Anisotropic filtering and current consoles.
- Thread starter Ug Lee
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PS2 could probably use a FEline implementation in multi-pass (performance would suck though)...
GCN is, as far as I know, incapable of it; the cache is completely optimised for Trilinear bandwidth anyway...
Xbox - well, duh, it's a GeForce3 derivative in there. It's fully capable of AF
GCN is, as far as I know, incapable of it; the cache is completely optimised for Trilinear bandwidth anyway...
Xbox - well, duh, it's a GeForce3 derivative in there. It's fully capable of AF
Panajev2001a
Veteran
According to Fafalada there are some VU friendly vertex based AF implementations... I guess developers need to experiment more...
After-all when PS2 was released a lot of people were convinced that mip-mapping would have worsened performance... something that developers are now finding incorrect...
After-all when PS2 was released a lot of people were convinced that mip-mapping would have worsened performance... something that developers are now finding incorrect...
randycat99
Veteran
I'm confused on this topic. I read a bit about it in the 3D Technology & Hardware forum, and evidently there is much, much debate to be had over it. A lot of it over my head, as I was still trying to figure out what AF does let alone why so many people argue for and against it.
The gist of the arguement, as I understand it, is whether AF is even necessary if you are doing AA or is AA not as good a solution when you can use AF in conjunction with multisampling. So that would guide my first approach in this topic- do we even need to worry about AF if we can just consistently get AA in the games on the current generation of consoles? If AF has some sort of visual benefit, is it enough that an average gamer can actually distinguish it from just really good application of AA? If not, is this just another case of chasing another "buzzword" for no real gain?
The gist of the arguement, as I understand it, is whether AF is even necessary if you are doing AA or is AA not as good a solution when you can use AF in conjunction with multisampling. So that would guide my first approach in this topic- do we even need to worry about AF if we can just consistently get AA in the games on the current generation of consoles? If AF has some sort of visual benefit, is it enough that an average gamer can actually distinguish it from just really good application of AA? If not, is this just another case of chasing another "buzzword" for no real gain?
Anisotropic filtering is a bit different than AA. For one, it does little to the edge of polygons and is mainly used as a better filtering method for textures. AF used in conjunction with multisampling is the same as using AF and AA at the same time. Both of them turned on drastically improve the visual quality of all different types of games, but they do lead to a sizeable performance hit. It's not so much a problem with cards like the 9700 Pro because that has enough raw power from the getgo.
Aniso's current use in console games may be of a little benefit or a large benefit. Believe it or not there was one game on the Dreamcast that used aniso filtering and that was Test Drive LE Mans. I believe it aided in that game's image quality immensely, as I still think it's one of the top 5 looking DC games.
I think racing games and flight sims and the type would be able to benefit the most from aniso filtering. Racing games on the PC look drastically improved with it on and it does help to sharpen textures in the distance quite noticeably. As for the consoles being able to handle it, that I'm not too sure of. I could see the PS2 doing it with effective coding and with the proper handling of the system's resources. I don't know about the GCN but I see no reason why it wouldn't work on it, but others are far more knowledgable on the technical aspects of the console than I am. The Xbox can do it, as it basically has a GF4Ti GPU in it, so I'm guessing it should be able to do it quite easily considering the resolution most games run at. However, it may be a bit of a problem for the current consoles to do it, I'm not sure of the bandwidth requirements or if there are any bandwidth requirements for it. If not then I'm guessing it's more of a question of how much fill rate there is to spare.
Once HDTV becomes more prominent in the home then you should see aniso filtering make a more dramatic impact on image quality than it does on the smaller resolutions. The TV's will be able to display clearer pictures and at higher resolutions. AA will probably be one thing to benefit HDTV's the most though.
Aniso's current use in console games may be of a little benefit or a large benefit. Believe it or not there was one game on the Dreamcast that used aniso filtering and that was Test Drive LE Mans. I believe it aided in that game's image quality immensely, as I still think it's one of the top 5 looking DC games.
I think racing games and flight sims and the type would be able to benefit the most from aniso filtering. Racing games on the PC look drastically improved with it on and it does help to sharpen textures in the distance quite noticeably. As for the consoles being able to handle it, that I'm not too sure of. I could see the PS2 doing it with effective coding and with the proper handling of the system's resources. I don't know about the GCN but I see no reason why it wouldn't work on it, but others are far more knowledgable on the technical aspects of the console than I am. The Xbox can do it, as it basically has a GF4Ti GPU in it, so I'm guessing it should be able to do it quite easily considering the resolution most games run at. However, it may be a bit of a problem for the current consoles to do it, I'm not sure of the bandwidth requirements or if there are any bandwidth requirements for it. If not then I'm guessing it's more of a question of how much fill rate there is to spare.
Once HDTV becomes more prominent in the home then you should see aniso filtering make a more dramatic impact on image quality than it does on the smaller resolutions. The TV's will be able to display clearer pictures and at higher resolutions. AA will probably be one thing to benefit HDTV's the most though.
