Observing trends in contemporary gaming
Observing trends in contemporary gaming
I recently upgraded my GTX 970 to a 3060 Ti and could finally enjoy modern titles like Cyberpunk and Dying Light 2. Immediately I realized these games apply aggressive antialiasing, which initially seemed unpleasant since I hadn’t used it before—it just makes everything appear blurry... Another issue I observed is odd rendering in reflections and bright areas. The footage shows this effect in Cyberpunk but is much less obvious in Dying Light 2. What’s going on? Why do developers force anti-aliasing techniques that have such noticeable flaws? Why do modern games prioritize this? Cyberpunk.mp4, CyberpunkZoom.mp4
I think using artifacts from older DLSS versions causes blurriness. TXAA and Morphological AA prevent it. SSA works well without issues. AA is generally a useful tool.
Cyberpunk doesn't have an AA setting, and Dying Light only allows switching between low and high, not off. That's typical for AA, which usually looks better, but I think it should be an option rather than forced. You can disable it by editing the files, and some artifacts appear when you do so—possibly to hide them.
The cyberpunk artifacting was actually due to DLSS, but upon checking Dying Light, TAA was the real culprit. Disabling TAA in the game files eliminated the strange trailing effect. Games should offer users the option to enable or disable AA and choose the type of audio effects they prefer. I’m aware there are AA settings available in the NVIDIA control panel, so I’ll likely experiment with those to replace the in-game settings.
It's true, MSAA can be tricky—sometimes it looks great, other times it feels like the monitor is amplifying issues. I prefer TAA, and I haven’t seen any trailing. Still, your description suggests things like overdrive or ghosting might be at play. Generally, understanding these settings makes a big difference, especially with motion blur which can really impact image quality.