Are there any devs using tile rendering in 360 games?

[ralexand]

nma

 

[AlNom]

First of all, which games are using 2x or 4xAA? (let's try to narrow things down?)

 

[Squeak]

The costs in geometry storing and subsequent splitting is said to be rather high, so no, not in first gen games.

 

[ERP]

Anyone using 720P and any hardware AA is tile rendering.
If it's being done efficiently is a different question.

 

[mech]

So much for a 5% performance penalty...

 

[ERP]

So much for a 5% performance penalty...

huh?

 

[The GameMaster]

The 0-5% performance penalty applies to games that use predicted tiling (which the engine has to be designed with it in mind, and no launch XBox360 games was designed with this in mind)... without tiling the performance penalty is more akin to a 128-bit memory interface PC video card with similar clock rates and bandwidth will provide (30-40%) using 4xFSAA at 720p. They clould use 2xFSAA and fit it in the eDRAM without tiling and get the free performance though...

Don't expect to see developers use tiling until the 2nd generation XBox360 games...

 

[Mintmaster]

ERP, isn't it feasible to just send the entire scene down the pipe three times with different clip planes? I can't imagine that any of these first gen games are coming even close to pushing Xenos' geometry limits.

 

[scooby_dooby]

It would be really cool if one of the resident developers would explain predicated tiling, what goes into designing and engine for one, and the level of difficulty in implementing it.

It seems like a very mysterious topic, it would be great to geat a little more insight on where the guys are at with this tiling, and how long they think it will take to be correctly implemented in the majority of games.

I know that UE3 wasn't built with tiling in mind, I've also read that modifying an existing engine to support tiling will not give the best results(i.e. 5% 4xAA hit as ATI claims@720p)

Due to the fact that UE3 will be so widely used do you think it will it take a long time to really see true games built from the ground up with tiling(UE4)? Any ideas on the rough performance hits with a modified tiling-system vs ground-up tiling?

 

[The GameMaster]

I do believe the UE3 engine can be modified to include predicted tiling, but how hard that is I don't know at the moment. Current generation graphics engines may not like XENOS very much, but XENOS was more designed for future (DirectX 10) graphics engines so likely it won't be until 2nd or 3rd generation games when we will start seeing effective use of the tiling. Multiplatform titles or titles ported from the PC may be more problemsome as those engines typically are not designed with tiling in mind.

I do not have any data to support what degree of performance loss from using a workaround tiling solution instead of a native tiling solution would incur. Even still... having the framebuffer on the eDRAM does still save a *TON* of system memory bandwidth and has certain other advantages so having the eDRAM there still has a positive impact on overall performance even if you are using no FSAA or low levels of FSAA.

It may be a good idea to ask ATI or Microsoft themselves as to the difficulty of implementing predicted tiling.

 

[AlNom]

Ati should release a (public edition) document on predicated tiling. There must be an internal document for developers-only that comes with the X360SDK.... no?

 

[corysama]

The number of pixels you have to draw is constant (1280x720) regardless of tiling. It is expected that most games will be pixel-bound rather than geometry bound. So the tiling is expected to be a hit, but it probably won't be as bad as it sounds.

 

[Jogi]

Condemned is one title that has GREAT AA, no jaggies at all. Also it seems to be rendering smaller buffers when using SDTV (PAL interlaced) as frame rate is bit erratic, fluctuating between 25 & 50 fps. In HDTV mode (720p) it goes steady 30fps.

edit: I'll check out later how it does on PAL60 SDTV mode..

 

[AlNom]

Condemned is one title that has GREAT AA, no jaggies at all. Also it seems to be rendering smaller buffers when using SDTV (PAL interlaced) as frame rate is bit erratic, fluctuating between 25 & 50 fps. In HDTV mode (720p) it goes steady 30fps.

Interesting.....

 

[Jawed]

Note to TheGameMaster: it's predicated, not predicted.

These are postings I made based on the whitepaper

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpo...&postcount=202

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpo...&postcount=206

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpo...&postcount=208

It'll be interesting to find out if XBox1 games are using automatic predicated tiling in order to turn on AA.

Jawed

 

[Bill]

Summary of Jaws findings: Tiling is a real pain in the ass. It almost seems like it's unlikely to be used.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Its already used if its using AA.

 

[Gholbine]

Its already used if its using AA.

You mean AA on the Xenos is not possible at all without using the daughter die?

Can a 480i frame fit in the 10mb eDRAM?

 

[Dave Baumann]

Number of tiles required is easy to find. Anything that is rendering natively at 720p (or above) with AA is running in tiled mode; standard definitions can run with 4x AA without tiled (this looks to be what back compatbile titles are using - rending at standard definition with 4x FSAA auto enabled and then upscaled to HD).

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Interesting.....

Yes now that I took closer look at the game, it really is almost jaggie free...