Tech Focus: Anti-Aliasing - What Is It And Why Do We Need It?

[@KMFDM_Kid2000]

Honestly, this is probably the best anti-aliasing breakdown I've ever seen. I.T professional and a PC gamer for decades and I actually learned a few things here. Wonderful!

[@Quizack]

And yet I still don’t know which one to use! I get choice paralysis when there’s too many lol.

[@Chasm9]

@@Quizack This video is obsolete in some cases, but still relevant :) I'd be amazing if there was an update to it. Nowadays you usually have 2 options - TAA (Temporal Anti Aliasing ) and some sort of upscaler like DLSS/ XeSS/ FSR/ TSR (and sometimes you have Dynamic Resolution Scaling for additional boost in performance). DLSS 2.5 and above is qualitatively catching up with native+TAA and sometimes surpasses it. XeSS is catching up with DLSS and FSR 3 is soon to be tested, but on paper looks to be on another level when compared to the not-so-good FSR 2. If you can afford it and don't mind lower frame-rate, go with the TAA. If you want a higher frame-rate and max out your monitor, go with an upscaler, choice of which depends on your GPU. If the game you're playing has options for FXAA, MSAA, TSAA and SSAA only, go with the SSAA. Avoid FXAA if possible.

[@willuigi64]

@@Quizackall depends in the performance profile and options available

[@Alovon]

Would like a remastered version of this going through the types of AA that have been made and how each one works/how well each works (ending with the Pinnacle of AA/IQ with Gen2 Upscalers like DLSS)

[@xaaaaaaaar]

They are all still a temporal AA at the end... What he said still applies for the most part to DLSS, FSR AND XeSS

[@BuzzaB77]

If you want the core answer; an Alias, (not pronounced "ali-ace") in a digital sense is actually the result of calculation rounding error, when trying to draw anything the engine is not 'thinking' in pixels, it's thinking in geometry. so in the instruction to draw a line from A to B, if that line is not exactly horizontal or vertical it will result in some pixels on that line falling 'outside' of the fixed pixels in a given resolution. this must then be rounded to nearest pixel, causing an 'alias' of the true output, and obviously not a truly straight line. 'i.e. a ghost, or non exact copy. The same happens in audio. If you don't use a sample rate high enough, (resolution) you can hear aliasing in the form of digital distortion.

[@lucasgill7819]

BuzzaB77 soooo much clear. Thank you, man

[@khuongle2400]

i got more infomation after spending 2 mins to read this comment than watching a 14mins video

[@_Alex_F]

Indeed this was actually much clearer than the grid thing

[@muizzsiddique]

Or you could low-pass the audio.

[@marosmat7781]

This dosent help. How to fix aliasing in a line?

[@xanderlinhares]

I would love it if Alex would do more Tech Focus videos. These are the best things to come out of Digital Foundry.

[@SirJonSoda]

FXAA, SMAA, TAA, MSAA, SSAA... I always found them confusingly similar and hard to memorize. I like that you explained how each method works and why some are more demanding than others. I really loved those hints in the end and made sure to write them down. Most games assume players already knows all this stuff

[@accountteam9859]

​@sarunas8638Well, TAA is a lot blurrier than FXAA, literally ruins your image, FXAA is just useless unless you're playing on a high resolution and want a cheap solution.

[@Argidisparken]

bro i can't tell the difference between any of those comparison shots

[@fabianscharf2454]

I think it's because he was using a high resolution to begin with, if you play an older game like Counterstrike with a lower resolution AA makes a bigger difference

[@Romdream]

@@fabianscharf2454 I believe it would've been nicer with a zoom in to illustrate his point. He's talking about pixels so probably better to zoom in when he goes through all that trouble in showing us comparisons. He only zooms in like once for the ghosting

[@Neceroe]

Its BC KZbin compresses it if you had the game in front of you you could probably see or atleast "feel" a difference

[@guily6669]

You can totally see it when playing games, but the amount depends on your setup... 4 Example If I connect my PC to my 4K TV and play at 4K at around 1.5meters from my 4K 43inch TV I barely see aliasing, on the monitor 1080P 22 inch I play at like 30cm and can totally see a lot of annoying aliasing. However I mostly never use Anti-aliasing since no matter which one I chose it blurs my game too much and I hate loosing sharpness, on my AMD GPU even FXAA that barely does a thing already blurs too much 4 me, on my old Nvidia actually anti-aliasing worked better than on this AMD GPU it had way better anti-aliasing quality. Multisampling is the one that looked kinda nice but never had hardware to ever use it since its first appearance. I specially hate TAA it blurs like a crap and has a lot of motion artifacts.

[@WADAFOK]

Bro you will need a compound microscope to know the difference...

[@danielpierce9343]

I love antialiasing, definitely. For it smoothes out the rough edges of an image that are an eye sore to see. But I never realized how much antialiasing encompasses in a game until watching this since I only was aware of outer edge aliasing and I never knew how it really works even though I enjoy it in games

[@axayd]

Yeah I came to this video thinking it would mostly cover stuff I already know but that stuff about mip maps and specular AA was very informative. Great work Alex.

