Radeon polygon smoothing?

[Faravid]

Just thinking, I think I heard a year or two ago about a feature in Ati Radeon cards, don't remember what it was called, but what it did was smoothing polygons linked together, making them look such as curves in vector drawing programs, like not made from polygons at all, making models much much more smoother looking. Then there was a picture of CS with the smoother looking models.

Was (Is) this thing real or is this one of my weird day dreams after being in front of comp too long?

 

[Brian Damage]

They have a thing called "Truform" which adds extra polygons to models when enabled, but apparently they haven't worked all the bugs out yet...

 

[Brian Damage]

D*mn edit limit...

Anyway, err... shouldn't this be in the hardware forum?

<shuffles feet>

Just wonderin'.

Seeya.:E

 

[Faravid]

Oops, you're right.
*Asks an moderator to move this thread*

Anyways, shame, would be good thing to spice up old games.
Hmm perhaps this can be enabled in my old Radeon 8200... Going to try when I get back home. ;P

 

[dawdler]

Truform is not really usable anymore... As a first, the models in modern games probably have more than twice the amount of 'truformed' polys on a CS dude, making it quite useless. As a second, as of R300 its done in software. Meaning it takes a HUGE performance hit (R200 does it in hardware). And of course, the third being you use FSAA which effectly 'smooths' sharp polygons (it doesnt do it in practice, but it does produce a smoother image, making it look higher poly).

All in all, truform is pointless. It was designed for the extreme lowpoly characters in old games, and worked quite well there. Now, you just make them that high poly from the start, even more so. Increasing polys would have a far less effect today than it did with the lowpoly models. You would for instance hardly notice it in a game such as MP2 or Halflife2.

 

[NSPIRE]

Sounded like a nice idea. Too bad it didn't work out 100% like they originally had it planned.

 

[Xtasy0]

UT2K3 has truform support......but uhm, on radeon 9x00 cards the truform is done in software, whereas with 8500 it was done in hardware, soo...no one really uses truform nowadays since doing it in software can take a big chunk out of your performance.

 

[Pr()ZaC]

Truform is still a great feature, at least for R200 users.
The bugs you see (like pineapple-grenades) when enabling Truform are totally linked to the wrong implementation of the Truform code on the model. Blame it on the developers, not on ATi.

Go play Morrowind with Truform and see for yourself what this great feature is able to do:
http://morrowind.nm***/Morrowind FPS Optimizer/pics.html#npatch

Without Truform

With Truform

 

[mrchimp]

Thats a fairly big difference in morrowind, but I bet the performance hit is massive for R300 users. Morrowind already performs pretty poorly so I don't think it's really that pratical to implement it.

 

[Faravid]

Morrowind isn't about 3D card power, it eats ALOT of processor.

 

[dawdler]

Morrowind is about everything
I have actually tried truform in it on my 9700 Pro, the performance cost is terrible with the software thing. You wont notice any difference really. Some things looks much prettier close up, such as the helmet in that picture, and the upper arm armor (which you dont see in the pic) look alot better... But how often are you THAT close so you could see it? How often do you stay long enough to notice it? And how often do you simply not care about it?
Would be cool to try it in Max Payne 2 though just for fun, maybe it got performance enough to handle it

Edit: and I forgot to mention that FSAA still does half the truform job of smoothing the screen.

So even with the help of that picture, there still is a simple conclusion:
Modern games are so high poly that FSAA is enough to smooth every polygon in the scene (the rest dont need smoothing). FSAA is also global for all applications with a much less performance cost, and its done in software. Truform require hardware support, game support, ads, cooperation with developers and more. Easy to see which is the best to keep, and which is redundant and expensive.

 

[Faravid]

Well Morrowind runs perfectly with my friend's GF2 MX 200 and Athlon XP 1700+ but totally crappy on my broken motherboard with Athlon XP 2200+ and GF4 Ti4200.

