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<b>Teasy</b>

Looks like the DX8 DXTC issue with the Kyro2 has been fixed by Microsoft.

Latter I will pick up the issue with DX8 T&L with DX7 T&L hardware, that is if you want to know more info. The answer is that DX7 T&L hardware can support DX8 T&L. Will explain latter if interested.

of course it will support it!
every single feature of directx7 is implemented in directx8
the problem is that pixel shaders etc... is not the same as T&L ...

maybe I didn't understand you ...
please noko explain that to us..
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by powervr2 on 04/21/01 07:37 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Well the radeon2 will have tile based rendering and Pixel shaders w/ 300mhz core and most likely 300mhz ddr-sdram. Sorry nvidia your days are numbered.

Leader of the Anti VIA-Nvidia Army

"The other thing we will see on these cards is improved HyperZ technology, with the main task being to save a waste of bandwidth from the processing chip to memory.

ATI has very positive thinking about tile-based rendering as well and its way of thinking here is similar - that is to improve performance radically.
"
I have taken this from your post on another topic...

very positive thinking about...its way of thinking here is similar"
similar is not identical...
and that ddr and the high transistors count will not be good ($$$$$$$)
but to be better than nvidia is not that difficult let's hope !!!

I have a question to you :
why is that agressivness against nvidia ?
ati is not the saint of video cards either !

Well i only had ATi and s3 video cards.

1) Nvidia almost killed s3. Savage2000 was released too early cuz of Geforce.

2) They Killed 3dfx.

3) they pushed around Powercolor. No powercolor Kyro2 :*( only crappy image quality nvidia cards. Pushing around the little guy make me sick.

4) ATi is going to distory nvidia with radeon2. OEM's will love this card.

Well the radeon will have more transistors then the Geforce3 and still use less power then the geforce3.

Leader of the Anti VIA-Nvidia Army

Thanks allot for the link, I don't know what DXTC problem there talking about though, I've never had a TC problem when running a game in DX8 with my Kyro, but I'll try the new version and see what happens, BTW DX7 HW T&L units can't perform DX8 specific HW T&L, it can use DX7 HW T&L in DX8 because DX8 is backwardly compatible, but a DX7 HW T&L card like the MX cannot support vertex shaders in hardware.

rcf84, no Radeon 2 will not have tile based rendering, what they will have is a more refind version of HpyerZ, I've already explained roughly what the HSR part of HyperZ does in a post on this thread and its nowhere near tile based rendering in terms of efficiency, lets hope their refind method is more effective in the HSR department.

Well teasy read this:

<A HREF="http://www.theinquirer.net/21040103.htm" target="_new">http://www.theinquirer.net/21040103.htm</A>

Leader of the Anti VIA-Nvidia Army

I've read that already, but it doesn't actually say Radeon 2 will use tile based rendering, it just says it'll use something similar in the way that its trying to save bandwidth, but its not tile based rendering, I suppose in a way you could call HyperZ's hierarchical z-buffering tile based rendering because it does use tiles but thats where the similarities between it and real tile based rendering end (and also other parts of HyperZ are nothing like tile based rendering in any way), what their improved method will be I don't know exactly but it won't be real tile based rendering like the Kyro and Kyro II has, its just an improved HyperZ which is just a few features that can be used on a traditional architecture to improve bandwidth efficiency, in the end the Radeon 2 is still a traditional renderer AFAIK.

Anyway the Radeon2 is a scary card. I would not to see nvidia rush the nv30 and mess up. Wait i would want to see that.

Leader of the Anti VIA-Nvidia Army

Not exactly but the DX7 HW T&L can be used with the cpu doing the vertex shading and the video card doing the T&L. That is what the Max Payne Demo/test does on 3dMark2001. The upcoming game will do the same. MadOnion reports that this technique is significantly faster than the cpu doing all the skinning and T&L. Also please note the previous benchmarks that I did which shows that this is true. So a video card that has a DX7 T&L engine can still work in DX8 programs only vertex shaders have to be performed by the cpu while the T&L engine does the viewpoint translation and lighting. C L

I installed DX8.1 on my W2k system and it seems to work just fine with a small increase in 3dMark2001 benchmark of around 50 points. Havn't tried it in WinMe yet.

Only thing we can do is <b>speculate</b> on what ATI is going to improve. Here are some possibilities which I am sure other people can add to or just plain disprove. One thing is sure new technology is around the corner.

1. Partial on chip frame buffer (using onboard static ram in the Radeon2 chip) where a tile or section of the frame is worked then sent to the DDR ram frame buffer in sections. Sounds like a tile chip but still it isn't, just a buffer. This allows the Radeon2 chip to work at a much greater speed then current DDR ram would allow plus decrease bandwidth requirements for the onboard ram. Meaning cheaper DDR ram can be used resulting in a lower cost for a much more powerful board.

