Leo DirectX forward plus rendering lighting

[AnandThenMan]

If I am not mistaken this was the case in the original crysis as well

What was?

 

[Jaydip]

It had the same ocean(not tessellated ofc),i think someone posted a screenshot from the crysis in that old thread.

 

[3DVagabond]

Yes, the ocean was there in the original crysis. Considering it wasn't tessellated then it probably didn't incur too much of a performance hit.

Let's say that it was a leftover artifact from Crysis 1. How do we explain all of the other ridiculous tessellation? How about adding tessellation because they were paid too and the person paying the bill didn't care where it was added?

If you are going to tessellate shapes you have to "weight" the vertices to define the "outline" of the model. If you don't then the tessellation, when applied, will smooth/round sections of the model that you want to have angles on. If something is a simple rectangle (just drawing a simple mental image) then you only have 12 edges to define as fixed (weighted 100%). Very simple and fast to do. Then you can tessellate the 12 polygons (2x 3 sided polygons per side) to your hearts content. It won't make ah heck all difference in the look of the model, but it'll jack the poly count, if that's all you are trying to accomplish. There is no other reason to tessellate flat sides of models. None! Tessellating the piss out of what are basically boxes is very simple to do. It's a complete waste of resources though. The best places to apply tessellation are on curved surfaces to smooth the outline of the model and remove the faceted look that models made up of straight edge polygons. You then adjust the level of tessellation on the model depending on distance from the camera.

 

[Jaydip]

I agree with you but at the same time we should always strive for better iq in games

 

[sontin]

Yes, the ocean was there in the original crysis. Considering it wasn't tessellated then it probably didn't incur too much of a performance hit.

Let's say that it was a leftover artifact from Crysis 1. How do we explain all of the other ridiculous tessellation? How about adding tessellation because they were paid too and the person paying the bill didn't care where it was added?

If you are going to tessellate shapes you have to "weight" the vertices to define the "outline" of the model. If you don't then the tessellation, when applied, will smooth/round sections of the model that you want to have angles on. If something is a simple rectangle (just drawing a simple mental image) then you only have 12 edges to define as fixed (weighted 100%). Very simple and fast to do. Then you can tessellate the 12 polygons (2x 3 sided polygons per side) to your hearts content. It won't make ah heck all difference in the look of the model, but it'll jack the poly count, if that's all you are trying to accomplish. There is no other reason to tessellate flat sides of models. None! Tessellating the piss out of what are basically boxes is very simple to do. It's a complete waste of resources though. The best places to apply tessellation are on curved surfaces to smooth the outline of the model and remove the faceted look that models made up of straight edge polygons. You then adjust the level of tessellation on the model depending on distance from the camera.

The barries are not flat. :'(

Tessellation is used to create new geometry on the gpu to produce realistic looking objects. PN-Triangles is only one segment of it.

 

[Arzachel]

Imho,

I don't agree! -- a title may have a fidelity setting that may shine on a particular architecture but doesn't really effect game-play. No one is harmed really and yet a gamer can be rewarded for the strength of an architecture.

To wait 'till both architectures are even -- ideal playing field -- if one can't handle the fidelity setting - then it's not worth doing -- how the hell does one move forward with that idealistic view?

All gamers have to enjoy it and if the other architecture or software isn't up to speed -- none at all. Can't push forward and innovate with that backwards thinking to me. It's noble to have a desire for everyone to have equal gaming experiences but an idealistic view and idealism becomes the enemy of good.

This is a strawman of colossal proportions.

Nobody is arguing that AMD/Nvidia should stop trying to provide a better experience to their customers. But some while ago it seems that they decided that screwing over people using products from their competitors is much cheaper and works to the same effect. Do the tessellated barriers and concrete walls look that much better to warrant the horrid performance penalty? Do the lightning effects in Showdown are that much better than what you see in other games? I'm all for graphically demanding games even though I currently run on pretty poor hardware, if that means substantially better visuals. Instead, we're getting barely noticeable effects that cut your framerate in half to sell you videocards.