 

[dawdler]

Originally posted by Faravid
Well Morrowind runs perfectly with my friend's GF2 MX 200 and Athlon XP 1700+ but totally crappy on my broken motherboard with Athlon XP 2200+ and GF4 Ti4200.

Sounds odd. You sure your friends definition of "perfectly" is the same as yours?
I know the Geforce cards are generally better at it that the ATI cards though, because of the way it renders. A Geforce DDR on a 700mhz Athlon could display (yes display, all in view, since the darn engine renders, lights, animates, the works, on everything) 100K polygons at once at roughly 15-20 fps!!! See now why there is no need for Truform? Even good old Morrowind made it obsolete. The amount of polys that engine can push without to much loss is insane, although with very very very little finesse, the reason its so sluggish on average. Hopefully Elder Scrolls IV will fix that, they can even use the same engine with slightly modified renderer (probably making it 10 times faster), hehe.

 

[Faravid]

Originally posted by dawdler
Sounds odd. You sure your friends definition of "perfectly" is the same as yours?

Yes since I have played it with the comp.

 

[Xtasy0]

Originally posted by dawdler
Morrowind is about everything
I have actually tried truform in it on my 9700 Pro, the performance cost is terrible with the software thing. You wont notice any difference really. Some things looks much prettier close up, such as the helmet in that picture, and the upper arm armor (which you dont see in the pic) look alot better... But how often are you THAT close so you could see it? How often do you stay long enough to notice it? And how often do you simply not care about it?
Would be cool to try it in Max Payne 2 though just for fun, maybe it got performance enough to handle it

Edit: and I forgot to mention that FSAA still does half the truform job of smoothing the screen.

So even with the help of that picture, there still is a simple conclusion:
Modern games are so high poly that FSAA is enough to smooth every polygon in the scene (the rest dont need smoothing). FSAA is also global for all applications with a much less performance cost, and its done in software. Truform require hardware support, game support, ads, cooperation with developers and more. Easy to see which is the best to keep, and which is redundant and expensive.

truform and FSAA are completely different, truform tesselates models, adding more polygons to give them a more natural shape. whereas FSAA just takes multiple samples of a frame and removes jagged edges.

and im pretty sure max payne 2 has no truform support.

 

[dawdler]

Originally posted by Xtasy0
truform and FSAA are completely different, truform tesselates models, adding more polygons to give them a more natural shape. whereas FSAA just takes multiple samples of a frame and removes jagged edges.

and im pretty sure max payne 2 has no truform support.

No new game has truform support.

Anyway, of course I know its different, I'm not THAT stupid. But my point was the effect both aspire to; smoothing. Modern games are so high poly, truform wouldnt give much effect. If you use FSAA, it effectivly smooths a model that has this many polys.
http://w1.855.telia.com/~u85528876/bfcomp3.bmp
I took that a long time ago. Look at the terrain in particular.
This is what I mean with smoothing. It doesnt really smooth the polygons, but it smooths them 'effectivly'. This is what modern games need, not Truform.

Its simple 3D modelling thinking: Why use a method that GREATLY increases polygons although creating a smoother image when you can use MUCH fewer polygons and a method that make objects appear smoother than normal?
Morrowind is borderzone for this way thinking. The characters arent superhigh poly... But they dont have little polygons either. Why double that to acheive something an FSAA filter can do to a certain degree, while maintaining performance and low polygon rates?

If Morrowind had an engine with modern thinking, Truform would have ZERO effect. It would have occlusion culling, lodding and other stuff reducing load (can you beleive it actually renders pixel shaded water beneath the terrain at all times?). Meaning you could easily have 10,000 poly (probably more than with Truform) characters up close while maintaining speed, at the same distance you would start to notice the Truform smoothing (and the same distance where FSAA starts to loose effect).

 

[Pr()ZaC]

Probably because Truform is going to be "replaced" by DX9's continuous tessellation ?
Anyway, some "truform enabled" games really shine with truform on... NWN with truform on was a refreshing experience, before Bioware broke stuff with patches (like PS water)