MSAA 8, 16, 8Q, 16Q?

[PLAGUEz]

I've looked in the manual for this and can't find anything. What exactly does Q mean here?

 

is 16Q better looking than just 16?

[Kuky]

well yes, it should be better, the Q should stand for Quality, exactly what the difference is I have no idea and I am not sure if I can see the difference.

[PLAGUEz]

Okay, thanks. It's frustrating there's no more information on this.

[weeb]

From Toms Hardware:

 

"Unfortunately, Nvidia has a somewhat inconsistent method of designating its anti-aliasing modes, with numbers sometimes indicating total MSAA samples, and at other times indicating a sum of MSAA and coverage samples. The suffix “Q” indicates pure MSAA in the case of Nvidia’s 8xQ setting, but the 16xQ setting has 8xMSAA plus eight coverage samples. This leads to confusing situations, as the 8x setting in the Nvidia driver does not represent 8x MSAA, but signifies 4x MSAA plus four coverage samples.

 

AMD deserves some kudos here for sticking to a naming convention that makes perfect sense. AMD’s level always indicates the number of MSAA samples, while the EQ suffix means the same number of coverage samples is added. For example, AMD’s 8x setting designates eight MSAA samples. But the 8xEQ setting designates eight MSAA samples plus eight additional coverage samples."

 

Credit to and full article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/anti-aliasing-nvidia-geforce-amd-radeon,2868-4.html

 

Kinda made sense to me m8. Worth a gander.

 

weeb