Anti aliasing help

Solution
What resolution are you using? Super-sampling isn't worth the performance hit at 1080p and above, in my opinion. The key with anti-aliasing is to use as little as you can. Generally, I find that a post-processing alternative (e.g. fxaa) is sufficient at 1080p for demanding games where I'd rather keep the performance. For less demanding games, I might use MSAA, which is more efficient and almost as good in terms of results. The reason SSAA is so demanding is because it will run at some multiple of your resolution and then downscale it for your screen. So 4x SSAA would actually run your game at 4K if you are on a 1080p screen, and then it would downscale it back down to 1080p. No single card can run maxed out on demanding games in...
SSAA is a general abbreviation for Super Sample Anti-aliasing, which includes all types of SSAA.
OGSSAA is a specific type of SSAA which uses an Ordered Grid sample pattern.
There are several other sample patterns possible (random, poisson disc, jittered, rotated grid, etc.), each of which may have its own strengths and weaknesses.

If you are really interested in learning about different SSAA methods, I would recommend browsing through the Wikipedia Supersampling Article and This White Paper on the matter.
 
OGSSAA is simple and easy to accomplish, and is what you get when you downsample.

As mentioned, OGSSAA is a specific type of SSAA. For the most part, SGSSAA and OGSSAA are the most commonly used in gaming. SGSSAA stands for sparse grid super sampling. This is what AMD's CCC software uses when you use SSAA. SGSSAA is more demanding than OGSSAA, but helps fix more aliasing issues.
 

Eggz

Distinguished
What resolution are you using? Super-sampling isn't worth the performance hit at 1080p and above, in my opinion. The key with anti-aliasing is to use as little as you can. Generally, I find that a post-processing alternative (e.g. fxaa) is sufficient at 1080p for demanding games where I'd rather keep the performance. For less demanding games, I might use MSAA, which is more efficient and almost as good in terms of results. The reason SSAA is so demanding is because it will run at some multiple of your resolution and then downscale it for your screen. So 4x SSAA would actually run your game at 4K if you are on a 1080p screen, and then it would downscale it back down to 1080p. No single card can run maxed out on demanding games in 4K, let alone add in the extra step of down scaling.

Just try the game without any AA to get a baseline. Then max it out to see if you notice a difference. If you do, then you'll need to play with stuff a little. For simplicity, pretend your AA goes from 0-10. If you think 10 is better than 0, then compare 1 and 10. If you still think you need more, compare 2 and 10, and so on. When you get to the point where it's hard to tell the difference between a low setting and the max setting (usually around the 1-3 range), then you're at the best balance of performance and quality. The only point is to get ride of jagged edges that appear to flash when you pan the scene anyway. Less (AA) is more (performance).
 
Solution