2. Improved hierarchialZ where a quick render of all current frame object vertex depth points (Z) are done and stored prior to the pixel pipelines. This would form a more advance hierarchialZ resulting in zero overdraw for the pixel pipeline, virtually eliminating the Z buffer. Basically render scene quickly (1 frame), extrapolate depth points, then texturize it, move on to the next frame. <i>(Currently the hierarchialZ is built as the frame is rendered, the objects that are rendered first have there depth vertex points writen to hierarchiaZ. Subsequent object vertexes if behind the previous value are ignored but if in front of what is in hierarchialZ then a new depth value is written over in hierarchialZ which subsequently causes overdraw in the frame buffer down the line. Since once again the pixel has to be updated in the frame buffer.)</i>

3. Use a quad pumped DDR ram configuration.

4. Copy nVidia Lightspeed Memory Architecture.

5. Onboard static ram where additional programs can be stored for the GPU.

Add your own theory, rumor has it the Radeon2 will be 4-5times the speed of the current Radeon which if true would be a revolutionary speed increase.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by noko on 04/22/01 00:51 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

Yeah a DX7 HW T&L unit can still do normal DX7 HW T&L but as you say it doesn't support vertex shaders so that will have to be done by the CPU on all cards, also AFAIK the Max Payne demo in 3dMark2001 doesn't use vertex shaders, Max Payne the game will though.

Yeah the Radeon 2 should be very nice, I hope it gives Nvidia a run for their money, we'll have 2 killer cards against Nvidia's latest card in the next 4-5 months from ATI and IMGTEC, lets see what Nvidia's made of when PowerVR 4 and Radeon 2 is released (obviously PowerVR 4 will be a few months after Radeon 2 though).

This is what MadOnion says about Game 3 or Max Payne Demo:

So yes the 3dMark2001 Max Payne demo does use vertex shading. Now a substitute method is used if you have a DX7 T&L engine and another if you have no T&L engine. I hope this clarifies things.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by noko on 04/22/01 00:54 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

Yeah I found that info a few mins ago and was just about to correct my post, the demo does use vertex shading as you say unless you have a dx7 HW T&L card in which case a substitute is used, if you have no HW T&L it uses vertex shaders in software, how many games will use a substitute method for DX7 HW T&L cards though, we'll see anyway, when's the game comming out BTW?

EDIT: just thought I'd include this:

"NOTE: The scene is not from Remedy's game Max Payne, and should not be used to evaluate how Max Payne will look or play."

As I've said there's no way Max Payne will be released and get 30fps at 640x480 on a Radeon DDR, not if they want to sell games, I'm betting the game will run closer to the speed of the low detail 3Dmark2001 test then the high detail test (much closer), after all look at 3Dmark2000, there still aren't any games that run as badly as the high detail helicopter test does on my PC (not that its really that bad but I haven't seen any game my PC couldn't handle at full detail and 1024x768x32 resolution allot faster then that test), the madonion people make there test specifically to be very challenging to the PC's hardware, games developers make them to look and play good not to be challenging to hardware so IMO Max Payne will not be anywhere near as slow as the high detail lobby test.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Teasy on 04/22/01 01:10 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

Looks like a summer release if not sooner.

I found something very interesting about the lobby test:

"The high detail scene has the following additions compared to the low detail scene:

Everything is reflected in the marble floor.

All characters have DYNAMIC SHADOWS.

Some shots that hit the walls shatter a part of the wall surface material.

The dynamic shadows are done by RENDERING INTO TEXTURES. If rendering to textures is not supported by hardware, shadows are rendered with the CPU"

So here we see why the Kyro II doesn't like the high detail test so much, the DX8 rendering into textures bug means it wasting the systems CPU power to do the shadows when the Kyro II can do them in hardware.

Also another interesting thing was this:

"The reflection in the floor is done by rendering everything upside down"

So thats twice the overdraw for traditionals, we can see that the high detail test isn't so much slower then the low detail test because of more poly's but because of dynamic shadows (which shouldn't take away much performance if the card can render into a texture) and mostly having to render the whole game twice (including all the overdraw twice too), once for the normal scene and once for the reflection in the flaw.

Madonion took the Max Payne engine and created the whole lobby scene and characters. So that scene is not to be expected in the actual game. Still the capability of that engine is present in Game 3 including the effects. Obviously the AI portion of the game engine woulded be needed in the demo as in the real game so I believe you are right in saying it will be toned down. Not much I will add, check out PC Gamer May issue for some awesome visuals.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by noko on 04/22/01 02:02 AM.</EM></FONT></P>