# FXAA, MSAA and TXAA



## FireFox (Oct 9, 2016)

Hi lads.

Quick question.

Is it necessary to use all three AA, FXAA, MSAA and TXAA at the same time?

Some people say that if you use TXAA there's no need to use MSAA and if you keep it on should be set at ×2.


----------



## Recon-UK (Oct 9, 2016)

TXAA looks like shit.
FXAA when implemented well looks good.
MSAA is a good one but you need 8xMSAA depending on the game.
SSAA is superior to everything.
DSR makes things blurry.


----------



## RejZoR (Oct 9, 2016)

Actually DSR doesn't make everything blurry, you just need to decrease the filter it uses in NV CP. I don't get it why NVIDIA defaults to 33%. I usually use 20% or even down to 10%. But I mostly don't use it at all because it doesn't run at 144Hz...

There is also SMAA which is actually superior to all of them on average. Superior filtering with minimal performance impact. For some reason hardly anyone uses it. I have no clue why. WHat I'm even more surprised is why AMD only offers MLAA, NVIDIA only FXAA. Why can't both provide FXAA, MLAA and SMAA as selectable option in control panel? Instead, you're forced to use injectors like SweetFX to use SMAA which frankly sucks and risks you getting banned from MP servers. Plus it's clumsy to use.


----------



## FireFox (Oct 9, 2016)

Recon-UK said:


> TXAA looks like shit.
> FXAA when implemented well looks good.
> MSAA is a good one but you need 8xMSAA depending on the game.
> SSAA is superior to everything.
> DSR makes things blurry.


Doesn't it depends on your monitor too?


----------



## RejZoR (Oct 9, 2016)

Not really. It of course looks better when applied to screen of larger resolution, but 1080p is a standard now and it looks great. Only DSR is really affected by resolution when using odd multipliers which make things blurry. Using 2x or 4x mode on 1080p gives rather good results.


----------



## FireFox (Oct 9, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> Not really. It of course looks better when applied to screen of larger resolution, but 1080p is a standard now and it looks great. Only DSR is really affected by resolution when using odd multipliers which make things blurry. Using 2x or 4x mode on 1080p gives rather good results.


I have a monitor 2560 x 1440 144Hz


----------



## rtwjunkie (Oct 9, 2016)

Recon-UK said:


> TXAA looks like shit.
> FXAA when implemented well looks good.
> MSAA is a good one but you need 8xMSAA depending on the game.
> SSAA is superior to everything.
> DSR makes things blurry.



Actually it's FXAA that looks like shit no matter what.  It has the least impact on your system, that's why it is popular.

FXAA waits until the entire scene is processed and then throws a coating of blur on the whole scene, not just jagged edges.  That's how it works, and hardly what you want to see if you've got an expensive system that made that whole scene look awesome, before FXAA got involved.


----------



## Vayra86 (Oct 9, 2016)

For me personally, it's SSAA x4 if I can push it, SMAA only if it looks really, really good (well implemented, depends on engine alot), and if those are both problematic I run without AA and accept jaggies.

I hate blurry shit. MSAA x8 looks OK but is a huge perf hit, close enough to SSAA x4 (forceable from NVCP) and just a bit lacking in some ways. I always prefer SSAAx4 above MSAA x8. All or nothing tbh. It's the same with FPS: I want consistency above all else. If I can't comfortably push 100+ fps, I lock the game at 60.

To answer your original question: pick one, and see whatever you like best.

DSR introduces a slew of other issues, including UI that scales down so far that you can't read it, and on my monitor it always screws up the blacks and gamma altogether - I get a greyish hue across the entire image. Maybe related to it being 120hz refresh. In addition, DSR heavily impacts input lag - AA does not.

When I was looking closely at SSAA perf impact, it actually isn't all that bad. 25-30% performance loss at x4 on average.


----------



## Drone (Oct 9, 2016)

None of them should be used together. Basically it's all about FXAA and SSAA.

FXAA (post processing method) is an approximated algorithm which goes easy on gpu, it's good for weak machines and gives good results.

