Graphic effects: What is Anti-Aliasing?

Full Screen Anti-Aliasing (FSAA) or simply Antialiasing (AA) is a method which reduces the effects of aliasing. You wonder what the Aliasing is? It is simply the jaggedness and pixelation of computer images. It is particularly seeable on things like the straight edges of objects, or the outline of walls or ground in 3D games. These sharp jagged edges can even produce a “sparkle” effect somewhat when you are moving around in a 3D environment. When AA is enabled, it uses your graphics card’s hardware to blend the edges of the jagged lines and hence produce a smoother image.

Aliasing:

Anti-Aliasing (AA):

Anti-Aliasing can have a different multiplicators, usually in steps of 2x, 4x, 6x and 8x. If it’s used the higher is the level of Antialiasing, the image is dynamically smoothed, but it laso uses much more graphics card resource. GPU need more strain processors to recalculate the graphic to produce these smoother images. Also, the higher the level of AA the greater the blurriness you can see. It is sometime a disadvantage because you game or image could become too “cartoon smooth” in appearance, which is not always the ideal effect.