Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Anti-Aliasing Guide

The best way I've found in eliminating Aliasing as best as possible without a massive performance hit.

Introduction

First of all, I play this game at native 4k resolution and still notice some really annoying jagged edges or Aliasing. This is a guide on the best way that I've found in reducing Aliasing in Metal Gear Solid V, with not that big of a performance hit (without methods like NVIDIA DSR etc which drastically decreases performance depending on your graphics card and VRAM) for those with not the best PC, even those with a good PC that don't want an unnecessary performance hit. I'm going to be using SMAA Anti-Aliasing along with the game's Anti-aliasing (FXAA enabled by setting the post processing to High or Extra High) SMAA will be injected via SweetFX. I'm using SweetFX because Resade from https://reshade.me doesn't work with Metal Gear Solid V the game always crashes, the only reshade I've heard that works is reshade 0.10 but that prevents you from signing into the MGSV server.

1. Download Sweet FX and Sweet FX configurator via link below

https://www.dropbox.com/s/shjmsnuyaasqb2g/mgsv%20sweetfx%20.rar?dl=0 <--- Sweet FX
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kly9pbe22917il6/SweetFX%20Configurator.zip?dl=0 <--- Sweet FX Configurator. If it tells you to log in cross it out.

2. Drag SweetFX files into your MGSV directory

After you've downloaded the mgsvsweetfx in the link provided, use WinRAR. https://www.rarlab.com/download.htm (in case you don't have it).
Open mgsvsweetfx it should look like this.
Highlight them all (except the .. folder) and drag them into your Metal Gear Solid V directory (where you installed MGSV).
Your MGSV folder should look something like this after you drag the files into it.

3. SweetFX configurator

After you've downloaded the SweetFX Configurator extract the files to wherever you like with winrar, next start up SweetFX_config.exe, once you open it it should look like this.
Next, at the bottom left of it you should see Add new game, click it and this should come up.
Then navigate to your MGSV install directory and double click mgsvtpp.exe.
If done correctly after dragging the SweetFX files into your MGSV directory and double clicking mgsvtpp.exe Metal Gear Solid V: Active should come up (as seen below).
Most likely the same ones as the picture will be ticked as I've given the SweetFX files that I've used, in case they're not make sure SMAA ticked. Feel free to experiment with the other settings, but this guide is aimed at tackling Aliasing so make sure SMAA is ticked everything else is your decision. By the way I've already set the SMAA category detail settings that best tackle Aliasing, but feel free to change them to what you like.

4. How to enable in game Anti-Aliasing

The Anti-Aliasing Metal Gear Solid V uses is FXAA. The way to turn on Anti-Aliasing in game is to make sure your Post Processing setting is set to High or Extra High, as seen below.
Extra High Vs High, regardless of what setting you use, FXAA is turned on when Post Processing is set to High or Extra High and disabled on Low or Off.

5. In game Post Processing Performance hit

https://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/metal-gear-solid-v-the-phantom-pain-graphics-and-performance-guide#metal-gear-solid-v-the-phantom-pain-post-processing This is a link to show the performance hit of Post Processing, judging by the pictures and my own in game testing, in terms of Anti-Aliasing (FXAA) the quality remains the same so I'd recommend for performance reasons, especially if you don't have a good PC to set this to High, as Extra High is a massive performance hit. As I said before this is an Anti-Aliasing guide with performance in mind.

6. Why FXAA?

Most of you are probably asking why FXAA? It sucks, it is blurry! I agree with you, but there is a way to balance this out without making the picture blurry, but at the same time eliminating as much Aliasing as possible. Since Metal Gear Solid V doesn't offer any other Anti-Aliasing method besides higher resolution via DSR (or native) which decreases performance a lot (depending on your graphics card), even injecting SMAA by itself I still see lots of annoying jaggies. By the way I use the in game FXAA because I found that it is better than the SweetFX version and I'd be missing on what other things Post Processing brings like Bloom, Lens Flares etc. If you think otherwise by all means enable the FXAA via SweetFX, but then you have to deactivate the in game Post Processing setting (or set it to Low) because you don't want them colliding, like if I want HBAO+ through the NVIDIA Control Panel I deactivate the in game Ambient Occlusion because if I don't deactivate the in game Ambient Occlusion I get unnecessary collision between the 2 and get some bad FPS drops.