[@TehBurek]

Temporal antialiasing is especially interesting, they've just scratched the surface here, which is understandable. All kinds of crazy cases need to be handled in dead-simple and efficient ways, for it to be usable. Basic principle is - your recycle data from the previous frame. But what when things are moving? You use the same vectors used for motion-blur to figure out where that spot was in the previous frame. But what if that object just came into the frame and was't there in the previous one? What if something just instantly disappears? It then reveals pixels that also don't have any previous data. What if an object is transparent? Do you use its motion or the motion of the background? Do you make it a special case? You get the point, fun stuff :)

[@KageMH]

Daniel Pierce I only knew about outer edge aliasing and the texture aliasing from a far

[@KageMH]

TheBurek Temporal antialiasing is my least favorite personally.. too blurry

[@TehBurek]

But it eliminates more aliasing than any other method, when implemented properly, so it's always my AA of choice, if available. There's usually a "sharpness" setting alongside it, to counter-act the softening, try adjusting it.

[@KindOldRaven]

The problem is that a lot of games now use heavy TAA + motion blur which results in this vaseline-thick look that makes me doubt my eyesight. But then I load up an older title that allows to completely disable AA and remember that both my eyesight and 1440p monitor are just fine.

[@DarkPhychic]

Whats the size of your 1440p monitor?

[@elayda93]

Video: "Anti-Aliasing - What Is It And Why Do We Need It?" Me: *watches the video in 144p*

[@zer0legend109]

Best example for the need of anti aliasing

[@kyvloggerkuno5716]

bruh...

[@ThePixelgrapher]

I'd say TAA is my favourite Anti-Aliasing method. Shimmering textures/objects bother me much more than a slight blur to the image during motion.

[@MLWJ1993]

Agreed, couple it with a 25% sharpen and it's as good as it gets.

[@zulicurah9414]

same. Temporal AA is Bae

[@kevinmlfc]

ye I used to hate it before I discovered lumasharpen. now it's bloody brilliant

[@Draggobuttboi]

After playing games on switch I absolutely despise it, makes fortnite look like a compressed youtube video and there's no way to turn it off

[@jeremygarrido8571]

TAA + FXAA Is cream. (and you lose around 5% perfomance which is cool)

[@Hotobu]

I don't like this video. There's too much talk about anti-aliasing, what about pro-aliasing?

[@Dictator93]

thank you for chuckle hotobu. Sorely needed -alex

[@JayJapanB]

Lower resolution then add a Reshade sharpening filter.

[@pambansangbayaw4718]

Potato graphics

[@Krystalmyth]

Yeah what's with all the negativity

[@HassanMohamoud-lg2xw]

@@Krystalmyth 😂

[@Ninja_Reborn]

Strictly from an aliasing reducing perspective, Temporal AA seems the best solution. However it makes things blurry and it washes out the colors quite a bit. I think ideally games should use TAA in conjuction with a good quality sharpening filter AND some kind of color filter to reverse the washed out colors(I've seen this done with ReShade).

[@FrankieHiltz]

I'm an anti aliasing junkie. It makes me cringe when people say turning it off looks better. I'd much prefer a game on everything on low, bit AA in max, over max settings with AA off

[@wes9451]

I really can't see the difference in most games and it gives me an extra 10-20fps which honestly makes the game more enjoyable than just blurring all the frames incorrectly.

[@DefinitelyNotSade]

Love how Alex used footage of the 2006 Prey in this video, while at the same time including a song from the 2017 Prey in the helicopter ride. Aliasing causing all sorts of havoc to Alex's daily life, I see.

[@AndyGilleand]

I love that you described motion blur as a form of AA. It absolutely is. It's filling in the gaps of motion information that happens between frames that your eyes are expecting. Without that information, it looks like a series of images rather than motion, even at 120fps. Just like the example you gave, if you have a 120/144hz monitor, move your mouse around real quick. It will just look like several mouse pointers on screen at once instead of a continuous stream of motion. Motion blur is very important for making motion in any frame rate appear more natural, more like what your eyes expect, but is particularly important for low frame rate games.

[@Dictator93]

Exactly Andy :D a defense of per object blur sounds like a video in the making! -Alex

[@Empyrean55]

So does that mean I should keep motion blur on? I've got a 1050ti if that helps

[@AndyGilleand]

Mishak Heyman yes motion blur makes motion feel much more natural to your eyes

[@m3rl1on]

if the game already ran at 60fps or above, i dont think you really need motion blur.

[@AndyGilleand]

It's not so much about need, it's that motion blur makes any frame rate feel more natural. Even at 60ps there's a ton of motion happening between frames that motion still doesn't look entirely natural. Your eyes expect to se that information, so motion blur delivers what your eyes are expecting. In fact, with motion blur, there's very little reason for higher than 60fps, because above 60fps your eyes are already blending frames together, creating their own sort of motion blur (although you'd need about 600fps or more before it would become as smooth as motion blur). There's still some slight improvement whenever your eyes can track with fast moving objects, but even if you have 144fps, motion blur will still make the motion appear more natural than without.

