Glossary:Anti-aliasing (AA)
General
Antialiasing (short AA) is a computer graphics technique that attempts to minimize the unwanted "staircase" effects which occur due to the limited resolution in 3D-Renderers. They also increase the texture quality in some cases.
There are a number of Antialiasing-techniques today but all of them are based on the same principle. They simply render multiple pixels per pixel of the final image.
The techniques only differ on two faktors :
- How they determine which pixels are aliased.
- How they "mix" the multiple rendered pixels to get the final pixel.
These algorithims are also variable on how many pixels they use to determine one final pixel. In video games this is represent by a simple number which is a power of 2 like 2x,4x,8x and so forth.
Comparison
| No Antialiasing | 16x Antialiasing |
|---|---|
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In video games
Antialiasing improves the general graphics quality but lowers the frame rate quiet significant. Lowering or diabiling the AA effect is a good way to improve the overall framerate.
An antialiasing-setting is present in most PC games. If its not available in a specific title, it is usually possible to force it via the graphics card driver or a mod/hack.