Beyond the current OOTB features like AA and AF

[Reverend]

These two features (their quality and performance) usually are the decisive factors when it comes to majority of consumers' (usually gamers) decision making new video card purchase consideration. They have been for a long time.

Are there any other possibly similar OOTB, non-developer-involved major IQ-enhancing features we can see in the near future?

 

[Luminescent]

I have allot of fun using B3D competition smartshader entries for enhancing older games. Wishfully thinking, perhaps we'll see an interface that allows users to load/program more complex post-processing shaders that can manipulate rendering data more freely before outputting the final frame.

 

[Pete]

TruForm? Doh!

Digital Vibrance? DOH!

I give up. I'm intrigued by SmartShaders, but will they objectively improve rendering quality, or are they merely subjective enhancements?

 

[chavvdarrr]

These two features (their quality and performance) usually are the decisive factors when it comes to majority of consumers' (usually gamers) decision making new video card purchase consideration. They have been for a long time.

WHAT ?! You must be kidiing.
Average user has no idea what AA or AF is. How many of them will guess which screen hot is from ATi and which from NV card ?
"Decision" is made by:
- a friend to knows better (or who claims he knows)
- the firm which solds the PC ("hey I want PC for 1500$ and i want to play games" , "No problem, will give you the best card we have, errrr, now, where is this old 5800 card i had somewhere")
- the consumer (what a nice word btw... ), had heard that A cards are better than N cards and insists to get A card

features? I guess videocard making popcorn as additioon to the cooling system will be big hit for CONSUMERS

 

[Reverend]

Average user has no idea what AA or AF is.

I think they have a far better idea what the two are compared to all the other hyped features. Yes?

"Decision" is made by:
- a friend to knows better (or who claims he knows)

Such a friend in all probability knows what AA or AF is compared to all other 3D features. Yes? Probable?

Your post is pointless, regardless of your view of an "average" gamer. Stick to my topic, which is undeniably the truth.

 

[MulciberXP]

which is undeniably the truth.

you sound like a true man of the cloth!

 

[Hector]

The average consumer knows very little, at least here in spain. I've seen people using a 19" tft at 1024x768, and they didn't notice the image was horrible. When i switched his monitor to 1280 he told me to let it as it was becouse everything was tiny. Whatever. And almost all the people i know thinks a card is better if it has more memory. For example GFX 5200 256MB > Radeon 9800xt 128MB. This is just an example, there are worse things out there.

 

[Dave Baumann]

I have a suspicion that Vista will make life difficult for even these features outside of application control, so I'm not sure I see anything non-developer controlled being added just yet.

 

[chavvdarrr]

True.
I 've seen on plenty ocasions how one buys, say, 6200 with 256MB instead of 6600 with 128MB

I used to sell PC hardware and situation with 99% of users is what I wrote.
They don't care about AA/AF , just tell them they'll get the best.

Face it. The average gamer don't care about AA/AF. Some enthusiasts may go in control panel and try playing with sliders. 1 in 10 will try to go and read what are these sliders for.
Are you talking about usual consumers, usual gamers or usual game-maniacs ?!
People who buy the new top-card the day its out, or buy SLI/Crossfire rigs, they DO care about such things. At least more of them.
These people are 1% of all "consumers" no more IMHO.

 

[N00b]

The decisive factor for the average consumer is cost. After that comes cost, then cost, followed by performance, closely beating performance and performance. Then, maybe but just maybe, performance with AF and AA. And when comparing cost and performance does not yield a clear winner then it's checkbox feature comparing time! Now that is "undeniably the truth".

 

[Ali]

Whats OOTB? Object Oriented Tuberculosis?

From the rest of your post I see what you mean, but I have no idea what OOTB could stand for.

Ali

 

[Demirug]

Whats OOTB? Object Oriented Tuberculosis?

From the rest of your post I see what you mean, but I have no idea what OOTB could stand for.

Ali

Out of the Box: Features you can use with older software too.

 

[Ali]

Ah, thanks.

 

[mboeller]

And almost all the people i know thinks a card is better if it has more memory. For example GFX 5200 256MB > Radeon 9800xt 128MB. This is just an example, there are worse things out there.

YES!

I have seen the same here in Germany. Many people think that a card with more memory is the better card.

 

[RejZoR]

Digital Vibrance (NV)
Colors are more vibrant. Very good to make colors rich and warm. Works everywhere.

Image Sharpening (NV)
Everything on screen becomes sharpen, including textures. Excellent for Quake 4 or other games where you see lots of metal objects. Too high setting may display shimmering on certain objects. Works everywhere.

Temporal AA (ATi)
Perfromance free FSAA multiplying. Works only when framerate is synced with refresh.
May be useless if you have display with refresh of 120Hz+ and some (too) weak card that can't output such framerates.
Not sure if it isn't limited only to Direct3D...

SmartShader (ATi)
Custom post-processing effects. Default are mostly useless except Sharpen (similar to NV's though it works only under OpenGL) and Blur (creates fancy Depth of Fieled effect, again only OpenGL). All extra ones (home made) can only support OpenGL and only very good effect is HDRish effect (works excellent in Doom 3,Starsiege and Rune/UT99/Deus Ex).

TruForm (ATi)
Objects smoothing by multiplying polygons. Works correctly only on supported games, ATi discontinued this feature in Catalyst 5.12 if i'm not mistaken.

These are one that come in my mind at the moment.
Though i wonder why chip vendors don't impliment more of features like Digital Vibrance that is proven to be very useful for many years (and a major reason for many users to go with NV). SmartShaders are also very cool thing but since all good effects are limited to OpenGL only this feature becomes completely useless since they become useful only in id Software games... Funny decision...
We have lots of horsepowers under the hood, yet we don't see much of such goodies

 

[Luminescent]

Custom smartshaders that are applicable to DirectX based software.

 

[RejZoR]

I also forgot to mention Transparent AA/Adaptive AA which also works in older games.

@Luminescent
I haven't seen or been able to use any. ATi Tray Tools support only OpenGL smartshaders and some extra tool for custom smartshaders was broken and mosly limited to OGL anyway.

 

[Geo]

I have a suspicion that Vista will make life difficult for even these features outside of application control, so I'm not sure I see anything non-developer controlled being added just yet.

More words, please. . .

 

[Sxotty]

YES!

I have seen the same here in Germany. Many people think that a card with more memory is the better card.

That is really not anymore true than saying the average consumer just picks the bigger number i.e. buy a 9200 instead of a 6600 b/c 9200 is bigger. And yes that does happen...

 

[Luminescent]

I also forgot to mention Transparent AA/Adaptive AA which also works in older games.

@Luminescent
I haven't seen or been able to use any. ATi Tray Tools support only OpenGL smartshaders and some extra tool for custom smartshaders was broken and mosly limited to OGL anyway.

Try the latest version of Ati tray tool and download all the B3D custom shader entries, then transfer the entries into the tray tool's smartshader folder. I know the custom entires function under Open Gl with Cat 6.1 and the latest version of tray tools.