[@fattylumpkin5899]

My views on antialiasing have changed drastically over time, a few years ago I'd be whacking on as much temporal AA as I could; making it as smooth as possible. But now, partly due to the increased publicity of a crisp 4K image I've completely switched. I'll use MSAA if it's available but honestly other than that I'd rather go no AA at all, I much prefer a crisp image with no distorted textures.

[@ObsidianSoul1]

Honestly I do the same at 1440p either 4x MSAA or no anti-aliasing at all

[@DatGrunt]

MSAA is the only one I genuinely like even if it's more demanding. Though...less games are using it now :(

[@EVPointMaster]

well that and SSAA for older/indie games. I just fired up Dead Space after seeing it in this video. Running at 5K, I didn't see a drop below 200fps, even going up to 10K I was still hovering in the mid 60s. Running Dead Space 3 at 5K, I was getting 150-170fps. I am using a 1080ti for this, but it shows, that weaker card are capable of using SSAA for these types of games.

[@paul1979uk2000]

Thats how I'm thinking at 4k, no aa seems a better option in most games.

[@imo098765]

Oh god, when I started Far Cry 5 it had TAA on as the default, i nearly vomited, I turned motion blur off right?

[@Swan-may]

These graphical literacy videos are absolutely wonderful, and I hope we get many, many more of them.

[@RealSkyDiver2]

this is my kind of sextalk

[@DenisLiasis]

You need a girlfriend

[@hamzatamim8379]

You need an RTX 2080 TI

[@adribier]

you need better AA

[@raziel3099]

@@DenisLiasis Maybe that's how she talks to him.

[@DenisLiasis]

@@raziel3099 she tells him he need a girlfriend? Ffs.., I wouldn't be comfortable having a gf like that.

[@3thndv155]

Alex, if I were in your shoes, I would continue to produce vids how I would want to incorporating minute changes. Some people are critical of your presentation because you are willing to listen to it. The worst thing you can do is alter your style entirely to please a small group (the ones who dislike are far more likely to comment then ones who are satisfied). Some people will come around over time. Good luck man, your contribution is well received by me.

[@Gherrapowa]

it's 4 am and im watching wtf is Anti-Aliasing. i love it

[@Mohammed-mm3kb]

it's 4 am where i live rn, and i'm watching this

[@MattyFez]

This was a good video, I'd like to see more of this kind of stuff

[@xnoreq]

The video was horrible. He even failed to explain aliasing properly. Aliasing is the result of sampling at an inadequate rate. Given a white line next to a black line with an instantaneous transition between them, you'd need infinite bandwidth, that is infinite samples, infinitely high resolution, to reproduce the input perfectly. So by the time the graphics card has produced (has sampled) a white pixel next to a black pixel, the damage is already done. Aliasing then is the fact that different input data will lead to the same output samples - aliases of one another. The solution is trivially easy: low-pass filter the input. That is, attenuate the part of the signal above your sampling bandwidth.

[@rosenvitae]

For some reason, I've always enjoyed playing without AA. To me, the jaggies give me a sense of crispness/sharpness of image.

[@ShougHell]

I like seeing the jaggies while playing my OG Xbox with my component cables because they actually help me adjust the sharpness on my TV so they look nice and sharp

[@jiraiyahermit4999]

Dragon Warrior 1 says hi

[@fu_ck1]

Same. AA makes games look like a blurred mess of shapes. No AA makes objects stand out more.

[@ShougHell]

@@fu_ck1 I personally only use AA when a game is running at a much higher resolution so blurring is minimal

[@muizzsiddique]

Having crispy non-jaggies is even nicer.

[@JEST3R_]

Excuse me my computer is very pro-aliasing. Because I don't have a graphics card

[@WednesdayMan]

get an mCable, mClassic or seiki u-vision cable that'll help by applying Anti aliasing

[@JEST3R_]

@@WednesdayMan dude this comment was over a year ago. I have an RX 580 now

[@WednesdayMan]

@@JEST3R_ my suggestion will still help since it does anti aliasing externally so it can help boost fpa

[@MelancoliaI]

I learned about antialiasing as a kid. I asked on a forum why, for example, a brick wall in a PS1 game would warp and go all zig-zagged as the camera turned whereas that wouldn't happen in the N64 port.

[@JonathanDtz]

For someone not versed in the PC gaming world, this is mind blowing. I knew the basics for AA but this is so much more detailed and educational. Thanks for the great video!

[@AintPopular]

This is great and educational. Do more of these DF

[@shaynnebrules-salgueiro9429]

Really love the tech focus videos. Please make more. For years Ive set sttings on a trial and error basis. These videos help me to actually understand what I am doing and how I might expect it to impact my playing experience. Your doing great work. I beg of you to make more videos like this so that I might become one with my rig. Thanks again. Cheers

[@pustulio81]

Unless you want an image that looks like it's made out of a series of staircases, then AA is pretty damn necessary.

