|
|
Search
|
|||||||
| Home | Register | Downloads | FAQ | Members List | Calendar | Arcade | Mark Forums Read |
![]() |
|
|
LinkBack | Thread Tools | Display Modes |
|
|
#1 (permalink) |
|
Luv Hyolee
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 551
|
Helpp...hardware knowledge required...please
Guys, I desperately need help here…I just remember that the day after tomorrow (Wednesday), I have to give a presentation about hardware. And I choose ATI Radeon 9700 PRO, I’ve done the paper typing but I’m a little bit (read: much much) confused now. It’s about features that Radeon provide: 1. Vertex Shader What’s the use of this feature? As I know, it’s for counting geometries needed to render a graphic. But is that all? I read ATI said that 4 vertex parallel shader can process one vertex per clock. What does that mean? 2. Vertex and Pixel Shader What’s the differences between Vertex Shader and Pixel Shader? 3. What’s the use of Pixel Rendering Pipeline? 4. What’s anisotropic filtering? This is the most confusing feature, I think. What’s with the angle of viewer and things? Don’t get it?? And if I can get some clear pictures of the differences between Radeon’s AF and Geforce’s AF that’ll be great, since I’ve downloaded some pictures from the net and none of them showed a clear difference 5. How’s the work way of N-patch? / Truform? 6. What’s the plus minus using Radeon 9700 Pro compared with Geforce 4 Ti 4600? 7. Can someone post Radeon 9700 Pro’s spesification and its meaning? Like what is core speed and so on… This one can be ignored cause after second thought, this will be pain in the ass for the poster but I appreciate if anyone’s willing to post this 8. Sorry missed this one: What’s the effect of having more Vertex shader and more Pixel Rendering Pipeline? I’ve search over the net about those features on the net but there’s no plain English on websites…I really need help, hope anyone can help me. I know this is very annoying and da** long question…Just a hope… Thanks.. PS: I’ve searched Tomshardware and Anandtech, Vision Engineer etc etc but no result….
__________________
"Hyolee is my dahling" |
|
|
|
| Advertisement | [Remove Advertisement] | ||
|
|
|
|
#2 (permalink) |
|
Registered User
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Maryland USA
Posts: 569
|
I can't help you with the ATI stuff, but most of the definitions for the stuff you want can be found here.
__________________
Feline Visit my deviantart page: http://atomicfeline.deviantart.com 1.4 Ghz T-Bird Athlon PNY Geforce4 TI4400 AGP 128 Meg DDR 512 Megs DDR ram Ensoniq Audio PCI 32X CD-ROM Windows XP SP 1 |
|
|
|
|
|
#4 (permalink) |
|
Advanced Newbie
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Bogotá... not that it matters...
Posts: 5,792
|
Player-X: what is the purpose of ur post? I can understand a think
__________________
Main Rig: Pentium Dual-Core E2160 @ 2.8GHz -- 9600GT @ 715/1033MHz -- 4GB DDR2-667 4-4-4-12 -- Windows Server 2008 SP2
Collecting dust: AMD Athlon XP 2600+ -- ATI Radeon 9500 Pro -- SB Live 5.1 Digital -- 2.5GB DDR 2-2-2-5 Ram -- Windows 2003 server r2 SP1 |
|
|
|
|
|
#5 (permalink) | |
|
Luv Hyolee
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 551
|
Quote:
Heh? I was kinda confused too, did you suggest me to change my topic? Well, I can't do that. I've submitted the topic which not allowed to change a few weeks ago. And I guess there's not much time left if I change my subject. Atomic, thanks for the link but that's not adequate enough for preparations. My class was very eager about discussion like this so I guess I have to prepare better than that.. Many thanks anyway...
