MS: "Xbox 360 More Powerful than PS3"

[Nfactor]

We don't know yet as we still have lots of things to explore. We've get a speed increase with this, so we can have more AA than before.
We are now running at 720p with a 'good' amount of AA (cause we believe this will be the normal way the game is played). Just to clarify the 1080p quote that I also seem to be misunderstood. The game will support and run well on all resolutions Sony say we must support but we believe that most people will be seeing it at 720p so thats the res we use mainly in development.

Given how even the smallest comment I make, tend to end up huge forum threads around the net, you can forgive me for not making any specific comments beyond things are going quite well thanks

can the game run the same (effects and all) in 720p vs. running it with everything you have running it in 1080p on the final Ps3 dev kit?

that should clear all this up real quick

 

[BenQ]

Deano, You shouldn't answer Nfactors questions. He's taking your words and going off to another forum and bashing you and the PS3 with them. Just a little heads up.

 

[Nfactor]

Deano, You shouldn't answer Nfactors questions. He's taking your words and going off to another forum and bashing you and the PS3 with them. Just a little heads up.

actually I'm not, some other numbnuts is

 

[nAo]

"FP16 HDR" was never on the cards for Xenos because there's no blending support (and no MSAA) on an FP16 render target.

What is annoying is the idea that FP16 with blending and AA has promulgated, and it's only very recently that we've had confirmation that this is not the case - the Xenos article needs to be changed:

http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/xenos/index.php?p=04



is not true:

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=636956&postcount=179

Jawed

It's true, MSAA is supported, blending is not. Thus ROPs can't use their blenders to resolve a MSAA R,T in that case so you want to dump out all your tiles into main ram, read them back as textures and resolve your AAed RT in a shader.

 

[Nfactor]

I do appreciate the answers to the questions Deano, I just had to have a few clarifications is all. Some people that I know just can't stand being the psuedo-technologists that they are.

But answering my last question up there would end all presumptious agruements.

Thanks Again

 

[Voidler]

Deano, you mentioned achieving more effects at 720p versus 1080p, could you clear something up for me? Are you saying you are opting for 720p so you can achieve more effects than planned, or are you saying you couldn't achieve the effects you wanted at 1080p so you're "downgrading". Semantics, I know, but I just want it clarified

 

[AlNom]

Its clever software beating hardware, you'd probably want to use this on PC, X360 (its much better the FP10), PS3, Rev etc. Its simple a better HDR method... Its beats FP16 HDR in almost all cases, so as I've said why wouldn't you use it?

Write a short paper and discuss at a developer's convention? Everyone should be made aware about it.

 

[Jawed]

It's true, MSAA is supported, blending is not. Thus ROPs can't use their blenders to resolve a MSAA R,T in that case so you want to dump out all your tiles into main ram, read them back as textures and resolve your AAed RT in a shader.

I suppose what you're saying is that this would be a tone-mapping pass combined with an AA-resolve (on colour+z/stencil textures).

But you'd still be stuck without blending in the backbuffer, unless that was a pass after tonemapping. Dunno if that's viable.

Jawed

 

[nAo]

I suppose what you're saying is that this would be a tone-mapping pass combined with an AA-resolve (on colour+z/stencil textures).

You can combine different passes or you can't. AA resolve can be done before tone mapping..but there are quality issues there..

But you'd still be stuck without blending in the backbuffer, unless that was a pass after tonemapping. Dunno if that's viable.

You can render LDR effects after tone mapping, there's nothing wrong with that
But not having blending support on a RT format on Xenos it means that blending is a no go from a performance standpoint cause even if you want to revert to the 'old' ping-pong way to blend into a HDR buffer you have to dump out your data from edram to main mem as AFAIK you can't texture from edram (but I'm not entirely sure about that)

 

[Titanio]

We don't know yet as we still have lots of things to explore. We've get a speed increase with this, so we can have more AA than before.
We are now running at 720p with a 'good' amount of AA (cause we believe this will be the normal way the game is played). Just to clarify the 1080p quote that I also seem to be misunderstood. The game will support and run well on all resolutions Sony say we must support but we believe that most people will be seeing it at 720p so thats the res we use mainly in development.

Given how even the smallest comment I make, tend to end up huge forum threads around the net, you can forgive me for not making any specific comments beyond things are going quite well thanks

Thanks for the responses. Hopefully we'll see for ourselves soon

 

[DeanoC]

Write a short paper and discuss at a developer's convention? Everyone should be made aware about it.

Its Marco's (for those who don't know nAo = Marco) technique, I delibrately don't discuss the details in my original post because its not my place... Its only because of the silly internet rubbish I've felt nessecary to clarify... but I agree it would make a very good paper/conference talk.