SSAA is brute-force algorithm, hence maximum load and best results. Choosing maximum SSAA is overkill.

MLAA is better than FXAA but uses little bit more recourses (it takes aa weight from gpu's shoulders and puts it on cpu). However, it gives a sharper picture.


----------



## FireFox (Oct 9, 2016)

Vayra86 said:


> To answer your original question: pick one, and see whatever you like best.


That's what i do, each of you has different preferences so it's hard to decide from your advices which one would be better, I would like something with minimal performance impact but at the same time with good quality picture.


----------



## P4-630 (Oct 9, 2016)

rtwjunkie said:


> Actually it's FXAA that looks like shit no matter what.



Well it probably depends on the game then, since I use it in GTA V on my gaming laptop and it takes away all jagged edges and it looks great on that laptop!


----------



## FireFox (Oct 9, 2016)

Could someone confirm this:

For nvidia users MSAA should be set to x2 and TXAA on.

Also, if you've got a compatible Nvidia video card you should turn on MFAA in the control panel. You'll get 4x MSAA quality at 2x MSAA performance. I got a pretty big frame rate boost.



P4-630 said:


> Well it probably depends on the game then,


I play Titanfall.


----------



## P4-630 (Oct 9, 2016)

Knoxx29 said:


> Could someone confirm this:
> 
> For nvidia users MSAA should be set to x2 and TXAA on.
> 
> ...



I don't own that game, but I did notice using TXAA makes things worse in GTA V, I only use MSAA x4 and FXAA , + x4 Reflection MSAA in GTA V which looks great at GTA V @60fps.

I guess you just have to test it out for yourself in every game.


----------



## RejZoR (Oct 9, 2016)

SMAA actually has slightly higher performance hit than FXAA, but doesn't affect textures or text much and doesn't cause MLAA's corner rounding (which is the reason which ruins text). Which is why it's so baffling no one uses SMAA. Why not?! Performance hit is smaller than 2x MSAA while delivering like 16x anti-aliasing in most cases. Rarely it fails to smooth things, usually if scenes are very bright as whole.

I'd gladly see FXAA being replaced with SMAA in NVIDIA Control Panel.


----------



## FireFox (Oct 10, 2016)

Normally i don't touch my Game's video settings i optimize it with Geforce experience, but this time i wanted to try some different settings, btw, i have enabled MFAA in Nvidia control panel and i got a big FPS boost (30 FPS) after that i have switched from MSAA to TXAA x4 and been honest i have noticed that i can play without MSAA enable or i can use MSAA x4 + MFAA, with both settings my FPS are 85fps/90fps instead 60 FPS that i was getting when using just MSAA x8 enable.


----------



## RejZoR (Oct 10, 2016)

MSAA knows where edges are and is more precise, filtering all of them without exceptions, but doesn't work with all games and is more taxing because of that.

MFAA enhances MSAA modes by alternating filtering grid pattern between frames and then merging them, effectively doubling the visual efficiency of MSAA at nearly no performance hit. AMD (ATi back then) had similar feature called TAA (Temporal AA) which alternated sample grid between frames as well, but was just outputting them directly without mergin and it was framerate dependent. If framerate was too low, edges started flickering. MFAA afaik is immune to this issue.

TXAA/MSAA/SMAA/FXAA/MLAA modes are post-process fiters that have to roughly figure out where edges are with various edge detection algorithms. Because of that, they are significantly cheaper, but less accurate and may soften image if they misdetect edges location and filter a non edge "surface". Or they simply use very primitive technique which almost has no performance hit, but makes image blurry as whole (FXAA for example).


----------



## FireFox (Oct 10, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> (FXAA for example).


+1 
I tested FXAA even knowing that it's shit and as you said was blurry, for me as i have mentioned before MFAA in NCP + TXAA x4 or MFAA + MSAA x 4 work great.


----------



## LAN_deRf_HA (Oct 10, 2016)

I've been disappointed with all AA techniques since dx10 showed up. Feels like the simple 16x/16xQ stuff worked far better than what we have today. Nowadays I barely see a difference and even the most taxing settings leave jaggies everywhere.


