Radeon 2 Trueform Technology

[noko]

"Briefly, what TRUFORM technology does is take triangle information from a game, internally convert the triangles into curved surfaces, .....
Since all of this occurs in the TRUFORM capable T&L engine, no performance is lost in the creation of the new surfaces."

"Once the surface is curved, it is then chopped into segments of smaller triangles in a process known as tessellation.
The surface can be split as many times as desired, and an increased number of splits results in an increased image quality. It is with these splits that TRUFORM creates a renderable set of triangles out of the curved surface it just made.
Once again, since the tessellation process occurs in the TRUFORM T&L segment of the ATI chip, no performance is lost. Also, since the texture information for this new, super triangle is exactly the same texture information needed for the original triangle, no additional information needs to be passed over the memory bus."

"On the programing side, applying TRUFORM technology to a new or existing game actually only requires one line of code: the rest of done in the T&L part of ATI's chip.
Since TRUFORM uses the information that is already there to make games look better, it can be applied to every 3D game on the market. This means that everything you currently play has the potential to look better on a card with TRUFORM technology.
"

Links:
<A HREF="http://www.amdzone.com/articleview.cfm?ArticleID=701" target="_new">http://www.amdzone.com/articleview.cfm?ArticleID=701</A>
<A HREF="http://anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1476" target="_new">http://anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1476</A>

<b>AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME . . . </b>

 

[rcf84]

Well the Radeon 2 3d image quality will whip the Geforce3.

Nice Intel and AMD users get a Cookie.... Yummy

 

[noko]

Have you seen what this technology can do? Its amazing!! Looking at the dolphin example, or the face, or Quake 1 figures and what Truefrom does transparently is one heck of an upgrade. Just to think it doesn't need special programming to make this happen is even more mind blowing. Now I wished I kept all those old games I gave away. More happy days are coming .

 

[rcf84]

Well im loving this 100%. Nvidia is evil. There trying to make programmers do more what cuz they to lazy. Well guess what the old Quake2 engine is still kicking "Serious Sam, Half-life". Geforce3 in my view is a piece of over priced PCB board. I play my games in 800x600 or 1028x768. Not in 1600x1200 or even 9000x8000.

Nice Intel and AMD users get a Cookie.... Yummy

 

[Pettytheft]

I wish they would hurry up and get this card to the market already. This tech will probably set it back a couple of months. My GeForce256 has all buy died on me. If this thing takes too long I'll have to get a GeForce3 (Not that that's a bad thing).

Blah, Blah Blahh, Blahh, blahh blah blahh, blah blah.

 

[bighead111]

"On the programing side, applying TRUFORM technology to a new or existing game actually only requires one line of code: the rest of done in the T&L part of ATI's chip.
Since TRUFORM uses the information that is already there to make games look better, it can be applied to every 3D game on the market. This means that everything you currently play has the potential to look better on a card with TRUFORM technology.
"

Yeah!!!! That is more likely!!!!!! That is what it should be considered!! You pay hard earned buck not for something you can't really see what is good or not, right???

 

[noko]

It also seems that a force mode is possible for the user even if the game doesn't use the code but maybe with some drawbacks. I just can't get over the difference it makes, its not like a small noticeable difference but a whooping whole new look!! to a game. Smooth organic flowing lines from all previously blocky looking characters. Then topping it off with more relistic lighting being done transparently. Its like taking the Quake 1 or II or III game and installing high polygon models with 8 times the polygons or more all for free with no work involved. I sure hope it works as good as it sounds. I remember people being critical of HyperZ when it was being talked about but then when it was reviewed it turned out better then what ATI said it would be. I hope this feature turns out the same as in working better then anybody expected.

 

[Guest]

glad I just bought a MX instead of paying lots for a newer card that I would replace when the radeon II comes out. I'm gonna head over to Ati's head office and try and steal a ref card

 

[noko]

Yeap I think I will head to Canada myself. Well I got my MX400 up and running in my Abit KA7 motherboard. Easier then I thought. Still havn't configured W2k yet, will latter. Plus I havn't overclocked my classic back up to 800mhz, still at 700mhz. If W2k work better then WinMe I will dump WinMe instead of W2K and then load Linux. So are you modelling again?

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by noko on 05/29/01 11:43 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[trusnoop]

Everyone including myself, is excited about this technology. And you should be excited. What does geforce 3 has to offer: lots of performance w or wo FSAA (fps wise), plus its water effects thing, etc. But the quality is pretty much the same as traditional cards.

Whereas the new radeon (prob. called radeon 2) will give you much better quality without the loss of performance. And quality/reality is what will matter from now on not 150 fps. Cause ur eye cant detect 150 fps. but roughly 60 fps.

 

[Sihs]

So, Noko, What's the big announcment that ATI was supposed to break out? I hope it involves more than the article about TRUFORM. I would be glad to see a release date (or has they set that already sometime before?).
Makes you want to play Quake 3 just to enjoy the scenary.

Sh!t Happens.

 

[noko]

Sorry to dissappoint you but that looks like it is it. Not sure of ATI's marketing strategy, maybe they are not sure either. Gamecube and Radeon II are schedule to hit the shelves pretty much the same time, so I believe they will be very busy hence forth.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by noko on 05/29/01 11:35 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

just got the tracking no. for my shippment, will be here soon...

