High resolution or more AA?

a higher resolution should make a better picture quality than a lower resolution with high AA

lol i edited my message, and yes i agree with dagger

you will see jaggy's but not as much as you would on lower resolutions

i really can't tell without these monitor's in front of me... a 1440x900 native res monitor should look as good a 1680x1050 monitor, but just smaller

if you were playing a sniper in tf2, the head would look bigger on the 1680x1050 native res

I always place resolution above settings. Also, a higher resolution allows easier work done in the same amount of space. You can add AA to a 1680x1050, but it won't look as good as 1920x1200. You can always add AA down the road, but it's not like you can staple more pixels to your screen.

In fact, I don't recommend you have a staple in the presence of your screen, just for good measure.

I used to think that too, I'd been a low-res gamer all my life until a few months ago, when I got my Sager, equipped with a 1920x1200 screen. It just looks incredible to me, even with the settings cranked down, things seems so much clearer and so much more detailed.

Maybe it's subjective.

Ok. Thanks frozen, i wanted to here from somebody who has done both. The thing is though, I am going to start college soon and there will be no new video cards in my future for about four years at that point. Might get one as a tune up in a year but after that I have to be set. Still get the high res monitore?

I'd still go with the 1920x1200. It's more cost effective than buying two. At least, I think so. Chances are you'll buy a 4850, which is capable of handling 1920x1200 in games.

Aliasing is more a product of the pixel pitch being too high (the pixels are too far apart) than the resolution being too low. Higher res LCD panels tend to have the same pixel pitches as lower res LCDs, they're just bigger . On a bigger monitor the jaggies will only become less noticeable than they are on a little monitor if you sit further from the screen; I sit about 8ft away from the 47" 1080p LCDTV in my apartment and I can't really see any jaggies when I play at its native res.

IMO 1680x1050 with 4xAA looks better than 1920x1200 without AA when you're sitting at a desk, but this is purely a subjective observation. I absolutely hate jaggies crawling all over my screen

[Thread resurection]

Is there much benefit to display after 4x AA? Most benchmarks I see tend to stop there. Why?

What is the difference between MSAA, TRSAA, and others. Which has the most noticable effect and/or less impact on performance?