More ATI Driver News from Derek Smart

[Derek Smart [3000AD]]

Interestingly enough, I see this in both OGL and D3D so might be some 8500 code that needs reworking to handle texture layering on the 9700 better.

That is my guess too, which is why I presented shots from the 8500 and 9700 Pro.

However, ATI says that they know what the problem is, but OpenGL_Guy sees it fit not to say what it is. Yet, he found time to post an entire diatribe of particularly useless information which bear zero relevance to the problem(s) at hand. Go figure.

 

[HogWash]

Re: Pathetic

Derek is using the word in the way everyone uses it, so just STFU already and let it go.

My problem with your post is it ignores statements I made in my post, mainly by agreeing with them in conclusion and repeating the gist of them, yet condemning me for addressing the same issue without using colorful abbreviations such as "STFU". Also, you seem to not realize that every person who you name by name was discussing this prior to my post being made.

I was not addressing the EXACT content of your post so much as it being useless drivel and a waste of time. This is why I didn't waste my time responding to each of your individual comments. I didn't ignore your statements or mean in any way to agree with them or repeat the gist of them. The only reason for my post was because of your post. If the post were not such nonsense in the first place, I would have had no need to reply.

In case you didn't notice, I was responding to the issues some of the people you mention have with the word broken, not creating the issue myself. This makes your post seem a bit contradictory.

Your 'response to the issues' already raised makes no difference. Do you think that Derek didn't know what you had said without you saying it? Hardly. You enlightened him with your impressive explanation of "broken"... yeah, right.

He could very well have wasted 15 minutes of his time to explain exactly what TnL issue was broken to everyone who knows absolutely nothing about what he's talking about, but that would be a waste of his time. He's stated repeatedly he's not in this discussion to inform those who know nothing about the topic.

Bottom line: Nothing was gained by you making that post. He would be much more likely to clarify the issue to a developer (or other person part of this discussion prior to 'the definition of broken') than responding to your condescending post (asserting that he knew nothing of why people were looking for clarification)

As I've suggested before, one shot posters on BOTH sides of the "Derek Smart" fence, please stay away?

First of all, what does "One Shot Posters" have to do with anything? I get so tired of people on all boards bitching about "newbies", etc posting something. They have no right to post on "your board". Give me a break. Just because people don't spend their days posting away on this board, or happen to come upon this discussion linked from another site, doesn't mean they have no right to respond. I could very well have 2000 posts on another forum related to any number of things, but that has no bearing here... which is exactly how post count should be regarded. It means nothing.

Derek made a nice reference regarding how people that have been on boards for a while tend to lean towards fellow regular trafficers for support and stop "newbies" from posting. Fine example, this.

 

[Sharkfood]

Yeah, but OpenGL Guy's diatribes are MUCH more entertaining than boring, driver discussions.

I've seen similar problems early on in the 8500's lifespan with multitexturing. I think your average user playing most games see it but just don't notice it as most layering (example above exluded) are subtle enough for them to be disregarded as some form of "flicker" in motion.. and in most cases, I'm only seeing it in *very* far away surfaces.

Your engine and the example I've given are the rare birds that illustrate it at a viewing distance and of a layering degree that make it readily apparent. I just wasnt sure if in your engine if the additional layers appear *at all* but if you can change viewing distance/angle and "pop!" there they are, it's the same-same.

Cheers,
-Shark

 

[Dave Baumann]

Texturing issues may not necessarily be representative of an issue with multitexturing though. I don't know if you've ever witnessed 'Fablemark' on an 8500 but this is a texture flicker fest - AFAIK PowerVR actually believe this to be down to lack of precision from the vertex shader.

 

[Geeforcer]

Lets thing of simple circuit, and draw analogy. If there is a faulty switch in the circuit (case 1) that cannot be closed, everyone will agree that the circuit is broken; cut and dry. Now imagine that there is a low-quality resistor (case 2) that breaks down when current trough it exceeds certain value. From a standpoint of a person who needs to have that much current pass trough his circuit, cases 1 and 2 are one and the same. If I had had this problem, I would declare the thing to be outright broken, no matter how many million people have no problem.