[@639Andrew]

I intend to watch this later since the channel has great material, but I love that the thumbnail is two separate resolutions instead of aliasing techniques.

[@RavensEagle]

WOW, Half of the time I had no Idea what you were talking about. I am glad you made the summary near the end, because it was getting complicated.

[@leonthesleepy]

I love this influx of tech commentary Alex, keep it up!

[@elcapitan008]

One thing that I think you should have mentioned is the simple act of bypassing AA and increasing the base resolution of the game. Many reviewers of 4K monitors, especially early on in their product cycle when top end GPUs could/can barely push their pixel count is that "you don't need AA if you use a good quality 4K Display". I for one went this route with a baseline of 4K with no AA when doing my game testing. But to say that 4K makes AA completely obsolete at reasonable viewing distance is an exaggeration in my book. Would be nice if you quantified the benefits and drawbacks of such an approach.

[@BAMozzy69]

The issue though is that it takes more GPU resources to jump up from 1080p to 4k than it does to add most AA solutions to 1080p. In principal, as more and more people have 4k capable hardware, Anti aliasing could become less of an issue - certainly as far as 'edges' are concerned. The stair stepping will still be there but much smaller.

[@elcapitan008]

Yes, these issues are what I wanted to see him get into. The performance trade-off, older games not being made to be rendered at 4K properly, interface shrinking, weird textures at high base resolution, etc. Even in the comments below you can see people saying that increasing base-resolution is the silver-bullet and I wanted to hear him layout its benefits and drawbacks versus types of AA.

[@gNpNct]

Increasing the base resolution is in a way similar to SSAA though - you render more pixels.

[@elcapitan008]

Similar yes, but not identical. There are notable differences.

[@gewdvibes]

Subi_fan no 4K at 27 inches is 163ppi, the pixels are still pretty noticeable, you would need a 21” screen at 4K for AA to be pointless. At 21” that’s 210ppi

[@bulutcagdas1071]

Apart from Metro Last Light I haven't seen a proper implementation of a post processing AA method. Developers love to go crazy with TAA however it creates so much blurring on the screen that it's insane. In games like R6 Siege it even becomes detrimental to the gameplay where turning it off gives you much better visibility because it's less blurry.

[@chanceForNotBeingRapper]

r6 siege before the 2018 update still supports Msaa, now they have only taa, fxaa, dlss, and taa combined with ssaa slider

[@josevidal9886]

The tech discussion is so deep that it gives me chills. Keep up the good series!

[@Paddydapro]

wtf Alex, you are the chillest guy and with your voice the video couldn't be long enough it's asmr while listening to my beloved DF content about great topics i have been interested in but didn't knew everything about, thanks a lot and auf Wiedersehn hah

[@TheNinjaGuyDon]

Nice, PREY music in the background! PREY DLC hype!

[@NiGHTSnoob]

He's also playing the original 2006 Prey for much of the video.

[@atlas8827]

Fuck yeah! I wonder what Kasma Corp is all about.

[@Terror_Candles]

There’s gonna be dlc?!?!?

[@atlas8827]

What about the whole KasmaCorp ARG? They were teasing something There's definitely new content coming.

[@TheNinjaGuyDon]

Go look at Arkane and Prey twitters, they've been teasing Moon DLC or standalone DLC for months. BE3 will likely be the reveal.

[@mozzjones6943]

Great video! Finally a through explanation of Aliasing. Yes higher resolution is the most expensive most aggressive and best result for Anti-Aliasing, But is not the be all end all.. As explained there is so much more to Aliasing, Even at 4K you can have problems that will need a help from an Anti-Aliasing option in game! But people seem to think I have no idea what I'm talking about lol

[@TheLingo56]

Making a video on motion blur would be great as well. It would be nice to clear up all the misconceptions behind it and properly answer if it really is just an ugly effect that gets in the way or actually serves a purpose. If it's not an in-depth enough topic maybe making a video on misconceptions would also be a good idea. The little touch on it you made in this video really kind of explained why I like motion blur in games. It fills in information that normally isn't there due to low frame rates.

[@bpcgos]

Personally, I always turned motion blur off whenever the games allowed me to do it. I just feel that motion blur (and maybe vignette)just something that not need to be simulated

[@ZacDonald]

Motion blur is a must for me on 30 FPS games or when using TAA.

[@RCXDerp]

Motion blur is only bad when you're in a multiplayer PVP game

[@Dat1boi05]

This was very complex and informative. I almost closed this due to the level of complexity being above my understanding, but the more you listen the more this makes sense as far as expenses to devs and varying strategies of anti Aliasing vs other methods. Thanks for the video

[@redbeardnj]

This is why i come to this channel. Great stuff for us who love and want to learn more about the tech!

[@ShiftyMcGoggles]

Prey 2016 music, with the original prey game being shown? Big props for thee.

