Jargon busting: know your anti-aliasing from anisotropic filtering

If you’re new to the world of overclocking (and even if you’re not), trying to get your head around some of the terminology can be confusing. But those who are serious about getting every extra ounce of power out of their system know that understanding what graphics settings do is super useful.

Let ROG help you to impress your friends by explaining the difference between anti-aliasing and ansiotropic filtering.

Or not, depending on who your friends are.

Resolution

The screeen on your monitor is made up of millions of dots (pixels) and the finer the dots, the sharper the picture. Resolution simply means the number of pixel columns and rows on your display. The higher the numbers, the better the resolution, but the harder your card will have to work. 1920x1080, or 1080p, is a pretty common resolution today. Most cards are able to run modern games at this resolution, although you need more powerful cards if you want ultra-settings with all the bells and whistles. 4K (3840x2160) is the new peak, although you’ll need some serious power to run modern games at ultra in this one.

• 
  PG27AQ for 4K Ultra-HD (3840X2160)
• 
  PG348Q for Ultra-wide QHD (3440X1440)
• 
  ROG Swift PG248Q for Full-HD (1920X1080)

 

FPS

You’ve probably heard this term before, maybe after you beat someone in game and they blamed their FPS (or lag – lag is always a good one). It literally means frames per second: how many images your system is generating per second on the screen. The higher this is, the smoother the game will run. At an average of 60fps for any game is the holy grail, although higher is possible and can make a difference particularly in FPS (the other one FPS - First-Person Shooter) games. Here an FPS game showing the FPS.

 

Anti-aliasing

Everything in game is made up of pixels, and pixels are decidedly square. This means that even with super-small pixels, smooth edges need a bit of encouragement if they’re going to look convincing. Anti-aliasing essentially smooths these edges, providing better contrast between models and backgrounds while making things look less like pieces of Lego. There are a number of options for anti-aliasing, with supersampling or SSAA being the most basic. As a general rule, higher settings can cause slower performance depending on your card. To have delicious eye-candy, some FPS may be sacrificed. Check our run down of ‘The Crew’ to get an idea of how increasing AA can impact a system. 

This Mustang is from the game Forza Motorsport 6: Apex, and not actually a photograph. Look at those beautiful curves!

 

Anisotropic, bilinear, and trilinear filtering

Filtering is another trick used to crisp up the game world. Bilinear and trilinear are the most basic settings here, and they're essential to control how well a 2D texture is displayed on a 3D model. If you want the most immersive, realistic looking results, using high levels of anisotropic filtering will do the job. As with most settings though, this can be very demanding on your GPU.

 

Heavy lifting GPUs

If you want to run your games on full settings at 4K, there are a few choices. When it comes to handling high levels of detail, the most important stats on the GPU are the core clock and shader clocks — these two are co-dependant, so it’s normally beneficial to run them at similar speeds. ROG STRIX GTX 1080 is the latest and greatest choice for 4K gaming and feature GPU Tweak II, so you can adjust those clock speeds quickly and easily. 

 

Want to know more?

Head to the ROG forum and get acquainted with the community. If you are reading this on Flipboard, you can like and/or leave a comment!

 

By Simon Marshall