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Ati's Truform

flexy

flexy

Diamond Member
hi,

this is a very old article on anandtech (it's from may)

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1476

it explains ATIs truform technology.....i must say it looks and sounds impressive....look eg. at the picture of the face !!!

If it's true that applying truform to existing games is only done in one line of code and patches for truform games should be available soon (and/or driver options to force truform to existing games)..this would be awesome ! I never liked the 'artificial'/edgy look of 3d rendered models in most nowadays games - and this just looks stunning !

greetings



 
i agree, but i wanna see some actual implementation of this stuff...

also, does it require a game patch or merely driver side updates???
 
Its a joke.

Not only does it slow down the game considerably on my radeon 7500 (prob not the case on the 8500), it simply looks bad. people models might look a little better, but most of the guns look horrible, like youre carrying balloons.

Besides, any improvement is so slight and barely noticible its not even worth bothering.
 

the difference is whether a game implements truform......or (a eg. a patch) forces truform to a game which usually wouldn't support it.

Bigdee, i dont know about the radeon7200...so....i dont know what's the point in a comparison or making claims ?

If you check out the web (look for truform on google) then you get some interesting articles...and one article also mentioned the problem that some 3d models/games are not represented right with truform then...imagine a cube...or a box or something...and now apply truform which bends it's surfaces...then of course its no cube anymore !

If a developer designs a game FOR truform then he would of course design the 3d models accordingly (so that a cube comes out as a cube etc...) for the results as they're supposed to be in the game then, and if you force truform to a game which uses the traditional triangles then you can of course expect it not being 100% perfect in any 3d object used in the game...

i think its a great improvement..and i hope that many developers will support it...because done right it looks stunning !

 


<< Not only does it slow down the game considerably on my radeon 7500 (prob not the case on the 8500), it simply looks bad. people models might look a little better, but most of the guns look horrible, like youre carrying balloons.

Besides, any improvement is so slight and barely noticible its not even worth bothering.
>>



It's because only 8500 has hardware rendering implementation for the Truform.
Another note, I think it's just gonna to vapor off, just like the technology (vertex 4 or something? Make the skin b/w joint more smoother, forget that it's called.) that introduced with the first Radeon. It was RARELY used, if ANY.

But of course, to enable Truform only need to modify couple lines of code, it's much easier than write much of codes to implement that 4 vertex thinging.
 
no, the 7xxx are mostly normal radeons, except the 7500. The 7000,7200 and whatever else is out there are just renamed Radeons. The 7500 is a Radeon core which has been reworked and gives a huge performance boost.
 
Obviously since the 7500 is going to do it in software theres going to be a performance hit. Regardless of whether or not it theres a hit on the 8500 its still worth a mention since its enabled by default.

If I was at my home computer, I'd take shots of DOD with truform enabled. The character models look great, but the guns look horrible.

Considering the guns are mostly static objects, its quite obvious and ugly. It took me a while to figure out wtf was going on. Even if it does look good on character models, what use is that? Theyre obviously running around as fast as possible, and you have to shoot them before you get a chance to check out the smoothy models.

If the models were meant to have such high polygon counts, they would have been designed that way to begin with.

I suppose its a good idea in theory, but it doesnt really make that much of a difference in practice, even if it was selectively enabled. 99% of users probably couldnt tell a sh*t of a difference. I doubt anyone could even tell the difference in a hectic game of CS or DOD anyways, as AFAIK its the only game its currently enabled for.

Considering that, any games that will be recently released will certainly not need help from truform to have rounded edges, since any modern game will have ridiculous poly counts anyway.

Like I said, its a joke.

 


<< no, the 7xxx are mostly normal radeons, except the 7500. The 7000,7200 and whatever else is out there are just renamed Radeons. The 7500 is a Radeon core which has been reworked and gives a huge performance boost. >>

Where did you get that info from? The 7500 is a .15um upclocked original Radeon 64MB DDR (toss in Hydravision to actually).

The "huge performance boost" you speak of comes from the fact that the 7500 comes clocked more than 50% higher than the 64MB DDR (290Mhz core instead of 183), and has a solid jump in RAM speed as well (from 183DDR to 230DDR in 7500), not a core reworking.

The 7200 and 7500 are in fact the exact same chip, the 7500 has DDR RAM, the 7200 has only regular SDRAM.

The 7000 is a slightly reworked Radeon VE, so is not nearly as good performance wise as it's 7200 or 7500 cousins, but it's cheap.
 


<< Obviously since the 7500 is going to do it in software theres going to be a performance hit. Regardless of whether or not it theres a hit on the 8500 its still worth a mention since its enabled by default.

If I was at my home computer, I'd take shots of DOD with truform enabled. The character models look great, but the guns look horrible.

