ATI terminology

doanster

Senior member
Jun 8, 2005
585
1
81
Can someone tell me what these terms designated on ATI cards mean?
-Truform
-AI
-Smartshader
-SMARTGART
-T2 (example: anti-aliasing set at 4xT2)

Also, what are the nVidia 'equivalents'?
I hate it when companies use proprietory terminology :(
 

VIAN

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2003
6,575
1
0
Can someone tell me what these terms designated on ATI cards mean?
-Truform
-AI
-Smartshader
-SMARTGART
-T2 (example: anti-aliasing set at 4xT2)

Also, what are the nVidia 'equivalents'?
I hate it when companies use proprietory terminology
Truform: Technology that makes low-polygon smooth by using a hardware algorithm that to add more polygons. This technology kinda sucks and isn't used by the majority of people. I don't even know why it's still included in the drivers. Nvidia has no equivalent.

A.I.: It's Artificial Intelligence for Graphics quality. When you turn it on using standard mode, you sacrifice a small amount of image quality for better framerates. Advanced is a bit more liberal using more advanced algorithms, and a bit more CPU power, to give you better framerates, although the framerate boost is dependent on the game. Advanced is liberal because, the algorithm goes above and beyond what is considered a legal optimization. Sometimes it might sacrifice image quality, but that isn't for sure, and it might display the picture unlike the developer intended by overriding develper code in order to provide better framerates. An Illegal optimization is an optimization that changes the picture from what the developer intended, even if it is unnoticeable. Nvidia doesn't really have an AI, in the sense that they deploy an algorithm to decide how to best optimize the image quality. But they do have image settings which you can manually change.

Smartshader: This is just Shader technology that each DirectX compatible card needs to have. ATI wanted to give it a name. I don't think Nvidia actually gives it a name, but they have shaders as well.

Smartgart: This thing diagnoses your agp/pci-e settings with your graphics card to get the best stability. I'm pretty sure Nvidia has an equivalent.

T2: I'm not sure what this means actually. I think it might be temporal AA, but T2 doesn't exist in official ATI drivers.

 

Schadenfroh

Elite Member
Mar 8, 2003
38,416
4
0
http://www.ati.com/companyinfo/glossary/includes/list.html

3Dc?
3Dc is an exciting new compression technology designed to bring out fine details in games while minimizing memory usage. It is the first compression technique optimized to work with normal maps, which allow fine per-pixel control over how light reflects from a textured surface. With up to 4:1 compression possible, this means game designers can now include up to 4x the detail without changing the amount of graphics memory required and without impacting performance.

Charisma Engine?
The Charisma Engine takes 3D characters and environments to the next level of realism. It can perform complex transformation, clipping, and lighting calculations faster than any CPU or 3D graphics chip on the market. It also adds innovative and useful new features such as 4-matrix vertex skinning and keyframe interpolation that give game developers more freedom and flexibility than ever before.

Charisma Engine? II
Having the powerful next generation Transform and Lighting engine with Charisma Engine? II is an important element to driving the latest 3D games and applications.
Charisma Engine? II takes the work off your system's CPU and accelerates today's demanding 3D graphics effortlessly. Being a next generation Transform and Lighting engine, Charisma Engine? II is the most efficient and powerful GPU in its class.

EazyLook?
EazyLook? is ATI's Remote Wonder user interface for MMC TV, DVD, and MMC Library features. EazyLook? fully integrates remote control commands with MMC players, providing complete control over multimedia content through the REMOTE WONDER. Users get instant on screen feedback for remote entries, have access to advanced settings and configuration options. Integrated Help functions provide player specific easy to read information on Remote Wonder button functions.

EazyConnect?
The best way to share live TV, captured video, and audio content with other computers on your home network.
Learn more

Emotive camera
Having the powerful next generation Transform and Lighting engine with Charisma Engine? II is an important element to driving the latest 3D games and applications.
Charisma Engine? II takes the work off your system's CPU and accelerates today's demanding 3D graphics effortlessly. Being a next generation Transform and Lighting engine, Charisma Engine? II is the most efficient and powerful GPU in its class.