----------



## FireFox (Oct 10, 2016)

LAN_deRf_HA said:


> Nowadays I barely see a difference and even the most taxing settings leave jaggies everywhere.


Perfection doesn't exist.


----------



## Toothless (Oct 10, 2016)

What about CSAA? Anyone know about that?


----------



## FireFox (Oct 10, 2016)

Toothless said:


> What about CSAA? Anyone know about that?


running 8xCSAA gives you comparable image quality to 4xMSAA and may provide a performance boost depending on your card/game.


----------



## Toothless (Oct 10, 2016)

Knoxx29 said:


> running 8xCSAA gives you comparable image quality to 4xMSAA and may provide a performance boost depending on your card/game.


So 32xCSAA is just 16xMSAA? I might have to try 64xCSAA since NVIDIA gives me that option.


----------



## Prima.Vera (Oct 10, 2016)

Personaly I have found out that the best AA is the one called TSSAA, then SMAA. Those are the ones without performance impact and best quality.

The TXAA  junk is basically 4xMSAA+FXAA.


----------



## FireFox (Oct 10, 2016)

Toothless said:


> So 32xCSAA is just 16xMSAA?



That's right but 32 x CSAA would be slightly more performance hit than 16XMSAA.



Prima.Vera said:


> TSSAA, then SMAA.



I have thought the same until last night.


----------



## Prima.Vera (Oct 10, 2016)

Knoxx29 said:


> I have thought the same until last night.


What do you mean?
 The AA in DOOM is the best I have experienced in a game except the SSAAx8 which is still the best ever exists but kills all your performance.


----------



## FireFox (Oct 10, 2016)

Prima.Vera said:


> What do you mean?
> The AA in DOOM is the best I have experienced in a game except the SSAAx8 which is still the best ever exists but kills all your performance.



I agree with you about it and of course in DOOM is pretty Wow but what i meant is that there are some AA that combined are almost that good as TSSAA, in my case what i need is best picture quality and the
minimal performance impact.

TSSAA creates the best image quality but at the same time a huge impact performance.


----------



## Recon-UK (Oct 10, 2016)

Most superior AA method before SSAA and shader based is CSAA, 32xCSAA however is massively taxing depending on the game.

BFBC2 supports it natively if you own an Nvidia GPU, so try it out, you will notice how superior it is.

SSAA by far and large is the best method but that's even more computationally hard to run.


----------



## RejZoR (Oct 10, 2016)

SMAA has almost no effect on textures. In fact, with SweetFX I was able to reverse it to such degree textures actually looked subtly sharper than original (you can nicely switch it on/off on the fly during gaming). If the games used SMAA with depth buffer which is not available in most cases for post processing as injector, then you can get even better results since algorithm is actually aware where polygons are located and knows where are the actual edges.


----------



## LightningJR (Oct 10, 2016)

Yes I agree SMAA is the best method imo very little blur with amazing jaggie reduction with a tiny performance impact.

I found TXAA to blur on the extreme but I haven't seen small lines (ex. power line wires, fences, etc) look so good with any other AA method.


----------



## Kanan (Oct 11, 2016)

Knoxx29 said:


> Hi lads.
> 
> Quick question.
> 
> ...


TXAA is like a mix of MSAA and FXAA, it depends if you like it or not. MSAA is really good but eats a whole lot of performance, also doesn't sharpen everything, that's why you can use MSAA + FXAA together, that way everything is sharpened (I use 2x MSAA + FXAA in GTA Online for example, looks great and performance decrease is okay too). Never mix TXAA + FXAA, it's useless. SSAA is essentially like increasing the resolution, performance decreases a lot, but looks the best. DSR works like that too but eats less performance and looks a tad worse compared to it. I use it a lot in Payday 2 and it looks great though (with 25% filter setting in NV config). There's one more: MFAA. It works like MSAA but eats a whole lot less performance, so arguably one of the best AA techniques.

PS. If you don't know: FXAA is a post filter that's somewhat blurry, it "sharpens" graphics by making them a bit blurrier - but the performance hit is zero compared to the others. That's the great thing about it and the reason why it's often the only AA available in modern games.