7. Combining in game FXAA, Injecting SMAA and LumaSharpen

We already know that a lot of people don't like FXAA for the blurry image that is brings and I'm one of those people, but there is a way around it. Combining LumaSharpen, FXAA and SMAA for me gave the ultimate Anti-Aliasing experience for Metal Gear Solid V (since it doesn't offer anything else really) without having to crank up the game to 5k, 6k ,7k or 8k via DSR which creates a lot of input lag, small FPS counter and not worth the frame drop. Simply open your SweetFX configurator and tick LumaSharpen as seen below.
Note: For people running on 1080p or lower resolution it is up to you what LumaSharpen setting you want, if you are someone that hates jaggies set it low or untick it, for those that want a balance leave my current setting or lower it a bit to like 0.20. I've set the sharp_strength to 0.25 for me it is sweet spot that let's FXAA do it's thing and LumaSharpen to sharpen the image, but feel free to decrease or increase it's strength to what you feel is better. REMEMBER to click SAVE NEW CONFIG at the bottom of the SweetFX Configurator.

Conclusion

This isn't the best solution, but it is the best I can think of with performance and image quality in mind. Like I said depending on your graphics card you can try DSR up scaling to reduce Aliasing but it is more taxing and increases input lag. Keep in mind that that even at 4k native there are still jaggies, without what I explained in my guide. This solved my Aliasing problem not 100% but definitely MUCH better than before with a non noticable FPS drop.

Highly recommended mod with NO FPS drop that makes MGSV look a lot better colour wise. https://www.nexusmods.com/metalgearsolidvtpp/mods/406/? <--- Mod link
https://www.nexusmods.com/metalgearsolidvtpp/mods/106/? <--- Download and install snakebite first and install the mod via it.

PS I think this can work for Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes as well, just do exactly as the guide says. The Anti-Aliasing in Ground Zeroes can be activated via Screen Filtering on High or Extra High and deactivated on Low or off.

Alternate and Better Method: Reshade 0.10.0.602

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qc9knwcorehgmdw/Reshade%200.10.0.602%20SweetFX%202.0%20SMAA.zip?dl=0 <-- Link
I've tested this version of Reshade and it seems to work fine, without logging me out of the MGSV server. Peformance difference for me at least is pretty much zero (bare in mind I do use a 1080 Ti,) I see no performance drop. Draw back of reshade is (for me at least) that I can't minimize the game without it crashing (at least with this version), Postive is the SMAA on this version works better than the SweetFX one I provided.

How to install: The same as the SweetFX I provided, drag all the files (via winrar) into your MGSV folder.

As before I set the SMAA settings (the highest this time)

Note, You can NOT have any other reshade or SweetFX (like the one I provided) for this to work. I havn't enabled LumaSharpen this time, if you want to enable it, go into the SweetFX folder and double click SweetFX_settings, find #define USE_LUMASHARPEN and change it to 1. As well if you want to enable FXAA in the SweetFX settings, go for it, but remember to set your in game Post Processing setting to low or off (which disables in game FXAA)

[Jᴧgᴧ]

Should probably deprecate (retire) this guide, as it won't work with W10/11. I don't know many people running 7 anymore, including myself. Upgraded the holdover media server 6+ years ago to 10.

A different solution would be nice, if you can come up with one.

[「 D I N 」]

neither options worked

[[KPB] kplem]

Yeah I've heard it has issues with windows 10, did both sweetFX and resahde not work?

[「 D I N 」]

It doesn't work for windows 10

[lonelyadalenna25 (2B)]

Windows 8.1.

[[KPB] kplem]

Windows 7 8 or 10? Rumours say that sweetfx has issues with windows 10. Im on windows 7

[lonelyadalenna25 (2B)]

Nah, it's a clean install.

[[KPB] kplem]

Sauron the Magic Mann . I've never heard of that error, I know reshade causes issues and crashes but never the first sweetFX. Have you got any mods installed? Mods possibly can cause issues but for me I've got plenty of them installed with no issues. EDIT I just tested it and it worked for me, no issues with mods installed.

[lonelyadalenna25 (2B)]

Uhm.
SweetFX causes my game to crash.
First, it gave me two missing .dll files (mscvr100.dll and mscvp100.dll), and after I fetched those, and placed them in their proper places (including MGSV folder), it gave me another error. I unfortunately didn't note that one.
I'll try reinstalling, and I'll tell you if it happens again or succeeds. I deleted one of the dx something files and then the game started again.