Graphics Settings

[Guy Jepson]

I noticed a bunch of different graphic options: Anti-Aliasing, Anisotropic Filtering, Rain/Laser Scale, Bloom, Depth of Feild, Tonemapping, Cel Shading, Ambient Occlusion, Phong Shading, etc..

I am familiar with many of these, but am far from an expert. Does anyone have advice on what to use? I realize that it comes down to personal taste, but that's kinda what I'm curious about.

Screenshots would be greatly appreciated.

 

[MagicLuthee]

Anti-aliasing smothes edges, I don't use AA most of the time in games.
- SSAA works well but is kind of the nuclear option. Recommended if you want jaggies gone and if you have beefy hardware.
- MSAA works decently well. Recommended if you want less jagged edges.
- FXAA blurs the whole screen. Not Recommended.

Spoiler: Verbose description of AA methods

SSAA is Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing.
It renders the whole game at a higher resolution, so 2xSSAA means your PC or device is rendering the whole game at twice the resolution. This anti-aliasing method is kind of the nuclear option and can be very demanding depending on the game and the initial resolution.

MSAA is Multi-sample Anti-Aliasing.
It mitigates geometric aliasing by rendering models and geometry with a higher fidelity but does not affect shaders and post-processes. It works decently well but not on games with lots of shiny surfaces and / or transparencies. It is much less taxing on hardware than SSAA.

FXAA is Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing.
It applies on the whole image (including HUD) and isn't particularly effective in smoothing jagged-edges but it can smooth some that are "immune" to MSAA (due to specular glow and / or transparency). It is not costly at all to run.

Anisotropic Filtering improves clarity of oblique surfaces. Highly recommended.
- It can increase perceived visual noise.

Spoiler: Note about Mips and Anisotropic Filtering

Mips are lower resolution textures that are swapped-in instead of larger ones when objects/terrain is further from the player / camera. They reduce and can even often eliminate the one downside of Anisotropic.
Anisotropic Filtering can lead to less desirable image quality due to visual noise If the game doesn't support Mips or if the modder doesn't provide them with their mod.

Bloom is a no-go for me, it amplifies light-source and blurs the glow, I have a deep hate for this effect.

Depth of Field usually gives sort of hazy look to far-out terrain, objects, characters. I don't like this effect at all because it reduces visibility.

I haven't tested Tone Mapping but the goal of this technology usually is to alter the game's colour balance.

Cell Shading usually adds black outlines to the outer edges of objects, characters, and terrain. I don't love nor hate this shader, it's fine. Some people like it a lot I guess.

Ambient Occlusion adds contact shadows to improve object presence in a scene but it is a screen-space shader which means it can "break" on the far edges of the screen.

I'm not familiar with the specifics of Phong Shading, only that it's a way of shading surfaces