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This rendering to 4x resolution has the effect that each pixel on the screen is initially represented by four pixels in the back buffer, each being of quarter size of the screen pixel. In my example case of 4x super sampling the resolution is four times as high as the screen resolution, meaning it has twice the number of pixels in x as well as in y-direction. The actual frame gets rendered to a resolution that is higher than the required screen resolution. The idea behind super-sampling is very simple, but also very costly. The most commonly used technique is super-sampling. So far there are two ways known for anti-aliasing that achieve this sub-pixel level accuracy.
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Now the difficult thing about filtering is that it requires the accuracy of a sub-pixel level to look any good. : Anti-Aliasing - Removing The 'Jaggies'.: Blinn Bump Mapping = True Reflective Bump Mapping.: Advances And Advantages Of The Pixel Shader.: 2 Textures Per Clock Cycle, But 4 Textures Per Pass?.: The Basics Of GeForce3's Pixel Shader.: What Happens In The 3D-Pipeline Before The Pixel Shader? Continued.: The Programmable Pixel Shader Of GeForce3.: Setup For Dot Product Bump Mapping (Per Pixel Bump Mapping).: Programming The Vertex Shader, Continued.: GeForce3's New Vertex Shader - A Poor Name For A Great Set Of Features.
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