Anti Aliasing ANIOSTROPIC FILTERING VETICAL SYNC

[jellydoughnut217]

ok i recently got a new video card and i want to get the best picture possible but on advanced video options i see stuff like anti aliasing, aniostropic filtering and vertical sync idk what these options do can someone help me?

 

[Quixote]

it depends on what video card you got.

Turning off vert synch usually works pretty universally though.

 

[jellydoughnut217]

yeah but like what does anti aliasing do and what does aniostropic filtering do and vertical sync?

 

[polypod]

anti aliasing smooths out jagged edges..(at the cost of performance)

 

[rammstein]

vertical sync is pretty much going to perform the same if you have a computer that can do well over the refresh rate of your moniter in FPS

IE, if your moniter refreshes at 60Hz and you get 60FPS in hl2, that means everytime your moniter refreshes, it has a new frame, anything below and it draws the same frame multiple times...

google the rest

 

[zul]

Vertical sync stops "tearing" in the screen, which is annoying IMO. Anti aliasing smoothes edges and gets rid of "jaggies", and aniostropic filtering is a texture blur method, blending texture resolutions at different distances and stuff. If you want some in-depth and not off-the-top-of-my-head answers go to a site like www.hardocp.com

 

[Asus]

AA gets rid of jaggies.
AF restores detail and sharpens the textures. Normally as textures get further from you they become more and more blurred as detail is lost. The best way to see the difference is stand where you can see the road far away and look as the detail is lost. Then apply AF and notice that you can actually see the ground detail farther up. Take SS and look at them side by side if you wish.

Both AA and AF have levels of intensity. 4x seems to give you the most benefit without having to take the full performance hit of 8 or 16x.
2x helps but there is still a bit left to be desired.

Vsync

 

[umop]

zul is right, but incase that didn't make sense i'll try to make it a little less techy.

anti-aliasing (AA) smoothes out the jaggies you get on edges of polygons. the higher AA you use, the more smooth it gets, at the cost of performance.

anisotropic filtering (AF) makes it so that the textures in the game (walls, floor, etc) are much more crisp and less blurred at distances. the higher AF you go, the more crisp it is further away, again at the cost of performance.

vertical sync (VSync) caps your frame rate at your monitor hertz (frame rate) rate. this causes the "tearing" effect at high framerates to stop happening. this one is a matter of personal choice. although sometimes when you have vsync enabled, your fps can jump between 2 different framerates a lot. instead of being dynamic it can get stuck on 2 different levels (for ex 45 and 85)