What is anti-aliasing in Minecraft?

Ever wondered what anti-aliasing means in Minecraft? Anti-aliasing is a widely used technology in graphics technology, and it has made its way to video gaming in the past few decades. Gamers can now find anti-aliasing in almost all popular games like CS 2, Apex Legends, and Minecraft.

Anti-aliasing has been around since Minecraft version 1.2, or the "Better Together" update. What is anti-aliasing, though? That will be the question this article will be answering today. It will also go over how someone on PC can adjust it.

What is anti-aliasing in Minecraft?

Anti-aliasing is a visual setting for virtual reality and Windows 10 PC gamers (Image via Mojang)

Anti-aliasing can be explained as a visual setting available by default for virtual reality and Windows 10 PC gamers. It is used to smooth out edges and add a small amount of realism. As Minecraft is a pixelated-block game, many players will have noticed rough edges on the blocks far from them.

Anti-aliasing is used for smoothing the texture of blocks to improve the overall visuals of the game. However, this does come at a cost. Turning on anti-aliasing might affect the FPS negatively on low-end devices as it is a resource-intensive feature.

What does it look like?

The default game visual (Image via Mojang)

Here's a look at how anti-aliasing in Minecraft works. Currently, this player's settings are at default and have not been changed.

The following image will show the anti-aliasing at its lowest setting and its highest setting side by side. The lowest being labeled one and the highest being labeled 16.

Comparison of different settings of anti-aliasing (Image via Mojang)

There isn't much of a visual difference. However, the lack of blurring while the player zooms past the rose bush on setting 16 compared to 1. This shows anti-aliasing in action.

Changing settings

Changing the anti-aliasing setting in-game (Image via Mojang)

To change the anti-aliasing settings, players on Windows 10 can open their video settings and scroll to the very bottom. Once there, players can adjust the level of anti-aliasing using the slider underneath it.

As for Java Edition users, anti-aliasing is vailable as a feature in Optifine mod. Players will have to download Optifine to use anti-aliasing feature. This mod is available for free and is one of the best optimizations mods available for the game. To enable anti-aliasing in Java Edition, go through the following steps:

Antialiasing in Optifine (Image via Mojang)

Download Optifine from optifine.net and install it.
Start playing Minecraft with Optifine.
Go to Video Settings.
Click on Antialiasing
Switch it to 1-16x and restart the game.

Whether a player is going for a slight boost in performance or looking for better visuals, adjusting the anti-aliasing can help with their needs.