# Why can't we have real anti-aliasing anymore...? What happened to MSAA? **URL:** \ **Category:** General Discussion\ **Created:** [October 26, 2016, 11:32pm UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581 "2016-10-26T23:32:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![panalfik](https://battlefieldforum.co/user_avatar/battlefieldforum.co/panalfik/32/103071_2.png) [@panalfik](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/panalfik)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 11:32pm UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/1 "2016-10-26T23:32:00Z")
Both FXAA and TAA are horrible, they just blur the screen and make spotting enemies much, much more difficult. SMAA (aka resolution scaling or downsampling) is very, very performance-heavy so most of us who want to stay semi-competitive have to use no anti-aliasing which makes the game really ugly, no matter what settings they’re playing on. I really don’t understand, why would DICE get rid of MSAA? Sure it’s kinda taxing on your GFX card but at least it effectively gets rid of jaggies without making the game look as if someone smeared vaseline all over your screen. It worked really well in Battlefield 4 and getting rid of it seems like a huge step backwards. Picking between no anti-aliasing and TAA is like choosing between being with a dragon deeldo (silly profanity filter) or a baseball bat. Both are horrible. And FXAA is just… nope. ---
**Author:** ![UteUncleBarryyyy](https://battlefieldforum.co/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/9e8a1a/32.png) [@UteUncleBarryyyy](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/UteUncleBarryyyy)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 11:39pm UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/2 "2016-10-26T23:39:00Z")
Can’t force it in driver settings? ---
**Author:** ![panalfik](https://battlefieldforum.co/user_avatar/battlefieldforum.co/panalfik/32/103071_2.png) [@panalfik](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/panalfik)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 11:41pm UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/3 "2016-10-26T23:41:00Z")
> [@pHill-Ace](#): > > Can’t force it in driver settings? Nope, can’t. ---
**Author:** ![laaza](https://battlefieldforum.co/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/d07c76/32.png) [@laaza](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/laaza)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 12:15am UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/4 "2016-10-27T00:15:00Z")
Resolution scaling is not SMAA. You cannot force MSAA through drivers because the engine uses deferred rendering(like most these days) which needs rendering pipeline specific implementation, BF4 did as well. I don’t know why exactly MSAA was omitted but maybe it was not worth implementing. MSAA has been losing it’s popularity in the recent years and a temporal solution is often favored as it often provides great image quality(though a bit soft), reduces pixel crawling and is relatively low cost. TAA for its low cost is also suitable for consoles. It makes sense to implement a solution that will work universally over one that doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Ticket\_Collector](https://battlefieldforum.co/user_avatar/battlefieldforum.co/ticket_collector/32/103837_2.png) [@Ticket\_Collector](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/Ticket_Collector)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 12:28am UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/5 "2016-10-27T00:28:00Z")
Agree, FXAA is an unsightly blight. ---
**Author:** ![panalfik](https://battlefieldforum.co/user_avatar/battlefieldforum.co/panalfik/32/103071_2.png) [@panalfik](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/panalfik)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 12:30am UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/6 "2016-10-27T00:30:00Z")
> [@Ticket\_CoIlector](#): > > Agree, FXAA is an unsightly blight. So is TAA. Unacceptable for anyone who wants no jaggies AND a clear view of the battlefield. ---
**Author:** ![Puckthedead](https://battlefieldforum.co/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/dec6dc/32.png) [@Puckthedead](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/Puckthedead)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 12:41am UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/7 "2016-10-27T00:41:00Z")
Well, the BF1 at low looks worse than BF3 on ultra, yet runs worse. It is pretty clear that this game is a lazy port. I mean look at the UI and menues for god’s sake… ---
**Author:** ![Nocturnal7x](https://battlefieldforum.co/user_avatar/battlefieldforum.co/nocturnal7x/32/102971_2.png) [@Nocturnal7x](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/Nocturnal7x)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 12:49am UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/8 "2016-10-27T00:49:00Z")
Real anti-aliasing has gone the way of perforated printer paper to be replaced with the likes of chromatic aberration and the PDF respectively. ---
