If you’ve ever looked into the graphics settings in games, you’ve most likely noticed the anti-aliasing option. And if other settings, such as draw distance or shadow quality, are quite intuitive, then there may be problems with understanding anti-aliasing.
Why do you need anti-aliasing in games?
The structure of the monitor screen is a matrix of square pixels. It is easy to guess that in this case, only horizontal and vertical lines will be drawn perfectly. As soon as the computer tries to draw a slanted line, jagged pixels appear.
This problem can be solved by purchasing a monitor with a higher resolution. Most likely, if you do not have a modern video card, you will have to update it too. But this option will not suit everyone.
For this reason, developers add anti-aliasing technology to their games. It was invented back in 1972, but it only began to gain popularity in the gaming industry several decades later. The essence of anti-aliasing is to paint the pixels adjacent to the jaggedness to an intermediate color (or color gradient). In this case, the transition will appear less abrupt, thereby smoothing the border.