I was debating on whether to build a new rig, but I'll probably just get a Kaveri/Haswell laptop unless I'll see anything come even close to the jump that Crysis was, because the next gen console ports sure as hell won't need anything more.

 

[zlatan]

Sniper Elite V2 uses Unreal Engine 3, that's about as deferred as they come.

Sniper Elite V2 uses Asura Engine. But yes, it's a deferred renderer.

 

[3DVagabond]

The barries are not flat. :'(

Tessellation is used to create new geometry on the gpu to produce realistic looking objects. PN-Triangles is only one segment of it.

They are mostly flat. I said I was keeping it simple for the purpose of easy explanation with the rectangle reference. Don't play on a single word or phrase and try and understand the concept.

 

[zlatan]

The most prime example of a game which uses a ton of compute shaders, is Battlefield 3, where Kepler still manages to crush their GCN counterparts.

Battlefield 3 is not really compute-heavy. There are differences between compute shader and compute shader. Using this stage not exactly mean that your code is complex. Kepler just don't like complex codes, on the other hand GCN is designed for these situations.

 

[sontin]

They are mostly flat. I said I was keeping it simple for the purpose of easy explanation with the rectangle reference. Don't play on a single word or phrase and try and understand the concept.

No, they are not "mostly flat". With Tessellation they get structure and looking more realistic.

What you described is only PN-Triangle. One way to use Tessellation. That has nothing to do with the barries or curbs in Crysis 2. Crytek generated a new model out of the base mesh. And the visual gain depends on the base mesh:



And in the end: I don't get it why people complain: You are going from extreme to ultra in Crysis 2. A performance lost for a minimal visual impact should be normal today...

 

[3DVagabond]

No, they are not "mostly flat". With Tessellation they get structure and looking more realistic.

What you described is only PN-Triangle. One way to use Tessellation. That has nothing to do with the barries or curbs in Crysis 2. Crytek generated a new model out of the base mesh. And the visual gain depends on the base mesh:



And in the end: I don't get it why people complain: You are going from extreme to ultra in Crysis 2. A performance lost for a minimal visual impact should be normal today...

I was referring to the models from Russian's post. This is one of them, and it is mostly flat.

 

[sontin]

It's mostly flat because of the perspective. The same object - different perspectives:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=32283290&postcount=522

 

[3DVagabond]

It's mostly flat because of the perspective. The same object - different perspectives:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=32283290&postcount=522

There's no point in going back and forth. You don't understand what I'm saying.

 

[SirPauly]

This is a strawman of colossal proportions.

Nobody is arguing that AMD/Nvidia should stop trying to provide a better experience to their customers. But some while ago it seems that they decided that screwing over people using products from their competitors is much cheaper and works to the same effect. Do the tessellated barriers and concrete walls look that much better to warrant the horrid performance penalty? Do the lightning effects in Showdown are that much better than what you see in other games? I'm all for graphically demanding games even though I currently run on pretty poor hardware, if that means substantially better visuals. Instead, we're getting barely noticeable effects that cut your framerate in half to sell you videocards.

I was debating on whether to build a new rig, but I'll probably just get a Kaveri/Haswell laptop unless I'll see anything come even close to the jump that Crysis was, because the next gen console ports sure as hell won't need anything more.

My point to your thinking is on target: If it doesn't enhance for all then it's not really worth doing. Noble? Yes! Idealism? Absolutely!

 

[SirPauly]

Remember back in the days when you could select OpenGL or DX to play a game? Some games ran much faster on NV cards in OpenGL. Well that option was there. This way, you could still play the game with the ATI card in DX and have faster performance with the NV card in OpenGL. Both parties are happy. If Borderlands developer put in CPU physics and PhysX for nV cards and PhysX was superior, I have no problem with that. Instead, they spent time putting in physics effects via PhysX and allocated no effort at all towards CPU physics model. So it doesn't give a gamer any option at all. You either get physics with PhysX or nothing.

Dirt Showdown uses DirectCompute for the global lighting model. If you want global lighting, it's either that or nothing at all in that game. The difference is the industry is moving towards DirectCompute while PhysX is a closed standard.