First-person weapon
First-person weapon: for the first time in the series, Raven Shield introduces the option of the First Person Weapon viewpoint. The Rainbow Six trademark for realism will not disappoint, and the player will get the most accurately detailed weapons, both visually and in terms of handling and behaviour.

FlexFit?
ATI's FlexFit? technology brings together the Mobility? family of pin-compatible mobile graphics processors and the most competitive IGP products in the industry for AMD and Intel, with one common driver for all solutions.

FlexFit? - Click image to enlarge
Click image to enlarge.

FM-on-Demand?
FM ON-DEMAND? enables you to pause a live radio program at any time, return later, and resume listening exactly where you left off. With FM ON-DEMAND? you now have the power to record your favorite songs and radio programming and save them to MP3 files.?

FullStream?
The latest advancement in video processing technology, is a hardware accelerated filtering method that improves the performance and visual quality of streaming video playback.
FullStream? whitepaper (pdf)

Gemstar GUIDE Plus+?
Gemstar GUIDE Plus+? is an interactive TV program guide which works with the All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV, All-in-Wonder Radeon 7500, All-in-Wonder Radeon, ATI-TV WONDER, TV WONDER VE, TV WONDER USB Edition, ALL-IN-IN-WONDER 128 PRO, and All-in-Wonder 128.

Hydravision?
Hydravision? Multi-monitor Management Software enables you to tailor your desktop to the way you work, so you can manage increased amounts of information and improve your productivity.
overview
features
application uses
FAQ

HyperMemory?
Technology that builds on the bandwidth of PCI Express, PC system memory and ATI software to deliver performance for desktop and mobile graphics using lower amounts of local graphics memory.
overview

HyperZ? Technology
ATI's HyperZ technology decreases the amount of information sent to the frame buffer, easing memory bandwidth limitations and allowing for ultra-high resolutions, full screen 3D acceleration in true color.

HyperZ II? Technology

ATI's Radeon chip takes a new approach to the memory bandwidth limitation issue. The innovative HyperZ technology improves memory bandwidth efficiency without the added cost of exotic embedded or proprietary memory technologies. By eliminating this key bottleneck, the final barrier to realistic, real-time 3D is overcome.

HyperZ III?+
The latest generation of ATI's innovative HyperZ? bandwidth saving technology, HyperZ III+ plays a pivotal role in allowing Radeon 9800 series and Radeon 9600 series products to reach unprecedented levels of rendering performance. It builds on earlier versions of the technology by adding a more flexible Z-buffer cache that is optimized for the rendering of dynamic real-time shadows. Shadows play a key role in achieving realistic and immersive virtual environments, and will be used extensively in upcoming 3D game titles.

HyperZ? HD
HyperZ HD is an essential technology for unlocking the potential of High Definition Gaming in the Radeon X800. By maximizing the efficiency of data transfer between graphics memory and the 3D rendering engine, it removes the key memory bandwidth performance bottlenecks that otherwise occur when rendering complex, anti-aliased scenes at high display resolutions. This is accomplished through a combination of hidden surface removal, lossless compression, caching, and fast clearing techniques.

IMAGE QUALITY
ATI?s Mobility? Radeon? 7500 features innovative technology for superb notebook
image quality in mainstream business, 3D gaming and multimedia applications.

Learn more in the White paper (pdf)

LCD-EE?
LCD Enhancement Engine - a new and improved display architecture that improves scaling of desktop resolution to full panel sizes, improves video quality through compensation for LCD latency, and supports the latest high resolution and wide-screen notebook displays such as WUXGA (1920x1200) and QXGA (2048x1536)


MulTView?
mulTView? technology allows users to control dual TV input feeds and provide Picture-in-Picture, independent channel surf and many advanced features

ATI Overdrive?
On-chip thermal sensor enables performance to scale up dependent on notebook thermal environment.

Pixel Tapestry? architecture
ATI's next-generation graphics products will utilize the most advanced and flexible texturing system available. Pixel Tapestry is the first and only graphics architecture to include three independent texture units in each rendering pipeline. This unique architecture opens up a whole range of new possibilities for making 3D surfaces look more realistic and detailed than ever before.