__________________
"Hyolee is my dahling" |
|
|
|
|
|
|
#6 (permalink) |
|
邪魔ゎ指せない
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Gosport, England
Posts: 26,305
|
>1. Vertex Shader What’s the use of this feature? As I know, it’s for counting geometries needed to render a graphic. But is that all? I read ATI said that 4 vertex parallel shader can process one vertex per clock. What does that mean? Vertex shaders are used for increased graphical quality in certain games that support them (Neverwinter Nights and Morrowind for example). Such games are few and far between at the moment, but we will see them in the future. >4. What’s anisotropic filtering? This is the most confusing feature, I think. What’s with the angle of viewer and things? Don’t get it?? And if I can get some clear pictures of the differences between Radeon’s AF and Geforce’s AF that’ll be great, since I’ve downloaded some pictures from the net and none of them showed a clear difference Anistropic filtering is a method to sharpen textures which are oblique to the viewport. The GeForces and Radeons AF comparison? The GeForces use a slower but more accurate method, producing a slightly better qualty image. The Radeons have an optimised method whiuch produces lower quality. However, the actual difference in quality is negligable. >5. How’s the work way of N-patch? / Truform? Games that support them allows you to add polygons to models. >6. What’s the plus minus using Radeon 9700 Pro compared with Geforce 4 Ti 4600? ATi's OpenGL drivers aren't as complete as nVidia's. Fortunately this only really seems to affect PSX emus. >8. Sorry missed this one: What’s the effect of having more Vertex shader and more Pixel Rendering Pipeline? Faster Vetex and Pixel shader effects.
__________________
![]() >Site Live< Pop over to my site for help with setting up PSX emulators. Help for the Final Fantasies and other RPGs avalaible Celes: (Desktop) Athlon 64 X2 4200+, 2Gb 400MHz DDR Ram, MSI K8N Platinum, GeForce 8800 GTS 320Mb, 500Gb RAID HDD, Vista Business Erika: (MCPC) Athlon XP 2400+, 1Gb 400MHz DDR Ram, geForce 6800 256Mb, 80Gb Hdd, XP 2005 MCE Kimiko: (Desktop 2) Athlon 64 3000+, 512Mb 400MHz DDR Ram, Asus K8V, geForce 6800 128Mb |
|
|
|
|
|
#7 (permalink) | |
|
これはバタスです
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 5,871
|
Re: Helpp...hardware knowledge required...please
1. Vertex Shader I don't really know much about this but I believe vertex shaders are used for programming effects on vertexes. Here's a quote from Anandtech: Quote:
2. Vertex and Pixel Shader In a very basic sense, vertex shaders are used to program effects on vertexes while pixel shaders are used to program effects on pixels. Yeah, a no-brainer answer, right? Anyways, refer to the link above. Vertex shaders and pixel shaders on the Radeon 9700 are both v2.0, allowing for more flexibility and capabilities.3. What’s the use of Pixel Rendering Pipeline? The pixel rendering pipeline is, well, the unit used to render a pixel. It encompasses many different functions and is responsible for transforming the vertex data from the T&L unit into actual graphics. The number of rendering pipelines and the core clock speed will ultimately determine the performance of the card. Think of it as the multiplier on a CPU. The CPU Mhz speed is composed of the front-side bus times the multiplier. The higher the multiplier the faster the CPU can run. In the same sense the higher the number of pipelines the more pixels the videocard can process. The Radeon 9700 has twice as many pixel pipelines (8) as the GeForce 4 Ti (4), therefore it has twice the pixel fill rate (how many pixels it can process) at the same clock speed. Unlike a CPU though the pipelines are a part of the chip design and etched into the chip. You cannot add more pipelines, although they can be disabled. The pixel pipelines make up most of a GPU. With the Radeon 9500 ATI removed 4 of the 8 pipelines from the R300 and by doing so the transistor count was reduced by over 50 million (almost as big as the GF4 Ti itself which is about 64 million). 