But thing are even more complex. What if the current I an using is slightly beyond manuspeck? (2.52 A vs 0-2.50A plus-minus 0.05A)? For 15 years, I've been using this circuit slightly overspeck with no problems. However, I bought more last week and resistor breaks down. Would I be upset? YES. Would I call manufacturer and complain that something that I've been using for years stopped working? YES. But would manufacturer have a right to tell me to bugger off, since because something worked overpseck doesn't mean it is guaranteed to? HELL YES.

However, what if my problem occurs at 2.25A? That certainly changes the situation. If manufacturer told me that they had no complains because no one uses this same current, I would explode - it is within specks. And I don't care whether or not it works for anyone else to me the thing is a broken as the one with a faulty switch. If some were to tell me that I couldn't use "blanket broken" simply bacuse it works for others, I would be furious - I don't care for a second about that. It doesn't work for me while it should, hence its broken, period.

To sum it up - the whole thing is one huge gray area. Just because something stopped working doesn't mean it is broken. On the other hand, because something works for 99.9995% of the populous does not mean it is NOT broken.

 

[Derek Smart [3000AD]]

Texturing issues may not necessarily be representative of an issue with multitexturing though. I don't know if you've ever witnessed 'Fablemark' on an 8500 but this is a texture flicker fest - AFAIK PowerVR actually believe this to be down to lack of precision from the vertex shader.

Dave, in my case, it IS an issue with MT. How can you even look at those shots and say otherwise?

Anyway, with all due respect, please don't attempt to confuse and fuzzify the situation any further. Thank you.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Anyway, with all due respect, please don't attempt to confuse and fuzzify the situation any further. Thank you.

I'm not, I'm just pointing something out - point of fact there are no such issues present on 9700 at all with Fablemark (although 9000 retains this from 8500). However, just because some texturing issues occur on one generation doesn't necessarily mean that the next has the same issues for the same reasons.

 

[hax]

Sharkfood...How is that a multitexture problem? It looks like a polygon offset issue, either the app is not using polygon offset and drawing co-planar polygons, or polygon offset may have a bug in the driver.

I'd say the app is laying down multiple co-planar polygons without polygon offset applied between each layer, I wouldn't exactly call that multitexturing. There are instances where that may be allowable, due to invariance rules, provided they are strictly followed. Only the app writer and/or driver writer can say whether or not that is the case.

 

[Derek Smart [3000AD]]

Sharkfood...How is that a multitexture problem? It looks like a polygon offset issue, either the app is not using polygon offset and drawing co-planar polygons, or polygon offset may have a bug in the driver.

I'd say the app is laying down multiple co-planar polygons without polygon offset applied between each layer, I wouldn't exactly call that multitexturing. There are instances where that may be allowable, due to invariance rules, provided they are strictly followed. Only the app writer and/or driver writer can say whether or not that is the case.

Thats not the case Hax because I already took care of those ATI related ZBIAS problems. But since OpenGL_Guy isn't saying what the problem is, all we can do is guess.

I have NO idea what specifically the problem is and am only going by ATI dev support telling me that it is in fact an MT problem and that they've found it and will be fixing it. If its something else, nobody is saying what it is. So, I'm going by what I observe is happening.

ps: I was wondering when you were going to show up

Secondly, why the hell would you even seed the near clip plane with 0.001? Obviously if you're trying to model an entire universe from human scale to planetary scale, you're gonna run into z fighting issues. It's up to you to fix those by partitioning the zbuffer, doing multiple passes with multiple z-clears, or whatever.

Thanks for posting pretty much what I already stated I have been doing over THREE YEARS now as it is the only way to achieve the results I want - even with a W buffer.

Yes, I know, comprehension skills for some around here at an all time low, but I would think that a game developar like you, would know enough to read before you post. And when you post, to realize that you're not talking to some entry-level script kiddie.

W-Buffering is dead. It's been long dead, give it up. Stop your whining and move on like the rest of us have.

To you it might be dead. I'm not concerned about it being dead. You need to go back and read what I've written in this regard because befuddling it, is not going to get you anywhere.

