This is probably a stupid question...

[K.I.L.E.R]

The R300 and NV3x line of products capable of doing everything that 3dfx's T-Buffer can through PS/VS?

I would assume it can though I am skeptical if it can do it with a small performance hit. Back in the days, 3dfx had it's hardware specially designed to be able to do those effects, yet I wonder if a NV20/R300/NV30 do the exact same thing with a smaller hit on performance.

 

[OpenGL guy]

The R300 and NV3x line of products capable of doing everything that 3dfx's T-Buffer can through PS/VS?

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I thought T-buffer effects could be done through our (ATi's) maskable multisample buffers. But since I don't know much about the T-buffer, I could be mistaken.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

The R300 and NV3x line of products capable of doing everything that 3dfx's T-Buffer can through PS/VS?

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I thought T-buffer effects could be done through our (ATi's) maskable multisample buffers. But since I don't know much about the T-buffer, I could be mistaken.

Yes it can the last time I read. How fast is it capable of doing the effects though? I know when you have MSM enabled on the NV20 that allows for similar T-Buffer effects, though AA is disabled through <DX8 games.

Is it faster done on a MMB on Ati boards than through PS/VS?

 

[Reverend]

...everything that 3dfx's T-Buffer can...

Question : Can you list what you mean by "everything"?

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

You want the entire list? :?
Motion blur, depth of focus, soft shadows etc...

I wish games would use these effects. Does anyone know if the Quake 3 motion blur patch will use motion blur accelerated via the MSB/PS on the R300/NV30? (assuming it has been updated)

What is the performance hit (in %) on soft shadows on current cards compared to the Voodoo 5?

 

[Reverend]

You want the entire list? :?
Motion blur, depth of focus, soft shadows etc...

I was just being cute

Does anyone know if the Quake 3 motion blur patch will use motion blur accelerated via the MSB/PS on the R300/NV30? (assuming it has been updated)

What Quake3 "motion blur patch"?

 

[CorwinB]

The DX9 SDK has a nice example of Vertex-Shader based Motion Blur, as well as a very good Depth of Field (using several techniques over various levels of PS support). Not sure about soft shadows and reflections, but I'm sure they would be easy to do too (I suppose you could do soft reflection by applying an edge-blurring filter through a PS ?).

I don't think the Q3 Motion Blur patch could be used, since it was (IIRC) completely hardcoded for the T-Buffer.

As for the performance hit, actually the 3dfx approach was very brute-force, and potentially a VS/PS approach could lead to better overall results.

 

[Squega]

What Quake3 "motion blur patch"?

There was a small mod for Quake III quite a while ago that supposedly enabled T-Buffer effects such as motion blur during in-game for the VSA-100 series of cards. I forget where to find it though, it was released almost two years ago I believe.

[EDIT]Dang CorwinB, you beat me to it.

One question though:

As for the performance hit, actually the 3dfx approach was very brute-force, and potentially a VS/PS approach could lead to better overall results.

Wouldn't the 3dfx way induce a higher performance hit since the T-Buffer is fillrate and bandwidth bound? Wouldn't running motion blur through the PS/VS be computationally-bound, or would it also take a fillrate and bandwidth hit on current cards?

 

[Tokelil]

I asked the same qustion before NV30 came out, and basicly the answer was yes...
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3031

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Ahh, ok thanks. Never seen that thread.

 

[ram]

There was a small mod for Quake III quite a while ago that supposedly enabled T-Buffer effects such as motion blur during in-game for the VSA-100 series of cards. I forget where to find it though, it was released almost two years ago I believe.

Unfortuanlty, the effect produced by this version was not motion blur, but motion trail.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Why can't a patch like that be made for current DX9 hardware to take advantage of similar features?

What was so different from 3dfx Voodoo 5 that allowed someone to make a patch for Quake 3 and enable the effects through hardware?

