ATI's Radeon X800 series can do Transparency AA too..!
- Thread starter Blastman
- Start date
5150Joker
Diamond Member
Well I'll just repost what I said on R3D about this:
Hey isn't it nice to know ATi has been withholding this feature from it's userbase so they could introduce it as something new for their upcoming R520 (aka R300 + SM 3.0)? Don't even say, "well we can use it on R300 right now!" because it's done through a registry hack and isn't a user selected option. This is something I wanted when I actually owned an X800XT PE, too bad ATi was saving it for their next gen card. Pretty lame ATi, big thumbs down from me.
Hey isn't it nice to know ATi has been withholding this feature from it's userbase so they could introduce it as something new for their upcoming R520 (aka R300 + SM 3.0)? Don't even say, "well we can use it on R300 right now!" because it's done through a registry hack and isn't a user selected option. This is something I wanted when I actually owned an X800XT PE, too bad ATi was saving it for their next gen card. Pretty lame ATi, big thumbs down from me.
Gamingphreek
Lifer
- Mar 31, 2003
- 11,679
- 0
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Out of curiosity, would this AA be done in the Software or would it be hardware accelerated.
-Kevin
-Kevin
Wow.
That is fairly EVIL of them. Just to pimp R520s they've been screwing all current customers? WTF?
5150Joker
Diamond Member
Yeah they actually introduced SSAA for the Mac and made up some b.s. reason about why it wasn't feasible for the PC. Now about 1+ year later they introduce super sampling for the PC, nicely tucked away in the Cat 5.9 before the R520's release. :roll:
jesus... Rollo... never miss a beat to say something bad. "new features in the driver?? Damn they suck.. they could have done that years ago"
rollo may be the pro ati basher around here, but cant just hate him, there are a few ATI lovers here who take his posts too serious and are starting to act worse than him
I don't know Jasonja, I don't know how to spin that as a positive.
If I understand 5150s post above correctly, I could have had TAA with my X800XTPE and ATI withheld it from me.
Is that "good"?
I think It's a good thing. I'm sure that if Ati "unlocked" a hidden quad on a 9800 pro Nobody with those cards would complain, but I'm sure find a way to stick your tongue out at it.
5150Joker
Diamond Member
Yeah I don't get why fanATics are rejoicing about this. ATi shafted us for the past year by denying any form of SSAA was possible for PC use and then they come out with this hidden away in their Cat 5.9 to introduce their R520 hardware. You guys think that's something worthy of praise? I certainly do not. If they intended this to be used for all R300 based ATi users, they'd have implmented the feature as a user selectable item in the control panel and not require people to use a registry hack to enable it.
Judging from initial reactions, I havent seen a single ATI card owner pissed about this development so far. Atleast not the biased ones.
Oh right and 5150 is now the ATI spokesperson...
Do you know that ATI is NOT going to release this on your X800? They haven't announced this as a feature at all... for any card yet. Maybe this feature isn't on yet because it still has bugs... maybe it doesn't work 100% correctly on all older hardware... maybe this was never the intended behavior of this registry key anyways. You don't know any of this... you nVidiots just assume the worst immediately.
Are you certain that nVidia can't do the same thing on their 6800? Maybe they are holding back too?
ATI has constantly released new features and optimizations to the drivers that cover the entire R300/400 series... Suddenly you assume this feature won't make the list. Funny how you assume ATI will keep doing all the bad sh1t (paper launches, etc) but won't keep up their habits of releasing new Catalyst features.
5150Joker
Diamond Member
Here's an example of ATi b.s. straight from an ATi rep of why SSAA wasn't important enough to implement despite a huge outcry for it: http://www.rage3d.com/board/showpost.php?p=1332507492&postcount=256 to which a poster replied:
Cat maker responded with:
Gee this "expensive" feature ATi was so reluctant to implement because only 2% of games would have used it all of a sudden became feasible and now is hidden away in a registry hack before R520s release, how convenient. Don't you just love how Cat maker ran away when pressed with questions? FanATics should be thanking nVidia for implementing TMSAA in 7800 GTX or else you would have never seen SSAA for X800 because ATi deemed you unworthy to spend the resources and effort to make it work on the PC.