Pixel Tapestry? II
provides ATI's graphics products with an advanced and flexible texturing system. With four parallel, highly-optimized rendering pipelines each capable of handling two textures simultaneously, it delivers outstanding performance and opens up a whole range of new possibilities for making 3D surfaces look more detailed and realistic.

PowerPlay?


PowerPlay? is a revolutionary new power management technology that dramatically reduces the power consumption of ATI's Mobility Radeon® family of mobile graphics products.

PowerPlay? whitepaper (PDF)

Quick Order Interface
Doors and windows can now be gradually opened and closed, allowing operatives to slightly open a door and check for enemies, or to throw a grenade or fire a weapon through the gap. Raven Shield also introduces the prone position.

Scripted events
Scripted events that will immerse the player into the brand new storyline approved by Tom Clancy himself!

Simple controls
Simple controls allow a 90-degree analog control for Peek & Crouch whereby you can fluidly adjust peeking and crouching by controlling the motion vertically and horizontally.

SmartGart?
SmartGart? is ATI?s proprietary diagnostic tool that determines the optimal system settings for the user to ensure maximum stability. One significant cause for system hangs is the quality of the AGP bus (used by the system to transfer graphics commands). Since there are many types of AGP controllers (?chipsets?) available on the market, the compatibility of the AGP bus varies and it is difficult to pre-determine its quality (If the driver had information about the quality of the bus it would be able to deal with it better). With SmartGart?, the display driver will automatically test the AGP compatibility upon its initialization, and dynamically switch to or to set up the AGP bus based on the test results. The end result is a more stable system!

SmartShader?
A new technology developed by ATI, represents a new generation of visual effects for your personal computer.
With SmartShader?, game developers will be able to create immersive, life-like worlds by modelling the surface and material qualities of 3D objects with an unparalleled level of realism.

Take an interactive look at SmartShader?, read the latest news, or read up on the technical details in the whitepaper.
SmartShader? interactive demo (requires the Macromedia Flash plug-in):
Flash Version (View the streaming demo)
ZIP Version (Download the demo to your computer)

SmartShader? whitepaper (PDF)

Press Release


SmartShader? 2.0 technology allows users to experience complex, movie-quality effects in next-generation 3D games and applications:

* Programmable pixel and vertex shaders
* 16 textures per pass
* Pixel shaders up to 160 instructions with 128-bit floating point precision
o Realistic lighting of any kind of surface
o Varying properties of a material across a surface
o Accurate modelling of objects with microstructure
o Horizon mapping
* Vertex shaders up to 1024 instructions with flow control
o Procedural deformation
o Fur rendering
o Advanced keyframe interpolation
o Shadow volume extrusion
o Particle systems
o Many light sources
o Lens effects
o Advanced matrix palette skinning
* Multiple render target support
* Shadow volume rendering acceleration
* High precision 10-bit per channel frame buffer support
* Supports DirectX® 9.0 and the latest version of OpenGL giving developers the freedom to create more complicated effects than ever before

SmartShader? 2.1
Is the second generation of cinematic shader technology from ATI, allowing users to experience complex, movie-quality effects in next-generation 3D games and applications. Key features include:

* Full support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 programmable vertex and pixel shaders in hardware
* 2.0 Vertex Shaders support vertex programs up to 65,280 instructions with flow control (loops, branches & subroutines)
* 2.0 Pixel Shaders support up to 16 textures per rendering pass with gamma correction
* New F-buffer technology supports fragment shader programs of unlimited length
* High dimension floating point textures
* 128-bit, 64-bit & 32-bit per pixel floating point color formats
* Multiple render targets
* Shadow volume rendering acceleration
* Complete feature set also supported in OpenGL ® via extensions

SmartShader? HD
Shaders are the key technology that allow game developers to program a limitless range of visual effects that execute on the graphics processor. SmartShader HD incorporates enhanced DirectX 9.0 vertex shader and pixel shader support that makes these effects easier to create. Pixel shader programs can contain up to 10x more instructions than was possible in previous products, allowing more sophisticated effects. And a combination of more efficient instruction execution, increased register counts, and new F-buffer technology ensure that even the most complex shaders run at the fastest speeds.

