City Of The Future Tessellation demo

[Juncar]

Can you guys just put more efforts and resources into making better games with replay values rather than spending so much money on graphics?

 

[blastingcap]

AMD wants to push for 3), which I find unacceptable.

Consoles are all sub-DX11. AMD owns 90% of the DX11 market. You will not get your way anytime soon. As the owner of a 768MB video card, trust me, I'd prefer more tessellation and less VRAM usage, but the realistic time for mass-adoption of tessellation is with the next-gen consoles, not now.

 

[Scali]

Consoles are all sub-DX11. AMD owns 90% of the DX11 market. You will not get your way anytime soon. As the owner of a 768MB video card, trust me, I'd prefer more tessellation and less VRAM usage, but the realistic time for mass-adoption of tessellation is with the next-gen consoles, not now.

Don't tell me, tell the developers of HAWX 2 and Civ5. They're the ones already using tessellation in this way (starting with very low detail geometry, and generating everything on the fly).
I think you're the one not going to get your way, and you're just in denial.

What I'm saying is not my way, but is exactly what Microsoft, AMD and nVidia have been saying since the introduction of DX11.
Stop misrepresenting it as my opinion. It's purely a technical fact. Don't deny the facts. It makes you look like an idiot.


Personal attacks are not acceptable.

Re: "It makes you look like an idiot."

Moderator Idontcare

 

[ugaboga232]

Pretty sure profits and the need of making them to continue producing games is also a fact. You and I may want the latest and greatest in graphics, but no one wants to be stuck with the bill. I agree with blastingcap in that we need to wait till the nextgen of consoles. AMD and nVidia will make the chips for the next gen, so when they do come out, I do expect much wider spread tessellation and a big leap in graphics. But due to the recession, no one knows when they will come out. They may be southern island derivatives or Kesler or even maxwell and beyond (I don't remember the exact nvidia codenames so if I am wrong, don't hold it against me).

 

[Scali]

I agree with blastingcap in that we need to wait till the nextgen of consoles.

Game developers disagree with you, as I have pointed out.
Not all of them want to wait. You may be surprised, shocked even, to find out just how many of them will not be waiting.

 

[blastingcap]

Don't tell me, tell the developers of HAWX 2 and Civ5. They're the ones already using tessellation in this way (starting with very low detail geometry, and generating everything on the fly).
I think you're the one not going to get your way, and you're just in denial.

What I'm saying is not my way, but is exactly what Microsoft, AMD and nVidia have been saying since the introduction of DX11.
Stop misrepresenting it as my opinion. It's purely a technical fact. Don't deny the facts. It makes you look like an idiot.

I said "mass adoption" and I meant it. I was unaware that HAWX 2 and Civ V, two games out of thousands, represented the mass market. (Barts runs those games fine anyway.) I was also unaware that most devs don't design for DX9, and that they would willingly ignore the fact that 90% of DX11 GPUs are AMD.

We will continue to see tessellation make inroads but it'll be a slog until consoles get in on the action. I'm afraid it is you who is in denial. Whether you want to admit it or not, AMD's Barts tessellator is indeed "good enough" for this generation of GPUs (Cayman/Fermi). NV's approach is much better, but by the time it matters, we will be talking about Kepler or (more likely) a GPU newer than Kepler, since 2012 is rumored to be the earliest realistic date for a new console gen.

 

[Scali]

I'm not in denial, I'm probably the only one here who actually understands tessellation. So I'm the only one who actually has an informed opinion on the matter.

 

[blastingcap]

I'm not in denial, I'm probably the only one here who actually understands tessellation. So I'm the only one who actually has an informed opinion on the matter.

That's going in my sig line.

 

[SirPauly]

We will continue to see tessellation make inroads but it'll be a slog until consoles get in on the action. I'm afraid it is you who is in denial. Whether you want to admit it or not, AMD's Barts tessellator is indeed "good enough" for this generation of GPUs (Cayman/Fermi). NV's approach is much better, but by the time it matters, we will be talking about Kepler or (more likely) a GPU newer than Kepler, since 2012 is rumored to be the earliest realistic date for a new console gen.

That's a fair view based on future forward features and many probably think this way. Hardware usually improves over time but it's still nice to see a powerful tessellation from nVidia and adds value for potential games and future games. More is indeed better but the key one has to define how important tessellation is for each individual and may differ. This is why if one desires to define a winner, if this is important, personally allow the market to be the judges.

I'm not a mind-set of "good enough" and downplaying over-all though. More of a "what is" type mind-set.

 

[ugaboga232]

Scali, you are being childish. We will not see tessellation like in this demo for quite a while barring some sort of gaming messiah. Companies want money. Spending lots of money for features that very people will enjoy and who would have probably bought your game anyway is stupid. If you want to make a super crysis, everyone will praise you, but you can bet it would cost you a lot.

Also, why does 6870 CF beat the 460 SLI in a lot of newer dx11 games? Riddle me that if it has such a crippled tessellator.


Personal attacks are not acceptable.

Re: "you are being childish"

Moderator Idontcare

 

[Scali]

We will not see tessellation like in this demo for quite a while barring some sort of gaming messiah.

We already have Civ5 and HAWX 2, mere months after Fermi released.
I expect many more to follow in the coming months.

