Testing out normal map "chamfering"

With my recent model The Regent (based off the Albion sword), I did not chamfer the edges. While this is generally seen as good for performance (even though the performance improvement is negligible on a single mesh), it's not quite so pleasing to the eye. The hard edge is particularly... fake-looking.

So, I decided to play with the normal maps a bit.

As you can see, there is no apparent chamfering of the mesh edges - all that smoothness is from the normal map itself. Is it the optimal solution? No, not at all. For instance, the fake chamfer looks pretty decent from a distance, however up close it becomes apparent that the smoothness is just a lighting "hack". It's certainly better than no chamfering whatsoever, but a slight chamfer on the mesh itself would be ideal. I'll probably chamfer the mesh, not the normal map, from now on (unless the poly-count is high, in which case I may have to compromise).