[expletive]

I had posted an earlier question regarding the fill rate and it was concluded that both consoles had plenty of fill rate.

What i am wondering is if theres a similar number of polygons where youve reached a technical or perception threshold where 'enough is enough'?

How many polys can each console produce without any CPU help? Assuming 60fps, are these numbers enough?

If you bring in the 2 CPUs and the bandwidth to/from them into the equation, how many can each system theoritcally produce? How many can they resonaby produce (i.e. no one would use all 3 xenon cores for triangles)?

SO at the end of the day does either console have a polygon advantage based against how many are 'enough' (that is, if theres ever enough )

J

[Inane_Dork]

Considering how games have different offscreen passes with geometry, I'm not sure this question has a very straightforward answer. If every game used the same algorithms, a single number might be attained.

[Qroach]

I'd say "4" but not at the same itme of course

[dukmahsik]

Originally Posted by Qroach

I'd say "4" but not at the same itme of course

4 of what kinda polygons? unified shaded? or??

[Shifty Geezer]

From what I'm hearing these GPU's (or Xenos at least) will be setup limited to 500 million vertices/second, so that's as good it gets no matter how much CPU you throw into the equation.

About ten million polygons a frame isn't too bad, seeing as that's at least 3 times as many polygons as pixels. But these things will be shader limited so you won't get to use all that. A flat shaded cartoon renderer might get more though and produce smoother models.

[MBDF]

Pardon my limited knoledge but what does "shader limited" concerning the max output of polygons mean...

is it a tradoff between normal mapping and actual poygons, because it seems to me that characters normal mapped (which is bump mapping) have fewer polygons that would seem at the disposal of devs?

[expletive]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

From what I'm hearing these GPU's (or Xenos at least) will be setup limited to 500 million vertices/second, so that's as good it gets no matter how much CPU you throw into the equation.

About ten million polygons a frame isn't too bad, seeing as that's at least 3 times as many polygons as pixels. But these things will be shader limited so you won't get to use all that. A flat shaded cartoon renderer might get more though and produce smoother models.

Ive heard some people say you can use teh CEll to increase polygon count in the PS3, is this true? If so why is it true in PS3 not in 360?

Also, how can you tell these will be shader limited? On the 360 with 10 million polys and 48billion shader ops it doesnt seem like it would be.

Thanks

J

[expletive]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

From what I'm hearing these GPU's (or Xenos at least) will be setup limited to 500 million vertices/second, so that's as good it gets no matter how much CPU you throw into the equation.

About ten million polygons a frame isn't too bad, seeing as that's at least 3 times as many polygons as pixels. But these things will be shader limited so you won't get to use all that. A flat shaded cartoon renderer might get more though and produce smoother models.

Just an FYI, the spec for 360 is 500 million triangles/sec and not vertices. I'm assuming you meant triangles because at 60fps this equates to roughly 8.3 million polys per frame.

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/factsheet.htm

However, in a 1280x720 frame, you have roughly 1 million pixels so you get about 8x as many polys per pixel (not 3x as you state above).

AM i calculating incorrectly?

(BTW, i'm still not clear if 8million polys or 8x polys vs pixels is 'plenty'. )

J

[scatteh316]

Originally Posted by expletive

I had posted an earlier question regarding the fill rate and it was concluded that both consoles had plenty of fill rate.

What i am wondering is if theres a similar number of polygons where youve reached a technical or perception threshold where 'enough is enough'?

How many polys can each console produce without any CPU help? Assuming 60fps, are these numbers enough?

If you bring in the 2 CPUs and the bandwidth to/from them into the equation, how many can each system theoritcally produce? How many can they resonaby produce (i.e. no one would use all 3 xenon cores for triangles)?

SO at the end of the day does either console have a polygon advantage based against how many are 'enough' (that is, if theres ever enough )

J

As normal mapping techniques evole the number of polygons need'd for games will grow no-were near as much as they used to between generation's

[ihamoitc2005]

Originally Posted by scatteh316

As normal mapping techniques evole the number of polygons need'd for games will grow no-were near as much as they used to between generation's

I doubt that. I think they will get more sophisticated in how geometry is applied, for example, to show movement of muscles under the skin and have better real-time deformation. Also new sophisticated geometry based effects will increase physics power required so no surprise PPU is coming to PC market.

[expletive]

Since the 360 uses unified shaders, is it pretty much a zero sum game between vertices and shader ops? For example if a scene has 1 million polygons per frame does that directly cut into the Xenos' shader op ability? Or is the way scenes are rendered not cause it to be one or the other?

Just wondering, how many vertices can the ps3 can be 'setup'?

J

[ihamoitc2005]

Originally Posted by expletive

Since the 360 uses unified shaders, is it pretty much a zero sum game between vertices and shader ops?

Yes. You mean between vertex and pixel shader ops no? Each shader can only do one or the other at one time.

For example if a scene has 1 million polygons per frame does that directly cut into the Xenos' shader op ability? Or is the way scenes are rendered not cause it to be one or the other?

Yes. More vertex shader ops = less pixel shader ops ......... zero sum game.

Just wondering, how many vertices can the ps3 can be 'setup'?

We do not know enough about RSX to know this. 550mhz G70 capable of 1.1B triangles/sec with 100% efficient vertex sharing, real world much less.

[expletive]

Originally Posted by ihamoitc2005

Yes. You mean between vertex and pixel shader ops no? Each shader can only do one or the other at one time.



Yes. More vertex shader ops = less pixel shader ops ......... zero sum game.



We do not know enough about RSX to know this. 550mhz G70 capable of 1.1B triangles/sec with 100% efficient vertex sharing, real world much less.

Are there always both functions happening on every clock, or does geometry generally happen first, then shading? So when the shading actually happens there isnt a contraint for shader or vertex ops. Sorry just dont fully understand the rendering pipeline and the design of Xenos.

J