And yeah, I still think you're an egomaniac. In one of your posts you went off about what a GREAT programmer you are. In my experience, I've found those people who claim to be great programmers to be the shitty programmers. That combined with your "Better Than Thou" attitude makes for a superb combination!

I could care less what YOU or ANYONE thinks. Yes, I am a DAMN GOOD developer and I consider myself to be one of the very best, at that. Egomaniac or not, I like me more than I like the git sitting next to you. As such, I only care about my skills - not yours or his.

And ONCE AGAIN, you haven't answered my question, WHAT makes you a game developer and WHAT game have you developed and/or working on. I ask because you sound a tad jealous. Maybe you should work harder and actually, well, DO something worth considering. Then, just maybe then, you'll be able to engage me in meaningful rhetoric worthy of game developers - instead of just blindly attacking me and expect me to roll over and play blow me.

Until then, to me, you're just a talentless hack, regurgitating stuff others have already posted in search of your very own potshot badge. Here it is then, shove it.

Remember, you started it. Next time, think TWICE before jumping into thread and posting an off-topic attack piece.

 

[hax]

]Thats not the case Hax because I already took care of those ATI related ZBIAS problems. But since OpenGL_Guy isn't saying what the problem is, all we can do is guess.

I have NO idea what specifically the problem is and am only going by ATI dev support telling me that it is in fact an MT problem and that they've found it and will be fixing it. If its something else, nobody is saying what it is. So, I'm going by what I observe is happening.

ps: I was wondering when you were going to show up

Hehe, hi. I try to stay out of contests of will.

I'm not sure where those shots from Sharkfood came from (meaning which app), but that clearly is not a multitexturing problem. Multitexturing problems tend to manifest itself in consistent corruption since it is an equation that is applied uniformly across polygons, based on the input textures.

To me, the image looks like some sort of depth buffer conflict (i.e. z-fighting, or polygon offset issue) when there is some clipping happening. Look at the triangular shape that extends from a point on the polygon to points off-screen. That has similar patterns to a triangle that is generated during clipping. The other pertinent piece of information (from Sharkfood) is that it occurs when the point of view is altered. Depending on the other polygon layers and how they are drawn, it may still be a polygon offset issue or an invariance issue, depending on the input streams. That means, are the streams identical (vertex data and primitive type) and are the states identical.

All I can say is, that image does not represent a multitexturing issue. As for ATi devrel telling you that is a multitexture problem...that's quite interesting. If it's being addressed in one form or another, that's all that really matters. Sometimes it does take time for communication to trickle through the channels. You should hear something soon, if that is what was said to you. Otherwise, ping them again. They should, at least, tell you what the problem is.

 

[DemoCoder]

]

I could care less what YOU or ANYONE thinks. Yes, I am a DAMN GOOD developer and I consider myself to be one of the very best, at that. Egomaniac or not, I like me more than I like the git sitting next to you. As such, I only care about my skills - not yours or his.

If you don't care, why do you always show up when you are criticized and respond so strongly? You've got a thin skin, and you do care what other people say about you. If you didn't, you wouldn't invest so much time posting huge volumes of flames in usenet for years.

You're like a guy who claims he is one of the best film directors of all time, yet his movie took 7 years to complete, completely bombed at the box office, got no academy awards, and contained no innovation. Spielberg and Soderberg have bragging rights, you don't.

And ONCE AGAIN, you haven't answered my question, WHAT makes you a game developer and WHAT game have you developed and/or working on.

You don't have to be a game developer to know when someone's being an ass and you don't need any technical skills to realize that a game is buggy or not fun, especially one that was in development for 5+ years.

Derek, on what objective basis can you consider yourself "one of the best" developers? You've never shipped a game that made the top ten, you took way longer to develop it then other games that made the top ten, and your releases were filled with far more bugs. No one in the games industry recognizes you for your achievements, you are recognized for your infamy. Shouldn't that alone tell you there is a mismatch between your ego and reality?