----------



## RejZoR (Oct 11, 2016)

I never understood the point of using MSAA+FXAA (or any other post process AA). Post process algorithms are designed to detect jagged edges. If you smooth them with MSAA, post process algorithms will have a lot harder job finding what's jagged and what isn't if it's already smoothed out.

If you want to enhance MSAA, use MFAA or other Multisampling enhancements that improve MSAA sampling with decreased performance hit for the given end result. Only thing I hate is the fact you can't know if MFAA is working or not. Supposedly it has to be designed for each game specifically, but then NVIDIA released they support virtually all games and then you just can't be sure.


----------



## Kanan (Oct 11, 2016)

Because just MSAA leaved some edges and can't smooth some effects. Msaa+FXAA looks just better. But that's certainly not true for every game, GTA O is just a good example for it.

I don't have MFAA it's just for maxwell/Pascal. And it's easily recognizable because your fps are a good amount higher while sporting same image quality as 4x Msaa  (Mfaa 2x = 4x msaa).


----------



## FYFI13 (Oct 11, 2016)

As @Kanan wrote, it really depends on game. Arma series just begging for x8 MSAA + FXAA/SMAA. Same for Left4Dead, CSGO, BF3/4.


----------



## Recon-UK (Oct 11, 2016)

The games that need AA more are those where you have loads of foliage or long distances, makes a huge difference getting rid of the ugly edges.


----------



## RejZoR (Oct 11, 2016)

FXAA is only good for fast paced games where you don't have time to admire sharp textures. For slow games, nope. It just makes everything too blurry and soft.


----------



## RejZoR (Oct 11, 2016)

Recon-UK said:


> The games that need AA more are those where you have loads of foliage or long distances, makes a huge difference getting rid of the ugly edges.



Game brightness also affects how visible are aliased edges. For example, in Killing Floor 2 which is very dark in general, you'll only see jaggies on bright objects. Those shaded sort of just blend the edges into the scene, making them almost invisible. And this has been happening since we got realtime shadows, sort of since Doom 3...


----------



## FireFox (Oct 11, 2016)

Kanan said:


> TXAA is like a mix of MSAA and FXAA, it depends if you like it or not. MSAA is really good but eats a whole lot of performance, also doesn't sharpen everything, that's why you can use MSAA + FXAA together, that way everything is sharpened (I use 2x MSAA + FXAA in GTA Online for example, looks great and performance decrease is okay too). Never mix TXAA + FXAA, it's useless. SSAA is essentially like increasing the resolution, performance decreases a lot, but looks the best. DSR works like that too but eats less performance and looks a tad worse compared to it. I use it a lot in Payday 2 and it looks great though (with 25% filter setting in NV config). There's one more: MFAA. It works like MSAA but eats a whole lot less performance, so arguably one of the best AA techniques.
> 
> PS. If you don't know: FXAA is a post filter that's somewhat blurry, it "sharpens" graphics by making them a bit blurrier - but the performance hit is zero compared to the others. That's the great thing about it and the reason why it's often the only AA available in modern games.


And what about MFAA + TXAA or MFAA + MSAA?

I don't have the MFAA x2 x4 x6 x8 option i can just enable it in NCP.


----------



## Vayra86 (Oct 11, 2016)

Knoxx29 said:


> And what about MFAA + TXAA or MFAA + MSAA?
> 
> I don't have the MFAA x2 x4 x6 x8 option i can just enable it in NCP.



I just can't shake the thought of 'MotherFucking AA' with MFAA

I guess its just me.


----------



## Recon-UK (Oct 11, 2016)

Vayra86 said:


> I just can't shake the thought of 'MotherFucking AA' with MFAA
> 
> I guess its just me.



TXAA = Tranny extra's AA


----------



## Prima.Vera (Oct 11, 2016)

Recon-UK said:


> TXAA = Tranny extra's AA


Seriously dude, with that avatar, I cannot ever take you seriously )))))


----------



## Recon-UK (Oct 11, 2016)

Prima.Vera said:


> Seriously dude, with that avatar, I cannot ever take you seriously )))))



It works, that's great news.


