Anti-Aliasing problem

[vanja_mileski]

Hi, I have Sapphire 6870 and a 24" Samsung monitor with 1920x1080 resolution running over HDMI.

Recently i have bought Skyrim and noticed the bad jagged edges on nearly everything especially the flora. As always I increased the Anti Aliasing from x2 to x4 and even x8 both from in-game and from the Catalyst Control Center but even as high as x8 ( which i have read is not even needed at that high resolutions) I still have those jagged edges, and the most annoying part is that they flicker while i move in-game. I also noticed that after i enable x2 AA (x2 does reduce the jagged edges but still not satisfactory) and then increase it to x4 and x8 there is no difference.

I thought that it was a game issue but yesterday i bought Saints Row the third and there was the same problem. I re installed the drivers (with driver sweeper etc.) both official releases and previews of the windows 7 x64 and windows 8 ( i have windows 8 consumer preview) with no luck.

If I stay still in one spot there are no jagged or flickering edges, this happens only when i move (or the object moves).

Another thing is that i can't force AA from the CCC. If i disable AA from the game and set to override app settings from the CCC it only forces all other settings like AF but not AA. I also tried to force it with Ati tray tools and RadeonPro still with no luck.

Before i bought this monitor, i had 19" playing games on 1280x1024 and never had issues when i set the AA to x8, not a single jagged edge.

Is there something i'm missing because I've tried with MSAA, adaptive MSAA, MLAA, SSAA, standard and edge-detect AA and all combinations with them with no luck..

P.S.: other games like Lord of the rings Online and World of Warcraft have this issue on the threes and/or shadows but it is barely noticeable. (still can't force AA though)

 

[jryan388]

The jagged edges on flora in skyrim are caused because of transparent textures. Likely the same cause for other games. For Skyrim at least, make sure FXAA is turned on in the settings and you should be good to go.

Just put aa on application controlled in ccc, in skyrim options turn it to 2x or 4x, and check the box for fxaa.

 

[bystander]

You might also be able to turn off AA in game, and use SuperSampling AA in the CCC. SSAA is very good at that, however, it is more demanding. Adaptive MSAA is also supposed to fix that, but doesn't always work, but if it does work, will give the best performance out of all the options previously given (It's also in the CCC).

 

[vanja_mileski]

The FXAA in Skyrim does help a little.

As for the other games, like I said, if i turn off AA in game and try to force it with CCC (with application controlled unchecked, x4 or x8 and SSAA or MSAA) the game just runs with no AA.

 

[bystander]

You have to use "override application settings" or something similar. That said, things like SSAA and adaptive AA don't always work. From an article written on the main page done over a year ago, they found that DX9 was mostly able to be overwritten, while DX10 and DX11 usually didn't work.

 

[vanja_mileski]

Yes, i am using override application settings and i tried saints row in dx9 mode ( forgot that dx11 can't be forced) and i think that the AA from the CCC is working because i have huge fps drop between x2, x4 and x8 but the jagged edges are present in all of them and they all look the same, like only x2 is enabled. When i increase to x4 and x8 the jagged edges are there, just the fps is dropping. Just to get it out of my head, can it be connected somehow with the monitor or that i'm using HDMI instead of VGA?

 

[bystander]

No, the problem is normal MSAA only corrects aliasing around edges of objects and not the textures. With AMD, adaptive MSAA is supposed to treat textures as well, much like transparencies does with Nvidia, but with all these methods, there is some information needed from the application to work, and the game might not give up that information.

SSAA (x4 is the max you might be able to handle) tends to do the best with textures out of everything else out there, but it also is the hardest on performance and doesn't always work. FXAA is similar to MLAA in that it's post process and does a little to textures too, just not as much as the above methods.

 

[vanja_mileski]

MSAA adaptive MSAA and SSAA all look absolutely the same. Also, there is no fps difference when i switch between them. Like you said, SSAA is the hardest on performance, it should have dropped the fps quite a bit.

 

[bystander]

If they all look the same, then they are not working. You'd notice a difference with foliage with those different types, had they worked. That means FXAA or MLAA is your only option outside what is given in game.

 

[vanja_mileski]

I just installed mass effect 3 and it is running great! Not a single jagged edge. Because of the high resolution there is no need for x8 or even x4, as it looks great on x2 SSAA. Probably it was a game issue with saints row with all those AA settings not working. Thank you for your responses, they were all very helpful

 

[bystander]

I like SSAA a lot, when it works. It does a great job with foliage.