SmoothVision
Supports a High-Performance anti-aliasing mode and a High-Quality anti-aliasing mode.
Both of these modes give users the ability to choose between 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, and 6x sampling, allowing for a total of 10 different anti-aliasing settings.

This allows users to quite easily select both the desired level of visual quality and the corresponding performance level.

For more information, view the SmoothVision Whitepapers

SmoothVision? 2.0
Technology provides new levels of image quality with advanced full-scene anti-aliasing (FSAA) and anisotropic filtering. That is, this technology enhances image quality by removing jagged edges and bringing out fine texture detail, without compromising performance. Floating-point color precision allows for a greater range of colors and brightness.

SmoothVision? 2.1
Technology provides new levels of image quality using state-of-the-art Anti-Aliasing (AA) and Anisotropic Filtering (AF) techniques.

Anti-aliasing enhances image quality by smoothing jagged edges on object outlines. SmoothVision 2.1 uses an advanced multi-sampling technique that takes up to 6 samples per pixel, coupled with powerful loss-less compression technology for maximum efficiency and performance at any display resolution.
Anisotropic filtering improves image quality by sharpening blurry textures to bring out finer detail. SmoothVision 2.1 employs an adaptive algorithm that takes from 1 to 16 filtered samples per pixel as required to achieve ideal quality, without wasting effort on parts of the image that would not benefit. Two modes allow this feature to be optimized for performance or image quality, as desired.

SmoothVision? HD
SmoothVision HD is a set of technologies designed to enhance the image quality of any game using advanced, high-performance filtering technology. Anti-aliasing removes the distracting jagged edges that can occur on the outlines of 3D objects, and Anisotropic Filtering sharpens blurry textures and retains the fine details in the image. SmoothVision HD drives forward the state of the art in these technologies, and ensures that they can continue to be used at high resolutions in the latest games without performance degradation.

SurroundView?
Technology that allows PC users to add an ATI external graphics card to enable three separate displays.

ThruView?
ThruView? technology allows users to click through live TV windows to access your desktop without having to move the active window.

TruForm?, the revolution of graphic technology.
TruForm?, a new technology developed by ATI, overcomes traditional memory and bandwidth problems to deliver the smoothest and most realistic images ever seen on a PC.

Take an interactive look at TruForm? in action, read the
latest news, or read up on the technical details in the whitepaper.

TruForm? interactive demo
(requires the Macromedia Flash plug-in)
Flash Version (View the streaming demo)
ZIP Version (Download the demo to your computer)

TruForm? MPEG demo (12.1MB download)

TruForm? whitepaper (PDF)

Press Release

TruForm?II,
The latest incarnation of ATI's innovative higher order surface technology. It is designed to smooth out the curved surface of 3D characters, objects, and terrain by increasing the polygon count through a process called "tessellation". By taking advantage of the massive vertex processing power of the Radeon 9700, it delivers more natural looking 3D scenes without requiring any changes to existing artwork.

TV-on-Demand?
The latest addition to ATI's Multimedia Center 7.0, TV-on-Demand enables you to pause a live program at any time, return later, and resume watching exactly where you left off. With TV-on-Demand, you can view the show from the beginning, even after it has started, without having to wait until the VCR has finished recording the whole program.

Vari-Bright?
Technology that optimizes notebook panel brightness to save power. It allows for direct control of the notebook brightness level for better battery life.

VideoShader?
Radeon? 9700 GPU continues to provide industry-leading video playback with VideoShader? technology: a seamless integration of pixel shaders with video. The Radeon? 9700 GPU also offers FullStream? video de-blocking technology that removes blocky artifacts (noise removal filtering) for captured video and provides sharper image quality.