Cat maker responded with:
Gee this "expensive" feature ATi was so reluctant to implement because only 2% of games would have used it all of a sudden became feasible and now is hidden away in a registry hack before R520s release, how convenient. Don't you just love how Cat maker ran away when pressed with questions? FanATics should be thanking nVidia for implementing TMSAA in 7800 GTX or else you would have never seen SSAA for X800 because ATi deemed you unworthy to spend the resources and effort to make it work on the PC.
Well.. how about because it's a new bonus that didn't cost me a friggin dime?
I think it's worth prasing anytime I get something added for free. I bought the X800 for what it had 5 months ago..... ATI had no obligation to give me more. Every year I have to buy new versions of various software I own to get the new features I want, ATI gives them to me for free. I don't really give a sh1t that I have to add a registry key to get the option.
It sure wouldn't make me HAPPY if I could have had TAA on all past 6800s and nV was keeping it from me? What kind of logic is that? It's like saying "thanks" to the builder of your home a year later when he tells you "Oh by the way, you have air conditioning. You just need to punch a code into the theromstat and you can enable it"? It's whack anyway you cut it if it works.
Apparently they've been hiding this for some time?
WTH? Way to dodge the question "CAT Maker". I suppose getting something better free is good no matter how you come about it, but ATI obviously manipulated their clients. Maybe this is part of the "more features but slower" we're supposed to shell out for.
That seems like a resonable response to me. Priorities in companies change.. and yes some of this may be response to nVidia.... so how does that make this any less cool that we now have new free features in our 2+ year old graphic cards?
btw, a Mac driver and the PC driver are two completely different beasts, different software teams, different code bases, etc. Just because one has a feature doesn't mean it's "free" do add it to another. Software does cost money and it is expensive. Do you think Software Engineers are cheap?
So thanks to nVidia for pushing ATI to make better products! No doubt the competition is good for both companies.
5150Joker
Diamond Member
It just rubs me the wrong way to know that they had the ability to add it in over a year ago for the PC but chose not to because apparently their customers weren't important enough to implement the feature. But now that nVidia put pressure on them and beat them in the AA department, customers be damned, their asses were on the line on all fronts so it became cost effective to hide it in their latest driver so they could introduce it as a new selling point for their R520 line of cards.
5150Joker
Diamond Member
Well apparently software engineers at ATi must get paid a lot more than the ones at nVidia because they're too cheap to prioritize their Linux drivers as well. Users be damned, ATi's bottom line is all that counts. So tell me again why I should thank ATi and not nVidia for not being so cheap with it's customers? I suppose we can call nVidia "Santa Claus" for giving its end users support and features they want (e.g. linux drivers, TMSAA, 3d glasses support) vs ATi "Ebenezer Scrooge" that tells their direct customers to get lost because only OEM customers are important enough to implement useless and expensive features like VPU recover.
If I didn't pay for A/C then I would be pretty damn happy that I got it for free! When you bought your X800 and 6800 TAA wasn't on the box... so STFU and stop bitching. They don't owe you anything.
Again you assume the worst... software and drivers are a constantly changing thing. I don't think they had this feature... it's quite easy to test you conspiracy theory by going back to previous drivers. What aren't you pissed that nVidia didn't give you those Multicore improvements 4 months ago?
If ATI wanted to hide features from their users they would NOT use plain text strings in the registry to enable/disable features.
I can?t believe people are upset about not having this feature up to now. :disgust:
ATI hasn?t been hiding anything. They could probably have added lots of different AA?s other than a max of 6x-MSAA on their last generation cards if they thought it was worthwhile as their GPU?s from the R300?s up have programmable AA.
My understanding is that transparency AA may not work that well in a lot of situations because of the way alpha-textures are used and only pple really picky about IQ are probably going to care much about it. I think NV coming out with the feature probably made ATI rethink whether they wanted to make the feature available and forced their hand.
If there are a lot of alpha textures on the screen the performance hit is going to be high (same situation on the 7800 with SS- TAAA? extremetech)
ATI hasn?t been hiding anything. They could probably have added lots of different AA?s other than a max of 6x-MSAA on their last generation cards if they thought it was worthwhile as their GPU?s from the R300?s up have programmable AA.
My understanding is that transparency AA may not work that well in a lot of situations because of the way alpha-textures are used and only pple really picky about IQ are probably going to care much about it. I think NV coming out with the feature probably made ATI rethink whether they wanted to make the feature available and forced their hand.
If there are a lot of alpha textures on the screen the performance hit is going to be high (same situation on the 7800 with SS- TAAA? extremetech)
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