Rage3D Exclusive: Altair has a well-kept secret

***Lupine*** · Apr 16, 2008, 07:22 PM

Rage3D investigates what happens when a computing powerhouse teams up with a top-notch developer.

Check out Assassin's Creed - First DX10.1 Title?

Debello · Apr 16, 2008, 07:42 PM

Nice find and good job

acroig · Apr 16, 2008, 08:04 PM

Amazing! This could be the first title that benefits from Vista SP1 and an ATI card on board.

Awesome work, Morgoth!

bigtabs · Apr 16, 2008, 08:15 PM

Good piece of journalism.

SIrPauly · Apr 16, 2008, 08:28 PM

Nice article!

Sound_Card · Apr 16, 2008, 08:30 PM

Great catch Morgoth and I read every single word. Was a very good read.

One other thing I can think of to possibly better support the case is... have you noticed any difference in lighting?

icecold1983 · Apr 16, 2008, 09:21 PM

is it true this game has downgraded graphics from the console version? worse texturing for example.

therock16 · Apr 16, 2008, 10:22 PM

Journalistic dynamite!

Sound_Card · Apr 16, 2008, 10:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by therock16

Journalistic dynamite!

Indeed. Well done.

-n7- · Apr 16, 2008, 11:59 PM

Awesome discovery.

I'm seeing this linked to all over...gonna bring a lotta traffic to R3D

joeyd · Apr 17, 2008, 12:13 AM

So if this pans out to be true , when is ati going ot send guys to all the developers to implment this . I hope they don't scew up like they did with 3Dc

traitoR · Apr 17, 2008, 01:42 AM

Impressive, did`nt think 10.1 would see such a sizeable gain.

Nice Morgoth.

Meteor · Apr 17, 2008, 02:18 AM

Interesting read and interesting stuff right here!

Thanks Morgoth!

damicatz · Apr 17, 2008, 03:05 AM

It looks like HDR-Correct AA has been implemented by those screenshots.

HDR lighting calculates colors and lighting outside a range that your monitor can display; hence why it's called high dynamic range. After the calculations are done, the lighting is clipped to a value your monitor is capable of displaying.

The AA resolve step is the final step in the antialiasing process in which the subpixels are sampled to determine the final color of each pixel on the screen.

The problem with HDR and AA is that normally, MSAA resolve is done before the lighting values are clipped. The range of contrast before clipping is much greater. The extreme contrast ranges present in HDR rendering means that if you have an area of very low contrast bordering an area of very high contrast (such as what was shown in the screenshot), they will saturate each other and cancel each other out, negating the benefit of antialiasing.

The only way to compensate for this is to change the way resolve is done and the way the subpixels are sampled to account for the higher range of contrast. This is known as HDR-Correct Antialiasing.

***Kombatant*** · Apr 17, 2008, 04:34 AM

Good find guys

becco · Apr 17, 2008, 05:40 AM

Does NV hardware also get 20% performance gain with the AA under Vista SP1?

Nice article by the way

AlexV · Apr 17, 2008, 05:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by becco

Does NV hardware also get 20% performance gain with the AA under Vista SP1?

Nice article by the way

That's the billion dollar question, isn't it?

I don't have nV HW on hand though.

TheNGTV · Apr 17, 2008, 05:57 AM

Dun dun dun!

Fantastic job Morgoth, the RV770 barbie doll is on its way to you.

I'm a little barfed that there's no easy, direct revelation of what (version of) API an application/renderer uses, even until now. That would make for easier conclusions.

vertex_shader · Apr 17, 2008, 06:18 AM

Wow, crazy, first i read the article i think i'm dreaming

Quote:

"Ubisoft are at the forefront of technology adoption, as showcased with the fantastic Assassin’s Creed title. In this instance our developer relations team worked directly with the developer and found an area of code that could be executed more optimally under DX10.1 operation, thus benefiting the ATI Radeon HD 3000 Series."

Finally ATi start working with game DEV's, the only thing i not undestand why they not made any PR hype? this is the world first game what support DX10.1, ATi and S3 the only companys with DX10.1 cards out.

JethroBodine · Apr 17, 2008, 07:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morgoth Bauglir

That's the billion dollar question, isn't it?

I don't have nV HW on hand though.

I don't know if it's a "billion"dollar question at this point as it's only one game, but a comparison would have been nice.

I saw some benches on another site that had ATi hardware behind NVIDIA hardware at this game, so the question becomes "Does a 20% gain with SP1 matter to the buyer, and will other games implement in the near future if it does matter?"

