Originally posted by: coomar
then why do you compare sm 1 to 3 and not sm 2 to 3?
splintercell dose not have a SM 2.0 path, only 1.1 and 3.0.
Originally posted by: coomar
then why do you compare sm 1 to 3 and not sm 2 to 3?
Originally posted by: ArchAngel777
Originally posted by: Rollo
The SM3 games I have are Far Cry, Lego Star Wars, Painkiller, and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.
AFAIK the only "SM3 effect" that cannot be done in SM2 is displacement mapping, and that is not used yet, also AFAIK.
BTW- if you have little kids, Leggo Star Wars is awesome. My 5 year old loves it.
Not only for kids dude! I want that game!24 years old and I still have my lego collection
I still need to pick that up sometime...
Originally posted by: coomar
then why do you compare sm 1 to 3 and not sm 2 to 3?
Originally posted by: dunno99
As a further note, parallax mapping is an advanced form of bump mapping, not displacement mapping. Distinction between bump mapping and displacement mapping is that the former doesn't affect the geometry of objects, but the latter does (either creates new ones, if the API -- note I used "API", not "hardware", since this is a general algorithm that is not limited to hardware implementations only -- is capable, or modifies existing geometry). Since parallax only changes the lookup of the pixel values (everything is eventually just colors on your screen) during texturing, it does not generate new geometry and is thus not considered to be the same class/family as displacement mapping, but instead that of bump mapping.
If you have a high-end GeForce 6800 or 6600 card, you?ll see a few other exclusives in the shader model 3.0 portion of the game?s menu, including high dynamic range lighting (with tone mapping), parallax mapping (an advanced form of displacement mapping), and high quality soft shadows.
Originally posted by: Pete
xt, you thinking of *virtual* displacement (aka parallax) mapping, or the real, geometry-deforming thing? I think it's the former, and I believe that's not exclusive to SM3 (or even SM2?). In any case, I'm pretty sure that's a pixel, not vertex shader effect.
Originally posted by: Rollo
The SM3 games I have are Far Cry, Lego Star Wars, Painkiller, and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.
AFAIK the only "SM3 effect" that cannot be done in SM2 is displacement mapping, and that is not used yet, also AFAIK.
BTW- if you have little kids, Leggo Star Wars is awesome. My 5 year old loves it.
Originally posted by: Pete
Jeff and xtk, you and Brandon are all confusing real with virtual displacement mapping. Virtual displacement mapping, as its name implies, doesn't modify geometry, as you can plainly see if you look at the edge of one of those bumpy stone or brick walls. You'll see the edge is "flat," a straight line, not irregular, like the stones. This is evident in the initial prison cell scene in this nice Oblivion video. I don't know if there's anything particularly advanced about it, other than vis a vis bump mapping. Real displacement mapping is literally on another level.
This effect was also covered at the GF6 launch, when Cevat [sic] from Crytek showed off their Far Cry 1.3 patch effects (which were mistakenly presented as SM3 only by quite a few people, tho Cevat clearly said the effects were SM2 & 3 in the presentation).
Nice posts, dunno. They're at odds with your name.
gac009, SC:CT recently gained a SM2 path. I'm 99.44% sure Anandtech and other sites have an article or at least benches describing the visual differences b/w the SM2 and 3 paths, and there were certainly a few threads on the subject.
They're at odds with your name.
And I'm pretty sure the GeForce 6 series can do "real" displacement mapping with vertex shaders.
Originally posted by: dunno99
They're at odds with your name.
I know...wait, do I?!But thanks.
And I'm pretty sure the GeForce 6 series can do "real" displacement mapping with vertex shaders.
I don't think Pete was referring to that the GF 6-series (not GirlFriend 6-series, but GeForce 6-series...GirlfFriend 6-series can not be bought for under $500 -- they go for over thousands of dollars to boot, and not to mention the expensive upkeep involved...but trust me, they're worth every penny) can't do real displacement mapping. I think Pete's just saying FC 1.3 was done on SM2.0, not SM3.0. Either way, GF 6-series support SM3.0. And with SM3.0 comes VS3.0 vertex texture lookups, and hence displacement mapping. So yes, the GF 6-series is capable of real displacement mapping.
*edited for some emoticons...damn, this post-post editing is becoming a habit*
Far Cry does not showcase every single effect that SM 3.0 makes possible. See my edit to my previous post for proof.
Originally posted by: dunno99
Far Cry does not showcase every single effect that SM 3.0 makes possible. See my edit to my previous post for proof.
And I'm not saying that it does. I'm not even arguing with you. As a matter of fact, I'm agreeing with you.The point is, in order to do displacement mapping on a hardware pipeline, one would need to use texture lookups at the vertex transform stage. Texture lookups at that stage is only available in the GeForce 6-series, 7-series, and R5x0 classes of GPUs.
Hey, don't take this as if I'm putting down something or another. I'm not. I'm just purely talking about specs, capabilities, and computer algorithms, that's all.![]()
Originally posted by: dunno99
Oh...hrm. Well, I re-read some of the posts, and I think once again, the medium in which we communicate has failed. I think Pete is saying that "Parallax Mapping is done on the Pixel Shaders and Displacement Mapping is done on the Vertex Shaders." Which is, well, exactly what you're saying too. I think the confusion lies with the word "that" in the statement "I'm pretty sure that's a pixel, not vertex shader effect." I think Pete was referring to "that" as Parallax Mapping, not Displacement Mapping.
Originally posted by: dunno99
Actually, technically speaking, one CAN do displacement mapping on the pixel shader (PS1.0 or 2.0). But this requires a pixel march on the offset textures in the projected direction of the eye starting from the far-side projected edge of the texture in such a direction, retaining the closest intersected height differential and its normal while marching across the height fields, and then marching all the way to the other edge of the texture in the projected eye direction. When that is done, update the color to the current reatained value. Of course, this will require at least 128 texture lookups on a 128x128 height map texture...which, saying the least, is a total hog on GPU resources for just one pixel.
Originally posted by: Topweasel
I think People that misunderstand why people wer a fan of getting SM3 cards. Its not about using the feature now, it is about the Idea that purchasing one that can do SM3 would eliminate the need to purchase a new card when they can use that card at a lower setting and still be able to get their choice of enabled eye candy. With SM2 cards its like admitting defeat before you purchase knowing that if you keep the card you might not be able to use any of the new toys (very few if any) and might not be able to use your current features that seperate SM2 from SM1.x (butt loads).
When I heard here and a couple of other places that SM3 games might not be coded for SM2 because its the same graphical look but harder to program and is less efficient, I knew that a X8** wasn't a real option for me. I expect my 7800GTX to last me three years even if I have to run my games at 800x600.
By the time SM3 games rock the world and deffiniately by the time SM2.0 is completely stopped being coded for, ATI will have a SM3 card. This is an issue for people who have already purchased their cards (even as far back as a year ago) or are looking for a card right now. People who constantly purchase the new cards or are looking for a vid purchase in the short term future the choice of going SM3 won't be an issue and they will all be ready.
Originally posted by: hans030390
So don't get mad at me...the Video section has been quite peaceful for a while without needless SM3 posts (aside from me recommending it) and then this comes up with a rather interesting OP..."SM3 cannot generate effects that are not possible on SM2; it just can do them faster"...
Sometimes people make me chuckle![]()