PS3 NEWS:conversion for S3TC compressed textures (DXT1 - 5)

[pixelbox]

Delete if old. I was just searching the web and found this at ign.com:http://ps3.ign.com/articles/684/684400p1.html

This could be the problem solver for that HDR + AA issue PS3 has...

 

[London Geezer]

This could be the problem solver for that HDR + AA issue PS3 has...

How? Why?

 

[Titanio]

This is just an image editor, now with native support for PS3 texture/image formats.

It has nothing to do with HDR or AA. Approaches to the HDR/MSAA "issue" on PS3 has been discussed on this very board already..

 

[Deathlike2]

Without trying to think too much... texture compression has ZERO to do with HDR+AA... there's plenty of stuff around on Beyond3D that discusses that aspect... if not Beyond3D.. somewhere else.

 

[pixelbox]

Without trying to think too much... texture compression has ZERO to do with HDR+AA... there's plenty of stuff around on Beyond3D that discusses that aspect... if not Beyond3D.. somewhere else.

obviously i don't know much about the new tech but i could've sworn texture compression could help bandwith issues. I remember when people said if ps2 would've had texture compression, it would be able to compete with gamecube. Now, that compression, i've seen it before in gamecube...didn't it help with bandwith on the gamecube?

 

[pixelbox]

Without trying to think too much... texture compression has ZERO to do with HDR+AA... there's plenty of stuff around on Beyond3D that discusses that aspect... if not Beyond3D.. somewhere else.

I know, with that fake HDR. I would like to have both HDR and AA, so i thought allowing compressed textures to pass through bandwith will allow more room to do AA. I thought HDR shared some texture values.

 

[pixelbox]

How? Why?

Isn't bandwith the issue here with having HDR with AA? Don't textures on ps3 have to be streamed?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

RSX supporting texture compression was a given. No-one was expecting it to have to work on uncompressed data. If that were the case, then yes, texture compression would alleviate a lot of BW demand - that's why they've got it

 

[Titanio]

I know, with that fake HDR.

/cries

 

[London Geezer]

Isn't bandwith the issue here with having HDR with AA? Don't textures on ps3 have to be streamed?

Thing is that texture compression was always there, so the HDR-AA problem was there already even with compressed textures (bandwidth is only one of the problems with the HDR-AA issue here anyway).

 

[pixelbox]

RSX supporting texture compression was a given. No-one was expecting it to have to work on uncompressed data. If that were the case, then yes, texture compression would alleviate a lot of BW demand - that's why they've got it

Yeah i'm kinda stuck in the ps2 days

 

[pixelbox]

Thing is that texture compression was always there, so the HDR-AA problem was there already even with compressed textures (bandwidth is only one of the problems with the HDR-AA issue here anyway).

Well, before the thread closes could you please tell me the other issues preventing HDR+AA from working well on ps3?

 

[Titanio]

Well, before the thread closes could you please tell me the other issues preventing HDR+AA from working well on ps3?

There's nothing preventing it working well.

Simply the most straightforward way, the "traditional" hardware supported way does not support HDR and MSAA at the same time. The alternatives are to use another type of AA (SSAA), or to work something out in the shaders (NAO32). The latter is not "faking" it (at least, not any more than any other implementation is).

 

[London Geezer]

Read. It's good for you. Or just wait for much more patient posters to explain it for the 823234314th time.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Simply the most straightforward way, the "traditional" hardware supported way does not support HDR and MSAA at the same time.

Though that is assuming RSX has the same limitations as G70, which is unconfirmed, so it could be FP16 and MSAA is possible on PS3. This doesn't overcome the BW problems obviously. I hope there are sufficient workarounds. I really like the particle effects on PS2 and want to see more, not less!

 

[Deathlike2]

I know, with that fake HDR. I would like to have both HDR and AA, so i thought allowing compressed textures to pass through bandwith will allow more room to do AA. I thought HDR shared some texture values.

It has nothing to do with "fake" or "real" HDR.

It has everything to do with the hardware being designed to support it.

obviously i don't know much about the new tech but i could've sworn texture compression could help bandwith issues. I remember when people said if ps2 would've had texture compression, it would be able to compete with gamecube. Now, that compression, i've seen it before in gamecube...didn't it help with bandwith on the gamecube?

Texture compression does help bandwidth issues and memory consumption.. but that's about it. I'm pretty sure there are in depth articles on other sites regarding consoles.. you're going to have to google for them yourself. I do presume texture compression, if being used in the game (and obviously has to be supported by the console).. will probably benefit the game (it is a developer decision to use the texture compression capability of the console if there is any to be used in their game). It is supposed to be transparent to the user (the user should not really be able to notice the difference whether or not it is used).

 

[London Geezer]

Though that is assuming RSX has the same limitations as G70, which is unconfirmed, so it could be FP16 and MSAA is possible on PS3. This doesn't overcome the BW problems obviously. I hope there are sufficient workarounds. I really like the particle effects on PS2 and want to see more, not less!

Well we surely won't have less than PS2. But i think they might be less than X360, seen how things are going.

 

[Richard]

It has nothing to do with "fake" or "real" HDR.

It has everything to do with the hardware being designed to support it.

Generally true but not exactly; depending on the type of HDR you're doing (fp textures or not) the use of AA may be tied to the hardware implementation used. And assuming fp textures for HDR they can't be compressed with DXTn anyway (and AFAIK, any other compression format).

 

[Titanio]

Though that is assuming RSX has the same limitations as G70, which is unconfirmed, so it could be FP16 and MSAA is possible on PS3. This doesn't overcome the BW problems obviously. I hope there are sufficient workarounds. I really like the particle effects on PS2 and want to see more, not less!

I would not generalise BW as a problem..

As for particles, what we've seen so far does not indicate a problem (Lair, MGS4 for example). It's been discussed before, though, there would be more exotic solutions if it ever did become a problem.

 

[Deathlike2]

Generally true but not exactly; depending on the type of HDR you're doing (fp textures or not) the use of AA may be tied to the hardware implementation used. And assuming fp textures for HDR they can't be compressed with DXTn anyway (and AFAIK, any other compression format).

I forgot about that.. but yea, that's important as well.