Now add SMAA to the mix. You should use ultra in the injector.ini file so that:

[smaa]
;smaa preset one of {SMAA_PRESET_LOW, SMAA_PRESET_MEDIUM, SMAA_PRESET_HIGH, SMAA_PRESET_ULTRA}
preset = SMAA_PRESET_HIGH

becomes:
[smaa]
;smaa preset one of {SMAA_PRESET_LOW, SMAA_PRESET_MEDIUM, SMAA_PRESET_HIGH, SMAA_PRESET_ULTRA}
preset = SMAA_PRESET_ULTRA

Not sure if it works online or not though. Also, H also made mention about deferred MSAA vs High FXAA. Review
Basically, diasable MSAA and just use FXAA High. But if you can get away with it I would suggest SMAA instead as that is far better. My only concern is if PB detects the injector or not.

 

The difference between FXAA High and 4xMSAA isn't significant, but nonetheless, it's there.

For someone trying to squeeze out as much FPS as possible though, then yes, FXAA would be the better choice. I personally prefer 4xMSAA, as I can still maintain 60FPS constant online at maxed out settings.

Also, a tip for people needing to free up VRAM - just disable Windows Aero before playing. It's easy enough to make batch files to start/kill Aero before and after playing BF3....disabling Aero frees up about 130-140MB of VRAM (at least this is what i am seeing with Afterburner's reported VRAM usage on my G19 when I jump into a match with Aero disabled - i've also read this on other forums as well). Although, even at the highest settings, VRAM limitations shouldn't be a factor on cards with 1.5+ GB of VRAM, unless you're playing at 2560x1440/1600 res.

 

No reason to make a batch file, Right click on bf3.exe, go to compatibility and check the boxes "disable visual themes" and "disable desktop composition".

 

FXAA (AA Post) bad, SMAA better

http://www.iryoku.com/smaa/

Works fine with BF3. SMAA is the future, not FXAA.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by jcde7ago

The difference between FXAA High and 4xMSAA isn't significant, but nonetheless, it's there.
For someone trying to squeeze out as much FPS as possible though, then yes, FXAA would be the better choice. I personally prefer 4xMSAA, as I can still maintain 60FPS constant online at maxed out settings.
Also, a tip for people needing to free up VRAM - just disable Windows Aero before playing. It's easy enough to make batch files to start/kill Aero before and after playing BF3....disabling Aero frees up about 130-140MB of VRAM (at least this is what i am seeing with Afterburner's reported VRAM usage on my G19 when I jump into a match with Aero disabled - i've also read this on other forums as well). Although, even at the highest settings, VRAM limitations shouldn't be a factor on cards with 1.5+ GB of VRAM, unless you're playing at 2560x1440/1600 res.

Med FXAA looks better than 4x MSAA. Look at the fences and the trees -- you have a LOT of jaggies there with MSAA.

MSAA in BF3 is fundamentally at a disadvantage because of the light sources. I don't see any point in using it.

Didn't include SMAA because it isn't an in-game setting, but yes I'm fully aware of the advantages it confers in terms of anti-aliasing while preserving sharpness.

 

The difference IS significant. You won't notice it on screenshots tho. Just move around and the jaggie magic begins... 4xMSAA looks much cleaner and better.

 

4xMSAA looks much better and more details, but I have AA off cuz I rather have higher fps than sharper image.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomasrs4

The difference IS significant. You won't notice it on screenshots tho. Just move around and the jaggie magic begins... 4xMSAA looks much cleaner and better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silver_WRX02

4xMSAA looks much better and more details, but I have AA off cuz I rather have higher fps than sharper image.

Are you guys even looking at the screenshots? I'm talking about Medium FXAA vs. 4x MSAA, not No AA vs 4x MSAA and not High FXAA vs. 4x MSAA. Check the last two images.

I've played with 4x MSAA before as well on a higher overclock. Jaggies are MUCH more prevalent on 4x MSAA than Med FXAA. If you think otherwise (i.e. if you think that 4x MSAA is better at getting rid of jaggies than FXAA), you have no idea how deferred MSAA works.

HardOCP explains why:
Quote:

Deferred anti-aliasing essentially makes traditional hardware-based MSAA stop working correctly. The chief drawback to using MSAA in deferred shading games like Battlefield 3 is that edge aliasing produced as a result of lighting models is not addressed. This can be corrected with the use of shader-based anti-aliasing technologies, such as NVIDIA's Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing (FXAA) and AMD's Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA).

In other words light-backed objects like fences and trees look like utter garbage with MSAA, and the screenshots clearly show that.

The only drawback of FXAA is a slight loss in texture fidelity which becomes obvious at High levels. At Medium levels it seems to be imperceptible. I don't understand why some of you prefer MSAA when you're playing the game with a ridiculous amount of jaggies. If you think MSAA is doing a good job at freeing your game from the horror of jaggies you are deeply deluded.

