HSR; Major performance improvement in beta drivers for Voodoo5's in GL!!!

[BFG10K]

RoboTECH:

If you read that somewhere, please provide a link.

There was a discussion on it while back in one of the threads. I forget the link.

Play Q3 w/16-bit textures and 16-bit color depth. This is where you'll see the MOST visual anomalies, and you'll still see a significant performance increase.

With the depth setting at fastest or at disabled?

If, as you said, bit accuracy was being dropped, then you'd see MORE weirdness in 32-bit, not less, and you'd see very little performance increase.

Why? You still have 32 bit colour and texture depths. They improve on the 16 bit colours you were originally using. The only difference is that the Z buffer is now at 16 bits instead of 24.

BTW, the visual anomalies generated by "fastest" depth precision are related to geometry.

That could be happening in addition to what I said.

This is what 3dfx's helpfile says:
This feature optimizes the precision used for depth calculations in 16-bit modes to improve performance, especially at higher resolutions. This optimization could also produce some display artifacts or visual defects in some programs.

Depth calculations suggests a Z-buffer to me

 

[Soccerman]

hey BFG..

"The only difference is that the Z buffer is now at 16 bits instead of 24."

u sure that it's only 24 bit? I always thought it was 32 on the Voodoo 5..

someone needs to sum everything up.. what's the general consensus about this?

in other words, are their any HSR settings that don't generate problems without a framerate cap?

 

[BFG10K]

Soccerman:

u sure that it's only 24 bit? I always thought it was 32 on the Voodoo 5.

That's a very good question. I always thought that it was 32 bit, but Dave corrected me while back when I mentioned it. Also if you look at the promotional brochures for the V4/V5 it says they have a 24 bit Z/W buffer. So I'm not really too sure what's going on here.

RoboTECH: there is a small chance that I have confused the OpenGL "depth precision" setting with the Direct 3D "Z buffer optimisation" setting, so I may be wrong with my original statements.

 

[RoboTECH]

bfg, i'm pretty sure you are mixing it up. I was VERY VERY VERY curious about this when it first came out and I was testing it

I only found a few RA3 maps that show ANY issues w/&quot;fastest&quot; in depth precision. The vast majority of them show no problems at all. It's pretty cool. <g>

HOWEVER, with depth precision set @ &quot;fastest&quot;, in 16-bit color depth/textures, there are a few maps that show some jacked up stuff

Best example is q3dm17. Stand up on the shotgun platforms near the YA launch pad, and zoom in on the railgun platform.

when depth precision is &quot;fastest&quot; and you are set to 16-bit color, OMFG, it looks so funny. Set to 32-bit color, and the weirdness disappears, and it's fast as heck.

I mean, 85 fps @ 1024x768x32 w/fastest settings, r_picmip 0, maxed geometry on the 5500 @ 183

that's pretty fuggin' cool. o/c'ed GTS (200/400) w/TC disabled is a bit slower than that.

Yet another reason why I just have to chuckle at the nincompoops who say the 5500 is &quot;slow&quot;

 

[madthumbs]

166 is slow.

 

[nortexoid]

ok, i didn't get to read every post, but most of them...

anyway, i read some previews metnioning that anything higher than hsr 1 or 2
is simply unusable due to complete flicker corruption...yeah, great way to boost
the fps - also, the max_fps command works, but then it limits your max fps anyway, right?
like if u set it to 40, what's the point...

if u keep it on hsr 1, at least u can get some performance gain - so it's not a complete loss,
but the benchmarks w/ anything higher should be excluded....unless u want to look thru walls,etc
w/ all the flicker...a new cheat?

 

[Deeko]

<< The only difference is that the Z buffer is now at 16 bits instead of 24.&quot;

u sure that it's only 24 bit? I always thought it was 32 on the Voodoo 5.. >>



I always thought it was 24-bit Z-buffer and 8-bit stencil.

 

[S0me1X]

Does the visual quality degrade significantlY?

 

[RoboTECH]

madthumbs, to what are you referring when you say &quot;166 is slow.
&quot;

you talking about the default v5 core/mem speed?

 

[madthumbs]

nortexoid;
The frame cap on the HSR implementation is still a good option as it will provide more stable frame rates than going without HSR and capping at the same framerate provided that the cpu isn't the limiting factor. I have seen a bug in older V3 drivers that let me see through walls, but I hated that driver set.

RoboTECH;
I'm one of those &quot;nincompoops who say the 5500 is &quot;slow&quot;&quot;, it is very slow compared to other cards of it's generation. Better Glide support is it's main advantage, but in light of Glide being a dying API... 166MHz is slow.

S0me1X;
There is no visual quality degradation using the HSR driver feature provided that the stuttering, blinking, and pauses are elimanated.