[@soulshot96]

TAA, when done correctly, especially at resolutions of 1440p and upward, is my go to. Some games do have a shitload of blur and/or ghosting though. And some have nearly none of either. The Division, DOOM, For Honor, and a few other titles are great examples of how great TAA can be when done well. Games like Far Cry 5 are the opposite. Ghosting, blurring, and on top of that it does a fairly poor job eliminating jaggies and flicker.

[@gloup81]

Add AC Oddysey to the poor implementation of TAA. It's actually heavier to run it without any AA at all than with AA. And the result is a blurred mess that screws up a spectacular environment.

[@m0rph3u5.]

why would you even bother using anti-aliasing for online/competitive games anyways?

[@MLWJ1993]

@@m0rph3u5. Because I like my game looking natural instead of stabbing me in the eye each frame?

[@SouthPlanObservation]

I think Ghost Recon Wildlands was the worst implementation of TAA I have seen so far. Even at 5K as soon as you move the whole picture turns into a blurry mess (and yes motion blur turned off). The best implementation was Doom's TSSAA. What really bothers me about TAA are games that have it unremoveble caked into the game.

[@lukismilenar]

Taa is the worst for me. It doesnt work on anything else than 4k. Also the worst example of taa is BFV and Fallout 4 even the division. Its simply the worst version of AA and works only on 4k, yet 4k still isnt a standard. Best cheapest proper aa is either MSAA Or the really the cheapest SMAA combined with luma sharpen. But even still. Blurring image isnt a true AA. Id rather suggest to not to use Temporal / Fast AA ever.

[@dalton2k538]

Great video, and good on showing why mipmapping/LOD is important as it gives it more of an obvious use case. Adding to that, it can show why Nintendo has opted to put no AA in some of their games, notably Mario Kart 8/Deluxe. Simple geometry, more use of Gouraud shading, and their poor history with using AA and flicker filter too much (N64/Wii...) makes for a good use case of using little to no AA. Oh yeah, what about flicker filter?

[@lengendaryblackmgmt438]

If it wasn’t for DF I wouldn’t even care about what any of this tech stuff means. This channel has re-sparked my interest in computers 🖥.

[@takkun169]

Videos like these are exactly what I wanted a bunch of years ago when I started following you guys.

[@jippalippa]

PREY (2006) What an amazing game!!!!!!

[@hickey1292]

I forgot that it looked that good. When I consider some other games from 2006, it really has held up well.

[@spaaaaace8952]

@Dr. Loomis Your mom was OK.

[@classic_jam]

Honestly 2017 is not that bad

[@cataria3903]

bethesda brutally murdered human head's prey 2, never forget! prey 2 was by all accounts a great game coming, showed playable scenes and trailers and everyone in human head studios said, that the game's quality never was an issue. bethesda financially bullied human head studios with holding back payments to hopefully result in human head studios selling themselves to bethesda as they were quite impresed with human head studios work and wanted to own them. the result of this was, that human head studios was forced to stop the work on prey 2 and barely survived financially and prey 2 was never to come to us, even though it was relatively close to completion. so again, don't give bethesda one CENT! ever again. take your money and throw it at self published games or indie games either self published or published with a not monstrous publisher (they exist). use your money to support beautiful art like prey 1 one was and prey 2 surely would have been and not to suport the greed and psychopathy of publishers/studios like bethesda. also prey 2's game story was later told and it would have been great, who knows maybe at some point human head studios with people's support can buy the rights to all the half finished prey 2 and finish it and release it themselves or under a different publisher and different name, because of course bethesda also reused the name.... for a completely different game, hell they even went so far as to tell indie studios to change similar names like "prey for the gods" needed to change their name to "praey for the gods" to avoid a possible lawsuit, that even though bethesda would be a wrong and a piece of shit yet again in that case a small indie studio can't afford a lawsuit and can't risk the game that they are making. so again fuck bethesda, destroyer of art and projects of love.

[@geeknproud321]

Can we get an upgraded version of this video in 4K with more closeup shots? KZbin butchers your comparisons and it would be nice if this were more plain in its comparisons and had more close ups. This is a really invaluable tool to show to newcomers. IMO it's kinda sad that games have moved towards deferred rendering and real hardware MSAA is less available. I feel it's always offered better outright image quality than many modern blurAA solutions and 4x was always really reasonable to run. While things like DSR, DLDSR and DLSS have made supersampling less performance hungry and more universal, they're not perfect. That said I have a soft spot for DLDSR it's pretty nice when mixed with something like Temporal AA. Temporal is nice and is way less blurry and more visually stable than other methods, but it really screams for some sort of resolution scaling or it's still a hit to image quality.

[@Jax_Harkness]

The "Auf Wiedersehen" came pretty unexpected.

[@Sanjinator1]

Yeah I felt the same. For a foreign person (I'm assuming) his english is perfectly spoken.

[@Winnetou64]

Really? I'm German and to me it's like "Ugh, that German accent!" - it's not horrible by any means but it's there. 😁 Anyhow: Alex' vocabulary seems to be pretty good!