 

[noko]

Thats good to here, which MX did you pick up?

 

[Guest]

read the other thread about quality boards...

 

[SerArthurDayne]

All the nvidia bashing makes me sad

Is it just because ATI is the 'underdog' right now? I remember when 3dfx was badboy king of the world, but I lubbed my TNT and TNT2 too much to go the darkside of the glide.

That's not to say I'm brand loyal..... I really do hope the Radeon 2 kicks the bejeezus out of the Geforce 3, cause then I can buy that instead

However, I play a lot of FPS's competitively, and I prefer performance over image quality. A max of 60 fps with fantastic image quality is fine sure... but its useless when you need to have 60fps minimum at all times, even in the heaviest of action in order to remain competitive. My Geforce2 GTS has been giving me that performance edge for a while now and without costing me an arm and a leg.

No need to call Nvidia evil You should be thanking them for putting a fire under ATI that was so hot they had to create something that will 'mop the floor with the geforce3'. /me drools to see new gpu specs

 

[Negaverse23]

This is kind of old news to me but here is a better resource: <A HREF="http://alex.vlachos.com/graphics/CurvedPNTriangles.pdf" target="_new">"N-patching.pdf"</A> Keep in mind that this requires minimal or no changes to existing authoring tools and hardware designs. You may even see this on the Geforce 3 and/or Kyro 3 or they may already have it. Curved point-normal triangles (ATI's N-patching) is a feature of DirectX 8. As they all say, the best is yet to come.

=
<font color=green><i>Will code HTML for food.</i></font color=green>

 

[Sihs]

Bummer.
But isn't the GameCube supposed to come out just before the Xbox, like sometime in November?

Sh!t Happens.

 

[ajmcgarry]

What does geforce 3 has to offer: lots of performance w or wo FSAA (fps wise), plus its water effects thing, etc. But the quality is pretty much the same as traditional cards.

It is an excellent achievment in graphics technology. However do remember that this technology does not belong to ATi as such. Sure they can patent their Trueform technology, but NVidia or Kyro can develop there own renditions.

One thing that bothers me is how are sharp edges created when they are needed if the option for this is simply user selectable in a driver and not programmed into the game.
And will touching objects morph into one if they are not recognisable as distinct objects.

Hopefully ATi have this all figured out. (And I don't mean just the simply 90degree solution)


To acheive the best results from this technology it really needs to get programmer support.



<font color=blue>Little Miss Muffet was arachnaphobic</font color=blue>

 

[DJediX]

------------ Show me benchmarks -------------






Tonights Triple Main Event!

Radeon 2 vs Geforce 3!

Ps2 vs Xbox vs GC in a 3 way triple threat winner takes gaming market matchup

Intel P4 vs Thunderbird!

 

[rcf84]

Intel P4 vs Thunderbird!

Maybe instead this

Northwood P4 vs. Athlon4

In a barbed wire match

Nice Intel and AMD users get a Cookie.... Yummy

 

[noko]

I would think that the best quality improvement would come from the developers updating with a patch the games they still want to promote. Seems like some objects such as walls, floors and ceilings wouldn't benefit to much from this so a selective use of N-Patches would seem more ideal. Since we havn't seen this in action other then still shots besides some people at E3 I hope ATI promotes this better by actually showing us some movies or AVIs of before and after. Maybe the force feature if incorporated will have just not a 90degree filter but maybe a user set filter where we could specify a range of values when not to use N-Patches, for instance a value of 85-95 degrees for polygon intersections which would filter out the use of the N-Patch tesselation. It is almost catch 22, this is ATI specific for only the Radeon 2 and above, so if you can't show any benefit using it then it will probably take years before developers really use it to its potential. Now the question becomes for a developer to use simplier models and rely on N-Patches to make them look great or do you use complex models so that the other boards will look great with a great performance hit by most users. This is very interesting technology because a game developer can design a new game which would run on older cards just fine with a great sell potential but yet look fabulous on hardware that supports N-patches. It isn't like vertex shaders where you need the hardware in order to really benefit from its use. This mounts up to be a very ingenius compression scheme for 3d objects, which would also prevent the potential bottle neck of the AGP bus when a very high number of polygon data has to be sent through it. Great job ATI and to Microsoft for implementing this feature in DX8. Lets hope it works as advertised.

 

[ajmcgarry]

What will be interesting is the final rendition of the XBox. Seeing as this is part of DirectX 8, surely there must be some support for it in the Xbox. With Nvidia working so close with Microsoft it's amazing that Ati have come up trumps with this. Unless of course Nvidia have something hid up their sleeve.

<font color=blue>Little Miss Muffet was arachnaphobic</font color=blue>

 

[rcf84]

Remember... nvidia disable's hardware features in there cards till the newest det. driver enable them. So they keep overpricing people.

Nice Intel and AMD users get a Cookie.... Yummy

 

[noko]

Looks like ATI is going to maintain there board making in the Retail market as well as to OEM's who want to buy from ATI directly. Also the Radeon 2 is schedule for late summer, sounds like September to me.
<A HREF="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/3/19289.html" target="_new">http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/3/19289.html</A>