Unreal 3 Engine and SM 3.0

[Fodder]

Of topic here but has someone a link to the first D3 demonstration video at the Mac expo. The whole vid would be nice but i can´t seem to find it.

http://www.planetdoom.com/doom3/files/

 

[overclocked]

Thanks fodder.

 

[davepermen]

Re: sm3.0

I thought that VS 3.0 (geometry instancing f.e, although i don't know it that's available only in VS3.0) could increase speed a lot but that PS3.0 was more about "more features/easier for developers" but not necessarily faster.

hm.. vs... never used vs really for more than passtrough to ps well.. i'll have to check vs then.. but even so, they only added features. how you can use them for performance, i don't know, in case of vs.

the performance issue is simply described by realizing one thing: 2.0 and 3.0 run in the same place in hw, as 2.0 is a complete equivalent subset

 

[Bjorn]

Re: sm3.0

but even so, they only added features. how you can use them for performance, i don't know, in case of vs.

Dynamic branching ?

 

[GameCat]

dave, instancing makes more sense in Direct3D where the cost of making a draw call is very high. In OpenGL, it won't make as big a difference since draw calls are cheaper.

 

[Martillo1]

Re: sm3.0

He was talking about the development work they were doing on the new engine. Obviously there is nothing more than the current early development work as the game is still two years away.

We also don't know how X800 performs, but given that there is no SM3.0 in the UE3 tech demo and X800 is actually shipping before 6800, it would be interesting to know how X800 runs the tech demo.

I thought I had read this:

Designed to dramatically raise the bar of visual quality in 3D games, Unreal Engine 3 is the first game engine to take full advantage of Shader Model 3.0—a key feature of Microsoft DirectX 9.0—enabled only by the NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series of graphics processing units (GPUs).

So you say that the demo they showed to us does not feature SM3.0. True?

Rgrds

 

[davepermen]

Re: sm3.0

but even so, they only added features. how you can use them for performance, i don't know, in case of vs.

Dynamic branching ?

i won't have much use for it anyways, as i don't have any real use for vs anyways.. i can imagine some virtual scenarios with it, but still.. and vs are mostly not the bottleneck, people refer to ps most the time when they think of speeding up trough 3.0, i think.. and there, the branching doesn't gain much in most shaders, if at all. it costs, and most shaders work well without any logical branch in.

 

[Rys]

I'm pretty sure there's SM3.0 tech being demonstrated in the video. He mentions 64-bit FP a couple of times (hinting at it) and isn't there some displacement mapping at a couple of points (the brick wall section he demos is one I think) ?

Rys

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Re: sm3.0

So you say that the demo they showed to us does not feature SM3.0. True?

Rgrds

Yes. Epic stafff have been quoted as saying they only started looking at SM3.0 a couple of days before the NV40 launch, so there is no SM3.0 in the tech demo.

Of course that's not to say there won't be any SM3.0 in the final UE3 games, just that there isn't any in the current tech demo that Epic have been showing recently.

 

[Tim]

I'm pretty sure there's SM3.0 tech being demonstrated in the video. He mentions 64-bit FP a couple of times (hinting at it) and isn't there some displacement mapping at a couple of points (the brick wall section he demos is one I think) ?

64-bit FP =4x16 or partial precision. 64bit per component won’t be available for a long time.

It was not displacement mapping it was virtual displacement mapping/offset mapping/some other name which can be done without any problems with SM2.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I'm pretty sure there's SM3.0 tech being demonstrated in the video. He mentions 64-bit FP a couple of times (hinting at it) and isn't there some displacement mapping at a couple of points (the brick wall section he demos is one I think) ?

Rys

No, that's "virtual displacement mapping" which is not the same as true, SM3.0 displacement mapping (apparently).

 

[Sxotty]

BZB could you find some links to where Epic staff stated the demo did not have PS3.0 in it?

Thxs

 

[kipper67]

We fully plan to use PS3.0 but we got it a few days before the show so no work has been done on it yet.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=245872&highlight=#245872

That was talking about GDC , whether they managed to squeeze a few lines of SM3.0 code in before the NV40 launch is any ones guess.

The above was over a month ago and I'm pretty sure i was reading in the last week or so that they have now actually started implementing some of the NV40 specific stuff but I can't remember where I saw that quote.

Mark

 

[Ante P]

That was talking about GDC , whether they managed to squeeze a few lines of SM3.0 code in before the NV40 launch is any ones guess.

They didn't.

 

[fallguy]

And when is Unreal 3 due out.. ? By the time it is, these cards will be old news.

Hopefully it wont be as terrible as Unreal 2.

 

[Tim]

And when is Unreal 3 due out.. ? By the time it is, these cards will be old news.

Hopefully it wont be as terrible as Unreal 2.

The Unreal game based on Unreal Engine 3 should be released in 2006, don't count on it being Unreal 3.

 

[LisaJoy]

Re: sm3.0

i think games that take full advantage of sm3.0 will make a big difference on 6800gpu.

I think games that take full advantage of SM3 will be to slow to run on the NV40/NV45/R420/R480 class of hardware.

SM 3.0 did not help them in Fartcry.

 

[RejZoR]

Re: sm3.0

So you say that the demo they showed to us does not feature SM3.0. True?

Rgrds

Yes. Epic stafff have been quoted as saying they only started looking at SM3.0 a couple of days before the NV40 launch, so there is no SM3.0 in the tech demo.

Of course that's not to say there won't be any SM3.0 in the final UE3 games, just that there isn't any in the current tech demo that Epic have been showing recently.

Well the Nalu was most certanly developed with SM3.0 in mind.
Remember demos are always a closed projects from which there is no graphics engine sold (licensed),but we cannot say the same for Unreal Engine (and Quake/Doom) which is/are widely used.
But Unreal Engine 3 will be the first licensing engine with full SM3.0 support. Probably hehe...

 

[Snarfy]

Re: sm3.0

SM 3.0 did not help them in Fartcry.

sm3.0 for far cry and dx9.0c arent out yet, so why would it?

no one can tell how something performs until it's out, unless you want to take the dev's word for it -- and of course they're gunna say that it's the best thing since sliced bread...

 

[vogel]

Re: sm3.0

UE3 runs at about 30 fps on the 6800U. And that's void of any action and without a screen full of it's 100k poly characters. I wouldn't call that playable.

Why didn't anyone tell me?

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.