What determines if you can enable HDR+AA?

RawStorm

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I have noticed that people have said that nvidia cards can't do HDR+AA in games but ATI can, and you need good graphics cards to do it. I have a 9800 pro and in the half-life 2: lost coast demo I was able to enable HDR AND 2xAA, and it worked too. So I don't get how my old card can do this. Is it how Valve made the game or some driver from ATI. Please help explain this because I want to know if I should upgrade or not.
 

dmdallas

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What that means is that Nvidia cards can not render both HDR and AA at the same time, so yes, an Nvidia card can render both HDR and AA, but with incredably small performance losses vs ATI cards, it is mostly a marketing strategy, like the 48 shader modules that peform about as well as 24 of Nvidia's (though a little better).
 

Heyyou27

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When people usually talk about a GPU being able to render HDR+AA they mean a specific HDR path known as OpenEXR HDR; at the moment, the only GPUs that can render OpenEXR HDR with antialiasing enabled are the ATI Radeon X1xxx series.

Half-Life2: lost coast does not use OpenEXR HDR so antialiasing will work with any GPU.
 

GeneticWeapon

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What that means is that Nvidia cards can not render both HDR and AA at the same time, so yes, an Nvidia card can render both HDR and AA, but with incredably small performance losses vs ATI cards, it is mostly a marketing strategy, like the 48 shader modules that peform about as well as 24 of Nvidia's (though a little better).
If you dont know what you're talking about, then dont post :roll: .

To the original poster, Valve used a different type of HDR for "The lost coast" that runs on all DX9 hardware, both ATi and nVidia.

What most people consider HDR is actually OpenEXR HDR(true HDR) which cannot be run on nVidia hardware with AA enabled. Oblivion(and others) is one of the games that uses this method of high dynamic range.

ATi X1xx hardware can do it, but nothing currently from the nVidia camp can pull it off. If you're considering a high end card these days, it's something to take into consideration, because nobody likes jagged edges :roll:

Since you're still running a 9800 series card, I'll presume that your in the market for something new. Take your time, and read lot's of reviews, there's lot's of great hardware available on the market now, and you should enjoy your shopping experience to the fullest.

Beware of fanboys.
 

delanooch

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What that means is that Nvidia cards can not render both HDR and AA at the same time, so yes, an ATI card can render both HDR and AA, but with incredably small performance losses vs Nvidia cards, it is mostly a marketing strategy, like the 48 shader modules that peform about as well as 24 of Nvidia's (though a little better).

did you mean this , cause that made no sense? changes in color.
 

delanooch

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Too bad more developers cant use Valves method , I am quite fond of how it looks/works and so many cards would be in the running still even the older ones :p
 

sdrawkcaBgoD

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Nvidia cards can not render both HDR and AA at the same time, so yes, an Nvidia card can render both HDR and AA, but with incredably small performance losses vs ATI cards, it is mostly a marketing strategy, like the 48 shader modules that peform about as well as 24 of Nvidia's (though a little better).

1.) Nvidia cards can render HDR and AA at the same time just notOpenEXR HDR like other posters have said.

2.) You do know you contradicted yourself by saying Nvidia cannot render HDR+AA and in the same sentence said they can, don't you?

3.) Marketing strategy? Are you insane? I love HDR lighting (especially Oblivion's) and I also love Anti-Aliasing. To be able to do both simultaneously is far from a marketing strategy. It's awesome.

4.) 48 shaders perform "about as well as 24 of Nvidia's"? Having personally played FEAR and Oblivion (two current shader-heavy games) with an x1900xt, I can tell you that the two just don't compare when it comes to shaders. It's not just "a little better" it's substantially better in many circumstances. Check this link for some benchmarks if you don't believe me.

Please do some research into these things before you post responses to a new member of the forumz. It's his first thread and he doesn't need misinformation.
 

sdrawkcaBgoD

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I know you didn't address that question to me, but I'd like to respond. Oblivion has, in my opinion, the best HDR in any game to date. To compare Oblivion against any other game in terms of HDR is just not fair. For instance, Serious Sam 2 uses the same OpenEXR HDR as Oblivion, but SS2's is way too glaring for my taste. So, yeah Oblivion has better HDR than HL2:LC, but then again it's better than any other game your likely to find, too.
 

Heyyou27

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Not necessarily, in fact often Valve's OpenEXR seems a bit more realistic because to date I haven't seen another HDR title that features the "Iris" effect. Valve went through a lot of trouble to bring us their version of HDR and not all developers are willing to go that length, so they use OpenEXR HDR. (Can’t blame them)
 

GeneticWeapon

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Not necessarily, in fact often Valve's OpenEXR seems a bit more realistic because to date I haven't seen another HDR title that features the "Iris" effect. Valve went through a lot of trouble to bring us their version of HDR and not all developers are willing to go that length, so they use OpenEXR HDR. (Can’t blame them)
Valve does not use use OpenEXR :!:
 

delanooch

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Not necessarily, in fact often Valve's OpenEXR seems a bit more realistic because to date I haven't seen another HDR title that features the "Iris" effect. Valve went through a lot of trouble to bring us their version of HDR and not all developers are willing to go that length, so they use OpenEXR HDR. (Can’t blame them)

Valve doesn't use OpenEXR HDR, they have a proprietary HDR method.

Pay attention now!