[@Sanjinator1]

Yes, i'm being serious. I hear many english speaking germans. For example, many think Sebastian Vettel is one of the best speakers but he misses out many words, a little broken in parts and pronounces certain words funny but not this guy in the video. 100% right. Oh and there's nothing wrong with a german/austrian accent, no one sounds as tough. Alpha male like, apart from Russians, Ukranians.

[@NovaPrima]

He is actually American according to DF's John Linneman in a comment below.

[@Sanjinator1]

NovaPrima, why did you edit your original comment to such extent? It was perfectly fine. Thinking american accents don't sound good is normal to say. People always attack other accents, they could use some criticism too. I myself am british and our accent at times can sound extremely boring. I think he must be an american-born german or maybe born in Germany but lived the majority of his life in the states, so his accent's not so glaringly pronounced.

[@1sobre2]

Amazing video. Had no idea aliasing was so complex and hard to deal with, it's great to see how long devs have gone to create new ways of fighting it. Keep doing vids like these, Alex.

[@damientech88]

Best explanation I've seen of TAA. Well done.

[@arootube]

When he said Hi it was with the same tone as "This is Peter McAllister. The father."

[@saddah11]

More like a villagers " Huuuh" sound from minecraft

[@RDR911]

I got like a Foppish Gent vibe.

[@pc_screen5478]

I find it funny that the text used on the video is aliased. I'm weird I know

[@subzerolives]

I'm a native English speaker and geek but Alex uses terms that make me scratch my head. +DigitalFoundry i love the format and i understand that you guys want to distance yourselves from the ''Linus'' crowd, but maybe you could simplify episodes like this a little more for us Amoebas ;-)

[@visualsbypeter]

Anti aliasing is a complex subject. There's already a ton of videos out there that explain some of its functionalities in layman's terms, but this is a rather in depth look on what it does, which I think fits digital foundry perfectly. An in depth look on a rather complex subject will always be harder to grasp than small light videos on that same subject. Its like a camera, everyone can grab a camera and take a picture but not everyone knows what makes a good picture, thats what in depth courses/videos/papers are for.

[@cskillers1]

@Mehdi Alfiguigui he means techquickie linus channel, 5minutes explanations which is actually great in everything

[@Momoka7]

Want to say, this Video surely did take allot time to make. Considering all the different settings that fluently are shown. Great Work! Was a joy to watch ... and listen to your explanation too.

[@RonnieBarzel]

I think my first exposure to the terms “aliasing” and “anti-aliasing” was when Lucasarts released “Ballblazer.” One of the magazines at the time talked about how the developers put in extra effort to try to get the lines of the checkerboard floor not look like stair steps.

[@MaximilianBieberGaming]

Das Video war ziemlich informativ und interessant und ich hab mich ziemlich gefreut als am Ende "Auf Wiedersehen" kam weshalb ich den Kommentar auch mal ganz frech auf Deutsch schreibe :P

[@Xcentr1cK]

Thanks DF. Great video.

[@crungushakooter]

This is great, please keep more of these coming. You ride the line between accessible and in-depth finely, this is a great entry point to this topic. This is coming from someone with a math degree, if that makes you feel nice

[@Taijifufu]

2:51 "It just looks smoooother." And Alex sounds smoooother. 🥵

[@lucijanstrok8911]

I have always turn off AA, having a decent monitor with a good res scale, I can see it would be a necessity on some monitors where u have low res but a lot of inches, so it makes sense for antialiasing. But otherwise if you stick to proper scalings in native resoultion AA is completely unnecessary IMO, it just makes the image look worse.

[@tajaycampbell1041]

Love dead space

[@jeanmichel2005]

Dead Space in 4K is still beautiful

[@BIGNOIDS]

Why did they use it as an example? I thought it looked fine even on my 360.

[@jeanmichel2005]

BIG-NABZ couple years ago I tried replaying it on my pc at 1080p and the jaggies were awful, even with AA. So I put it in 4k and the game was transformed. I guess you were just not close to the screen enough to see the edges.

[@ridersonthestorm666]

Still the best game I ever played.

[@orijimi]

You're not my dad. You can't tell me what to do.

[@BeatmasterAC]

what about CSAA? EQAA? MLAA? TRSSAA? and SGSSAA?

[@alexwise-]

Well, he talked about SGSSAA, didn't he?

[@cheekypop]

csaa = nvidia version of msaa with more coverage samples eqaa = amd version of msaa with more coverage samples mlaa = a type of post processing aa similar to fxaa trssaa = ssaa but applied only to transparent textures sgssaa = ssaa but with a different sample layout

[@tiarkrezar]