In the grand scheme of things, your game ranks somewhere between Daikatana and Redneck Rampage, both in value bins at Walmart. Visually unimpressive, and I don't care about your usage of neural nets. Trepasser and Black and White tried the same thing, and both games sucked (but B&W was far better produced than yours, and Lionhead doesn't make an ass of itself bragging about engine features in forums)


If you want to be recognized as "one of the best", you're going to have to change your attitude. No matter how good your technical accomplishments, your behavior just turns people off. There are many other developers in this world that are capable, and the ones that get positive public reception are going to be those that don't run around forums name calling because someone criticized them. They also don't lie, and they publish their results. Maybe you have done some ground breaking work in neural net applications in games, but how can people recognize your talents if they can't find your Phd publication?

 

[BoddoZerg]

pwned

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Damnit, DemoCoder...don't get all sane and logical on me now.

 

[Doomtrooper]

I kind of liked Redneck Rampage

 

[RussSchultz]

I kind of liked Redneck Rampage

Especially with the cuss pack.

Reminds me of my roots.

 

[KimB]

The lack of Dx 9 being here for this card, and the of the final lack AGP 3.0 specification (Intel just released the final AGP 3.0 spec yesterday)

, yet SIS and VIA have AGP 8x boards out already and are some of issues that are giving 9700 owners grief...without final spec how did these two chipset companies make AGP 8X chipsets already

http://mirror.ati.com/companyinfo/press/2002/4534.html

You forgot to say, how can ATI have released an AGP 8x card already? The door swings both ways.

 

[fresh]

]
And ONCE AGAIN, you haven't answered my question, WHAT makes you a game developer and WHAT game have you developed and/or working on. I ask because you sound a tad jealous. Maybe you should work harder and actually, well, DO something worth considering. Then, just maybe then, you'll be able to engage me in meaningful rhetoric worthy of game developers - instead of just blindly attacking me and expect me to roll over and play blow me.

Until then, to me, you're just a talentless hack, regurgitating stuff others have already posted in search of your very own potshot badge. Here it is then, shove it.

Remember, you started it. Next time, think TWICE before jumping into thread and posting an off-topic attack piece.

Blah blah I'm the best blah blah I rock blah blah.

I read a lot of your posts before I finally had enough.

See, the difference between you and me is that I don't really need to brag on here about who I am or what I have shipped or what I'm going to ship. Looking at your game reminds me of Elite, except with texture mapping. I don't know how you're pushing the envelope on a Voodoo2, let alone a Radeon 9700. Maybe the interpolator on the texture unit is running out of precision when you're trying to texture map you 1,000,000km^2 planet with a 128x128 4 bit texture? Maybe the internal vertex FIFO isn't getting flushed because you're only submitting 9 vertex models? I love those pictures you posted. I think the eye ball in one of our characters has more triangles and a higher res texture than your entire planet.

I had my list of games typed out here, but I deleted it because I don't really care if you know or not. I like to keep anonymous. All you need to know is that I've shipped games for PS2, Xbox, GC and PC. The PS2 skus alone have sold more than 2 million. And no, I'm not a tester or something taking credit for it. I did the graphics engines.. from scratch. But hey, what do I know? I'm nowhere near the level of your expertise, Mr. Tough Guy Developer! lol. Let me know when BC3000AD ships 3000 copies and I'll send you a signed copy of my million seller to celebrate.

thankyoucomeagain

 

[borzwazie]

Derek, while I respect the work you do, your efforts here are totally wasted.

If you, as a professional developer, cannot act or respond above the level of a 12-year old child, then go back to your own forums.

I like the fact that real, live driver developers post here. I like the fact that industry professionals post relevant information here. I would really like if _you_ emulated that behavior, as you have demonstrated that you can (when you want to.) And yes, I've been using your product even when it was even buggier than ATI's...a little game you made way back in the day...BC3k, anyone? Sure, I know how it all worked out, publisher difficulties and whatnot. I know it's a complicated process. it's all good now.

But it's not like ATI's a bunch of thugs in jackboots that oppress the free world...geez, its a video card. It can't even get you laid.

Try taking a page from John Carmack's book when it comes to responsible, but direct observations of graphics cards and their drivers.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Especially with the cuss pack.

Reminds me of my roots.

Perhaps a little background music is in order! Seems pretty fitting for this thread on several levels...

 

[Reverend]

I believe the main thing is the difference between "accomplishments" and "achievements" and how each individual views the difference between the two and which one they take more pride in.