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/&menu=...=637474&page=1

In any case, for AMD owners who like Assassins Creed, good news indeed!

demowhc · Apr 17, 2008, 07:39 AM

'looks at my 2900XT's'

TheNGTV · Apr 17, 2008, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by demowhc

'looks at my 2900XT's'

Don't worry, we know what those 2 cards will become when summer comes.

Danny Nissan · Apr 17, 2008, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheNGTV

Don't worry, we know what those 2 cards will become when summer comes.

Looks at my passive HD2900

Sound_Card · Apr 17, 2008, 10:07 AM

*looks at my x1800gto

Lab_Rat · Apr 17, 2008, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sound_Card

*looks at my x1800gto

Looks at my computer screen wondering why others are looking at their video cards.....ok, so I am at work and take the side of my case off to ogle my card. X2900.

Sound_Card · Apr 17, 2008, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lab_Rat

Looks at my computer screen wondering why others are looking at their video cards.....ok, so I am at work and take the side of my case off to ogle my card. X2900.

We SM3.0/SM4.0 guys are looking at our card trying to imagine them being SM4.1 cards....

demowhc · Apr 17, 2008, 12:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheNGTV

Don't worry, we know what those 2 cards will become when summer comes.

lol summer just finished here and most days during the peak of summer were over 40c.. with 2900XT crossfire overclocked blowing hot air faster than my aircon could cool it

note to self *change video cards before next summer*

Blacklash · Apr 17, 2008, 02:35 PM

Good article and thanks for the info.

This might make the HD 3870 X2 a little more attractive to some and its price has fallen to 359usd with rebate @ Newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814241070

Two HD 3870s for around 129usd a pop after rebate would be a better deal.

***Lupine*** · Apr 17, 2008, 02:55 PM

I'd enjoy seeing Rage3D user tests published to verify these numbers with both 10.1 and non-10.1 supporting video cards.

icecold1983 · Apr 17, 2008, 03:06 PM

nvidia cards dont support dx 10.1 so they likely wouldnt have an increase.

Apr 16, 2008, 07:22 PM	#1	Advertisement (Guests Only) Login or Register to remove this ad
*Lupine* Administrator Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Graham, WA Posts: 25,399	Rage3D Exclusive: Altair has a well-kept secret Rage3D investigates what happens when a computing powerhouse teams up with a top-notch developer. Check out Assassin's Creed - First DX10.1 Title? __________________ In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress. - John Adams Not because of who I am, but because of what You've done ~ not because of what I've done, but because of who You are. - Casting Crowns

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Apr 16, 2008, 07:42 PM	#2
Debello Please vote "Present" Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Arizona Posts: 4,667	Nice find and good job __________________ *Play on Wayman Tisdale (1964-2009) you crazy cat you.* *Steve "Air" McNair (1973-2009), luv ya blue.*

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Apr 16, 2008, 08:04 PM	#3
acroig Rage3D Veteran Join Date: May 2004 Location: GA Posts: 17,336	Amazing! This could be the first title that benefits from Vista SP1 and an ATI card on board. Awesome work, Morgoth!

Apr 16, 2008, 08:15 PM	#4
bigtabs booglenorks Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Lincoln, England Posts: 2,492	Good piece of journalism. __________________ This is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.

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Apr 16, 2008, 08:28 PM	#5
SIrPauly Did someone say, RGSSAA? Join Date: May 2001 Location: New England Posts: 8,987	Nice article!

Apr 16, 2008, 08:30 PM	#6
Sound_Card Rage3D Veteran Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: L2 Cache Posts: 9,729	Great catch Morgoth and I read every single word. Was a very good read. One other thing I can think of to possibly better support the case is... have you noticed any difference in lighting? __________________ "It is the Case that we put a bunch of die area into double precision floating point, a bunch of die area into ECC. And for gaming graphics applications, those give us less returns then they do for the scientific applications." -Bill Dally, Nvidia Corp. Chief Scientist. "Nvidia is a software company." -Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia Corp. CEO.

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Apr 16, 2008, 09:21 PM	#7
icecold1983 Rage3D Veteran Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 4,866	is it true this game has downgraded graphics from the console version? worse texturing for example. __________________ "you son of a ***** do u think you can elude us forever carlos" http://gawker.com/5002269/the-cruise...ed-to-suppress AHAHAHAH WTF IS HE TALKING ABOUT??????????

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Apr 16, 2008, 10:22 PM	#8
therock16 Rage3D Veteran Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Socal Posts: 3,180	Journalistic dynamite!

