Anti-Alising

[Legionary Jezza]

Can't remember how it is spelled but what does it do?

[Drunken]

I believe its used to remove jagged edges from objects and make things look smoother.

[The White Knight]

I believe its used to remove jagged edges from objects and make things look smoother.

Indeed.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antialiasing for some pictures and comparisons.

It's spelt Anti-aliasing btw.

[Legionary Jezza]

It looks better so how do I use it in rtw?

[Kaidonni]

Be careful. It might look better, but takes a lot more memory to work.

[Erik]

Aliasing is a graphic distortion caused by low screen resolutions.
The effect is best noticed by a "jarred edge" between two shapes.

Anti-Aliasing is a technique to correct this distortion.

Be careful. It might look better, but takes a lot more memory to work.

Not more memory, just more processing.

The way anti-aliasing works is by calculating several samples for every on-screen pixel, giving the illusion of having a higher screen resolution thus less aliasing.
And you guessed it: 2x AA means two samples per pixel are calculted, 4X AA four samples etc.

But it still uses the same textures, so it still requires the same amount of memory (except for a minute amount of overhead required to run the AA algorithm)

So I advice you to just try it out and see how much it lowers your fps.
If your fps gets too low you could lower your screen resolution a bit, this wil cause more aliasing but since you have anti-aliasing switched on the effect isn't that bad.
A slightly lower screen resolution with anti-aliasing switched on generally produces a better picture quality for the same amount of processing, especially if you also switch on anisotropic filtering.

Oh, I guess your next question is: what is anisotropic filtering?
Well, let's just say it reduces other distortions caused by low screen resolutions.
It too requires more processing power, but it makes your textures look a lot sharper.

Bottom line: a lower screen resolution with AA and AS turned on usually gives the a sharper picture than a high screen resolution with no AA and AS.

I play almost all my games at 1024x768, and turn my AA and AS levels up to get a perfect balance between fps and picture quality.

[Legionary Jezza]

O.k thanks for the warning.

[Fuji]

It's in your videooptions, but it's possibly grayed out, there's a file on this forum that will allow any grafic card to use it though...

[Trajan]

Moved to The Basement.

[Legionary Jezza]

O.k thanks should i turn them on from prefences because hen i do it from my game it only say no anit-aliasing.

[Erik]

O.k thanks should i turn them on from prefences because hen i do it from my game it only say no anit-aliasing.

Do it from your video card preferences because it gives you greater control on how much AA you actually want (2xAA, 4xAA or even 6xAA).

I usually keep it at 4xAA and 4XAS.
In my experience image quality doesn't increase much above "4X".

Also should note that anti-aliasing using the videocard utilities is better than letting RTW do the anti-aliasing. This is most noticable with shield designs and decals. They tend to stay sharp using nvidia utilities and blurry with RTW doing it.

I think RTW defaults to 2xAA (they call it LOW_AA afterall), so that makes sense.

I think video game makers are scared to offer very high graphics setting because some customers might complain when the game won't run at those settings on their machine. (they might even think it's some kind of bug).
The makers of Oblivious don't seem to have that problem however.

Apparently your VC doesn't support AA if it only says "no anti-aliasing" in the video options of the game.

Or your VC is simply configured to force AA off. (or even on)
On my ATi card I have the option "let the application decide", and I think this is the only setting that wil allow RTW to switch AA on and off.
Other settings (no AA, 2x AA 4x AA etc.) wil probably deny RTW to change the AA settings, making the "low_aa" option unavailable in the game.

[Hadrian]

Apparently your VC doesn't support AA if it only says "no anti-aliasing" in the video options of the game. Fuji did say there was a file produced on this forum to allow your VC to apply AA to your game.Hopefully Fuji or others who know where it is will post that info for you. You can activate AA from the preferences file (assuming your VC supports the function)though.

Awesome, detailed info from Erik.I didn't realize it was designed specifically to enhance lower resolutions. Do know this town watch,it is the single most taxing option application, rivaled only by your choices of unit size and resolution.If your VC and processor aren't very strong, I would suggest keeping this option set on "no" as it will generally cut your FPS in half causing bigtime lags and choppy play!

[ferres]

Also should note that anti-aliasing using the videocard utilities is better than letting RTW do the anti-aliasing. This is most noticable with shield designs and decals. They tend to stay sharp using nvidia utilities and blurry with RTW doing it.