 

[Jawed]

But not having blending support on a RT format on Xenos it means that blending is a no go from a performance standpoint cause even if you want to revert to the 'old' ping-pong way to blend into a HDR buffer you have to dump out your data from edram to main mem as AFAIK you can't texture from edram (but I'm not entirely sure about that)

Yeah, that's my understanding too.

Jawed

 

[Nicked]

Its only because of the silly internet rubbish I've felt nessecary to clarify... .

I wouldn't worry about the idiots misrepresenting your posts on other forums. Its mostly one very disgruntled ex-DC fan who has been making up and misrepresenting Sony info. for years across literally dozens of forums (as well as the odd TXB lackey). Besides, people who are crazy enough to get riled up over such trivial information are also likely to have forgotten it 10mins later.
I'm sure (hoping) that when HS is released its a success for you guys. Looking forward to new media!

 

[AlNom]

Its Marco's (for those who don't know nAo = Marco) technique, I delibrately don't discuss the details in my original post because its not my place... Its only because of the silly internet rubbish I've felt nessecary to clarify... but I agree it would make a very good paper/conference talk.

My mistake. And thank you for your clarifications.

 

[DeanoC]

Deano, you mentioned achieving more effects at 720p versus 1080p, could you clear something up for me? Are you saying you are opting for 720p so you can achieve more effects than planned, or are you saying you couldn't achieve the effects you wanted at 1080p so you're "downgrading". Semantics, I know, but I just want it clarified

We haven't implemented all the effects yet so thats impossible to answer (same with questions about whether it will run fast enough etc.)
Our aim is to do the most effects we can get away with while keeping the framerate For the record we have only added things since E3 we haven't 'reduced' anything (well visually, obviously we have reduced bandwidth with the recently christianed NAO32 format (previously known as the INT8 HDR format that looks like FP16 HDR)).

 

[ralexand]

That's amazing that you guys have overcame all the pitfalls and headaches of hdr rendering in software using sm 2.0 while companies like MS, Ati, and Nvidia have put all this effort into it with such subpar results. I would license your tech if I was you. What you have accomplish is like the holy grail of next gen graphics, hdr rendering with no performance cost. It's almost like someone suddenly figuring out a way to get free AA at any multi-sampling level.

Also if I were you, I would refrain from talking about development since you're one of the few that are talking candidly, every word can launch a full blown pissing contest.

 

[Titanio]

Also if I were you, I would refrain from talking about development since you're one of the few that are talking candidly, every word can launch a full blown pissing contest.

It's inevitable that stuff like this will "blow up" if improperly communicated or used, but I hope DeanoC/nAo et al are not discouraged. Their insight is also of great benefit to the community here, and I'm sure very much appreciated, so I hope they keep talking and contributing where they can

 

[Carl B]

It's inevitable that stuff like this will "blow up" if improperly communicated or used, but I hope DeanoC/nAo et al are not discouraged. Their insight is also of great benefit to the community here, and I'm sure very much appreciated, so I hope they keep talking and contributing where they can

I agree, open (well, semi-open) discussion of the architectures of these consoles and the models used for coding to them are IMO some of the greatest reasons to be here on B3D, and I have the utmost respect for nAo, Deano, Faf, and the others that take time to discuss with us the technology from their POV, when certainly they don't have to.

The "post-theft" used for sound-bite slanting on other forums is upsetting, but hey everyone here knows to look for more than sound-bites, and so it's what's discussed here that matters, not what rumors are flying all over the web.

PS - And for my part, congratulations guys on the implementation; I'm looking forward to seeing if NAO32 will deliver the goods!

 

[Jawed]

Their insight is also of great benefit to the community here, and I'm sure very much appreciated, so I hope they keep talking and contributing where they can

You'd never guess it from their Rep

Jawed

 

[DeanoC]

That's amazing that you guys have overcame all the pitfalls and headaches of hdr rendering in software using sm 2.0 while companies like MS, Ati, and Nvidia have put all this effort into it with such subpar results. I would license your tech if I was you. What you have accomplish is like the holy grail of next gen graphics, hdr rendering with no performance cost. It's almost like someone suddenly figuring out a way to get free AA at any multi-sampling level.

Also if I were you, I would refrain from talking about development since you're one of the few that are talking candidly, every word can launch a full blown pissing contest.

Well to be fair its not the holy grail, it has some issues as you'd expect. Its not magic its simple trading shader instructions for bandwidth. You have to do colour space conversion which costs you shaders instruction. Also blending becomes more complex (LERP_RGB != LERP_NAO32). In a way thats what the talk about programmable shader has really been about, us devs finding our own solutions to the problems rather than whatever solution the hardware vendors think up. They solved the problem of HDR with a bigger buffer and FP16 hardware, Marco solved it with shader instructions and using the existing INT8 hardware.

As for not talking... I have enough restrictions due to real NDAs... seems madness that things that aren't covered by NDAs should be restricted because a few people have agendas to fill. Software is whats interesting... hardware is meh...