 

[Scali]

That's going in my sig line.

Why don't you explain tessellation to all of us, to prove that you understand the concept fully.

 

[Voo]

We already have Civ5 and HAWX 2, mere months after Fermi released..

Yeah and without tesselation they look like 20year old games with only the absolute minimum of recognizeable shapes.. oh wait, no they don't and if looking at Civ 5 - while a 10% performance delta is noticeable - no doubt - it's by far not earthshattering and we've got no idea how much of that are drivers (although I've got no doubt that Nvidia can also improve their drivers there)

Also we still don't have any ideas how many 480s ran the demo.. if you need 4 or so to run it (and it seemed not perfectly fluid.. 30fps maybe?), while it's still impressive we'd be more than one or two generations before single mid level GPUs would be able to produce similar results.. and as long as that's not the case we won't see such simplified textures, because the game has to look reasonably well for everyone.
Doesn't mean that tesselation isn't the way to go, but there's a reason backwards compability is so important to lots of companies, so we'll still need a few years for that and that's so much time that Ati really should be able to come up with a improved tesselation unit.

 

[Leadbox]

Impressive demo indeed, but in an industry whose pace is essentially dictated by consoles <sobs>, it will be what? 8~10 years before this hits the pc?

 

[Scali]

Yeah and without tesselation they look like 20year old games with only the absolute minimum of recognizeable shapes.. oh wait, no they don't

No, but Civ5 runs up to 30% faster in DX11 mode than in DX9 mode, while looking better doing it. That's tessellation for you.

 

[zebrax2]

I'm not in denial, I'm probably the only one here who actually understands tessellation. So I'm the only one who actually has an informed opinion on the matter.

that your rebuttal???................

I'd have to agree with blastingcap with this. By the time we see tessellation being the main bottleneck in 6xxx in most games the next generation of cards will be out.

 

[ugaboga232]

I am sorry, but having played Civ 5 on the highest it goes, it didn't really impress me. I don't see how it should be the forefront of tessellation. If someone could show me pics of Civ 5 and Hawx 2, maybe we can compare them to other games (crysis, stalker and oblivion with mods) which are a bit older but still have graphical prowess.

TL;DR version: What's so special about HawX 2 and Civ 5 compared to say Crysis?

 

[Scali]

I'd have to agree with blastingcap with this. By the time we see tessellation being the main bottleneck in 6xxx in most games the next generation of cards will be out.

Question is, will AMD have a parallel tessellator by then?

 

[Scali]

TL;DR version: What's so special about HawX 2 and Civ 5 compared to say Crysis?

THe point was that HAWX 2 and Civ 5 (as well as Crysis, by the way) use technology that is well beyond what current consoles are capable of. Civ 5 also makes use of DirectCompute.
So the claim that games won't go beyond what current consoles are capable of is patently false. Plenty of games use PC-only features.

 

[Gikaseixas]

If that's the path they choose sure why not? Let me guess, you don't think they're capable of this tremendous achievement right?

 

[Leadbox]

Question is, will AMD have a parallel tessellator by then?

Does it have to be parallel? If so please explain the significance of this to us non-technical folk?

 

[Scali]

If that's the path they choose sure why not? Let me guess, you don't think they're capable of this tremendous achievement right?

I'm saying that it takes time to get something as complex as that to work perfectly.
It probably took nVidia at least a year to perfect their PolyMorph engine, perhaps longer.
As far as I can tell, AMD has not yet started on development, so even if they DO choose to develop something similar, which they certainly will be capable of, it's going to take a while until we have hardware in our hands with an actual working implementation.

Stop being so negative. You, and many others, sound like you just can't handle reality.

 

[Grooveriding]

Some folks are just dead set on having a tessellation flame thread at any cost.

One dies, create another, the same folks take the bait.

Beat that drum, beat that horse, no one is listening.


Thread-crapping is not acceptable.

Moderator Idontcare

 

[Scali]

Does it have to be parallel? If so please explain the significance of this to us non-technical folk?

Yes, it does, obviously.
What a tessellator basically does is subdividing geometry, such as quads or triangles (aka 'patches'), up into smaller quads/triangles.
So you are basically getting a sort of quadratic explosion of geometry (you subdivide the patch in two dimensions!).
A single polygon may be subdivided into hundreds of smaller polygon (the maximum is 64x64!).

So if you try to shove all these generated polygons through a serial pipeline, as what AMD is doing, you're bound to be completely bottlenecked.
Therefore it HAS to be parallel.
nVidia's implementation can handle up to 15 triangles in parallel, which is why it scales along so well with higher tessellation factors.

Let me ask you a simple question:
Microsoft defined the DirectX 11 standard with a maximum tessellation factor of 64. Does it sound like a good implementation if the hardware starts bottlenecking at a tessellation factor of 11?
That is nowhere even near the maximum of the DirectX 11 standard.

 

[AtenRa]

A DX-11 game can be ported to Consoles and vise versa. It is like the VGAs in the PC. The same game can be played in DX-11 when we have a AMD HD5000/6000 or NVs GF1xx equivalent cards but it will play in DX-10 with HD4000 series etc etc.

So we can have a DX-11 PC game that will support Tessellation and at the same time we could ported to Consoles.