is AA necessary with a 4k monitor?

[LCDArcade]

I recently purchased a LG Ultragear GN950 and it's great. This is my first 4k monitor and I always heard that you can turn off AA in games to save FPS because it's not needed. Is this true? Will it look worse?

Also as a side note, I'm having a little trouble calibrating this one. It's little brother the GN850 (which I also have) looks great and is vivid. But when the GN950 the picture is great but the colors seem a tad dull. I'm not sure what to do. Perhaps a gamma issue? I adjusted the gamma in WoW for example and it look great turning 1 slider down.

[Temp name]

If you bought it, why not just try it?

As for why colours look worse, check the monitors OSD for gamma and saturation features

[Twoddle]

Anti-aliasing is not needed at all at any resolution.

[Kagthul]

Anti-aliasing is not needed at all at any resolution.

Yeah, jaggies are UH-MAY-ZING for immersion and fidelity.

[Wythel]

Do you see jaggies in your favorite games ? Then turn on AA.

It will always cost some fps, it's up to you to find your acceptable balance.

[Blupparen]

I don't use AA at 1440p and I don't see jaggies unless I look for them.

[Azerox]

Yes, i have a 43inch 4k screen and i even see diff between 2x and 4x AA.
In all games this is the case, not need of AA in 4k is a myth.

[C20]

For something like FS2020, even at 3440x1440, I still need AA because otherwise the jaggies are intense. This is mostly due to the high contrast between buildings, planes and the sky. For WoW, I enable it because my system can handle it, but I definitely notice when it's not enabled, mostly due to the sheer number of different assets in the environment, though it's not like it's super-annoying even without it enabled.

For something like HotS, the game is so light I don't notice any performance hit by enabling it, but I don't think I'd notice it missing much due to lower contrast and less assets.

In terms of performance, FXAA > >>>> MSAA > SSAA.
In terms of quality, SSAA ~ MSAA >>>> FXAA.

I still often enable FXAA as it seems to have been revised a bit over the years and doesn't look quite as blurry as I recall it being when it was originally released. I'll usually enable it alongside something like 4x MSAA. If I have the option, I'll choose TAA/SMAA as this seems to offer a good balance between quality and performance, but since it compares across multiple frames, it can potentially add a slight delay between actions being done and being shown on the screen.

The mode of AA you use is almost as important as whether it's enabled or not.

[Sunderella]

bah, I always turn AA on no matter what. The more fps the less you notice the jagged edges which are no cause of concern for me anyway.

[Twoddle]

Yeah, jaggies are UH-MAY-ZING for immersion and fidelity.

The alternative just looks fake to me, don't care if it's an unpopular opinion. You can squint at the the screen or let AA do the squinting for you. The reason I use Firefox over Chrome is because the AA'd fonts look awful.

[Blackmist]

Is that what they say now? I remember when they used to say AA wasn't needed at 1280x1024 either...

It depends entirely on the game and how many single pixel wide elements it has on screen, which is where you'll actually notice it. Some games you won't need any, some games you'll want MSAA or at least some post-processing AA to cover odd bits of pixel shimmering.

[Shakadam]

AA isn't a very big performance decrease anymore so it doesn't really make any sense to leave it off, because yes you will still get jagged edges and shimmering if you leave all forms of AA completely off.

The forms of AA that are used in games today don't really make much of a performance difference. If you need more performance there are much better options that can be reduced for a much bigger FPS gain and for a much smaller visual difference.

[Biernot]

At 4k it depends on the game, if you really need AA. In fast paced games, you probably won't notice missing AA and you rather want the higher FPS from disabling it. In slower games or games with static imagery (e.g. RTS games, where the terrain/background is static for up to a few seconds and only the units move), you probably still want AA and you don't need max performance anyway.

[Gaidax]

AA is really a small hit nowadays, I'm not talking some insane bullshit setting 8x supersample or shit like that - it's all massive diminishing returns there, but something like MSAA x4/8 or even supersample x2 is no biggie for any modern hardware and it gives the biggest bang for the buck as far as eliminating jaggies goes.

[msdos]

Honestly, it's really on a per game basis, but I'm glad you brought this thread up because Banished was one of the games I actually had to turn AA up. I was like why is everything all fuzzy and jagged, it was honestly hard to make out details, especially when you're zoomed out (2k monitor by the way.)

So yeah, in this case, turning AA up a bit actually improved over all visibility, it wasn't about eye candy.

In terms of eye candy, I always crank it up in Bethesda games (ENB side) so the clothes and skin of my character look as smooth as possible.

[BeepBoo]

AA isn't a very big performance decrease anymore so it doesn't really make any sense to leave it off, because yes you will still get jagged edges and shimmering if you leave all forms of AA completely off.

The only reason AA might not be as big of a performance hit any more is because all the AA options anyone utilizes any more are all the shit ones. super sampling or multisampling are the only good AA options, and they both come with solid hits to perfomance.

AA is really a small hit nowadays, I'm not talking some insane bullshit setting 8x supersample or shit like that - it's all massive diminishing returns there, but something like MSAA x4/8 or even supersample x2 is no biggie for any modern hardware

You realize this depends heavily on the game, right? Hardware is still being outpaced by graphics, especially when dealing with 4k.

To OP:
Resolution in-and-of-itself doesn't matter. It's all about pixel density. For monitors at typical viewing distances (~20"), you're looking for something in the 150ppi range. That means you're looking for a 4k monitor that is max 30".

[Low Hanging Fruit]

It's very game to game. I think it's fair to say you probably need less or it's likely to be ok without AA at 4k but an absolute probably will never be achieved. Some games might even design around having some AA running to look optimal. Just do the normal PC gamer thing and try the game with it on and off in your game and just roll with what works best.

[Kagthul]

Yes, i have a 43inch 4k screen and i even see diff between 2x and 4x AA.
In all games this is the case, not need of AA in 4k is a myth.

Or you could sit the appropriate distance from your screen.

A 42” screen is not designed to be viewed from the typical 28-30” people sit from their monitor at a desk. Same way 1440p looks bad on a 32” display at normal seating distances, but 27” looks fine.

For a 42” screen you should be 48” back or further, otherwise the pixel density wont match your expectations of 4k.

- - - Updated - - -

As to the OP: in a lot of games, seated at the correct distance, you often wont need AA or will only need a light AA pass for edge jaggies, at 4K. But everyones eyeballs are different, so youll have to explore it yourself. But the “average” answer is going to be... yeah youll still want AA, but you can get away with much less intensive AA.

[gamerbr70]

The game is so light I don't notice any performance hit by enabling it, but I don't think I'd notice it missing much due to lower contrast and less assets.

[Coldkil]

Depends basically on the PPI of your monitor. The bigger the screen and lower the resolution, the more noticeable the jagged borders are and AA works best. Since you play at 4K you don't really need it in any circumstance.

I had a 1440p 25" monitor and i couldn't tell the difference between having it on or off. Now I moved to a 32" (always 1440p) and I tend to use AA in older games where the details are less "refined" and it's less taxing, otherwise i don't feel the need to use it, or just stick to a 2x to get rid of the most noticeable ones.