**Author:** ![Puckthedead](https://battlefieldforum.co/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/dec6dc/32.png) [@Puckthedead](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/Puckthedead)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 1:12am UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/9 "2016-10-27T01:12:00Z")
Game is made form the ground up to run on the toasters they call current gen consoles. ---
**Author:** ![panalfik](https://battlefieldforum.co/user_avatar/battlefieldforum.co/panalfik/32/103071_2.png) [@panalfik](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/panalfik)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 1:18am UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/10 "2016-10-27T01:18:00Z")
> [@Nocturnal7x](#): > > Real anti-aliasing has gone the way of perforated printer paper to be replaced with the likes of chromatic aberration and the PDF respectively. Yeah, but PDF has merely become an alternative (a very handy one at that) to paper and we just kinda got robbed of real anti-aliasing and were forced to used the botched, cheap version. There’s no choice in that. ---
**Author:** ![0n3Gun3R](https://battlefieldforum.co/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/0/d78d45/32.png) [@0n3Gun3R](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/0n3Gun3R)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 11:22pm UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/11 "2016-10-28T23:22:00Z")
This game looks like crap needs MSAA. FX and TAA are garbage makes screen too so soft and res scale does so much not to mention pushing too high can cause issues with gsync due to DP bandwidth at higher res/hz. I tried forcing with nvidia profile inspector since it cant be changed with nvidia control panel but doesn’t do anything. ---
**Author:** ![panalfik](https://battlefieldforum.co/user_avatar/battlefieldforum.co/panalfik/32/103071_2.png) [@panalfik](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/panalfik)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2016, 2:34pm UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/12 "2016-10-29T14:34:00Z")
> [@0n3Gun3R](#): > > This game looks like crap needs MSAA. FX and TAA are garbage makes screen too so soft and res scale does so much not to mention pushing too high can cause issues with gsync due to DP bandwidth at higher res/hz. > I tried forcing with nvidia profile inspector since it cant be changed with nvidia control panel but doesn’t do anything. I kinda got used to playing with no AA. Sure the game does look like garbage but at least it’s sharp and crispy. TAA is completely unacceptable if one wants to stay competitive. ---
**Author:** ![CaptaPraelium](https://battlefieldforum.co/user_avatar/battlefieldforum.co/captapraelium/32/101465_2.png) [@CaptaPraelium](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/CaptaPraelium)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 2:09pm UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/13 "2016-10-30T14:09:00Z")
How are we supposed to use NVidia’s flagship AA, MFAA (the aforementioned temporal solution) without MSAA to trigger it? Just here to +1 this. ---
**Author:** ![BiohazardBGR](https://battlefieldforum.co/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BiohazardBGR](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/BiohazardBGR)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 4:28pm UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/14 "2016-10-30T16:28:00Z")
Yeah this is big problem the best solution that I find is to use TAA and resolution scale 140-160 range on 980 ti. This make the game to look best with more hire resolution that make the pixel count that were blurred smaller and the picture looks very sharp with no jaggies. TAA eliminate one bug that is present without AA and FXAA the shader shimmers constantly on metal surfaces see the tank in the first mission. The problem is performance on 980 ti on some maps the fps sometimes dips below 50 45-60. When I don’t use resolution scale this is not so drastic the problem is from V-sync. Ufortanetlly I don’t have G-sync, when turned off I have around 80`s but I have screen tearing. This game need so much polish in technical department. ---
**Author:** ![CaptaPraelium](https://battlefieldforum.co/user_avatar/battlefieldforum.co/captapraelium/32/101465_2.png) [@CaptaPraelium](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/CaptaPraelium)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 4:37pm UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/15 "2016-10-30T16:37:00Z")
Thanks for the suggestion but that is not a solution. I already resolution scale 133%, and I want _GOOD_ AA on top of that, not blurry TAA that un-does most of the benefit of the scaling ☹ ---