----------



## FireFox (Oct 11, 2016)

Prima.Vera said:


> Seriously dude, with that avatar, I cannot ever take you seriously )))))


----------



## D007 (Oct 11, 2016)

I use MSAA but not DSR because I have a 4k TV.. 
It does not make things look blurry though imo. On my brothers 80" 1080p, 3k DSR looks amazing in comparison.

MSAA is a cheap SSAA basically but it looks great and helps a lot. Again depending on the screen size and resolution, you may not need it at all. The smaller the screen, at high res, the less you will need AA.
FXAA is a cheap aliasing method, that imo tends to just make things darker. I don't like it.
SSAA is tops but depending on your resolution, it's overkill and a big performance hit.

1080p may benefit from SSAA but 3k and 4k will not. 3k and 4k sometimes don't need any AA depending on the screen size.
On my 50" I play in 3k and 4k.. I only use MSAA at 2x, max.


----------



## FireFox (Oct 11, 2016)

D007 said:


> Again depending on the screen size and resolution,



ROG Swift PG278Q Gaming Monitor - 27'' 2K WQHD (2560 x 1440), 1ms, up to 144Hz, G-SYNC™.

What would you suggest?


----------



## 64K (Oct 11, 2016)

Prima.Vera said:


> Seriously dude, with that avatar, I cannot ever take you seriously )))))



Maybe Recon-UK needs an avatar that is a little more serious. Like this


----------



## FireFox (Oct 11, 2016)

64K said:


> Maybe Recon-UK needs an avatar that is a little more serious. Like this


Good one


----------



## Ithanul (Oct 11, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> SMAA actually has slightly higher performance hit than FXAA, but doesn't affect textures or text much and doesn't cause MLAA's corner rounding (which is the reason which ruins text). Which is why it's so baffling no one uses SMAA. Why not?! Performance hit is smaller than 2x MSAA while delivering like 16x anti-aliasing in most cases. Rarely it fails to smooth things, usually if scenes are very bright as whole.
> 
> I'd gladly see FXAA being replaced with SMAA in NVIDIA Control Panel.


I will agree.  I have used SweetFX with SMAA in it.  It really makes a game look nice without blurring it.
Though, most favorite thing to do with SweetFX is to tinker with its settings to change the looks of a game or make it pop out more depending on what I am aiming for.

Though, downsampling + SweetFX is my favorite method.
Some of the few old pics with SweetFX and either downsampling or SMAA on the game.  Depending on what I was aiming for.
I tend to do this to games I have easily beaten, and just want to see how I can change the looks and atmosphere of the game.


Spoiler


















But that would probably stress a system out since during those I was not aiming for playable, and more for an artistic approach.

Though, SMAA by itself on a low setting would still do a very nice job.


----------



## newconroer (Oct 11, 2016)

Amazing how complicated antialiasing still is ..if nothing else because all of the old legacy features (that were confusing back in the day) are still floating about.

My favorite has been TAA from Nvidia - powerful and low performance impact. I also like the slight blur it adds when in motion, it's like a cost free motion blur without it being over done.
SMAA is the most widely applicable and can be customized however it does affect finer things like text (warps or blurs it) and it has to be injected, which is not for everyone
FXAA is too blury
MSAAA 8x still takes a lot of horsepower, 4x is ok as a compromise


Other mentionables

SSAA - 'anti-shimmer' AA - performance hit, good quality
MLAA/and Nvidia's variant - low performance impact, questionable quality - blurry
Transparency AA - Does this even work anymore?


----------



## RejZoR (Oct 11, 2016)

Transparency AA imo only works in older games where usual MSAA still works.


----------



## BiggieShady (Oct 11, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> TXAA/MSAA/SMAA/FXAA/MLAA modes are post-process fiters that have to roughly figure out where edges are with various edge detection algorithms. Because of that, they are significantly cheaper, but less accurate and may soften image if they misdetect edges location and filter a non edge "surface". Or they simply use very primitive technique which almost has no performance hit, but makes image blurry as whole (FXAA for example).