4. What’s anisotropic filtering? Anisotropic filtering is a method to remove the anisotrophy (blurring) left by bilinear and trilinear filtering. As objects get further and further away the textures tend to blur. Anisotropic filtering is an algorithm to lessen the blurring and sharpen the graphics. The Radeon 8500/9000/9500/9700 series use what's known as "adaptive anisotropic filtering" where it only uses the required level of AF for optimal graphics. It has a much lower performance impact while still maintaining the same image quality as the GF4. I have some very good screenshots of anisotropic filtering at home, I'll post them as soon as I can. Also, ChrisRay and I took some comparative shots of AF (me: Radeon 9000 Pro, him: GeForce 4 Ti 4200) so they might come in handy as well. 5. How’s the work way of N-patch? / Truform? I don't know about n-patch but Truform was technology to smoothen the look of blocky polygon objects by "filling in" polygons for the blocky areas. It doesn't work too well with a lot of software though and the feature is left off for most of ATI's current products. The Radeon 9700 review at THG would indicate that N-patch is a feature of the vertex shader to allow various transformation effects on vertices. It can be used to create a more detailed and complex look without adding more vertices. 6. What’s the plus minus using Radeon 9700 Pro compared with Geforce 4 Ti 4600? Pros Fast performance overall Fast Full Scene Anti-Aliasing Fast Anisotropic Filtering Full support for DirectX 9 Cons Less optimized drivers Bad multi-texturing capabilities 7. Can someone post Radeon 9700 Pro’s spesification and its meaning? Core clock: 325 Mhz This is the speed (in Megahertz) that the GPU core runs at. Think of it as the front-side bus of a CPU. Memory: 620 Mhz (310 DDR) Memory width: 256-bit Max memory: 256 MB This is the speed (in Megahertz) that the memory chips run at. The Radeon 9700 Pro uses DDR memory with four 64-bit memory controllers, offering a theoretical memory bandwidth of 19.8 GB/s (without memory saving algorithms), almost twice that of the GeForce 4 Ti 4600 (10.4 GB/s). The maximum memory size is 256 MB, although most cards will come with 128 MB. The 256-bit DDR memory of the Radeon 9700 Pro is about equal to 1.24 Ghz 128-bit DDR (or DDR2) memory (used on all other cards, including the upcoming GeForce FX). Pixel pipelines: 8 Textures per pass: 16 Pixel fill rate: 2.6 GPixels/s AA fill rate: 15.6 billion AA samples/s The Radeon 9700 Pro comes equipped with 8 128-bit floating-point pixel pipelines (as opposed to the 4 64-bit integer pipelines on the GF4 and Radeon 8500; each pipeline consisting of about 12-13 million transistors). Combined with the clock speed of 325 Mhz and you get a pixel fill rate of 2.6 GigaPixels/s. The Radeon 9700 Pro can also pass 16 textures per pass (as required by the DirectX 9 specifications). By comparison the GeForce 4 Ti can pass 4 textures per pass and the Radeon 8500 can pass 6. However, a weakness with the Radeon 9700 Pro is its multi-texturing capabilities. Due to size and transistor constraints ATI only equipped the R300 with 1 TMU per pipeline (the GF4 has 2). Therefore it suffers in multi-texturing situations (pretty much all games use multi-texturing now). Transform rate: 325 million triangles/s Due to its 4 vertex shader units and a powerful triangle setup engine the Radeon 9700 Pro boasts an amazing 325 million triangle/s transform rate. This is more than twice as much as the GeForce 4 (logical, since the GF4 only has 2 vertex shader units). Die: 0.15 µon The Radeon 9700 Pro is built on a 0.15 µon (150 nanometers) manufacturing process. As a result the chip is pretty large (consisting of about 110 million transistors) and requires an extra power supply, as it exceeds the AGP 3.0 power specs. Most people thought you'd need a 0.13 µon process for DX9 but ATI proved otherwise. The GeForce 4 also uses a 0.15 µon process. The upcoming GeForce FX from Nvidia will be using a smaller 0.13 µon process, which will allow for higher clock speeds. AGP: 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x The Radeon 9700 Pro is an AGP 3.0 part and has support for AGP 8x. It's the first product to have support for it, although AGP 8x doesn't really add any benefits to modern 3D gaming. AGP is backwards compatible so the card also supports 4x and lower multiplier settings. 8. Sorry missed this one: What’s the effect of having more Vertex shader and more Pixel Rendering Pipeline? Vertex shaders: Faster vertex shader capabilities, more triangle throughput. Pixel pipeline: Explained in my answer about pixel pipelines. More fill rates and better performance.
