how important is hyper z??

[butch84]

When i looked at pricewatch at the oem radeon 32ddr cards, many of them said "no hymper z". I already have one, but is this a big deal? Is it even a factor??
Thanx

 

[amurch1023]

Correct me if I'm wrong people but I would have to say that HyperZ is very important as it allows substantial memory bandwidth gains over non HyperZ cards.

 

[DaveB3D]

Just use the drivers from ATI's site to get it...

 

[TravisBickle]

Radeontweaker says that HyperZ is disabled by default because of its tendency to produce artefacts doesn't it? I don't know what they are talking about. who disables it them or ATi?

 

[Taz4158]

HyperZ is made up of a combination of 3 registry keys:
DisableHierarchicalZ
DisableHyperZ
FastZClearEnabled
DisableHierarchicalZ is disabled by default due to artifacting possibilities. I don't know anyone who has seen these artifacts so always enable all 3 parts for maximum performance.

 

[DaveB3D]

Hierarchical Z's can product artifact. That is a trait inherit to them. Because of that, it makes me wonder why they implemented it as they should have expected them.

 

[BFG10K]

Hyper-Z is very important because it helps to combat memory bandwidth problems. You only have to look at any Radeon review which also tests the card with Hyper-Z disabled to see what a difference it makes.

 

[Taz4158]

Funnily enough it's enabled by default in OGL. You can add these keys to test:
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ATI Technologies\Driver\0000\OpenGL\Private]
"enableFastZMaskClear "=dword:00000001
"enableZCompression "=dword:00000001
"ZCompForAllConfigs"=dword:00000001
"enableHierarchicalZ "=dword:00000001

 

[oldfart]

From what I understand HyperZ is enabled by default on all Radeon cards except the LE. The HierarchicalZ component of it is disabled by default on all cards because of the possibility of artifacts. You must turn it on if you wish to use it. So, ATI has it available, but not implemented unless you choose to do it.