In short, MLAA is a shape-based anti-aliasing method that uses post processing filters to reduce aliasing. Like the SSAO, MLAA can be hand-coded in a 3D app or added in graphics drivers.

What are the advantages of MLAA over MSAA?

* For similar quality, it is considerably faster, one order of magnitude in the PC case.
* For consoles, where the MSAA sample count is limited due to hardware restrictions, it allows better quality.
* It enables the usage of anti-aliasing in conjunction with Multiple Render Targets, which is specially useful for deferred engines.
* It can provide better quality when HDR is used, as anti-aliasing is performed after tone mapping.
* Anti-aliasing quality can be dynamically adjusted on the fly, depending on the available resources at each frame.
* MLAA is not incompatible with MSAA: this leads to hybrid MSAA-MLAA approaches.