA. Sometimes I had AA and in other places i just looked like your screenshot. Yesterday I managed to get the right settings and WITH AA.

AA-mode = Override any appl.

Antialiasing - 16xQ

Aa-transparency - Multisampling (SuperS was TOO heavy)

Max frames - 8

Text filt. Anisotroic sample - Off

Text filt. Neg. Lod - Clamp

Triple buff - On

Vsync - Force On

My visiblity is around 3450.

Tex detail and Vid memory are Normal

Post proc - High (I like it in this game)

Ground detail - Very low

The rest is all on Very High.

Quad, 3,00, 8 Gig Ram, 285GTX, Vista 64x

Edited August 5, 2009 by Lovehandles

[Fiya 10]

I believe its been stated that AA wasn't even a part of this engine.. I don't know 'when' that was stated, or if it really is the truth. I've never noticed a improvement with it on, so I left it off. Whoever said that also said that the 'fillrate' is used instead... Again, not sure if that was reliable info, but fillrate will improve the quality in generally the same way.

Unless you force it with something like Nhancer, I'm not even sure AA is applied. (Properly)

[Lovehandles 10]

The AA is not applied properly...i think i can confirm that.

[-TwK-Danny 0]

AA is applied when changing ingame options.

However, ArmA2 uses HDR everywhere. Object inside HDR effects will lose AA because of limits in AA and DX9. The only way to fix this is changing the ways you code the resolves - wich is only possible in DX10 (i think?).

You can try this in any DX9 game with HDR and AA. Just look at an object, wich should have AA applied to it. Then change view so that e.g. the sun is directly behind the object - and bang, the object will lose any AA applied to it.

[Lovehandles 10]

Thanks..that explains a lot.

[kklownboy 43]

AA works fine on my ATI cards... If you use any vidcard's CP AA setting you will break it in game and then you wont have it. AA works and works good.

[Brainbug 10]

AA also doesn't work on shader aliasing, e.g. if you look at a bump-mapped surface with stones which seem to stick out, it can't smooth them because in real this is only a flat surface and doesn't have real edges.

Only way to counter this is to apply supersampling, i.e. use a higher 3D resolution than menu res. Of course that will eat up a lot of performance.

[Dogtags 0]

After reading this thread I wanted to test if AA had no or very little effect.

So I load the Editor up turn off AA, get in a chopper, go to the biggest city and about 20metres off the ground with external view I authover right amongst buildings on an angle. At this stage the building and window edges look horrible, wavy wriggly jagged lines moving up and down like snakes crawling all over the buildings.

I pause this and change AA to full. Yes frame rate hit BUT ALL of the jaggies, wavy lines and "snakes" have gone totally. The buildings now look smooth as they should.

So bottom line is AA does make a difference, very noticeable to.

[Trocan 10]

Dogtags, I'm not sure your success is idicative of others... I have the radeon 4870, like one of the above posters on this page:

"I've also got the same issue, postprocessing is turned off, and there is absolutely NO difference between disabled AA and High AA on my system, I'll try his work-around, even though it's not a preferable solution, it may work."

--I also have the same issue, I got AA to work ONCE, and that was after an hour of doing a voodoo dance of turning off/on postprocessing, rebooting, praying to the rain god, and then OMFG I had AA, no more jaggies... Took a hit on framerate prettybad so I tried to tone it down a notch to normal---wait, what?! Nothing happened!!! It stayed on high!...Tried to turn it to low, same thing, AA STILL THERE! then I tried to turn it off, and once again, AA, so I restarted the game, and BAM! No AA, and haven't been able to get it back since...

::grumbles:: I've not spent more than an hour playing vs about 10 hours trying to work the settings out...

I have a Radeon 4870, 3ghz dual core processor, 4gigs ram. "

[Dogtags 0]

Dogtags, I'm not sure your success is idicative of others... I have the radeon 4870, like one of the above posters on this page:

"I've also got the same issue, postprocessing is turned off, and there is absolutely NO difference between disabled AA and High AA on my system, I'll try his work-around, even though it's not a preferable solution, it may work."

--I also have the same issue, I got AA to work ONCE, and that was after an hour of doing a voodoo dance of turning off/on postprocessing, rebooting, praying to the rain god, and then OMFG I had AA, no more jaggies... Took a hit on framerate prettybad so I tried to tone it down a notch to normal---wait, what?! Nothing happened!!! It stayed on high!...Tried to turn it to low, same thing, AA STILL THERE! then I tried to turn it off, and once again, AA, so I restarted the game, and BAM! No AA, and haven't been able to get it back since...

::grumbles:: I've not spent more than an hour playing vs about 10 hours trying to work the settings out...

I have a Radeon 4870, 3ghz dual core processor, 4gigs ram. "

What OS do you have? maybe OS difference, don't ask me why but I am trying to see why you don't have much luck but I can plainly see that AA works for me, interesting but painful.

BTW Windows 7 is great, just installed it and ARMA2 and a lot of my main complaints have gone away, game now very playable in SP or MP using 1.02 anyway, 1.03 needs a lobotomy.

[nyran125 10]

Im surprised you guys can even run this game on 1900x1200 resolution withh AA on even on low. without ridiculously low fps. I recommend you guys all turn your graphics on medium and get used to it. I personally dont think the graphics are better than Crysis or even close on high or even very high, especially not textures its the amount of sht going on in the map thats slowing our comps down swaying trees and grass and units walking around in single player mode etc. If you turn your graphics down from high to medium youll get a average of 35 - 50 fps throughout and have a way better game experience.

Edited August 7, 2009 by nyran125

[oktane 0]

Hello

Some of the things you circled are shadows, whos grainyness (stairstepping) is determined by the shadow quality setting.

The pole white 'aura' is a shader bug/limitation, not on your part, but on the part of the method they used in the game.. it is miscalculating material based lighting/glossyness I think. You can also see white 1px lines around things that are long and skinny such as the cannon on the AH1. There is an algorithm and method to avoid this kind of unwanted shader artifact which i mentioned to Suma in a PM but i do not know if they will ever implement it, never heard back. This kind of 'error' is not really an error as so much as a trend of current shader tech and how long you want to spend and how many resources you want to use to make it look 100% perfect. You can overcome it but you'll pay in other areas.

Edited August 7, 2009 by oktane

[Trocan 10]

What OS do you have? maybe OS difference, don't ask me why but I am trying to see why you don't have much luck but I can plainly see that AA works for me, interesting but painful.

BTW Windows 7 is great, just installed it and ARMA2 and a lot of my main complaints have gone away, game now very playable in SP or MP using 1.02 anyway, 1.03 needs a lobotomy.

Yeh Dogtags, I've got Windows 7...the only common thread I see is the 4870. /shrugs... Since the patch I've not been able to get AA to work. It says it's set to high, but no matter what I change, nothing happens. I've now been trying to get this to work for 6 hours today, gonna go ahead and reinstall OS, reinstall game, and see if that has any effect.

---------- Post added at 02:44 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:43 AM ----------

Also--Before patch, I had some limited success, AA worked intermitently, when it did work, I left it alone, but now I can't get it to work at all.