Heyyou is actually refering to all the others use Open EXR not Valve , yes we know Valves is in house. He is simply stating that Valve was not as lazy as all the other Devs. Not that they are lazy , just Valve pays more attention to detail :p
 

GeneticWeapon

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I need to just type this so hopefully someone will listen.

Valve went through about four different methods of HDR during the making of "The lost coast"...they found that floating point data HDR was the most accurate method, but only nVidia at the time supported this type of rendering.

Somehow, they found a compromise method that allowed almost everything they wanted to work, and with a very small performance hit. It is most similar to the second method they tried, using two different render targets, and applies some type of bloom where textures will have the need of greater relection.

Valve found a close substitute to OpenEXR(floating point 16 high dynamic range)....but their method is only a substitute for the most accurate solution.

Valve did not use the most accurate solution because thier sponsors(ATi) did not have the hardware support (at the time) to render the best desired effect.

Believe it or not.
 
I need to just type this so hopefully someone will listen.

You know you coulda linked it. :tongue:

Valve found a close substitute to OpenEXR(floating point 16 high dynamic range)....but their method is only a substitute for the most accurate solution.

Valve did not use the most accurate solution because thier sponsors(ATi) did not have the hardware support (at the time) to render the best desired effect.

And also at the time they were going to 'originally launch' and did their tech demo of HDR, Nobody had hardware capable of doing it.

Believe it or not.

I see the light... and it burns! :twisted:



Just an FYI for the topic sake, nV can technically do FP16HDR and then add FSAA, but it takes more than one loop (not just pass) going all the way to the ROP and then taking the integer value output result after FP16 blending and then applying AA to that, not very efficient and really not worth the effort.

If there was enough memory space you could technically re-run through FP16 to SSAA (MSAA doesn't do FP16 in the G7x ever), but that would require about 8+ times as much memory space so that's a no go even at low resolutions.

As for 'true' HDR that's really a recent term which seems to be more marketing than anything, the Siggraph paper doesn't mention anything about FP16, or even having to be FP, integer was the only option for VPU rendering at the time anyways, only CPU could do FP blending then. For photographers they could say only 32 or 64bit is full HDR since those are the upper limits that existed before OpenEXR and still aren't supported by ILM's implementation. The only thing that it really require to be true HDR is high range contrast, tonemapping and tht is be dynamic.
Bloom and 'just tone mapping' do not share these and therefore aren't HDR, but Loast coast is more than those two.
 

GeneticWeapon

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You know you coulda linked it. :tongue:

Nobody clicks on links here :roll:

Just an FYI for the topic sake, nV can technically do FP16HDR and then add FSAA, but it takes more than one loop (not just pass) going all the way to the ROP and then taking the integer value output result after FP16 blending and then applying AA to that, not very efficient and really not worth the effort.

If there was enough memory space you could technically re-run through FP16 to SSAA (MSAA doesn't do FP16 in the G7x ever), but that would require about 8+ times as much memory space so that's a no go even at low resolutions.

As for 'true' HDR that's really a recent term which seems to be more marketing than anything, the Siggraph paper doesn't mention anything about FP16, or even having to be FP, integer was the only option for VPU rendering at the time anyways, only CPU could do FP blending then. For photographers they could say only 32 or 64bit is full HDR since those are the upper limits that existed before OpenEXR and still aren't supported by ILM's implementation. The only thing that it really require to be true HDR is high range contrast, tonemapping and tht is be dynamic.
Bloom and 'just tone mapping' do not share these and therefore aren't HDR, but Loast coast is more than those two.
Dude, that was an awesome post. We only need about ten more of you here to get a true quality forum.

..........or you could just post ten times more than you do? :wink:



Bumptittybumpbumpbump!
 

delanooch

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I was simply trying to diffuse some of the misunderstandings that were starting to flare on this thread because a couple people focused on a couple peoples typo's when that really isnt what they meant simple as that , no harm done and no need to go into detail. LOL

/dropped
 
Nobody clicks on links here :roll:

Did you click on my Simpsons' 'I see the light, it burns!' link, it was a return to my old audio quote from the 2004 era when we all were goofed up on 'IQ' :lol:

I love that quote from homer, especially when talking to IT trainers, they all look at me like I really should be working in biz or some other department..... that isn't theirs. :twisted:

Dude, that was an awesome post. We only need about ten more of you here to get a true quality forum.

I stole that stuff from an old lady on the street corner. :twisted:

We've been discussing HDR alot more with Oblivion and the Chuck patch and really I'm only now 'starting' to figure out the limitations and functions of each app and hardware (neither ATi nor nV writes enough about this stuff). Now if only the next generation did FP16 alphablending and texturefiltering with AA then we'd be closer to what developers seem to want in a single pass. From what I heard last the G80 will add AA to their laundry list but the R600 may still not have FP16 texture filtering which would be a dissapointment, although it's not a major feature (yet).

..........or you could just post ten times more than you do? :wink:

Yeah, not working in the same position like I used to where I could sit in front of the PC all night doing that.

And really this very time of year is the worst, scholl's just ending, works changing, ski season's about to end, and the Stanley Cup playoffs are on. I'm surprised I have time for any posting. I think I'm gonna hire that old lady! :lol:

Bumptittybumpbumpbump!

HEhe, remember THIS

Now THAT should be made a sticky! :twisted: