Why does Sony create such wacky architectures?

[marconelly!]

That is if you want to trust some guy on TXB who claims that it's from their team...

Those are the very latest published shots. You can see them in the last month's XBN.

Oh, and I assure you, making the pre-rendered animation with aliasing is just as easy (and faster to render) than making it antialiased.

 

[Guest]

But but...i see you trust Faf too..





No offence creator of Fafracer2k3!

 

[Crazyace]

How could you not trust someone called Fafalada...

 

[Simon F]

I guess if others can correct my mistake that N2 was not capable of per pixel lighting, I should correct others' mistakes PS2 is not only capable of it, but some games actually have it implemented and it looks rather nice.

But to do it does burn quite a bit of fill rate (of course, PS2 has quite a lot of raw grunt to start with). It takes 4 rendering passes followed by some framebuffer manipulation in the GS to emulate DOT3 because it's not natively supported.

 

[Simon F]

Are you sure of that kid?
N2 = Xbox????

I don't think that's what's being said. Each system has strengths and weaknesses.

 

[marconelly!]

But to do it does burn quite a bit of fill rate (of course, PS2 has quite a lot of raw grunt to start with). It takes 4 rendering passes followed by some framebuffer manipulation in the GS to emulate DOT3 because it's not natively supported.

Well, I'm just saying I've seen it used in some games (60FPS games, too) MGS2 uses projective texture blending for the light from your gun, and BGA also has something simillar, just some rooms actually have bumpmaps (probably EMBM, though)

I don't think either of those two examples use DOT3, but the lighting is still per pixel.

 

[Simon F]

Simon F, I must say that your assessments of DC hardware sometimes really sound, shall I say... a bit too optimistic.

Well, perhaps I am biased, but I can base my comments on a fairly intimate knowledge of the hardware .

Full scene bumpmapping on DC? What is that scene going to have, exactly? As you can see, even the Xbox, with it's graphics hardware that is unquestionably more apt at performing a function like that, is struggling to reach even 30FPS in a game that requires everything to be normal mapped (see Deus Ex 2 thread, and Halo 2 author's comments from EGM).

What you are perhaps forgetting is that DC doesn't bother spending cycles texturing hidden objects, whereas I don't believe the XBox is particularly good at early culling of objects. (Although you can have the application sort from front to back, that brings its own efficiency problems with additional state changes etc).

So, while bump mapping implies extra texturing passes, costing additional cycles on both systems, DC will avoid doing those extra passes whenever it can. DC can also perform texturing at very close to its theoretical fill rate - many immediate mode renderers do not.

 

[Guest]

If it can do Halo 2 then obivously the hardware will be around Xbox level. and that was in 2000. Fast forward to 2001, Xbox launch, N3 might rape the Xbox! I might see the new king of graphiX!

Simon, but why do DC games not use any bumpmapping that i can recall. No bumpmapping and harsh cinematics effects contradict what you said. DC is a 1998 system and you expect some tech demo-ish game like Bouncer, Wreckless, RL, to accompany its arrival. Yet none i can think of.

 

[Simon F]

just some rooms actually have bumpmaps (probably EMBM, though)

I don't think either of those two examples use DOT3, but the lighting is still per pixel.

I think it would be safe to say that it wouldn't EMBM - That requires dependent texture lookups and (according to Faf') PS2 does not have that facility.

EMBM is perhaps useful for reflection maps that are perturbed by bumps, but, IMHO, they really are a sledgehammer approach to diffuse dump mapping.

BTW, someone else also asked if DC had EMBM; it doesn't.

 

[Simon F]

Simon, but why do DC games not use any bumpmapping that i can recall.

I think that's already been answered in this thread, but to put it simply, how many games on any system at that time had bump mapping? It takes time for ISVs to learn new features.

 

[Guest]

Sorry but i am no programmer, so i mean, it is Sega hardware afterall. Can i not expect them to implement bumpmapping, you know kickstart the features, in their games, or even later ones like say SA2?

I am not sure, i think old matrox cards already supported bumpmapping ?Is it that hard to learn bumpmapping

 

[darkblu]

Sorry but i am no programmer, so i mean, it is Sega hardware afterall. Can i not expect them to implement bumpmapping, you know kickstart the features, in their games, or even later ones like say SA2?

I am not sure, i think old matrox cards already supported bumpmapping ?Is it that hard to learn bumpmapping

chap, pal, for someone who's as keen on visuals as you, you sould really spend a bit more time paying attention to the graphics technologies and trying to learn a bit more than just their names.

there's 'bumpmapping' and 'bumpmapping'. although all of them serve the same purpose - to achieve 'lighting perturbations' on an otherwise flat surface, not all of them are equal in design philospohy, ease of use, or quality of achieved effect either.