Considering the guns are mostly static objects, its quite obvious and ugly. It took me a while to figure out wtf was going on. Even if it does look good on character models, what use is that? Theyre obviously running around as fast as possible, and you have to shoot them before you get a chance to check out the smoothy models.

If the models were meant to have such high polygon counts, they would have been designed that way to begin with.

I suppose its a good idea in theory, but it doesnt really make that much of a difference in practice, even if it was selectively enabled. 99% of users probably couldnt tell a sh*t of a difference. I doubt anyone could even tell the difference in a hectic game of CS or DOD anyways, as AFAIK its the only game its currently enabled for.

Considering that, any games that will be recently released will certainly not need help from truform to have rounded edges, since any modern game will have ridiculous poly counts anyway.

Like I said, its a joke. >>





whow....i like such funny postings in the morning....it wakes me up 😉

So....you say truform is useless and 'a joke' because most games anyway are paced too fast and gameplay is so hectic anyway so people wont have a chance to look at the objects...and hardly wont notice a difference....

Ok...you can you assume that the majority of 'users' are (a) gamers and (b) gamers which only play ultra fast action games like Quake ?


Do you know that there are other 'games' around eg. RPGs...and do you know that you can use a computer for something different than games, also ?
(Eg. 3d rendering and animation)


"Even if it does look good on character models, what use is that? Theyre obviously running around as fast as possible, and you have to shoot them before you get a chance to check out the smoothy models."

Well...you obviously seem to prefer that kind of games....thats ok...i for example prefer other games (RPGs, dark age of camelot, dungeon siege etc.)...but saying that a certain rendering technology is 'useless' because you wont see the objects because the games/objects are too fast and get shot anyway really made me laugh.... 😉 ))))









 
oh..and btw...

what is the most intelligent/best solution ?


(a) cranking up the polygon count to insane heights (so objects get smooth)...cranking up the mhz....the need for a very fast GPU for computing that mount of data

(b) needing far FEWER polygons....BUT an effective smoothing/rounding algorithm which gives the SAME visible results as much, much more polygons with at the same time MUCH reduced bandwith and GPU-power needs ?


Edit:

Or...if you're game/animation developer....you could have two ways of designing...let's say eg. an extremely realistic human face:

(a) 1 million polygons

(b) 10000 polygons, but better algorithms


visual result for (a) and (b) the same, rendering power needed for (b) maybe 1/100th of what'd be needed for (a).













 


<< Do you know that there are other 'games' around eg. RPGs...and do you know that you can use a computer for something different than games, also ? >>



Name one game other than Half-Life/CS that has Truform enabled. I obviously can see the benefits of higher polygon counts for relatively static objects, as long as theyre not deformed. Guns have too many rounded edges, and look baloony. I would venture a guess that it would improve the appearance of a car in a racing game.


However, the second post obviously shows your MAJOR ignorance. Truform is not some generic smoothing algorithm. It simply tesselates rounded edges, and adds more polygons. Truform will NOT lower processing power. Read that again, and make sure you understand it well. That algorithm is making that 10000 poly model into a 1 million poly model. The reason why the 8500 doesnt take as much of a hit is because its GPU is that much stronger.

Its certainly not saving on poly count in any way whatsoever, as far as bandwidth, I'm not 100% positive, but I'm guessing theres no gains there either. You have to understand, its not for new games, its for older games, to attempt to make them look better and give them higher poly counts.

But tesselation is nothing new. Q3 did it back in 99 with their curved surfaces.

You know what makes me laugh? People who have no clue what theyre talking about, but think they do. So make sure you understand it this time. Truform is doing nothing but raising poly counts, and all the disadvantages of that come with it. As long as the 8500's GPU can handle the extra data, its no problem, but that won't last for long.

 


i admit i might have been wrong regarding the (final) object-polygon count !


I think the advantage of truform is on the object developer's side because they dont have to design objects with a higher number of polygons, since the hardware 'adds' those smoothening polygons then afterwards. (This is NOT bad btw !)

true that truform may be ideal for 'older' games since they can use conventional models and 'upgrade' it that way so they look as they would have an much higer polygon count...but it would be wrong to say that truform 'only' benefits older games..because the problem THEN is 'only' developers have to jump on that wagon and DESIGN newer games w/ truform in mind.

I am sorry that there only seem to be a couple games out utilizing this right now....but on the other hand see that the h/w (radeon 8500) just has been released....so what do you expect ?

Btw....i think i was NOT wrong regarding my bandwith-statements....i would have to look into that again...but i am quite sure i read somewhere that it saves bandwidth (and therefore equals a performance gain) if 3d objects in their definition need FEWER polygons/data to work with - and the rest (truform) is done in the GPU.

