SSAO samples vs quality

[serotonin]

SSAO is a graphic technology that's still pretty ambiguous to me. I've never had a game before that gave me the option of adjusting its number of samples, or its resolution quality, so when considering these options in Amnesia, I'm at something of a loss. I don't really have a sense of how these values truly impact what I'm seeing in the game.

With my system, it turns out that I can either set it to 16 samples and High quality, or 64 samples and Medium quality, and still maintain good framerate.


My question to you all is this:

What's more desirable, in terms of the visual impact -- 64 samples over 16 samples, OR High resolution quality over Medium resolution quality?

I note that the default "High" basic quality setting in the game's launcher config sets the SSAO to 16 samples and Medium resolution. Is anything greater than 16 samples truly noticeable? On the same note, is High SSAO resolution really all that much better looking than Medium SSAO resolution?

Because Amnesia is such a low-light game with somewhat subtle graphical effects, and especially because a restart is necessary when changing SSAO values, it's been hard for me to really distinguish the in-game visual differences between these settings.