__________________
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 Mobo: Intel DX48BT2 Memory: 8192 MB PC10600 DDR3 Videocard: PNY Geforce 9800 GX2 Soundcard: On-board SigmaTel High Definition Audio Hard drive: 1 TB Seagate & 1 TB Hitachi Optical drive: LG GGW-H20L (2x BD-R DL) PSU: Nexus 1000 Watt OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) Last edited by Demigod; January 14th, 2003 at 04:29.. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
#8 (permalink) |
|
これはバタスです
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 5,871
|
Okay, here are a couple of pictures of anisotropic filtering and its impact on graphical quality. These shots were taken in Max Payne at 1024x768x32. The first one is a shot without anisotropic filtering. It's rendered using plain bilinear filtering. Notice in particular the blurring on the ground and walls.
__________________
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 Mobo: Intel DX48BT2 Memory: 8192 MB PC10600 DDR3 Videocard: PNY Geforce 9800 GX2 Soundcard: On-board SigmaTel High Definition Audio Hard drive: 1 TB Seagate & 1 TB Hitachi Optical drive: LG GGW-H20L (2x BD-R DL) PSU: Nexus 1000 Watt OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) |
|
|
|
|
|
#9 (permalink) |
|
これはバタスです
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 5,871
|
This second shot was taken with 16x (128-tap) anisotropic filtering. Notice that the blurring has all but disappeared, leading to nice, sharp textures even at far distances. This shot was taken on my Radeon 9000 Pro, which can do very fast AF (less than 10% performance hit at 16x). As for comparative GeForce 4 Ti shots ChrisRay and I took some comparative shots before. I think he has a page with the shots on them. You can ask him about that. Honestly though, there's not that much difference, if any at all. They both look pretty much the same at all AF levels. Oh, and feel free to use these shots for your presentation if it'll help. I found these shots to be a very good example of anisotropic filtering.
__________________
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 Mobo: Intel DX48BT2 Memory: 8192 MB PC10600 DDR3 Videocard: PNY Geforce 9800 GX2 Soundcard: On-board SigmaTel High Definition Audio Hard drive: 1 TB Seagate & 1 TB Hitachi Optical drive: LG GGW-H20L (2x BD-R DL) PSU: Nexus 1000 Watt OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) |
|
|
|
|
|
#12 (permalink) |
|
Luv Hyolee
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 551
|
thanks,. but it seems that I have another probs here: 1. I thought NVidia does its AF all the way till the distance so why's in Demigod's shot he said that Radeon's AF still clearly seen till far at distance? So what's the difference? Nvidia's AF is full one while ATI doesn't filter all the graphic? 2. What's the use of _X AF ?? eg: 4X AF, 8X AF 3. Radeon's said have a fast AF. What's that for? Thanks
__________________
"Hyolee is my dahling" |
|
|
|
|
|
#13 (permalink) |
|
Guest
Posts: n/a
|
Here are some comparative shots me and Demigod made of Full Screen Anti Aliasing and Anistropic Filter comparing NVidias methods and Ati's methods. Give them a look. personally the difference just isn't there to justify the performance loss right now http://chrisray.blkhawk.net/test/ Geforce 4 Ti http://chrisray.blkhawk.net/test/demi/demi.htm Demigods Radeon 9000 Pro. |
|
|
|
#14 (permalink) |
|
Luv Hyolee
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 551
|
Thanks. I got another question this time: What is multi texturing? my SiS can't do that..and What is the use of that? I found Medal of Honor couldn't run if multi texturing's not enabled...