I still do NOT understand your anti-pathy (what do you have against truform ?) - i STILL think it's the more intelligent solution eg. for natural looking objects, animals whatever instead of using models which need much more polygons in the first place.



 
My beef with truform is that in the case of CS, its enabled by default, and it looks ugly. And for people with older radeons, its much much slower.

Besides, truform is not ATI specific. Its just n-patches, which are already present in DirectX and OpenGL, just other companies havent bothered to enable it yet, since it hasn't shown any noticble improvement yet. It does save a little bandwidth, by its not the polygon data thats the bottleneck, its the texture and pixel data.

I remember the unreal engine had this functionality way back 1997. It was a console command called curved surfaces. Eventually, Epic had to simply disable the command, because people would enable it thinking it was cool, and got a massive performance hit, and couldnt tell the difference.

For higher poly models, truform is not the answer. Developers need to take the time out to create better models, or very very selectively enable with polys will be tesselated, and which will not. Simply letting 90 degree angles go by is not enough.
 
BigDee, the reason an 8500 doesn't take a performance hit, is becuase this is a DirectX 8 feature, and as such, it uses the Hardware T&L of the video card.

ok, I don't think the 8500 doesn't take a performance hit (it has to take SOME hit), it's just that no-one's ever benchmarked this before (and I don't see any 8500 users complaining of low framerates in CS).

therefor, the CPU would not have to work so hard, and the AGP bus would not be so clogged with T&L data from the CPU.

Truform is one way of making older games look alot nicer. it can also be used as flexy has mentioned, so developers can retain backwards compatability and still make their games look great (I'd love to see truform on Homeworld, and Homeworld Cataclysm 🙂.
 


<<
For higher poly models, truform is not the answer. Developers need to take the time out to create better models, or very very selectively enable with polys will be tesselated, and which will not. Simply letting 90 degree angles go by is not enough. >>



There is no question that certain rendering techniques (call them n-patches or truform) only make sense applied to CERTAIN kind of objects.

If i want to render an object which by defintion is 'edgy' then truform has no place there..

But...the problem at rendering (IMHO) is not rendering relatively simple models...models with a low polygon count because the objects iteself are supposed to have edges (say weapons, buildings etc...)...the problem is (and always was in 3d graphics) when it comes to objects which are extremely difficult (or only with much effort) to 'reproduce' in a 3d world...be it objects like plants, trees (where other algos are needed again)...or objects which are *not* defined by polygons naturally, like animals, humans, human faces....

You cannot use one algo (eg. the algo which generates a tree by using fractals) on a human face etc......nevertheless i wouldnt state that this algorithm (imagine a card would have it in h/w) is 'dumb', 'useless' whatever only because it's present...a feature more as option is always GOOD.

It's on the developer to implement it....use the features of hardware...and if you see that certain objects (weapons etc.) are not rendered right...then blame the developers for implementing (and using) rendering techniques wrongly.

(But dont blame a developer/old game where you force it to truform...because there it was never intended to use...STILL...its nice you have the OPTION to even MODIFY older games in their look....hell..where do you get that ? It may come down so far that i can use some ancient 3d games like tombraider II and get an visual IMPROVEMENT..and this is a feature no OTHER card up to this day can offer me! And i am speaking of games who were written in times of the old TNT).

But it's something totally different if developers *actively* would design their 3d worlds/games with truform in mind..tesselation where it makes sense..and NO tesselation where it doesnt make sense - as for HL and CS..i have no idea if those games were planned/developed with 'truform' in mind...i'd say NO...my god halflife is an OLD game...and i can imagine that the truform implementation is not extremely stunning w/ this games...i just dont know...we have to wait for the next months what games wil be released which hopefully support it.





 
I've run Half Life with truform enabled.. it ran slowly (due to my Radeon LE not supporting this in hardware). I didn't have a problem with guns or anything like that.

I think if you're having problems with truform in a game making things look messed up, then obviously in that situation truform should not be used on those objects (or should be used to a lesser degree).
 


<< i think its a great improvement..and i hope that many developers will support it...because done right it looks stunning ! >>

And game developers are implementing Trueform already in upcoming games and Nvidia is hard at work trying to add trueform software rendering to their Detonator drivers. I have to admit that true form looked quirky and unreal to me in Counterstrike and the Artx Truefrom that the Croteam played around with in the Serious Sam patch 3 was funky looking in the game. Still Trueform has alot of potential and sometime good things take time to get intergrated into the mainstream.

Rain
 
"Name one game other than Half-Life/CS that has Truform enabled."

Someone posted at rage3d, that the retail version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein has a trueform option.

Check it out Here:

 
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