Nerds & Computers: Anti-Aliasing Explained

A lot of people in here don't know what it really does so I'm going to give out a brief explanation here.

To put it bluntly, anti-aliasing is a method used to fool the eye to think that a jagged end is really smooth. The intention of Anti-Aliasing is to make today's games look more realistic. Remember though that Anti-Aliasing does not smooth any edges of images as it merely fools the eye. If you can't tell the difference, then let's compare 2 screenshots taken from Need For Speed: Prostreet with FRAPS.

NOTE: Because of Blogger's size limit, I am forced to use thumbnails. Please click the thumbnails to view the full size of the image.



If you look at the images closely, you'll notice that the vehicle WITHOUT Anti-Aliasing has some jagged ends. This is caused by the limitations of a computer screen. It doesn't matter if you're on an LCD screen or a CRT. While your computer can draw straight horizontal and vertical lines, it cannot draw diagonal lines straightly.

Hope this helps,
{AW}Bryan

EDIT: Apparently I posted 2 similar images. ****!