 

I suggest that you try SMAA. The link is in my earlier post.

 

As much i wanna try that but i don't wanna risk PB bans over my favorite servers i frequently visit.

 

Then try single player. You shouldn't need PB for SP. If it's there just remove it.

 

I myself use High FXAA and no MSAA. I hate the performance hit of MSAA and agree it doesn't look as good. I must say though, I don't think I notice the image sharpness difference on having FXAA on High or off entirely. Am I blind or are you guys exaggerating?

Sent from my HTC Desire HD using Tapatalk

 

That's because those are still shots. In game it's difficult to notice when the game is slightly blurry vs when it's not. You won't notice the smaller details unless you take SS.

 

been using SMAA ever since i discovered it on ocn for a few days
have not been PB banned.
and it looks mile smoother while being much sharper than FXAA. in fact it's as sharp as no AA
SMAA is awesome

(besure to turn off ALL in-game AA when using SMAA)
link to SMAA injector is in post #2

 

There's still a good number of Jaggies with med FXAA, try looking in the distance. The texture quality looks sub-par as well. I'd much rather have defined textures than blurry ones. Also, the lighting seems to change when FXAA is on, which looks a bit odd.

Why would you not include SMAA? Sure it's not an in game option, but installing it isn't rocket science. It BLOWS FXAA out of the water. I use it in combination with 4xMSAA in skyrim and jaggies are almost non existant. SMAA does a much better job than FXAA OR MSAA when objects are in motion. FXAA is a cheap blurring effect that robs image quality, kind of counterintuitive to say the least

http://vimeo.com/31247769

That video will show you.

 

MSAA won't help with transparent and alpha textures. FXAA will help on those stuff like trees, and fences.

FXAA is like degraded, pseudo SSAA.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riou

MSAA won't help with transparent and alpha textures. FXAA will help on those stuff like trees, and fences.
FXAA is like degraded, pseudo SSAA.

This is why, overall, 4xMSAA is the way to go - I like the higher-defined textures and I agree with a previous poster that the lighting/shadows do change with FXAA quite a bit. Also, at 1920x1200 with 4xMSAA, I have virtually no problems with jaggies on my screen - they're pretty much non-existent.

If you really want the best overall image quality, run 4xMSAA and 4xSSAA via NVCP - otherwise, MSAA vs FXAA is going to be pretty subjective to whomever is using what, at what resolution, refresh rate, etc. It's much easier to look at screenshots and go "look here, no jaggies!" than actually experiencing the image quality change during realtime gameplay. I notice no jaggies with MSAA that I notice with FXAA, and I can't stand the slightly lower texture definition with FXAA either. But I guess I must be deluded.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by jcde7ago

I notice no jaggies with MSAA that I notice with FXAA, and I can't stand the slightly lower texture definition with FXAA either. But I guess I must be deluded.

First part of that sentence is poorly worded, but if you mean to suggest that MSAA does at least as good of a job at removing jaggies as FXAA, then yes you are. It's impossible because of the way lighting and deferred anti-aliasing works in this game.

But your contention that MSAA provides you a sharper experience than FXAA and that is what you prefer is completely valid.

I might run these again with SMAA thrown in since it is indeed superior to either FXAA or MSAA.

EDIT: Apologies, I see you mean to say that you notice no jaggies with 4x MSAA. That's also valid.. but I also "notice" no jaggies at 0x AA sometimes.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by friend'scatdied

First part of that sentence is poorly worded, but if mean to say that MSAA does at least as good of a job at removing jaggies as FXAA, then yes you are. It's impossible because of the way lighting and deferred anti-aliasing works in this game.
But your contention that MSAA provides you a sharper experience than FXAA and that is what you prefer is completely valid.
I might run these again with SMAA thrown in since it is indeed superior to either FXAA or MSAA.
EDIT: Apologies, I see you mean to say that you notice no jaggies with 4x MSAA. That's also valid.. but I also "notice" no jaggies at 0x AA sometimes.

Second part of that sentence is poorly worded

MSAA doesn't take care of fences and what not like FXAA does, but it looks WAY better overall. Again, FXAA blurs the whole picture making the image quality go down severely... Not to mention FXAA looks the WORST in motion.

Screenshots cannot do this comparison justice.

Use SMAA.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doodlebro

MSAA doesn't take care of fences and what not like FXAA does, but it looks WAY better overall. Again, FXAA blurs the whole picture making the image quality go down severely... Not to mention FXAA looks the WORST in motion.
Screenshots cannot do this comparison justice.
Use SMAA.

