Bloom and High Dynamic Range lighting question

Bloom and HDR are COMPLETELY different things.

Bloom is a crappy, ugly effect for gimp GPUs that makes everythig "glow". Its retarded and shouldn't exist. Prevalent in the debacle known as "Fable".

HDR or High Dynamic Range lighting is a beautiful implementation of SM 3.0 (shader model) to re-create reailstic solar flare and intensity. It is amazing and the future of real time 3d lighting. Wonderfully implemented in games such as Oblivion and Half Life 2: Lost Coast.

HDR is much more hardware intensive than bloom.

Oh, and your card DOES NOT support HDR (or any other SM 3.0 effects for that matter). Sorry.

wrong.

HDR can be implemented using sm3.0... but it can also use sm2.0, the latter of which is the method used in the source engine. (HL2, CS:S) His card will run HDR fine in CS:S. Heck, my 9700pro runs it great. IMO the source engine does HDR very well.

you are right on the hardware intensive part, and for the sm3.0 usage of HDR (like in oblivion) his card will not support it. Also right that bloom does not compare w/ HDR. It tries, and sometimes even pulls off a nice scene once in a while, but mostly just an annoyance. (Oblivion does bloom better than most, but not as good as HDR)

The source engine "fakes" HDR (although it does a decent job at it) on sm 2.0 architecture. It is IMPOSSIBLE to do TRUE HDR without sm 3.0 It's like shoving a square peg through a round hole.

Also, comparing the graphical beauty of source's "HDR" with Oblivion's true HDR is like comparing some gino's tweaked Civic with a Ferrari Enzo.

no.

It truly is HDR, not "fake". Bloom lighting is the "fake" HDR. HDR means "High Dynamic Range" lighting. Meaning that it is the range of values shown in the light, and that can be done many different ways. check here for a nice description of HDR. Google it up for more/better ones. HDR has nothing to do w/ the shader model other then integer/floating point precision. You can do it w/o directX at all if you wanted, and has been done that way for many things.

from the article:

also:

read up and you will see what I am talking about. HDR looks sweet on source.

I stand corrected. His card still doesnt support SM 3.0 though.

Playing Oblivion makes me happy I got a 6800u instead of an x800pe.

Which is irrelevant he wasn't talking about SM3.0 you were mis-understanding what HDR was in reply to his question about HDR.
Even OpenEXR based FP16 HDR is NOT an SM3.0 issue but an FP16 blend issue, which is available on MOST SM3.0 cards, but is not a requirement of the SM3.0 Spec, which is clearly illustrated by the GF6200's lack of FP16 blending in the ROPs (can't do HDR in Oblivion either) yet is fully SM3.0 compliant. So that's 0 for 2 on the statements.

Perhaps some research on your part in the future before you comment, huh?

Well playing Oblivion on a GF6series would make ME dissapointed I didn't wait for the game to come out and then get an X1800 so that I could enjoy HDR+AA+HQAF.

well thats the OP not only got his question answered but also informed of evereything he needs to know about HDR.

oh it was also funny to see the arrogant guy towley get owned after so obviously kowing everything.

i especially love the last point about how his card didn't support sm 3..0 as if it still mattered a damn in this argument and i also loved how he brings up a card that has no hope of getting decent frame rates with HDR and AA on... oh wait... woops, shouldnt mention that.

lol, i know i'm a git for repeating what has already been said but i love seeing people get taken down a few pegs although towley ran out if them after his second post. tell us when you hit the floor mate

Well if there's anyone else I'd suspect to have a solid answer on the very minute ins and outs of HDR, I'd say you and maybe Cleeve are the only two I know of who've developed the same deep understanding of HDR and how it works with the various games and cards (no offense to anyone else, we just spent alot of time on this I think). Just glad I got here a few seconds earlier. 8)

Everyone's all right, it's just beter when people comment on what they know or else qualify or generalize what they don't.

Anywhoo, baptism by fire, makes us all stronger.

Ok dude, the HDR isnt so good in the maps for CSS, specificlly the dust map, which i played with HDR on and was way over bright, it seems like the light is a bit over done on that map, just play without it, you don't need HDR or Bloom to play CSS.
By the way you have a pretty powerful card, you should use HDR instead of Bloom.

now what was i saying about you being far too nice a person

That's right. So many people are quick to attack, even after one admits their folly.

