Beyond3D Wolves Needed to Tear This One Apart

[andypski]

Any image that is displayed via a CRT has a gamma ramp applied to it - just averaging FSAA subsample values outside of gamma space will give an image that is less appropriate for the display. Gamma corrected AA is actually giving an image closer to what is supposed to be displayed and thats why people view it as looking "better" as it is actually more correct than AA without it! You should be questioning systems without gamma corrected AA as these are "altering the image" (in an incorrect way) more than those that have the gamma ramp applied in the subsample weighting.

Precisely. Hardware that does not gamma correct the sampling is actually skipping a step that is necessary to correct the blending for the non-linear response of the monitor - blending the samples in linear space does not produce a linear colour transition when viewed on screen.

As far as I know there is no strict specification in D3D for how the samples used for multisampling should be combined by the hardware. The only obvious note about it in the documentation is:

"The various samples recorded for each pixel are blended together and output to the screen"

As such a linear or gamma'd blend of the subsamples can be viewed as 'correct' from the API point of view, but the gamma corrected version will look better.

 

[radar1200gs]

Exactly. And since they don't understand the current settings, why give them more settings they won't understand? Why invite support calls?

You do a good job twisting your own words. Your arguments change with every post and you never reply to the points raised but instead choose to respond to the most irrelevant portion of a message. Also, you have no clue how ATI hardware works. You have no clue how the driver works. But by all means keep on posting nonsense.

What does rivatuner have to do with nvidia's driver? Does nvidia offer the same functionality in their control panel? No? Why not?

Did it ever occur to you that the optimizations that ATI and nvidia have put in their hardware and software come at from an investment in time and money? To allow your competition to evaluate the effectiveness of said optimizations is foolish at best.

Lastly, the end-user does not benefit from such choices. Disabling these optimizations only makes things go slower and who in the world would want their games to go slower? I guess only "intellectuals" such as yourself.

You are an amusing fellow OpenGL guy.

A simple restore defaults button on the bottom of your control panel pages along with good inbuilt help is all you require to ensure you don't get many support calls. An online guide or two helps as well.

Rivatuner is a very popular tweaking tool for nVidia (and I believe Ati) users. It allows you to adjust driver parameters normally hidden from you. It has nothing to do with nVidia's control panel.

Z compression etc are not useful optimizations for the end-user to control (because they do not directly affect image quality). The end-user should however have control of anything that affects image quality. This includes texture/shader filtering, AA etc - basically everything you find in nVidia's profiles. One thing currently missing that should be there given how much IHV's love to fiddle with it behind consumers backs is control over texture LOD.

There are lots of people out there who will happily trade performance for IQ. nVidia recognise this, that's why they create flexible GPU's that don't rely purely on hardware shortcuts and provide control over optimizations.

These forums were all about IQ too until ATi admitted trilinear optimizations and they wouldn't be removing them. Funny how peoples positions magically changed after that...

 

[OpenGL guy]

You are an amusing fellow OpenGL guy.

A simple restore defaults button on the bottom of your control panel pages along with good inbuilt help is all you require to ensure you don't get many support calls. An online guide or two helps as well.

And when the user uses tweak programs that conflict with the support control panel, who do they call? I have seen nurmerous instances of problems caused by tweak programs that people blamed ATI for.

Rivatuner is a very popular tweaking tool for nVidia (and I believe Ati) users. It allows you to adjust driver parameters normally hidden from you. It has nothing to do with nVidia's control panel.

Exactly, so why should ATI or nvidia add such things to their own control panel?

Z compression etc are not useful optimizations for the end-user to control (because they do not directly affect image quality).

Now you are changing your story again!

The end-user should however have control of anything that affects image quality. This includes texture/shader filtering, AA etc - basically everything you find in nVidia's profiles.

It's so great that people aren't seeing the texture shimmering that has been reported in numerous threads on numerous forums.

There are lots of people out there who will happily trade performance for IQ. nVidia recognise this, that's why they create flexible GPU's that don't rely purely on hardware shortcuts and provide control over optimizations.

How many times do I need to repeat myself? I'll spell if out for you: Y-o-u d-o-n-'-t h-a-v-e a c-l-u-e.

These forums were all about IQ too until ATi admitted trilinear optimizations and they wouldn't be removing them. Funny how peoples positions magically changed after that...

Funny how ATI has released Catalyst AI which does exactly that.

Please continue to cling to your false conceptions.

 

[ChrisRay]

Apologise if these images are large but..

ATI drivers do offer similar functionality given the right tweaker. If you want to get on ATIS case about driver functionality, Ask them for Super Sampling, or better LoD manipulation.

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[MasterBaiter]

Apologise if these images are large but..

