Developers Options to Force Antialiasing: Beneficial?

[netizen]

In the Nexus 10 Developers Menu Options there is a choice to force the GPU to enable MSAA 4x in OpenGL apps. How many other devices have similar options to force GPU options? Anyone want to give them a try and see how they perform with the new optimizations?

This is different because the CPU, according to OpenGL extension viewer, doesn't contain AntiAliasing instructions. There is a side effect in enabling this setting as it causes the GPU to work harder, hotter and to use more power. Additionally there may be a performance drop when this is enabled.

I had tried this setting in an older build but the performance hit was very noticeable. Since Ryan's newest optimizations I thought I would do some under the hood messing about and try this setting out again. Wouldn't you know it there was no noticeable performance change, imo. I may have been tired when I did it so I need to try it again for a performance test.

As to the difference in graphics ... Well, the Nexus 10 is already an HD device that rasterizes the textures in pretty high quality.

I will let you all have a look and see if you can see the differences; as minor as they appear to my eyes. Here are some uncompressed, full resolution screen grabs.

No Filter Enabled

MSAA 4x Enabled

 

[brakel]

It's slight but there is a noticeable improvement.

 

[jaredmorgs]

I was playing around with these settings a few weeks ago, and used this XDA post as reference:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1989233&page=2

Page 2 has notes for Tegra devices.

tl: dr is that Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing 4x only works for OpenGL apps on Tegra (which uses CSAA). I believe TPA is one such app.

Chipsets used on the N10 may benefit.

Devs can also set the level of MSAA for Tegra in-app.

Also the Wikipedia article gives some easy to digest Pros and Cons about the subject:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multisample_anti-aliasing

 

[Baron Rubik]

How many other devices have similar options to force GPU options? Anyone want to give them a try and see how they perform with the new optimizations?

N7(mk1) - 'Force 4x MSAA' option available, didn't make any noticeable graphical difference, and didn't change performance either better or worse.

SGS4(GT-I9505) - 'Force 4x MSAA' option available, but... affected the normal smooth performance of device, causing a stuttering, which was present in all camera panning (both in game and at table start screen). Framerate dropped to 30fps.

 

[Rudy]

The problem now is that I'm noticing an improvement on my Nexus 7 (1st gen) and I'm not sure if it's because of the 4x antialising or whether it's just the placebo effect

 

[Pete]

it's a very noticeable difference when you look at the edges on the metal rails. the one thing killing it from looking absolutely amazing is the low resolution textures