It can be seen in every single video benchmark from any reputable site: 1600x1200 speed mode, 1600x1200/4x AA/8x AF, 1600x1200/8x AA/16x AF. All are benchmarks showing pure performance, and then showing different levels of anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering. But what in the world do these incredibly hard to pronounce words mean?

This article will examine the technology and theory behind AA and AF, as well as vsync, explaining how they make your game look better, and why using them will mean taking a hit to your frames per second.

Anti-aliasing is a technology that has been around ever since the days of the Voodoo graphics cards. Obviously, since then, the technology has been streamlined; however, the basic theory remains the same. The purpose of AA, to put it simply, is to smooth out lines displayed by your computer. You see, your monitor has a certain amount of pixels on it that are arranged in an ordered pattern, which means that every time your computer draws any kind of line that is not totally vertical or totally horizontal, the line will start on one row of pixels and then jump up to the next row, as seen in the image. Now, obviously with a high-resolution monitor, this skip is hardly the most noticeable thing in the world. Still, though you may not register it visually, you will notice it subconsciously, making the gaming experience less ‘real’. This is where AA comes into play.

AA is basically a program in the video card’s drivers that makes these lines smoother. How is this accomplished? It is actually fairly simple sounding. First, the program identifies a line on the 3D image. Then, it gathers data on a sample size of pixels around that line. Finally, it ‘averages’ out the pixels, so that whenever a row is skipped, the first row slowly dissolves into the background while the next row slowly fades in. The numbers designated to the different rankings of AA (on ATi it is 2x, 4x, or 6x, and for nVidia, 2x, 4x, and 8x) are a general indicator of what quality of algorithm you’re using to smooth the lines. The general idea is that the numbers indicate the kind of pixel sample size that the program takes around the line before smoothing it out. The reason there are so many options is to offer performance customizability, since the more complicated AA programs give you a bigger hit in performance. Generally, the performance hit between speed mode and max AA is about 10-15% of your FPS, so if you are an FPS junky, AA isn’t for you. However, if you are an image quality fan, it is a must-have.