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Apr 16, 2008, 11:59 PM	#10
-n7- Rage3D Veteran Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Edmonton, Alberta Posts: 5,057	Awesome discovery. I'm seeing this linked to all over...gonna bring a lotta traffic to R3D __________________ n7 n7

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Apr 17, 2008, 01:42 AM	#12
traitoR Galactic Butterfly Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: . Posts: 4,360	Impressive, did`nt think 10.1 would see such a sizeable gain. Nice Morgoth. __________________ It is regrettable that many personal fortunes are made by people who simply manipulate money and contribute nothing to their society. Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

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Apr 17, 2008, 02:18 AM	#13
Meteor [RenJeRot] rulez! Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Hong Kong Posts: 1,065	Interesting read and interesting stuff right here! Thanks Morgoth! __________________ NEW PC!!! W00t! (see specs) Asus EEE 1005HA / Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz / 1GB / 160 GB HDD / Windows 7 Asus M6N / Intel Pentium M Centrino 1.5GHz / 1GB DDR333 Samsung (2x512) / 40 GB Fujitsu / ATI Mobility™ Radeon™ 9600 / XP Home SP2 (English) / DVD+RW / 15.4" TFT LCD Unfortunately @ my gf's old house address Avatar by Boinger

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Apr 17, 2008, 03:05 AM	#14
damicatz Radeon HD 4830 Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 168	It looks like HDR-Correct AA has been implemented by those screenshots. HDR lighting calculates colors and lighting outside a range that your monitor can display; hence why it's called high dynamic range. After the calculations are done, the lighting is clipped to a value your monitor is capable of displaying. The AA resolve step is the final step in the antialiasing process in which the subpixels are sampled to determine the final color of each pixel on the screen. The problem with HDR and AA is that normally, MSAA resolve is done before the lighting values are clipped. The range of contrast before clipping is much greater. The extreme contrast ranges present in HDR rendering means that if you have an area of very low contrast bordering an area of very high contrast (such as what was shown in the screenshot), they will saturate each other and cancel each other out, negating the benefit of antialiasing. The only way to compensate for this is to change the way resolve is done and the way the subpixels are sampled to account for the higher range of contrast. This is known as HDR-Correct Antialiasing.

Apr 17, 2008, 04:34 AM	#15
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Apr 17, 2008, 05:40 AM	#16
becco Elliot Swan Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: in its right place Posts: 1,643	Does NV hardware also get 20% performance gain with the AA under Vista SP1? Nice article by the way __________________ Intel Q9550 l ASUS P5Q Pro l G.Skill 4GB PC8800 l Nvidia GTX275 l ESI Juli@ l Behringer MS40 l Grado SR60

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Apr 17, 2008, 07:39 AM	#21
demowhc Rage3D Scrub Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Melbourne Posts: 2,589	'looks at my 2900XT's'

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Apr 17, 2008, 10:07 AM	#24
Sound_Card Rage3D Veteran Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: L2 Cache Posts: 9,729	*looks at my x1800gto __________________ "It is the Case that we put a bunch of die area into double precision floating point, a bunch of die area into ECC. And for gaming graphics applications, those give us less returns then they do for the scientific applications." -Bill Dally, Nvidia Corp. Chief Scientist. "Nvidia is a software company." -Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia Corp. CEO.

Apr 17, 2008, 02:35 PM	#28
Blacklash Che cazzo stai dicendo? Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Old Vizima Posts: 1,595	Good article and thanks for the info. This might make the HD 3870 X2 a little more attractive to some and its price has fallen to 359usd with rebate @ Newegg. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814241070 Two HD 3870s for around 129usd a pop after rebate would be a better deal. __________________ AMD Phenom II 940 @ 3.60GHz (1.40v)\|Mushkin XP2-8500 (2x2GB) Foxconn A7DA-S (790GX)\|Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1Gb\|DoubleSight DS-263N WD VRaptor 150GB HD (x2)\|Pioneer DVR-2920Q\|LG GH22LS30\|Klipsch ProMedia 2.0 SilverStone OP1000-E\|SilverStone TJ10-B\|Xigmatek HDT-S1284EE\|VISTA HP x64 SP-2 Last edited by Blacklash : Apr 17, 2008 at 02:41 PM.

Apr 17, 2008, 02:55 PM	#29
*Lupine* Administrator Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Graham, WA Posts: 25,399	I'd enjoy seeing Rage3D user tests published to verify these numbers with both 10.1 and non-10.1 supporting video cards. __________________ In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress. - John Adams Not because of who I am, but because of what You've done ~ not because of what I've done, but because of who You are. - Casting Crowns

Apr 17, 2008, 03:06 PM	#30
icecold1983 Rage3D Veteran Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 4,866	nvidia cards dont support dx 10.1 so they likely wouldnt have an increase. __________________ "you son of a ***** do u think you can elude us forever carlos" http://gawker.com/5002269/the-cruise...ed-to-suppress AHAHAHAH WTF IS HE TALKING ABOUT??????????

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