CSAA (Nvidia) and EQAA (AMD) are variants of MSAA that attempt to make the sampling cheaper to perform (or improve quality at the same performance cost, depending on how you look at it). They do this by taking extra "coverage samples" on top of the usual MSAA samples. I don't know exactly how they work behind the scenes, but the gist is that these extra samples are very cheap but they also won't necessarily improve the image in some cases. Best case scenario, the result will look like as if you did the full-quality MSAA with more samples, worst case it'll look like MSAA without the extra coverage samples. Now the naming scheme for these modes can be confusing. Nvidia just gives you the total number of samples, so for example 16x CSAA means 4x MSAA samples + 12 coverage samples. AMD on the other hand just tells you the number of MSAA samples, but the total number is double that. So 4x EQAA = 4x MSAA + 4 coverage samples, 8x EQAA = 8xMSAA + 8 coverage samples, etc. MLAA is a simple postprocess AA algorithm similar to FXAA or SMAA, but it seems to have fallen out of favor lately. The concept behind them all is the same: you render the aliased image, then you try to figure out where the edges are and somehow smooth them out afterwards.The details of how exactly they find the edges and blend them differ between these algorithms, so each produces a slightly different looking result. TRSSAA - transparency supersampling. MSAA only takes care of polygon edges, but it won't do anything about transparent textures, the transparency effect can still produce nasty jagged edges (think fence/metal mesh textures and foliage for example). So you can supersample just the transparent areas to improve that. SGSSAA - sparse grid supersampling. Supersampling but with a better sampling pattern that isn't grid-aligned, like explained in the video. Note that standard MSAA modes on all modern cards use these improved sampling patterns by default. This is why downsampling doesn't necessarily do as good of a job at removing jaggies as proper MSAA/SGSSAA would. Rendering the image at double resolution is basically the same as 4x ordered-grid SSAA. This is why you should only use downsampling as a last resort when none of the better MSAA/SSAA modes work with the game and you've still got enough performance to spare.

[@felisasininus1784]

He already talked about Sparse Grid Super Sample Anti-Aliasing.

[@AdadG]

What about DTDHGETHFSTFHAA?

[@ov3rkill]

This is why I love DF. Very informative.

[@1chiTheKiller]

Not sure why he was playing Prey so much in this one, but I will say it is criminally underrated. One of my favorite shooters. I love it.

[@teffhk]

PREY(2006) is epic!! Too bad it didn't get a proper sequel

[@FPRobber]

The new Prey is awesome, but it really doesn't have much to do with the old Prey. I wish they would have named it something different.

[@TheGodEmperorOfMankind_]

Is that game Prey 2006?

[@sasafrash3]

There was a PREY 2 planned. Got canceled i guess. The E3 trailer looked so good for PREY 2

[@DarkPhant0m13]

Yes.. this is prey 2006!!

[@Amy-J]

Anti-Aliasing ASMR

[@kipzonderkop1994]

Really informative video, really liked how it was structured well and was very easy to understand.

[@mikejones-vd3fg]

i just took of my glasses and couldnt tell the difference between the two in the thumbnail, awesome!

[@MadMaxBLD]

One very important area where anti-aliasing is basically a requirement is VR. Supersampling and good TAA seem to be the only way to get a sharp AND flicker/jaggy free picture.

[@fabiosouza8828]

Can't stand TAA, newer games look aways so blurry because of it, and there's no turning off. I really prefer de jaggies over this.

[@RyadMax]

Use the sharpening settings

[@RadioactiveJawa]

I literally die inside every time I see a new game including MSAA.

[@jakedizzle]

I hate aliasing that blurs the image.

[@ninomaxx2667]

jakedizzle taa + sharpern image good combine

[@MLWJ1993]

All AA "blurs" the image, but not actually like a gaussian blur would. It's what happens when you average pixels. You could also look at it the other way, no anti aliasing leaves and unrealistically sharp image that you would never encounter otherwise.

[@ferna2294]

Dude, this is an amazing job. You basically covered every existing aliasing problem in 14 minutes. Loved it.

[@jakedill1304]

This was utterly fantastic, I feel like I knew a bit about aa from the last 20 years or so of awareness of it... learned more in this time space than all combined.

[@InMaTeofDeath]

I haven't needed it since I made the switch from 1080 to 1440p, and more recently made the switch to 3440x1440.

[@sludgeman2597]

I actually prefer AA turned off in most games. I prefer a sharp image with jagged edges over a blurred image.

[@ShadowsBehindU]

Kinda forgot TRSSAA as a middle ground between SSAA and MSAA but nonetheless a very good video.

[@Dictator93]

Hi Vdel! I would love to have covered it, definitely, especially since Crysis 3 showcased in the video uses it natively... and so well. But as always... there is a production time to consider. So I make concessions and try and focus on the biggest points always if I can. But yeah, definitely! Love me some good MSAA extensions! Best, Alex

[@ShadowsBehindU]

Surprise reply from the man himself! Well, I guessed that it might've been too much to cover in addition to the more known techs. Kind of ironic though if you think about the fact, that the purest way of AA, supersampling, has more relevance than multisampling nowadays. Hooray for DSR/VSR.

[@MLWJ1993]

Not a middle ground, it's to be used with MSAA to combat aliasing in alpha textures that MSAA doesn't detect since its not within geometry.

[@Gaboonvyper]

LOVE the video and the addition of Alex. Did have a difficult time focusing on the content while he was emphasizing "A lee A sing".

