| DirectX SDK |
Antialiasing is a technique you can use to reduce the appearance of "jaggies"—the stair-step pixels used to draw any line that isn't exactly horizontal or vertical. In three-dimensional scenes, this artifact is most noticeable on the boundaries between polygons of different colors. Antialiasing effectively blends the pixels at these boundaries to produce a more natural look to the scene.
Direct3D supports two antialiasing techniques: edge antialiasing and full-surface antialiasing. Which technique is best for your application depends on your requirements for performance and visual fidelity.
Note If your application will use antialiasing, it should create the render-target surface with the DDSCAPS2_HINTANTIALIASING capability flag. Applications that omit the flag might suffer from poor performance when antialiasing is enabled, or might not receive antialiasing serices at all.