Nah. But I agree with your last point.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by friend'scatdied

Nah. 4x MSAA doesn't do a sufficient job taking care of aliasing (as, you know, "anti-aliasing" should be doing). The deferred nature of the MSAA makes it even more disappointing once you take into account the performance hit.
High FXAA looks somewhat blurry. Medium arguably doesn't look blurry and does a much better job against aliasing than 4x MSAA. Low arguably compares favorably against 4x MSAA, and there's no perceptible blur there.
I'm surprised people are so sensitive to the purported blur effect. I'm at 1080P over 32" (dot pitch the size of pinheads) and it's barely perceptible except at High.
I'm also surprised people can live with the ridiculous amount of aliasing MSAA leaves on the table.
If you're so confident screenshots don't capture the difference you can do a bit of good for the community by capturing some footage of the different AA settings (I doubt the blur will be perceivable). I think the screenshots make the differences very obvious -- the garbage trees in MSAA and the visible blur in High FXAA clearly show through if you take the time to actually look at them.
And to your last point, yeah. There's no reason to not use SMAA really -- it's a shame it's not force-able through drivers.

You don't need to be a smartass with every post you make in this thread. What I mean is, MSAA doesn't take care of the fence-like objects (sub-pixel, thin lines that are drawn, etc) like FXAA does. The blur is more than noticeable in the screenshots you provided, as there is a significant decrease in the QUALITY of textures. In motion, FXAA looks like poop.

FXAA leaves objects in the distance still aliased. 4x MSAA takes care of ALL aliasing on larger objects, and leaves a tiny bit of aliasing on fences and thinner lines.

I provided a video link earlier that compares FXAA, MSAA, SMAA, and SSAA/CSAA in motion. Try to check that out first. Yes, it is a different engine, but you can actually see that FXAA isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

MSAA may drop performance, but what else do you expect from something that is meant to increase image quality and sharpness?

SMAA takes care of the stray aliasing on both thin and thick objects without decreasing image quality at all. Use it with 4xMSAA for the best image quality to performance ratio.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doodlebro

MSAA doesn't take care of the fence-like objects (sub-pixel, thin lines that are drawn, etc) like FXAA does. The blur is more than noticeable in the screenshots you provided, as there is a significant decrease in the QUALITY of textures. In motion, FXAA looks like poop.
FXAA leaves objects in the distance still aliased. 4x MSAA takes care of ALL aliasing on larger objects, and leaves a tiny bit of aliasing on fences and thinner lines.
I provided a video link earlier that compares FXAA, MSAA, SMAA, and SSAA/CSAA in motion. Try to check that out first. Yes, it is a different engine, but you can actually see that FXAA isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
MSAA may drop performance, but what else do you expect from something that is meant to increase image quality and sharpness?

Not really. FXAA isn't a motion blur here, though yes there is a slight loss in texture fidelity due to the nature of the technology (i.e. approximated).

You're also mistaken with regard to MSAA in the context of BF3. The reason MSAA sucks in BF3 is because of lighting -- again, refer to the quote from HardOCP. Deferred MSAA in BF3 does absolutely nothing for even large objects when we're talking about buildings or trees against the sky. We're not talking about other engines here. We're talking about Deferred MSAA, and we're talking about BF3.

Improved sharpness isn't a function of anti-aliasing. Do you honestly think the MSAA image is any sharper than the 0x AA image?

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by friend'scatdied

Not really. FXAA isn't a motion blur here, though yes there is a slight loss in texture fidelity due to the nature of the technology (i.e. approximated).
You're also mistaken with regard to MSAA in the context of BF3. The reason MSAA sucks in BF3 is because of lighting -- again, refer to the quote from HardOCP. Deferred MSAA in BF3 does absolutely nothing for even large objects when we're talking about buildings or trees against the sky. We're not talking about other engines here. We're talking about Deferred MSAA, and we're talking about BF3.
Improved sharpness isn't a function of anti-aliasing. Do you honestly think the MSAA image is any sharper than the 0x AA image?

I didn't say anything about motion blur.

I said that FXAA blurs the image, which is true. Texture quality is lost the more Post-AA you add. I also said that FXAA looks terrible in motion, also a true statement.

Did you watch the video? It's clear that FXAA is the worst of the four in terms of overall image quality because jaggies are produced in MOTION.

Sharpness=less jaggies. The sides of objects are sharper when they look like one smooth line, no? So yes, I do believe that anti-aliasing increases the sharpness of objects.

It's surprising that I've had to explain this more than once.

MSAA does a great job of removing jaggies on buildings and terrain. FXAA does a great job of removing jaggies on objects like fences and anything thinner, but that's really all it is good for in terms of image quality. FXAA suffers from showing jaggies EVERYWHERE in motion AND (yes, again) blurring the whole picture. It makes Ultra textures look like Medium. EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

ONCE AGAIN, use SMAA. It's a good in between that actually HAS a future.

 

We really need an updated SMAA injector that offers 2 or 4x SMAA the current one is good but still suffers from jaggies in the distance like FXAA

 

I installed the injector and turned off all AA in game. Is there anything else I'm missing? The only problem I dislike about this mod is the fact it kills my msi overlay.