[@RicochetForce]

This was a fantastic video, Alex is quickly earning his place in Digital Foundry.

[@chriswilliamson9030]

Dude you sound like you could do voice overs for a sleep cd. great content, but your tone, your delivery..... ok im gonna go make some coffee.

[@randomcatontheinternet2771]

when i talk about AA most of them friend though it was Anti-Air gun for a months till one day they asked if i want Anti Air artillery modelwhen i talk about AA most of them friend though it was Anti-Air gun for a months

[@AnxiousEducator]

Anti aliasing is a great feature for eating all your fps.

[@albertakesson3164]

Your voice is as smooth as a crane by the morning dew - Thumbs up!

[@andrekohler5792]

Videos like these are the reason why I'm paying for this channel.

[@TheJeronator]

Jaggies? Wow Alex, didn't know you played Monster Hunter

[@jpraczbr8413]

That was exactly my thought

[@Mambaru]

The term jaggies has been around long before Muppet Hunter.

[@randallespinoza4275]

DUDE YOU GOTTA LINK THOSE GAMES

[@svartedauden3566]

Very informative for someone who isn't knowledgeable of this like myself. Subbed. I love learning.

[@RobSomeone]

This was a huge help with those confusing graphics settings that you're not sure about at first.

[@lukismilenar]

Taa is to me one of the worst AAs there... Thanks to that all of modern games are terribly blurred. Mainly battlefield V and Metro Exodus. But ofc its bigger problem in online games However it was an awesome video.

[@alainborgrave6772]

Didn't understand your explanations..

[@eyeguyful]

Me: *Downloads new game Me: *Open settings menu Me: *Turns off anti aliasing Anyone else here? XD

[@m0rph3u5.]

I do that sometimes with my 1080ti and i7-8700k believe it or not XD

[@Wixey2]

I love digital foundry. Other sites are good like linus etc but digital foundry are brilliant at breaking it down and getting great examples. Good work!

[@ultraokletsgo]

I thought I knew a bit more than general info about AA, and that's how I came into watching this. I was surprised to be taught about things a lot more detailed and in-depth than I anticipated. Thank you! Learned a lot more new terms and learned about the definitions about terms I had only a passing acquaintance with.

[@Eazycree]

As a poor gamer who has to turn off anti aliasing everytime I want to play a game I can say that when it is on it is 100x better

[@DSDMovies]

I'm reasonably intelligent, I've been dealing with aliasing on PC games for 20 years and kind of know what it is. This made it seem 100 times more complicated than it is.

[@deleatur]

DSDuddles You "kind of know what it is"? Sure, who doesn't? But *_to know what it is_* is an entire different thing. And yes, it *_is_* more complicated than you think. That's why explanation in this video is great. Just my two cents.

[@fjjjghhh4683]

Perhaps you're not so reasonably intelligent after all

[@mamawau]

The solution to this problem is so simple, just pump up the pixel count to a native 16k+ and nobody needs AA anymore.

[@audiobrainiac]

MIP MAPS! I love motion blur in games. It’s definitely more immersive to me. Great video Alex and DF.

[@weses2]

Very informative video - I finally understand all those confusing anti aliasing options. Good job dude

[@SISYPHEgame]

Anti-Aliasing always looks super blurry and there are no exceptions, it makes every game go from beautiful to kind of a mess. Until developers figure out how to make pixels soft without making it blurry, i will keep it off, always.

[@SISYPHEgame]

@DEEJMASTER 333 often times not, since the computer cant distinguish between a dinosaur and a boat (them both just being ones and zeroes/colours and pixels) most of them just becomes blurry because of the computer just blurring everything that distinguishes colours, the only AA that doesnt do this is i believe SMAA

[@vovan230183]

@@SISYPHEgame the problem is that we are gonna get jaggy lines without aa that leads to visual noise or we gonna get rly bad blur that also makes visual noise. So at the end of the day image in games looks very shit... In some games nowadays i don't know what to do with this cause they have rly complex geometry and a lot of jaggies (horizon zero dawn for example)

[@stefanossinani8653]

I’m wondering if you can spot enemy’s on multiplayer FPS

[@DarkPhychic]

Only solution is high res monitors with low ppi like 27 inch 4k...

[@spazowacky]

I understand that there's going to be technical jargon in a digital foundry video, but I think there is improvement you can make in the words you speak. When I watch a df video i usually expect concise information to be handed out and i think the df team has done a good job in building that reputation. Listening to this video, i got the impression of someone trying to show off their education or intelligence as opposed to delivering direct information. I can see from the comments that most people seem to like it but speaking for myself, i'd prefer a more direct, less "floaty" use of language. I don't see any advantage to the viewer in throwing a bunch of adjectives at them rather than just using the word "increase". If you were trying to impress an english teacher it would be wise but in the context of a df video, I find it to be a distraction.

[@confuseatronica]

agreed; it kinda sounds like someone who is parodying an artist's statement about an abstract sculpture. this is all hard definable and objective stuff, it doesn't need this fluff, and he's just not that good at it.