__________________
"Hyolee is my dahling" |
|
|
|
|
|
#15 (permalink) |
|
Luv Hyolee
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 551
|
here's another one: can anyone describe details and the functions of: a. texture per pass b. multi sampling and super sampling (I know these are used for Anti aliasing) but what about the definitions? Can anyone tell me where to get a comparative table between Radeon 9700 Pro, 8500 and GF 4 Ti 4600? I know these are very troubling but please help me if u can.. thanks edit:in case i'm walking along a tunnel...which is the part of the tunnel will get filtered (with AF) the most? and which one the least?
__________________
"Hyolee is my dahling" |
|
|
|
|
|
#16 (permalink) | ||
|
これはバタスです
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 5,871
|
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 Mobo: Intel DX48BT2 Memory: 8192 MB PC10600 DDR3 Videocard: PNY Geforce 9800 GX2 Soundcard: On-board SigmaTel High Definition Audio Hard drive: 1 TB Seagate & 1 TB Hitachi Optical drive: LG GGW-H20L (2x BD-R DL) PSU: Nexus 1000 Watt OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) |
||
|
|
|
|
|
#17 (permalink) | |
|
これはバタスです
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 5,871
|
Quote:
Core clock: 325 Mhz Memory: 620 Mhz (310 DDR) Memory width: 256-bit Memory bandwidth: 19.6 GB/s Max memory: 256 MB Pixel pipelines: 8 Texturing units per pipeline: 1 Textures per pass: 16 Pixel fill rate: 2.6 GPixels/s Die: 0.15 µon AGP: 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x DirectX generation: 9.0 Vertex shader: 2.0 Pixel shader: 2.0 Hyper-Z II N-Patch SmoothVision 2.0 FullStream HydraVision Radeon 8500 Core clock: 275 Mhz Memory: 550 Mhz (275 DDR) Memory width: 128-bit Memory bandwidth: 8.8 GB/s Max memory: 128 MB Pixel pipelines: 4 Texturing units per pipeline: 2 Textures per pass: 6 Pixel fill rate: 1.1 GPixels/s Die: 0.15 µon AGP: 1x, 2x, 4x DirectX generation: 8.1 Vertex shader: 1.1 Pixel shader: 1.4 Hyper-Z TruForm SmoothVision 1.0 GeForce 4 Ti 4600 Core clock: 300 Mhz Memory: 650 Mhz (325 DDR) Memory width: 128-bit Memory bandwidth: 10.4 GB/s Max memory: 128 MB Pixel pipeline: 4 Texturing units per pipeline: 2 Textures per pass: 4 Pixel fill rate: 1.2 GPixels/s Die: 0.15 µon AGP: 1x, 2x, 4x DirectX generation: 8.0 Vertex shader: 1.1 Pixel shader: 1.3 AccuView LMA II nView If you need any more information on the cards just say so and I'll research them for you.
__________________
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 Mobo: Intel DX48BT2 Memory: 8192 MB PC10600 DDR3 Videocard: PNY Geforce 9800 GX2 Soundcard: On-board SigmaTel High Definition Audio Hard drive: 1 TB Seagate & 1 TB Hitachi Optical drive: LG GGW-H20L (2x BD-R DL) PSU: Nexus 1000 Watt OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
#18 (permalink) |
|
Luv Hyolee
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 551
|
uh...thanks a lot Demigod...feel awkward...sorry to trouble you... Must get going I still have to type another 1000 words for the paper (miscalculated earlier, I thought it was finished)
__________________
"Hyolee is my dahling" |
|
|
|
|
|
#20 (permalink) |
|
Luv Hyolee
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 551
|
another one ![]() on the differences Demigod told me (I own a debt on him ), GF 4 Ti 4600 have a little more memory (650 mhz) compared with radeon 9700 pro (620 mhz). So why's the Radeon still have a chance winning on GF 4 Ti 4600? does the memory mean nothing?and I thought the max memory for Radeon 9700 pro was 128 MB how come it's 256 MB? is it upgradable?
__________________
"Hyolee is my dahling" |
|
|
|
![]() |
| Thread Tools | |
| Display Modes | |
|
|