full-scene anti-aliasing

Full-scene anti-aliasing is a system being adopted by the latest generation of 3D graphics chip manufacturers to offer a better quality image in 3D computer games. It is independent of the graphics API being used (DirectX or OpenGL, mainly) and so you won't have to wait for games to start supporting it.

Simply put, its the same as anti-aliasing (smoothing out the 'jaggies' that appear as lines and edges are drawn on a computer screen), but generally anti-aliasing is used in reference to edge anti-aliasing, whereas full-scene anti-aliasing is indicative of the anti-aliasing of each frame of a 3D scene drawn on the screen by the video card.

Full-scene anti-aliasing in mainstream 3D graphics cards is available on any graphics card newer than the 3dfx Voodoo5 or NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS, both of which were current in 1999-2000. NVIDIA also has drivers, FSAA, which can be enabled on their GeForce 256 cards too (I've heard that it works on the TNT2 as well, but it never worked on my TNT2U) via software, but the image quality wasn't too impressive to me on mine, and it really was slow.

In addition to the cards mentioned by NaNaKat above, this feature is also available on the Matrox Parhelia, ATi Radeon series and all Nvidia GPUs newer than the GeForce2 GTS. On Radeon 9000-series, GeForce FX series and newer, this feature can be enabled at moderate resolution (even as high as 1280x1024 on very new cards) without murdering framerate. The result, especially on older games, is a marked improvement in visual quality though some things, especially very small text may look a little indistinct.

Using FSAA really improved Final Fantasy 8 for me, at its maximum 800x600 resolution. I also use it with Neverwinter Nights and EverQuest, with nice, fast results. I'm using a GeForce 6600GT at 1600x1200, though prior to that I was using a GeForce FX 5600 at 1280x1024 with similarly high-quality results.