VideoShader? HD
VideoShader HD is a key feature of the video processing engine that allows it to tap into the power of the programmable pixel shader units of the Radeon X800 3D core. This allows shaders to be used to accelerate many different video processing tasks, including noise removal (VideoSoap), de-blocking (FullStream), adaptive de-interlacing, frame rate conversion, color space conversion, and much more. VideoShader HD also provides the flexibility required to support all of the latest video formats, including MPEG1/2/4, Real, DivX, and WMV9.

VideoSoap?
VideoSoap? provides advanced filtering to reduce speckling, improve sharpness and smooth blurry motion to provide high quality personal video recordings

Video Immersion? II
ATI?s Video Immersion? II technology integrates industry-leading digital video features, including advanced adaptive de-interlacing algorithm, temporal filtering, and video gamma enhancement for unprecedented video quality and integrated digital TV decode capability. In addition, there is component output support for HDTVs (High Definition Television) at 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i.

VPU Recover
VPU Recover significantly reduces the number of system crashes caused by graphics hardware hangs. If the display driver detects that the graphics processor has hung, VPU Recover will attempt to reset the graphics processor, eliminating the need for a system reboot and allowing users to continue using their computer without interrupting or losing their work.

Professional 3D Workstation Solutions for the Digital Content Creation and MCAD 3D markets
While game requirements are focused on high frame rates, the 3D workstation product needs to address the problems of working with very advanced and complex applications that simultaneously run in wire-frame and shaded modes with numerous windows and menus being opened or closed. For more information on how ATI's FireGL line can improve your professional 3D workstation graphics, and other product features, please click on the links below.

Other Professional Workstation Solutions
Radeon® 7000 (Radeon® VE) - This cost-effective solution provides the users with high-level 2D workstation and consumer 3D features, performance, and reliability required for today?s demanding applications, but at the same time, doesn?t compromise on features that have become standard in the 2D professional market. For more product information, please click on the link below.
 

Lonyo

Lifer
Aug 10, 2002
21,938
6
81
Originally posted by: VIAN
Can someone tell me what these terms designated on ATI cards mean?
-Truform
-AI
-Smartshader
-SMARTGART
-T2 (example: anti-aliasing set at 4xT2)

Also, what are the nVidia 'equivalents'?
I hate it when companies use proprietory terminology
Smartshader: This is just Shader technology that each DirectX compatible card needs to have. ATI wanted to give it a name. I don't think Nvidia actually gives it a name, but they have shaders as well.


T2: I'm not sure what this means actually. I think it might be temporal AA, but T2 doesn't exist in official ATI drivers.
No, Smartshader allows yuou to apply post-processing effects suck as black and white, emboss, etch etc effects to alter the way a game/OGL/3D output looks.
The old temporal AA IIRC allowed you to select between 2T and 3T but in the current driver set there's only the option to enable temporal AA, and not choose the level.
 

VIAN

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2003
6,575
1
0
No, Smartshader allows yuou to apply post-processing effects suck as black and white, emboss, etch etc effects to alter the way a game/OGL/3D output looks.
Well, according to what Schadenfroh posted, I was closer than you. Looks like Smartshader is just the directx technology equipped within a card series ex. X800.

My guess is that:

Smartshader = Dx8.1

Smartshader 2 = Dx9

Smartshader 2.1 = dx9b

The options within the drivers are Smartshader "Effects".
 

PrayForDeath

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2004
3,478
1
76
Actually TruForm had a great potential, but the reason it failed is due to not being adopted by game developers. And that's what ATI are trying to avoid with their 3Dc technology. If you refer to Anandtech's article on TruForm, you'll see why it had a great potential. I still wonder why developers didn't use it.
 

VIAN

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2003
6,575
1
0
It never worked properly. It made things round that weren't supposed to be.

And unfortunately 3Dc is headed in the same direction. I've never heard a game developer tout it in their title.
 

Drayvn

Golden Member
Jun 23, 2004
1,008
0
0
3Dc is actually being incorporated in nVidias hardware. As its made by ATi but ATi have released it as open source. Just like what nVidia have done. If i remember correctly they made the DXT compression technique and now everyone uses it... well ATi.

Quite a few devs are asking for it because its a better compression technique than the DXT standard of today.

First game ive heard that is coming out with it is Serious Sam 2