CaptainHowdy
Regular
would the person who said GC isnt capable of Anisotropic please never pretend to know anything again.
the gamecubes image processing fuctions contain:
Fog, Subpixel Anti-aliasing, 8 Hardware Lights, Alpha Blending, Virtual Texture Design, Multi-texturing, Bump Mapping, Environment Mapping, MIP Mapping, Bilinear Filtering, Trilinear Filtering, Anisotropic Filtering, Real-time Hardware Texture Decompression (S3TC), Real-time Decompression of Display List, HW 3-line Deflickering filter
even the N64 had Aniso to a certain Extent, Sony is the only one who isnt aware that a lot has happened since the Voodoo 2 era in graphics functions.
the gamecubes image processing fuctions contain:
Fog, Subpixel Anti-aliasing, 8 Hardware Lights, Alpha Blending, Virtual Texture Design, Multi-texturing, Bump Mapping, Environment Mapping, MIP Mapping, Bilinear Filtering, Trilinear Filtering, Anisotropic Filtering, Real-time Hardware Texture Decompression (S3TC), Real-time Decompression of Display List, HW 3-line Deflickering filter
even the N64 had Aniso to a certain Extent, Sony is the only one who isnt aware that a lot has happened since the Voodoo 2 era in graphics functions.
I'm with CaptainHowdy on this one, why shouldn't the GCN be able to do aniso? If there's a clear reason for this then I'm very eager to hear it, as it would shed some light on a bit more of the mystery that GCN is to me. I still would like to know what functions the TEV is capable of.
randycat99
Veteran
I believe it was remarked earlier that GC may not be "capable" of it out of the way the cache is implemented which favors a different sort of filtering, not because the hardware function doesn't exist. It's more than just saying the feature exists, rather can it actually be used in a game w/o holding up the rest of the works.
marconelly!
Veteran
That would be why PS2 actually supports almost everything from that list of yours
Well, in one way or another randycat99
Veteran
Well put!
I remember reading an interview on IGNcube a while back with some guy from ATI saying that the way the GPU was setup, it was encouraged to do tri-linear because it's free. And about Aniso he said that Flipper does support it but that it's expensive and that, in his own words, "only the more skilled developers would make use of it", or something like that.
Which is just as well for purposes of Flipper's implementation - aniso level no. == number of trilinear pixel footprints taken per sample. Hence each level takes an extra cycle(or two if you're perverted enough to use 32bit textures), up to a max of 4 levels.
It adaptively selects sampling density on per pixel basis though, so I would guess performance should be decent enough.
Vertex implementation can look nice enough, and it can be adaptive too so you don't waste extra passes arbitrarily. Since it can be entirely VU based implementation, it should give at least useable performance.
But... personally I don't think aniso is a particularly big gain on TV screens... if it's nearly free, then great... but I don't think it's worth going through extra hoops for it as in the latter example (though it could be cool for techdemos
).Panajev2001a
Veteran
well if we cannot have tri-linear... then anisotropic + bi-linear + mip-mapping == good
Tag
Its texture cache being optimized for trilinear is irrelevant really. XBox's texture cache is also optimized for trilinear (its the standard filtering technique after all), that doesn't mean XBox is incapable of it. Of course GameCube won't be able to do aniso for free, but neither could XBox or any other console, or graphics card for that matter.
Faf
So then Flipper does aniso sort of like the Radeon 8500 and up then? Where it changes the level of aniso per pixel. So that pixels that need aniso a lot get a high level of aniso and pixels that don't need it as much get a lesser level of aniso.
Its texture cache being optimized for trilinear is irrelevant really. XBox's texture cache is also optimized for trilinear (its the standard filtering technique after all), that doesn't mean XBox is incapable of it. Of course GameCube won't be able to do aniso for free, but neither could XBox or any other console, or graphics card for that matter.
Faf
So then Flipper does aniso sort of like the Radeon 8500 and up then? Where it changes the level of aniso per pixel. So that pixels that need aniso a lot get a high level of aniso and pixels that don't need it as much get a lesser level of aniso.
Le Mans for DC = overrated.
There was a massive debate on a certain console forum in Australia on the fact that the PS2 version had 2D rims and the DC version had 3D rims. It went on and on until an artist from the actual development team came on to say that the exact same textures and techniques were used for the wheels in both version (and that he had done the texture IIRC). Much derision from the DC fanboys followed until it turned out the guy was on the level. Was pretty funny
There was a massive debate on a certain console forum in Australia on the fact that the PS2 version had 2D rims and the DC version had 3D rims. It went on and on until an artist from the actual development team came on to say that the exact same textures and techniques were used for the wheels in both version (and that he had done the texture IIRC). Much derision from the DC fanboys followed until it turned out the guy was on the level. Was pretty funny
mech said:Le Mans for DC = overrated.
There was a massive debate on a certain console forum in Australia on the fact that the PS2 version had 2D rims and the DC version had 3D rims. It went on and on until an artist from the actual development team came on to say that the exact same textures and techniques were used for the wheels in both version (and that he had done the texture IIRC). Much derision from the DC fanboys followed until it turned out the guy was on the level. Was pretty funny
He, memories!
Carter, from Melbourne Team (or whatever the developers exact name is :: I'm lazy), later confirmed on the GTboards that they had very little time for the PS2 port of the DC masterpeace and thus the team had to 'emulate' certain things from the DC, making it clear that the port was very unoptimized indeed.Similar threads