**Author:** ![BladeBondage](https://battlefieldforum.co/user_avatar/battlefieldforum.co/bladebondage/32/101359_2.png) [@BladeBondage](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/BladeBondage)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 5:15pm UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/16 "2016-10-30T17:15:00Z")
I understand why they went with TAA in general as opposed to MFAA or MSAA and that’s most likely to avoid vendor specific technology that favours one brand whether it be AMD or NVIDIA they want to keep it neutral, TAA has 0 performance hit but provides is sub optimal compared to other rendering technologies. This is an AMD supported game so therefore there seems to be a focus more on vendor neutral and open source technologies being used while NVIDIA tends to favour proprietary technology. Being an NVIDIA owner myself I do tend to favour proprietary technology, as much as I appreciate GPUopen and the initative that AMD are trying to take, I’d of liked to have seen what DICE could of done if they used PhysX in their engine and included NVIDIA specific technology like NVIDIA turbulence, one of the technologies being used in Conan Exiles an upcoming title. What they’ve done with sand is absolutely amazing. ---
**Author:** ![CaptaPraelium](https://battlefieldforum.co/user_avatar/battlefieldforum.co/captapraelium/32/101465_2.png) [@CaptaPraelium](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/CaptaPraelium)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 5:33pm UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/17 "2016-10-30T17:33:00Z")
> [@BladeBondage](#): > > open source technologies Is there anything open source in this game at all? I don’t think there is… Certainly don’t remember seeing a GPL license 😉 ---
**Author:** ![CaptaPraelium](https://battlefieldforum.co/user_avatar/battlefieldforum.co/captapraelium/32/101465_2.png) [@CaptaPraelium](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/CaptaPraelium)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 5:40pm UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/18 "2016-10-30T17:40:00Z")
Also, you make a good point, that this is an AMD sponsored game… So what AMD-specific AA tech is included? AMD sponsorship or no, since this title still uses the same old frostbite (enhanced somewhat obviously), why remove support for NVidia proprietary AA that was included in previous titles? ---
**Author:** ![BladeBondage](https://battlefieldforum.co/user_avatar/battlefieldforum.co/bladebondage/32/101359_2.png) [@BladeBondage](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/BladeBondage)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/19 "2016-10-30T17:53:00Z")
> [@CaptaPraelium](#): > > Also, you make a good point, that this is an AMD sponsored game… So what AMD-specific AA tech is included? > > AMD sponsorship or no, since this title still uses the same old frostbite (enhanced somewhat obviously), why remove support for NVidia proprietary AA that was included in previous titles? Optimizations to asynchronous shaders, for AMD specific codepaths that benefit AMD heavily but destroy NVIDIA when enabling DX-12. If you were following controversey in the last 6 months in the tech industry one report came up of Time Spy the guys behind 3D mark favouring asynchronous compute paths that was non vendor specific. [https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Whats-Asynchronous-Compute-3DMark-Time-Spy-Controversy](https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Whats-Asynchronous-Compute-3DMark-Time-Spy-Controversy) I was simply implying that being an AMD title there will be optimizations toward AMD GPU’s it makes no sense if you have a major endorsement from that company to implement technologies that hinder one vendor. AMD people hate Gameworks and that’s understandable but I think in the long run it’s benefical you can go back with an RX480 right now and play Witcher 3 and get minor performance hits from hairworks and it gives that game longevity that will make people in the future appreciate the fact NVIDIA had gone with that technology. Pure hair is good too, but from what I saw with the AMD tech demo on Deus Ex it doesn’t look like there is much rendering going on there as with NVIDIA had with Witcher 3. ---
**Author:** ![CaptaPraelium](https://battlefieldforum.co/user_avatar/battlefieldforum.co/captapraelium/32/101465_2.png) [@CaptaPraelium](https://battlefieldforum.co/u/CaptaPraelium)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 11:32pm UTC](https://battlefieldforum.co/t/why-cant-we-have-real-anti-aliasing-anymore-what-happened-to-msaa/102581/20 "2016-10-30T23:32:00Z")
I’m specifically talking about antialiasing methodologies. DX12, async compute, hair, sand… are not really related.