ATI drivers do offer similar functionality given the right tweaker. If you want to get on ATIS case about driver functionality, Ask them for Super Sampling, or better LoD manipulation.

Ugh... I'd love for them to actually address super sampling... Wasn't that a "feature" of their cards @ one point? :?

 

[Tim Murray]

Apologise if these images are large but..

ATI drivers do offer similar functionality given the right tweaker. If you want to get on ATIS case about driver functionality, Ask them for Super Sampling, or better LoD manipulation.

Ugh... I'd love for them to actually address super sampling... Wasn't that a "feature" of their cards @ one point? :?

It was in the launch materials of R300, but they've repeatedly said it will never be enabled.

 

[radar1200gs]

Chris, don't forget ATi does not like 3rd party tweakers - they generate nasty support calls (ATi is a very nice company to support software they never wrote I must say ).

I fail to see the importance of z related tweaks as I have said before (and no, OpenGL Guy, I haven't changed my story, much as you would have loved me to). I guess ATi and Dave consider these tweaks more important because ATi's Z optimizations are more fragile than nVidia's.

 

[Dave Baumann]

It was enabled for Apple versions of 9x00 because it works naturally with OpenGL. It's not been enabled under DX because you need lots of app specific workarounds for apps that have overlays set to the target resolution (which with SSAA enabled won't actually be the resolution of the buffer).

 

[ChrisRay]

It was enabled for Apple versions of 9x00 because it works naturally with OpenGL. It's not been enabled under DX because you need lots of app specific workarounds for apps that have overlays set to the target resolution (which with SSAA enabled won't actually be the resolution of the buffer).

Hmm thats interesting since Nvidia supports Super Sampling under Direct3d, And not openGL (with the exception of its 8xS method which is a hybrid method anyway) The only way to get super sampling for the Nv4x/NV3x/NV2x in OpenGL so far is to enable NV1x compatibility mode.

 

[Dave Baumann]

That's because the workarounds had been built up in NVIDIA's drivers since GF2 (and I think it mainly really related to older apps as well), the UDA carries these through to later boards. ATI started their UDA with R300 which meant there was no carry over from the workarounds they would have put in to R1/200's drivers. I should imagine that they just took the decision that the work and support to do it again wasn't worth the payoff.

For OpenGL I believe that NVIDIA are actually using the defined multisample extensions (which now has support for mixed Multi/Super sampling IIRC) for their multisample capable boards - SSAA are probably driver worarounds to do it.

 

[ChrisRay]

That's because the workarounds had been built up in NVIDIA's drivers since GF2 (and I think it mainly really related to older apps as well), the UDA carries these through to later boards. ATI started their UDA with R300 which meant there was no carry over from the workarounds they would have put in to R1/200's drivers. I should imagine that they just took the decision that the work and support to do it again wasn't worth the payoff.

Perhaps you can better explain these work arounds, ((I'm curious to your insights on this) From my experience with older Geforce products and the Super Sampling implementation in Nvidia's drivers (For non Nv2x products) They dont appear to be the same implementation. Then again I'd have to get my hands on a Geforce 2 and actually compare them again but afaik they werent the same as the super sampling available on my Geforce 2 MX)

 

[Dave Baumann]

Sorry, just updated the other post - take a look at that for an explaination of what I think is occuring with OpenGL.

The issue with DX is that there are some game that have a 2D overlay - take an older flightsim for instance - if you are in the cockpit view the surround could well just be a 2D overlay; the size of the overlay may be set at the target resolution (hell, much older one may have benn set to a particular size!). The problem is that with SSAA the resolution you are rendering at is a multiple of the target resolution and it can screw up the overlay image.

3dfx's SSAA never suffered these issues because they were effectively just rendering 4 images at the target resolution and so the overlay would just get rendered 4 times as well, but each as the target res.

 

[Sxotty]

So no one commented on what I was saying, has anyone actually noticed that before though?

That Gamma corrected AA makes things like power lines in games look funny like they have a furry edge, or something or a halo. Anyway I think it could be improved upon is all I am saying, I do like it though.

 

[OpenGL guy]

Chris, don't forget ATi does not like 3rd party tweakers - they generate nasty support calls (ATi is a very nice company to support software they never wrote I must say ).

What are you going on about? Do you not believe me when I say that third party tweakers have caused conflicts with ATI's control panel?

I fail to see the importance of z related tweaks as I have said before (and no, OpenGL Guy, I haven't changed my story, much as you would have loved me to).

Is that so? Let me refresh your memory:

Provide all the optimizations you like. I don't mind, just make them optional and let the user or the app decide (user decides through app profiles/cp, app decides through default or app preference setting). Don't force settings on people.

