Edited by DB: It was only a few clicks away, lets not waste too much database space please.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5589
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5589
Deano speaketh PS2
- Thread starter chaphack
- Start date
Deepak said:
Err thats not a nick, thats my real name, actually its Dean Calver but every calls me Deano.
Deepak said:
BF (i.e. Brute Force) is a technique, it means not doing anything smart, just chucking things at the hardware. Sometimes it works as hardware is usually very fast but dumb. A PS2 specific example is back face culling. Usually back face culling should speed things up (it quickly removes ~50% of your polygons), but the PS2 GS is so fast at rendering small triangles that its faster to NOT do back face culling (usually). So we let brute force (the pure speed of the GS) solve the problem for us.
Of course if you can find a 'smart' solution (faster than brute force) than you don't use brute force. A good example is the shadow rendering in Doom3, JC is doing some 'smart' beam tree stuff, to reduce the shadow volume polygons if he didn't it would be very slow even on really fast hardware.
For the jungle renderer, we have to use smart techniques/tricks to make is look like we are rendering millions of polygons (for the trees, bushes, vines, etc) but doing it with a lot less polygons. Another way of thinking about brute force, is how many polygons it would take to render the scene if your CPU couldn't do anything, imagine a 1Mhz CPU connected to a 10Ghz Geforce2. You could get good graphics, just by letting the GPU render millions and millions of polygons per frame, but if you have 1 Ghz CPU with a 200 Mhz Geforce2 you may be able to use 'smart' techniques to produce a scene that looks the same but has a lot less polygons.
marconelly!
Veteran
Deano, what game is your team working on?
Oops! Deano = DenoC? 
Brute Force != Xbox Brute Force?
Still its better to have it here, than the developers forums. The place sounds like you speaking to yourself. Interactivity dear, interactivity!
Got a question for j00!
Isnt that what you are getting with newer cards? High polygon + pixel lighting? Why then would you still prefer PS2 raw polygon thing?
Brute Force != Xbox Brute Force?
Still its better to have it here, than the developers forums. The place sounds like you speaking to yourself. Interactivity dear, interactivity!
Got a question for j00!
Isnt that what you are getting with newer cards? High polygon + pixel lighting? Why then would you still prefer PS2 raw polygon thing?
I don't think that's what he was implying chap. He wants to see a high polygon count in games along with per pixel lighting. It's not that current cards can't support both, it's that with PC games development the games must be targeted a wide range of cards all the way to budget cards of a previous generation. With that being said, it's easier for devs on the PC to go for lower polygons as more PC's will be able to support the game. With PS2 there really isn't a problem when it comes to limiting characters in terms of polygons. It's one of the tradeoffs I guess. With PS2 you get to have a lot of geometry.
Of course this could be completely off base of what Deano was saying.
Of course this could be completely off base of what Deano was saying.
Yes it should, but I think triangle setup and RAM might be hindering it. One thing that should be understood is that verticies have to be stored somewhere and streaming off the HDD isn't an option as far as I understand it. Also, if you're using hardware lights, your throughput will drop by a factor of the number of lights being used.
zurich said:Following Dean's thought, shouldn't the XBox be just plain bitchin' then?
Isn't it? Isn't that why Criterion used twice as many polygons as PS2 for each car for the Xbox version of Burnout 2? Isn't that why ERP used 25,000 polygons for each car in the cancelled ERP racer?
bbot said:zurich said:Following Dean's thought, shouldn't the XBox be just plain bitchin' then?
Isn't it? Isn't that why Criterion used twice as many polygons as PS2 for each car for the Xbox version of Burnout 2? Isn't that why ERP used 25,000 polygons for each car in the cancelled ERP racer?
I suppose, whats with the rhetorical questions?
marconelly!
Veteran
I thought it was just player's car, but nevermid, yeah Xbox obviously can move more polys than PS2, probably quite a bit more when it comes to multitextured polys.
zurich said:Following Dean's thought, shouldn't the XBox be just plain bitchin' then?
Xbox is nice, damn fast... Vertex throughput is high (but it does drop pretty fast once you turn a few lights on...), fillrate could be better... but in general the Xbox has good 'raw' hardware.
BUT from a developer 'playing' with things point of view, the PS2 is interesting. Programming for the PS2 is a pain in the arse when deadlines are rapidly approaching but can be very interesting when you've got some time to play with it. PS2 has the most flexible vertex units and massive fillrate, but you have to work hard to get good results.
Given a tight deadline, I'd definately prefer Xbox but given long enough the PS2 lets you get down and dirty (and the extra audience doesn't hurt
).I've never worked on Gamecube so that would be interesting...
chaphack said:Yes, just how targetting for a wide range target is? I have heard many a times that PC developers are held back by compatibility blah blah yadayada crap.
Yep spot on, I'd love to be able to work on a game for just ATI R9800 Pro but somehow I'd have problems convincing a publisher to fund it
Even things like Hardware TnL are only just becoming minimum spec. A title for this christmas, might get away with a P700 with Geforce 1 min spec Even a big man in the PC arena like John Carmack's games, have to be able to run on Geforce 2 and he has a lot more sway over publishers than most of us.
marconelly!
Veteran
Deano, is your title still a secret or can we know some more details about it. At least what genre it is, what platforms, etc... Basic details like that.
