You can now activate multi-sampling on iOS using Window.AntiAliasing := aa4SamplesFaster
. You should set this before window is opened, which usually means it should be done in the initialization
section of a unit like GameInitialize
.
What values of AntiAliasing are actually meaningful?
Internally iOS supports only “none” or “4” multi-sampling values. So actually there are only 2 different states on iOS depending on Window.AntiAliasing
:
-
aaNone
,aa2Samples*
-> means no anti-aliasing -
aa4Samples*
and higher options -> means 4x anti-aliasing
The suffix “faster” or “nicer” also doesn’t matter for anti-aliasing on iOS, e.g. aa4SamplesFaster
and aa4SamplesNicer
are equivalent. This suffix matters only on OpenGL with NV_multisample_filter_hint
.
Testing
Unfortunately the log always says Current: 1 samples per pixel
because it seems Apple didn’t bother to implement glGetInteger(GL_SAMPLES)
correctly. It always returns 0 (so it would seem that no multi-sampling happens).
But if one looks at actual rendering, then yes, multi-sampling does make an effect!
Actually, it seems that iOS always does some multi-sampling, which I guess is just something they do on the high pixel resolutions on iOS (these are results of my tests on iPhone SE). But there’s definitely more multi-sampling when you request aa4SamplesFaster
than if you leave it at aaNone
. See the screenshots from iOS device with and without multi-sampling requested on the side of this post. They show an unlit box, which should produce very sharp edge without anti-aliasing (see desktop screenshot).