You are bunching all these techniques together, but in fact TXAA/MSAA are much different than SMAA/FXAA/MLAA ... and they all use some form of edge detection (to be as cheap as possible) only super sampling schemes don't, and now I want to write a wall of text.

SSAA is super sampling algorithm, everything is rendered in higher res and then down sampled using reconstruction filter ... DSR is very similar but only in effect - it doesn't scale with powers of two like SSAA, its scaling factor is float so it has to use gauss filter when downsampling instead.

MSAA is a multi sampling algorithm (trying to produce effects of supersampling from the other end), everything is rendered at same res and only pixels that are near the edges of the geometry (because optimization) get multiply sampled (pixel + number of surrounding pixels in a pattern) as subpixels from imaginary supersized image that was never actually rendered. Algorithm is complex, eats VRAM because you gotta save all those subpixels per each pixel, because you wanna handle overdraw correctly (rendering pixel on pixel) and know which subpixel from which original pixel to take into account based on z buffer. Nevertheless, this still misses all aliasing on semi-transparent textured polygons (for example tree leaves and flags with torn edges which both use alpha channel and are done in texture space).

This was fixed in DX9 era in forward rendering engines with Transparency MSAA which is the same algorithm running beside regular MSAA but done whenever sampling each transparent texture in any shader (also only on pixels close to transparent-nontransparent transition in texture space - hence "alpha to coverage" name). We also have a super sampling variant of transparency anti aliasing, everything is the same only SSAA is used when sampling each transparent texture in any shader. Sparse grid variants use different patterns for reconstruction filter that try to have same effect with less samples.

Trouble is MSAA only works properly out-of-the-box on forward rendering technique. Massively more popular and more optimal deferred rendering compose each frame through layers (like in photoshop) and each layer is rendered by shader in screen space (still doing geometry part of the pipeline once) and because that transparency is done differently. To use hardware accelerated MSAA in deferred renderer is tricky (MSAA is too much embedded in the rasterization pipeline - it changes how ROPs work and can't be switched on/off whenever during the frame), and to be careful not to use it unnecessary number of times for same pixel is PITA for devs ... you can technically do it, DX10 and higher allows it with programmable pipeline, but nobody does it except rockstar and crytek.

TXAA is actually regular MSAA plus temporal AA done in screen space in post processing pass. Trouble is devs a) don't know how to "tame" the performance hit of msaa in deferred engines b) can't be bothered to tweak some parameters in temporal post process part (overdriven gauss filter has to be somewhere in there).

SMAA is done in screen space in post processing pass and it's really smaa...art because it's sub-pixel morphological aa ... it has pre-programmed mapping how to resolve different types of features (tiny blocks of several pixels) ... so the subpixel msaa-like logic is pre-calculated through feature mapping stored directly in the shader code. Brilliantly. I also don't understand why it isn't used more. Crysis 3 has it. Probably Star Citizen also because of the crytek engine.

SMAA T1 and T2 are temporal variants, much heavier but without shimmering when still, however with ghosting when moving.

FXAA is fast and approximate also done in screen space in post processing pass.

MLAA is also aproximate also prost processing but with temporal aa which doesn't handle well shimmering when still and ghosting when moving.


----------



## D007 (Oct 11, 2016)

Knoxx29 said:


> ROG Swift PG278Q Gaming Monitor - 27'' 2K WQHD (2560 x 1440), 1ms, up to 144Hz, G-SYNC™.
> 
> What would you suggest?



I'd suggest 2x MSAA. Nothing more. What I would do is turn on AA @ 2x, then turn it off and see if you notice any change.. You might not need AA at all.


----------



## Prima.Vera (Oct 12, 2016)

Knoxx29 said:


> ROG Swift PG278Q Gaming Monitor - 27'' 2K WQHD (2560 x 1440), 1ms, up to 144Hz, G-SYNC™.
> 
> What would you suggest?


No brainer. *ReShade* (best injector of SweetFX) with SMAA filter on Ultra. I use this on ALL games that natively don't have an option for SMAA in Options menu.


----------

