Benchmarks: AA/AF Disabled

While disabling the AA/AF settings detracts a lot from the image quality, the performance only slightly increases, particularly for the low-end graphics cards that actually need the performance boost. The GeForce 9600 GT gains just 4fps at 1440x900, while the Radeon HD 3850 is able to render an additional 7fps getting it over the 30fps barrier. Still for the most part turning off AA/AF does not appear to be worthwhile, at least at this low resolution anyway.

At 1680x1050, the GeForce 9600 GT renders only 4fps more than without AA/AF settings, going from 35fps to 39fps on average. The Radeon HD 3870 and 4670 are now both able to render just over 30fps, and these are about the only two graphics cards to really benefit from having AA/AF disabled.

Now at 1920x1200 the GeForce 9600 GT is able to render 3fps more with AA/AF disabled, though given the already low frames per second this is a 10% boost in performance. The Radeon HD 3870 and 4670 don't have much of a showing at this resolution, even with AA/AF disabled. Honestly we were expecting a more significant boost but it becomes clear that other settings like disabling shadows will be the required option for those running slower graphics cards.