IIRC (though i'd expect simon to know better) the DC PVR was the first commercial-available piece of HW capable of DOT3 (i.e. dot product of R3 vectors). all prior HW was capable of EMBM at most. now, you can do your homework on those two keywords (DOT3 and EMBM)

 

[Guest]

PVR rock then!
Are there no sample Nvidia like codes like what the Wreckless developers did? Cut n paste n wahla! Impressive graphiX!

 

[marconelly!]

I think it would be safe to say that it wouldn't EMBM - That requires dependent texture lookups and (according to Faf') PS2 does not have that facility.

Sorry, I think I made a mistake. I was thinking of Emboss Bumpmapping, not Environment Bumpmapping :\

 

[Simon F]

IIRC (though i'd expect simon to know better) the DC PVR was the first commercial-available piece of HW capable of DOT3 (i.e. dot product of R3 vectors).

Strictly speaking, it is a dot product per pixel, but it's not exactly the same as the DOT3 methods used today. It was developed independently so ended up being slightly different <shrug>. However, the Elan T&L processor had HW to make the programming interface look the same as the SGI Dot3 approach.

 

[Ozymandis]

IIRC (though i'd expect simon to know better) the DC PVR was the first commercial-available piece of HW capable of DOT3 (i.e. dot product of R3 vectors). all prior HW was capable of EMBM at most. now, you can do your homework on those two keywords (DOT3 and EMBM)

Actually in the PC market the first consumer-level product capable of dot-product was the Permedia 3 Create! from 3d Labs. At least, that's what I remember. The Series 2 didn't get on the street until September 99.

 

[darkblu]

Actually in the PC market the first consumer-level product capable of dot-product was the Permedia 3 Create! from 3d Labs. At least, that's what I remember. The Series 2 didn't get on the street until September 99.

that could pretty much be the case then.
on a sidenote, i still wonder how come that i overlooked the remarkable permedia line of hw .. i must have been totally voodoo-jinxed at that time :?

 

[Ozymandis]

that could pretty much be the case then.
on a sidenote, i still wonder how come that i overlooked the remarkable permedia line of hw .. i must have been totally voodoo-jinxed at that time :?

Probably because they weren't really suited for the hardcore gamer as far as raw framerates? Of course, if you did some 3d rendering or needed quality 2d, they would have fit the bill nicely.

 

[Fafalada]

So, while bump mapping implies extra texturing passes, costing additional cycles on both systems, DC will avoid doing those extra passes whenever it can. DC can also perform texturing at very close to its theoretical fill rate - many immediate mode renderers do not.

Isn't the bigger problem for DC the geometry load though? If I remember right, the particular dot product method has even higher vertex setup cost then Dot3? (and dot3 already isn't cheap from perspective of a SH4 class cpu).

 

[Lazy8s]

chap:

If it can do Halo 2 then obivously the hardware will be around Xbox level.

I thought we were mainly focusing on the look of Halo 2 - the lighting, shadowing, and polybump normal mapping for lighting on the models. As with any game, Halo 2 is more than just an application of new buzzwords; there are geometry levels, texturing, and lots of dynamic behavior to be tracked, along with consideration for the specific approaches the engine takes. As PC-Engine was saying, there's no reason Naomi 2 couldn't implement the same look and run a game with minor changes here and there as well as modifications that specifically capitalized on the advantages of Naomi 2 hardware instead.

and that was in 2000. Fast forward to 2001, Xbox launch, N3 might rape the Xbox! I might see the new king of graphiX!

The closer you bring parity to the Xbox's Nov 2001 launch and $299 pricepoint, I think you'd see a solution from the Naomi technology partners convincingly surpass Xbox performance. A PowerVR solution always seemed ahead of the curve in that regard, and the rumored specs of a Series 4-class core (with perhaps a newer ELAN-like co-processor) in an optimized console environment would probably be very compelling.

Sorry but i am no programmer, so i mean, it is Sega hardware afterall. Can i not expect them to implement bumpmapping, you know kickstart the features, in their games, or even later ones like say SA2?

I'm not sure how evolved dedicated Dreamcast development even got. SEGA started seriously investigating the possibilty of going third party and to other platforms for business reasons not much more than a year after Dreamcast was first introduced. Some second-gen Dreamcast software even had multiplatform versions concurrently developed like PS2 Rez, NFL 2K2, NBA 2K2, etc. The lack of polish on some of the later games, like abnormally longer loading times in Shenmue II and Crazy Taxi 2 compared with the originals, shows that they weren't even heavily optimized.

What would we think of Saturn had development stopped at VF Remix, or of PS2 if development had stopped at Zone of the Enders or MGS2, or of SNES if we had never seen Donkey Kong Country? SEGA designers weren't used to working with bump mapping way back when, and it makes sense that I've heard their libraries didn't facilitate it as well they could've. Features like that, along with something like PS2 and progressive support, are things that you'll notice only come about with time and evolution of software and programming libraries. Pulling out every trick in the book takes dedicated development and time. Dreamcast was short on that, and, in Naomi 2's case, it only has one company developing for it and only a handful of games.