Further, the excessive Tessellation in The Secret World is the only major difference between running the game in DX9 and DX11 as investigated by GameGPU.ru. The game looks so ugly, the developer would have been way better off working on a high-resolution texture pack. The rail-road tracks on cobble streets look all crooked as if the game was made in 2003. Unfortunately they were too busy serving NV's needs to put in a gigantic tessellated wall of red bricks that looks all smudged with a 4x performance hit. That's the future of PC gaming? I am all for Tessellation when it makes the game look a lot better. The Secret World is not one of those games. How did the developer go through beta testing of that game and conclude that a 4x performance hit is worth it to keep the Tessellation option while making the game look worse?!

This is no different than concrete barrier and invisible ocean in Crysis 2. Both of those things literally came out of nowhere, mysteriously after NV got involved.....Considering how great Crytek's physics, lighting and destruction model was in Crysis 1 4 years ago, I am not gullible enough to believe that Crytek's programmers would be so incompetent to do this:

What kind of a programmer would miss a mistake like this by "accident" on a multi-million dollar blockbuster videogame????

A tessellated ocean in the middle of NYC?

They did it just to spite AMD -- and took bribes, obviously.

 

[f1sherman]

Remember that High-res textures, DX11 and tessellation itself were added 2 months after Crysis 2 launched and reviewed.
So for an afterthought, the end result actually looks pretty good.

Nothing there to support conspiracy-looning, least of all the invisible ocean that was there since original Crysis.
MaLDo himself said that tessellated water in Ultra runs better than non-tesselated in Extreme.

So if you're looking for that perfect game, that will have all the possible eye-candy and be superbly optimized to run like the Minecraft, you should buy yourself a spot in a decent cryogenic chamber.

Moar stuff onscreen = less fps :thumbsup:


As for Leo, I loved that demo. But anything that resembles cartoon gets shunned these days.
Forward+ is great for everyone because it will budge Nvidia to get involved with PC gaming and with developers even more.
Which otherwise could stall, with Tegra needing much of their attention and resources.

 

[SirPauly]

[
Forward+ is great for everyone because it will budge Nvidia to get involved with PC gaming and with developers even more.

Indeed!

 

[RussianSensation]

So if you're looking for that perfect game, that will have all the possible eye-candy and be superbly optimized to run like the Minecraft, you should buy yourself a spot in a decent cryogenic chamber.

You linked me to some post in the thread by a guy who stated this:

"The idea is to push the boundaries of detail, not the boundaries of efficiency."

That goes counter-intuitive to everything NV, AMD and Intel do when it comes to CPU and GPU design and performance/watt. I believe a game developer should weigh in how things will impact the entire userbase. If not, every game in the world would look like the new Nalu NV demo. Developers can make games look much better but only 0.1% of people would be able to run them.

Like I said before, I don't have any problems with new technologies in general making way into games such as HDAO/SSAO/HBAO/Tessellation/Global Illumination but they should be implemented in such a way that the game runs well on various products. It's the developer's courtesy that a game isn't half-*** coded that it hurts one brand or the other. They go through beta testing so it'll become obvious right away. For example, in the Secret World when they saw a 4x performance hit in DX11 on 7970, the lead programmers should have set down in a conference room and discussed why their game runs like a dog on a $400 graphics card, despite having graphics that are 5/10 at best. Was there any way to optimize certain things to run faster on 7000 series? Would those tessellated bricks look worse with a factor of 8x or 4x vs. 16x?

Really all it will take is 2-3 blockbuster titles that run like a dog on GTX670/GTX680 series and you'll see why this isn't good for PC gaming. Why do you think Blizzard games sell so well? For starters they have very low hardware requirements. Blizzard will never make a game that pushes 3D graphics since it'll alienate 80% of its customer base.

If someone is going to make a game that runs at 25 fps on a GTX680 (Dirt Showdown) or at 25 fps on a 7970 GE (The Secret World), it better be the BEST looking game in the world.

I want to know how you would have felt if your card was 50% slower in BF3 than 7970 had AMD worked with Dice to implement Global Lighting model and contact hardening shadows using DirectCompute of GCN.......it would have basically made GTX670/680 worthless for BF3.

