RSX: Vertex input limited? *FKATCT

[nAo]

What is the real catch though?
I mean everyone seems to agree that it should be relatively trivial, and c/c++ shaders aren't new nor "unportable". Why don't Sony provide a library or sample implementation for SPU vertex shading? After all a couple of SPUs are better than five of them, costwise.
I'd think it's much beneficial than pixel visibility culling under MSAA.

EDGE is available with source code, it's very easy to add and remove a module if you don't want to perform any culling.
Different games require different optimization strategies..

 

[Frank]

Why does skinning require textures?

If you're only going to do UV, it doesn't. I should have said that better.

 

[....]

"Tiene unos" would still be "has some" or "contains" or "has roughly".... 6 million polygons. Tiene -> has unos -> some

So it still hints completly to the whole level. :smile:


So he is talking about how the level is one of the biggest and contains lots of polygons for a FPS level.



I'll crawl back now into my cave...

It was due to the later part of the sentence that I thought it might mean something else, but it is true that it makes more sense if it is refering to the whole level. Though, it isn't that impressive then, when one looks at jak 1 island(whole world) having 50M. Even a small chunk of the island should have about the same number of polygons. Jak's an early ps2 title, this is ps3.

 

[Neb]

It was due to the later part of the sentence that I thought it might mean something else, but it is true that it makes more sense if it is refering to the whole level. Though, it isn't that impressive then, when one looks at jak 1 island(whole world) having 50M. Even a small chunk of the island should have about the same number of polygons. Jak's an early ps2 title, this is ps3.

As far as I know the game with most polygons per frame (peak) was Either Ratchet ? or Jak ? with about ~125000polygons (on PS2). That is far less than many console games for this gen.

Dont forget about LOD's to. It shaves of a lot of polygons without making huge sacrifices (well it is up to the devs and the platform perfomance). For example on Crysis Island level (same as in demo to) it shows 2.8million polygons frame (ingameplay), turning of LOD for terrain it shows me 14.9million polygons per frame. But small visual difference. The whole Island without LOD's should have some sick numbers in it! :smile:

 

[....]

As far as I know the game with most polygons per frame (peak) was Either Ratchet ? or Jak ? with about ~125000polygons (on PS2). That is far less than many console games for this gen.

Dont forget about LOD's to. It shaves of a lot of polygons without making huge sacrifices (well it is up to the devs and the platform perfomance). For example on Crysis Island level (same as in demo to) it shows 2.8million polygons frame (ingameplay), turning of LOD for terrain it shows me 14.9million polygons per frame. But small visual difference. The whole Island without LOD's should have some sick numbers in it! :smile:

Well, a chunk of the island would probably have about 5-6M polygons. For a ps3 title to have the same amount is simply nothing to brag about. With LOD, and considering the system can push much more per frame, I would've hoped for noticeably higher polygon counts for entire levels. Though maybe it's real small(despite being the biggest in uncharted), I've yet to see it.

 

[Arwin]

Honestly ND would only talk about per frame numbers, don't you think? Otherwise it's a totally uninteresting number, unless perhaps they are bragging about how incredibly economical they have managed to be with polygons and still create a wonderfully looking game thanks to their great textures or something. And they wouldn't also stress that it's not so much the amount of polygons they are pushing, but the rather number of effects. Certainly with their framerate and occasional tearing, you don't expect much less than 4 million from them. The question is, though, of the 6 million they have in a scene together with all the effects, how many are effectively drawn, and how many are Edge'd out by an SPE?

 

[Frank]

That souds like about two polygons for each pixel territory.

 

[Arwin]

Yes, which is why I assume that a bunch of them will be Edge'd out.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

6 million polygons for a level is more then enough geometry, I don't understand why some people can't accept it and have to make it a per frame number...

 

[Panajev2001a]

6 million polygons for a level is more then enough geometry, I don't understand why some people can't accept it and have to make it a per frame number...

some people got amazed that Crash Bandicoot on PSOne pushed 2+ Million polygons for a level,

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3398/teaching_an_old_dog_new_bits_how_.php?page=3

(about 1-1.5 Million Polygons for Crash Bandicoot 1 levels and even about double that for Crash Bandicoot 2 levels [page 3-4])

Maybe people thinking about levels about only 3x as more detailed than Crash 2 levels feel a bit sad .

 

[AlNom]

6 million polygons for a level is more then enough geometry, I don't understand why some people can't accept it and have to make it a per frame number...

Neither do I, but I suppose if you want a point of comparison, Lost Planet and Dead Rising were supposedly pushing 3 to 4 million polygons in a frame (according to one's translation from way back when).

I haven't played Uncharted, but it still seems to a bit perplexing that the game is pushing 6M per frame when Dead Rising's poly count per frame was likely boosted by the rather large number of zombies on-screen.

And of course there is the matter of the 360 being a vertex processing beast (at least from what I recall from joker's posts).

 

[Betanumerical]

Neither do I, but I suppose if you want a point of comparison, Lost Planet and Dead Rising were supposedly pushing 3 to 4 million polygons in a frame (according to one's translation from way back when).

I haven't played Uncharted, but it still seems to a bit perplexing that the game is pushing 6M per frame when Dead Rising's poly count per frame was likely boosted by the rather large number of zombies on-screen.

And of course there is the matter of the 360 being a vertex processing beast (at least from what I recall from joker's posts).

with some of the dead rising screens I have seen, have lots of zombies covering the entire screen. Couldn't lots of that be culled?.

The one estimate I've heard is by IronPeter, one of the guys behind the RSX unlock (which has sadly, but expectedly, been patched with the latest firmware). He estimated one SPU to slightly exceed the vertex performance of a 6600 for a workload consisting of skinning and backface culling. A 660 has 3 vertex units, RSX/7800s have 8. This is in line with the number thrown earlier in this thread ("2 or 3 SPUs dedicated to geometry processing").

That sounds rather low to me. Why is so bad at it?, shouldn't by all accounts it be rather good at geometry processing?.

 

[Frank]

Yes, which is why I assume that a bunch of them will be Edge'd out.

Or REYE'd.

 

[Fran]

Why does skinning require textures?

You can store your animations in a texture (or more) and fetch bones from there via vfetch. It's slower, but you can potentially batch more stuff like hundreds of animated characters.