So you're against shader optimizers, early Z rejection, Z compression, color compression, etc.? What a strange person. No one is going to allow such controls because it's simply not necessary.

I never said I was against them. Get yourself some reading skills.

They should never be the only options (or even the default options IMO). Enable them or disable them as you please not at the pleasure of nVidia or Ati.

Note that "them" refers to "shader optimizers, early Z rejection, Z compression, color compression, etc.".

I think you will find that many ordinary people are better acquainted with their video control panel than you give them credit for. They may not always fully understand why a setting has the effect it does, but that doesn't stop them experimenting and knowing the results the like.

Like I said early on, provide sensible defaults by all means, but allow those who want to change things to change them.

The reason OpenGL guy trys to twist my words and argue with me is because most of ATi's optimizations are built into the hardware and cannot be disabled, there is no alternate method. Most of nVidia's optimizations by contrast are driver level and the hardware is capable of traditional operation. So Ati has little choice but to oppose choice, to coverup the fact their hardware operates only in shortcut mode.

More nonsense. Please explain what "shortcut" you are referring to.

Z compression can be turned on and off in rivatuner if desired, Gamma correct AA may not be an Optimization in that it does not speed anything up, but it does modify the image you see. Anything that can modify the image you see should be toggleable.

If it doesn't matter if Z compression can be disabled, why bring it up? Oh wait, you're trying to show how much more configurable things are in nvidia-land.

Rivatuner is a very popular tweaking tool for nVidia (and I believe Ati) users. It allows you to adjust driver parameters normally hidden from you. It has nothing to do with nVidia's control panel.

Z compression etc are not useful optimizations for the end-user to control (because they do not directly affect image quality). The end-user should however have control of anything that affects image quality. This includes texture/shader filtering, AA etc - basically everything you find in nVidia's profiles. One thing currently missing that should be there given how much IHV's love to fiddle with it behind consumers backs is control over texture LOD.

And here you say that Z compression is not something you want to tweak, yet you mention that rivatuner allows tweaking of settings that are hidden. But are completely ignorant about the fact that it can change hidden settings on ATI cards as well.

I guess ATi and Dave consider these tweaks more important because ATi's Z optimizations are more fragile than nVidia's.

More baseless nonsense.

Why do you continue? You make posts based on no facts whatsoever. You don't respond when your errors are pointed out but continue to stumble on blindly. What's your purpose here? You even contradict yourself and fail to notice it.

Check mate.

 

[radar1200gs]

Opengl guy, you are ASSuming too much about what I wrote. I have only talked about optimizationsthat affect what gets displayed. You are basing your entire attack on me over the fact that i didn't preface optimizations with IQ or display in one post.

And FYI, I'm not ignorant of the fact that rivatuner can be used with ATui cards, I even stated as much in a post.

Keep ASSuming, fool.

 

[OpenGL guy]

Opengl guy, you are ASSuming too much about what I wrote. I have only talked about optimizationsthat affect what gets displayed. You are basing your entire attack on me over the fact that i didn't preface optimizations with IQ or display in one post.

So it's my job to guess what you're thinking? Not my fault you can't make a coherent argument.

And FYI, I'm not ignorant of the fact that rivatuner can be used with ATui cards, I even stated as much in a post.

Except that you don't know what settings can be adjusted so all of your points about how "ATI optimization can't be disabled" are bogus. Of course, we all know how much weight to give your "thoughts".

Keep ASSuming, fool.

I'm the fool? Look in the mirror sometime, Mr. IEEE 754.

 

[hovz]

openglguy spend less time arguing with this genius. youll live longer

 

[MasterBaiter]

I think radar1200gs is taking things too far @ this point. If anyone is being an ass it's him. I would suggest locking the thread @ this point.

 

[Pete]

Chris, don't forget ATi does not like 3rd party tweakers - they generate nasty support calls (ATi is a very nice company to support software they never wrote I must say ).

No one likes third-party tweakers, but wasn't it ATi to whom Omega migrated to after nV got a little upset with his drivers? Maybe I'm missing the 's significance.

Anyway, not like that matters to many people. I can sympathize with any company not liking third-party tweakers. In fact, I just installed a 9700P (from a 9100 with a simple add/remove), and I got two BSODs from clicking on display properties>settings>advanced. I *think* it was due to a previous (and forgotten) RadLinker install, though honestly I didn't want to waste time with another BSOD, so I just uninstalled RadLinker and then the CCC drivers and simply installed the non-CCC set.

 

[radar1200gs]

OpenGL guy claims 3rd party tweakers cause (unecessary) support calls for ATi.

Frankly, that is bullshit. ATi never wrote the tweaker, they have no obligation what soever to provide any form of support for it.

If they do provide support, it is by their own conscious decision to do so. Nothing else requires them to provide the support.