That's a weird question, shouting for the highest possible resolution is always better than a lower resolution + AA (even truer on LCDs) if you care about picture quality. It improves far more than just the edges.

On a 21.5" LCD @ 1920x1080 (that's a pretty low dot pitch compared to most desktop monitors these days) I find any AA higher than 2x useless, and on CRTs I rarely ever felt the need for AA as I was usually running them at a pretty high res compared to their size (and even when I was not, it rarely bothered me half as much as it did on high dot pitch LCDs like 1280x1024 on 19"). Different engines look different too, in some games I don't mind the little aliasing there is at all, in some I don't notice and in others I can't stand it (Crysis being one of them, although I haven't tried the 2nd one)

Keep in mind that AA works by blurring edges, so some could argue that's it's a loss in quality since some details are lost.
The performance hit of 2x or 4x (any higher than that should be really hard to notice, if possible at all) is usually really small on newer cards.

>>>Unless we're talking about the rarely used Super Sampling which simply renders the picture in a higher res and then downsamples it, greatly improving the PQ at a huge cost in performance. At least Arma 2 and The Witcher 2 have this option, forcing it via the drivers might work too for some games.

1920x1080 + maximum AA can mean the difference between a silky smooth 60+ fps, and an unplayable <20 fps. Especially in games like Crysis.

I said "usually" not "always" and of course in some games it has a huge impact.
But I also never talked about playing Crysis in 1080p + "maximum" AA, as I said there's no point in doing that. 1080p + 2x AA should be more than enough 99% of the time in the games where AA feels required.

I think you've answered your own question.

Having 2GB+ of memory on your graphics card helps a lot with AA at high resolutions.

"I play games on 1080p with 0x AA and I do not see any jagged edges."

So you don't need AA then? Your rig should be more than enough to max out everything at that res without AA.

I disagree, I prefer the lower res with AA +8. I find that performance is improved and looks better. Maybe I just like the smooth look over sharpness...

(when I say low res, I still mean pretty highish, like 1200x800)

The best would of course be high res with AA.

Aren't you using a CRT though? Since a lower res on a CRT is perfectly fine.

I have 2 monitors, I have a 1920x1200 24" LCD which I use for everything except quake.

Have you, perhaps, tried it both ways?

use 2x or 4x, any more is just bragging rights (hurrr i can run it at 50 fps uber maxxed)

I prefer to play a game that looks ugly but has stable 100/120 fps. Who wants to play a game (even crysis) with 60fps? I will never understand this. But then again I do not buy games, nor do I play games for the looks. I play them for the competitiveness, challenge and the resulting fun. :)

Crysis is a fun game. You ought to try it some times.

I can't help but feel that a lot of these Quakers are missing out - Battlefield, COD, Crysis, etc. - they are pretty good games.

I gave up on trying to save oldschool fast paced deathmatch. Might as well embrace the new stuff because it aint all that bad...

never played any of these mentioned above. This is what I played:

CS, CS:S, C&C3, Age of Empire Series, Warcraft 3 tft (mostly 2v2), Q2, Q3, Q4, QL, Roller Coaster Tycoon :DDDDDDDD

If you were to play any Crytek game I would strongly recommend the original Far Cry over the two Crysis games.

Really tense, very long, lovely weapons; one has to plan out his attacks. It still looks really good even today imo. I think its well worth a shot from the bargain bin :)

but is is single player. i hate single player games. i wasent even able to play half-life longer than a few hours.

hl2 was nice.

Oh, fair enough :)

The multiplayer was a sniper's paradise, but in terms of single player, it was one of the best I've ever played.