On a more specific note/question regarding HDR in Oblivion: I have HDR on in Oblivion and am really not impressed with NPC's faces and shadows. Shadows are maxed. Why is it that all of the NPC's faces look like they have beards? What's the deal? Have a look for yourself, it really takes away from the game IMO.

You're right, right now it does suck, and it is Bethesda's fault.

The funny thing is I hear it had to do with the way there were two versions of the game, the one they gave to all the IHVs (ATi, nVidia, Creative, etc) initially which became the delayed version for last fall, and then the one they finally launched which they tweaked in areas they obviously shouldn't have.

I've seen a self-shadow fix, and it looks great, but since I don't use it (not really interested in the NPCs after the first 10hrs of play) I can't remember where I saw it (probably in the ElderScrolls forumz).

That's a long "told ya so" post, "mate".

Edit: LOL "git". That's what we get for bailing your arse outta WWII. Git. Thanks.

Now you see I can get behind a statement like that!

I play it on my laptop (when I get a chance to play), and it's sub-optimal at best, but the fact that I can play it (expect not to be able to) with Bloom and solid HQAF enabled was good enough to delay an upgrade and avoid building a purpose built 'Oblivion Desktop' , I just feel sad for a ll the FX users and R9600SE. X300SE, GF6200TC owners who thought they'd have a good experience with this game. But hopefully like Morrowind, it'll keep us impressed for a while, especially with the user mods (just like Morrowind, the textures mods are impressive).

It's a trade-off , do you want good performance and a mediocre looking game (hey you could always turn off features in Oblivion and get 60fps at 16x12), or slower performance with nicer looking features? I know I'd prefer 1280x1024 with everything turned up versus 16x12 with everything turned off.

Funny, as playing Oblivion on a 6800U made me up'n buy a X1800XT.

But as an owner of both a 6800U OC and a X800XTpe, I can now personally confirm results reviewers have shown, the X800XTpe/X850XT offer much higher FSAA performance in Oblivion. The 6800U isn't even close. The Downside, yes HDR looks great in Oblivion, and X8xx can't do it. Honestly, I played it both ways for a couple weeks with the 6800U, and decided I wasn't happy with either. But I was hooked on the game, So in came the X1800XT with both fsaa and HDR as well as higher details and higher framerates.

Anyway, I honestly think you could have loved Oblivion just as much on a X800XTpe. No HDR, but higher details, fsaa, and better performance.

Nah, it was a X800XTpe. X850XTpe I think I would have swapped out cards for sure. But you are right, I used the 6800U in what I considered my personal gaming machine, despite my favorites like farcry, NFSU2, and HL2 running a little better back then on the Radeon. I just think they were close enough performers and since the 6800U system remained issue free, and at the time the spare gamer was used alot even if not by me, I left things as they were. Plus the mobile XP @ 2.6GHz with the X800XTpe was more my OC/test/fun system, so I still used it quite a bit too. More than anything I was just too lazy to make the change when I could just pop on either rig at any time anyway.

I have been corrected by you a couple of times too.

By the way, I hate to mention it here but... http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/arti [...] h1c2lhc3Q=

Yeah, I'm sure you 'hate' to too.

Well they didn't actually use the full implementation of FP16 HDR in that test, only the FX Bloom right (hence the 4XAA and not 2XAA? I can't talk well to the particulars of the title itself as I don't own it, my only interest has been how they implement HDR, not what the settings look like so I'm not sure what [H] enabled, but usually when they activate HDR they mention it, and most of the reviewers mention it if it's FP16-HDR on.

It still takes a GX2 to come close to it in performance without 16XHQAF (I wish they compared the SSAA to ATi's AA jsut for show because of the differences mentioned in the other reviews [although this is 4XSSAA and not 2XSSAA), and it is interesting to see that 4XAA and I wonder if that has anything to do with the GX2 / SLi portion, but being software I doubt it, which leads me to believe integer based application of HDR/Bloom effects. Se this is the onee game where I prefer seeing more tests at more resolutions, because in this case I wonder if the X1900 is choking a bit or not.

Anywhoo, like I said it's still somewhat of an enigma, and while obviously some performance charts go one way and others another I just wonder if people take the effort to check the implementation. [H] usually does more IQ comparisons, but I guess there wasn't enough of a difference like they say.