HDR and Halflife Nvidia not up to snuff

darko21

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Dave Baumann of Beyond 3D wrote

Hi guys,

OK, I've only just got back home in the UK from Shader day and am beginning to catch up on the aftermath of Gabes statements.

I've not read all this thread so I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but I see that NVIDIA are suggesting using PS1.4 for many effects and there will be limited visual difference. There is a problem with this though.

Whilst Valve were there they displayed that they had implemented higher dynamic range into the engine. HDR will be available in the game to those that support its requirements, however it is not currently implemented in the benchmark. HDR needs the a higher range, and PS1.4 only has -8, 8 range which is probably not enough - the HDR effects also require float buffers which none of the current NVIDIA drivers support. There is also dramatic visual differences between HDR being enabled and disabled.

HDR is currently not in the benchmark mode because NVIDIA don't support float buffers at the moment and the benchmark was designed to render equally on all systems.

(I got this off Anandtech) the link below explains HDR a little better

http://www.debevec.org/HDRShop/
 

Hadi

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If the fx supports float buffer then why the driver doesn't.
fx was supposed to be a DX 9.0+ card with support for pixel and vertex shader 2.0+.

<font color=red>listen to me or wait for the next patch!</font color=red><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by hadi on 09/18/03 00:58 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 

darko21

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Dave Baumann said

the HDR effects also require float buffers which none of the current NVIDIA drivers support.

So do the 5.75 betas support float buffers? does FX hardware support it? sounds like it should. Maybe if drivers support it performance goes down (thats just a guess)
 
DX9.0+ and PS2.0+ = PR

Remember the FX5900U is PS3.0 compliant....err well almost. It was a funny news articles considering it comes out at the time when people are saying it's not even PS2.0 let alone +


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! <A HREF="http://www.redgreen.com" target="_new"><font color=green>RED</font color=green> <font color=red>GREEN</font color=red></A> GA to SK :evil:
 

GeneticWeapon

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Well...the FX renders DX9 titles in floatingpoint 16/partial precision mode, and DX9 spec calls for no less then fp24 render targets, so I agree with others that FX cards are not trully DX9 capable..
Thats not even including their piss-poor ps2.0 performance....

I help because you suck.
 

rain_king_uk

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Actually the GFFX can use 32bit precision, although probably at slideshow speeds, so technically it surpasses the DX9 spec for this.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by RAIN_KING_UK on 09/18/03 03:10 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 

GeneticWeapon

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fp16/fp32 = partial precision.
The NV35 can run fp32 in very few spots in HL2, the rest is fp16.
FX5600 and lower will never see fp32 in any game.
When I claimed that I didnt belive that FX cards can be called DX9 it was because they spend 98% of their time rendering in a precision that was below what the spec called for.
Sorry for any confusion.

I help because you suck.
 

rain_king_uk

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Theoretically they could use full precision 32bit for everything though, therefore they are technically surpassing the DX9 spec. I think maybe these specs should also require the card to be able to utilise these functions at a certain minimum rate because the GFFX is slower than a very slow thing indeed when using 32bit precision. Also I seem to recall that in Doom 3 the GFFX optimizations include dropping right down to 12bit precision in some cases.
 

lhgpoobaa

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hahaha
hey GeneticWeapon, u should see Dhlucke's new sig. It reads something like

<b>"12bit... The way games were meant to be played."</b>

LOL

<b>I am not a AMD fanboy.
I am not a Via fanboy.
I am not a ATI fanboy.
I AM a performance fanboy.
And a low price fanboy. :smile:
Regards,
Mr no integrity coward.</b>
 

phial

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hahahahhaa

im going to use that on another board =)

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<A HREF="http://www.teenirc.net/chat/tomshardware.html" target="_new"> come to THGC chat~ NOW. dont make me get up ffs @#@$</A>