 

[PrzemKo]

I might be wrong, but (as far as I understand) PS/VS tricks will just give you similar results, although using different techniques. I think these blurs are simple to achieve with OGL/Tbuffer, but require harder work (for a programmer) when using the shaders.

 

[CorwinB]

Why can't a patch like that be made for current DX9 hardware to take advantage of similar features?

What was so different from 3dfx Voodoo 5 that allowed someone to make a patch for Quake 3 and enable the effects through hardware?

Wasn't this patch using some kind of modified OpenGL32.dll to place in the Q3 directory (like a kind of miniGL client) ?

I believe that if a game were to use VS/PS for its rendering, adding special effects like this would be easy. But many games use the fixed function T&L path or a custom-made T&L, so upgrading the code to add VS-based motion blur (or motion trail) could be difficult. I may be wrong, though.

The original patch was kind of nice : while not extraordinary graphic-wise (4-samples motion trail just doesn't look gorgeous IMHO), it added a lot to the gameplay, because after a fashion you would use the trail to see where someone was heading (trails provided an indication of direction and speed, which was nice)

 

[bdmosky]

Weren't most of the T-buffer effects already demonstarted in the Alien space ship demo from Nvidia during the NV30 launch? I thought the demo did an excellent job IMHO.

 

[gokickrocks]

wasnt that the demo that bsod' on live tv?

 

[Marc]

As for the motion blur the TOCA Race driver as it on every graphic card. But the performance are divided by a factor of two when it's enabled ...

 

[Reverend]

Does anyone know if the Quake 3 motion blur patch will use motion blur accelerated via the MSB/PS on the R300/NV30? (assuming it has been updated)

What Quake3 "motion blur patch"?

Okay, that was a trick question

There was no such "patch". I was "officially unofficially" given (by a 3dfx personnel, at the time) such a Quake3 3dfx-motion-blur-enhanced "mod". When 3dfx was announced, I asked JC if he would have such a patch and he said "No, but I gave 3dfx the source codes so they may have internal versions of what they want to do with it". IIRC 3dfx demoed such a motion-blur-"mod" at some trade show (E3?) and so I asked 3dfx, at the time, if I could have it. They did, with the proviso that it was only for my own private use (and after I got it, I told Dave Barron, who then, after pestering 3dfx, also got it too!). If those familiar with "3DPupit" would recall, after 3dfx died, I made this "mod" available for download at my old personal site. I got a lot of stick from a NVIDIA personnel (ex-3dfx, the one I dealt with to get this mod) when he learnt of this fact.... but I was happy that 3dfx-users at least got some additional pleasure after knowing the company which made the card they bought died.

The mod was made available at my old "3DPulpit" site. It was ~50megs, a standalone version of Quake3 (doesn't require Quake3 to be installed). The last time I checked the page view of download page of this mod was ~150,000.

Unfortuanlty, the effect produced by this version was not motion blur, but motion trail.

On anything but a Voodoo5, I'd agree with you. You'd get multiple samples of game models (which was the only thing with motion blur applied). Some images :

3dfx Voodoo5 Quake3 Motion Blur

non-3dfx Quake3 Motion Blur (taken on a NVIDIA GF2Ultra, at the time)

Both needed 4xAA to be applied on both video cards. The reason for the difference was really because the 3dfx version on a Voodoo5 would use a special Glide3x.dll (which, evidently, non-3dfx cards won't be able to use at all). I may have forgotten some other specifics though... it was circa December 2000!

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Rev, now I remember where I have seen the patch.
I visited your site frequently and found out some facts:

1. You are very slow with news.

2. When you post news it is very interesting and in depth and makes an extremely good read.

3. The Pulpit is dead.

I loved your site. It was on Voodoo Extreme wasn't it (using their bandwidth)?

 

[Grall]

Rev,

How can you call that motion blur, when there's no blurring at all? All it's doing is drawing the model multiple times and fading them out. You can do that effect completely in software, which in fact, tons of games already has over the years, many of them BEFORE 3dfx announced this "blur" feature of theirs.

*G*