With this scenario a company with the most $$$ will bribe the most developers and sell the most cards. Before people closed a blind eye to this because it wasn't as prevalent.

 

[f1sherman]

I want to know how you would have felt if your card was 50% slower in BF3 than 7970 had AMD worked with Dice to implement Global Lighting model and contact hardening shadows using DirectCompute of GCN.......it would have basically made GTX670/680 worthless for BF3.

I'd look for a Game Settings and push some slider(s) to the left

Crysis 2 really is the best looking (technically) game in the world.
And it was always about pushing the boundaries of detail, not the boundaries of efficiency.

2-3 blockbuster titles running like a dog on GTX670/GTX680 series...
I do not see that happening. But hey, again - slider(s) to the left should help.

PC devs getting deeply involved in all capabilities of DX11 and hardware itself. The heck can go wrong with THAT?

 

[SirPauly]

With this scenario a company with the most $$$ will bribe the most developers and sell the most cards. Before people closed a blind eye to this because it wasn't as prevalent.

Imho,

If AMD doesn't try -- Dirt3 Showdown may be a lackluster port, without forward+ rendering enhancements. It may force nVidia to work harder to stay competitive based on the innovation of forward+ rendering.

AMD customers may enjoy the abilities out-of-the-box more and nVidia may need to work on optimizations or improve their hardware. It's good to see AMD try to improve the experiences for their customers, raise the bar of innovation, and bring more awareness to the PC over-all.

You call this bribing -- amazing.

 

[Silverforce11]

You can't actually debate with ppl who try to defend Crysis 2's tessellation usage. A debate assumes both sides are capable of reason and logic.

 

[Final8ty]

You can't actually debate with ppl who try to defend Crysis 2's tessellation usage. A debate assumes both sides are capable of reason and logic.

That's alright just turn it down.

My tests.

Default
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/9343/crysis2default.jpg

AMD Optimized Tessellation
http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/9477/crysis2amdoptim.jpg

64x Tessellation
http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/7738/crysis2x64.jpg

32x Tessellation
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/3623/crysis2x32.jpg

16x Tessellation
http://img802.imageshack.us/img802/4497/crysis2x16.jpg slight spiking

8x Tessellation
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/3219/crysis2x8.jpg spikes apparent.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31993235&postcount=99

Their analysis indicates that going to 32x or sometimes even 16x samples is OK (for walls they said going below 32x is noticeable already). But beyond that there is a very noticeable decrease in visual quality. My point is, I have no problems with using Tessellation when it improves visual quality. For example, imo Normal Tessellation in Unigine Heaven is much preferable to Extreme Tessellation, both visually (I think extreme looks too artificial) and as a trade-off in performance.

Pretty much what i have found.

 

[Arkadrel]

@Final8ty

Thanks for posting pictures.
At x32 I cant see any differnce from x64.

To me that means any place that uses more than x32 is wasteing resources for no reason.
At the same time, I can see that the way Crysis 2 makes use of tessellation in this "case" x16 is abit to low.

But thats probably because of how they used it, they probably could have made better use of it,
that demanded less than it does (but shows more in results of improved IQ).
Also this doesnt adress "where" they used tessellation, on surfaces they "kept" flat, or like a invisible ocean ect.

I still think Crysis 2 is a good exsample of really badly implimented tessellation.

(mostly because I believe the graphics guys can do a better job than this, with tessellation, I guess its more a case of disappointment)

edit:
isnt discussion getting off-topic abit here?
This was a thread about "Leo demo" and useing directX compute for rendering Lights.

 

[SomeoneSimple]

Sniper Elite V2 uses Asura Engine. But yes, it's a deferred renderer.

Thanks for correcting that. Apparently its not an uncommon mistake, I see UE3 mentioned regularly regarding Sniper Elite V2's engine.
Now it makes sense to me why all those UE3 AA-compatibility bits would't work under DX9 .

 

[Arkadrel]

Sniper Elite V2 is one of those games that seems to favor AMD abit (not much though):