Nvidia finally adds MFAA to Maxwell GPUs with 344.75 driver

Yesterday, Nvidia released the latest driver for its top-end Maxwell line of graphics cards. The driver, GeForce GameReady release 344.75 WHQL, activates multi-frame sampled anti-aliasing (MFAA) on the GTX 980 and 970, a feature which Nvidia says delivers the equivalent quality of 4x multi-sample anti-aliasing (MSAA) at only 2x the performance cost.

MFAA was one of the key features Nvidia touted when they announced the new Maxwell cards back in September. A common anti-aliasing technique on today's graphics cards, MSAA reduces the prominence of jagged edges but at a substantial performance cost. MFAA improves on the technique by varying the sample patterns used per pixel both spatially in a single frame and interleaved across multiple frames, delivering four times the quality at only double the performance cost.

MSAA vs. MFAA performance, according to Nvidia:

With the new driver and MFAA finally active, Maxwell users should see a 10-30% performance jump compared to MSAA. Just in time for Dragon Age: Inquisition.

As the former head of PC Gamer's hardware coverage, Bo was in charge of helping readers better understand and use PC hardware. He also headed up the buying guides, picking the best peripherals and components to spend your hard-earned money on. He can usually be found playing Overwatch, Apex Legends, or more likely, with his cats. He is now IGN's resident tech editor and PC hardware expert.