[CP5670]

The type of display or connection is irrelevant. CRTs need it just as much as LCDs do. I find some amount of AA essential even at 2048x1536 on a 20" CRT that maxes out the VGA bandwidth. The images Kolgena showed are an extreme example for a still image, but it becomes much more noticeable in motion. If you can't tell the difference at all between having AA off or on, your monitor has serious problems in other ways.

[Kolgena]

Wait wait wait.

Bloodeagle: Please tell me that you aren't passing judgment on AA only based on your CRT. Because, like, that's kind of similar to saying "Snow doesn't suck" when you live in Hawaii.

And I'd have to say that CRTs don't need AA as much as LCDs do. You know that blurry mess your image turns into when some of the games use post-processing "AA" effects? Yeah, CRTs have that all the time, so jaggies are inherently less sharp than they are on LCDs. But just like how the edge AAs or blur shaders kinda suck at anti-aliasing, having a CRT doesn't mean that your image is completely aliasing-free.

[BloodEagle]

*headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk*
*headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk*
*headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk*
*headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk*

[Flipside]

The only complaint I ever had with my old CRT monitor was that it took up half my bloody desk, if it wasn't for that, I'd probably still be using it. It's certainly better for playing older games because of the maximum screen sizes.

[CP5670]

Yeah, CRTs have that all the time, so jaggies are inherently less sharp than they are on LCDs.

If they have that all the time, they're probably defective. A properly focused and calibrated one shouldn't look like that.

I still use my old CRT since anything I replace it with would be a downgrade in some ways, especially for dark room gaming, but I find its 20" (marketed as 22") screen size to be lacking these days. 20" looks pretty small by today's standards. I would like to just get a large TV at some point after I graduate, and keep this CRT around for old games. The monitor itself is big but my desk is much bigger, so that isn't a problem.

[Kolgena]

Hmm. The CRT I'm thinking of is most likely unproperly focused and/or defective.

It's also ancient-looking and is covered in chemical scarring and what have you.

[S-99]

Maybe i'm wierd, but i like jaggies, and i hate softened out images. I really like how a picture looks without that kind of assistance. One of the reasons i absolutely hate dlp and lcd screens at low resolutions. Dlp and lcd screens really only look good at the highest resolutions their capable of. Anything less starts getting softened out more and more the lower you make the resolution.

The reason i liked crt monitors, was that they didn't soften out the picture at all. I got all my stout pixelated blocky glory at 320x240, because then i knew i got to see the picture for what it really looked like. If i wanted softened out images or no jaggies, then i'd turn on AA.

Jaggies get taken care of pretty well at 1024x768 and up. I just like the look of a game at a high resolution with no AA. Since you can minimize jaggies pretty great at high resolutions, why have AA on to drop performance (some people like AA at 1400x900, my dad sure does)? I'm also a big fan of anistropic filtering with vertical sync on a monitor that can at least do 85hz. Also, dvi and hdmi are way better than vga (vga you can notice some softness on everything to a small degree at high resolutions compared to dvi and hdmi).

[Zacam]

AA isn't meant to preserve original appearances of textures.
It's meant to help simulate reality.

Look at the top of a brick wall straight on. Now, tilt your head. Do you see it getting jaggy? No?
That's what games try to replicate by relying on AA. Sometimes they rely TOO much on AA and make crap that you HAVE to have AA on to look good. But there you go.

[S-99]

I didn't mention a thing about textures, just jaggies...softening out an image to get rid of jaggies, raising the resolution to minimize them a lot, or turning on AA to get rid of them.

If i want good texture quality, i'll turn textures from low to high. But, i guess i'll be ultra clear. I like crt monitors because they don't naturally soften out images  at low resolutions like dlp and lcd screens do. I get to see everything for all of its pixelated undisturbed glory with a crt whereas dlp and lcd screens only look good at max resolutions because lower resolutions get softened out.  I like the look of a game on a crt with a dvi interface at or above 1024x768 with vertical sync taking advantage of at least 85hz refresh rate with some anistropic filtering. Jaggies (aka staircasing) after all are just noticeable pixelization due to digital approximation.

I don't know why you thought i was talking about texture compression....

There are some very lazy implementations of AA out there. Some older graphics cards with AA turned on playing at 640x480, the graphics card would just render everything in 1280x960 (ie, some older graphics cards at lower resolutions with AA turned on just did nothing more than play the game in a higher resolution than what you're actually playing the game in...it does get rid of jaggies, but it is also non-revolutionary or anything like that).

[Kolgena]

Certain types of AA will help textures. Any full-screen SSAA will do it, as well as any alpha-texture (think chainlink fences) SSAA techniques.

(In regards to old cards and their "lazy" implementations of AA, it's kinda ironic that the newest GPUs have brought that all back with SSAA Let's render an image 2x bigger and scale it down! It does look fantastic, even though your frames will drop through the ground)

[CP5670]

That's basically still the best looking method of AA out there (although modern cards do the scaling with a rotated or random sampling pattern). The problem is that its performance hit usually makes it impractical for modern games.

[sayoqod]

Kolgena....that rather colorful picture hurts my head.....

A lot

[Davros]

I would rather aa was solved by having massive dpi
after all printers can do 2400 dpi would be nice if displays could do it
ps: I dont have a printer but I wonder if someone could do a little test to see at what dpi aliasing dissapears at if indeed it does

and aa is slightly less noticable on a crt its to do with the shape of the pixels

crt vs lcd

[redsniper]

The only way aliasing would disappear is if your screen resolution is greater than the resolving power of your eyeball, which will be dependent on the distance from the screen. I think I saw a graph or chart somewhere showing the relationships between screen size, resolution, and viewing distance so you can get the ideal image.

[S-99]

You can also simulate distance from a screen by using different screen sizes. Such as, i bet 640x480 looks like non-pixelated goodness on a 3 inch screen compared to pixelated goodness on a 21 inch screen.