Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: ZmaN on September 29, 2005, 05:46:53 pm

Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: ZmaN on September 29, 2005, 05:46:53 pm
What is it?  What does it do?  How does i improve performance?  How does it improve over Shader Model 2.0?
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: aldo_14 on September 29, 2005, 05:49:52 pm
http://www.elitebastards.com/page.php?pageid=4136&head=1&comments=1

edit;

(http://www.hardocp.com/images/articles/1082748673K3Ci0AOPz9_1_5_l.jpg)
Title: Re: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: IceFire on September 29, 2005, 05:57:31 pm
Quote
Originally posted by ZmaN
What is it?  What does it do?  How does i improve performance?  How does it improve over Shader Model 2.0?

More fancy things.  More flashy tricks. I forgot some of the details but there is quite a bit to like.  It can be faster...but usually the faster bit is paired away with new features.

I forget if HDR lighting is part of it...but realistic lighting has been seen in quite a few SM3.0 enabled games.

In Pacific Fighters, there is a special SM3.0 mode where the water goes from a flat pixel shaded surface to a rolling 3D geometry based surface with whitecaps and the whole deal.  I think that bit is called displacement mapping or something...probably in this case procedural displacement mapping.  Or something like that.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: Styxx on September 29, 2005, 06:42:39 pm
More instructions per program. More texture accesses. Heaps for loops and conditional codes. All of this resulting in a lot more flexibility for shader coding.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: Bobboau on September 29, 2005, 06:55:25 pm
it is the coolest thing ever, realy it is a huge leap from PS/VS 2, you can have looping and conditionals so it's actual programability.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: Bri_Dog on September 29, 2005, 07:00:54 pm
Are there any plans to implement it into FSO?
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: phatosealpha on September 29, 2005, 07:05:19 pm
FSO isn't even using shaders yet.
Title: Re: Re: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: Carl on September 29, 2005, 08:12:04 pm
Quote
Originally posted by IceFire

I forget if HDR lighting is part of it...


It is. I know this because AOE3 uses 3.0 and it have HDR as one of it's most hyped features. too bad it only works on Nvidia.
Title: Re: Re: Re: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: IceFire on September 29, 2005, 08:13:02 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Carl


It is. I know this because AOE3 uses 3.0 and it have HDR as one of it's most hyped features. too bad it only works on Nvidia.


The new Radeon X1 series has SM 3.0.  Well the X1800 does for sure.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: Carl on September 29, 2005, 08:17:13 pm
yes, but rumor has it that MS made a deal with Nvidia that made it so AOE3 could only use HDR on their cards, and Ensemble studios was said themselves that ATI cards will not show HDR in AOE3 :(
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: IceFire on September 29, 2005, 08:19:21 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Carl
yes, but rumor has it that MS made a deal with Nvidia that made it so AOE3 could only use HDR on their cards, and Ensemble studios was said themselves that ATI cards will not show HDR in AOE3 :(

Well then they are bastards...

Can I say that?
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: Grey Wolf on September 29, 2005, 08:20:28 pm
No.
Now you must be purged.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: BlackDove on September 29, 2005, 08:23:35 pm
*purges IceFire*
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: Styxx on September 29, 2005, 08:33:37 pm
HDR is just a shader like any other. The Pixel Shader Model 3.0 allows it because it has 32 bit floating point support, which is required for HDR effects. Oh, and add this 32 bit floating point support to my previous list.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: ZmaN on September 29, 2005, 09:40:17 pm
sounds decent....  not worth the wait for me tho...  too bad, i like how it looks!
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: Styxx on September 29, 2005, 09:47:23 pm
Do you mean the game? Because there's already plenty of cards with PS3.0 support.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: phatosealpha on September 29, 2005, 11:04:01 pm
Technically, HDR isn't a part of SM 3.0 - Half Life Lost Coast is going to do it on SM 2.0+ cards, and the Day of Defeat source demo already does it on the radeon X800 series.

The reason some games support HDR only on nVidia cards is because the nV cards support 32 bit framebuffers.  I'm fairly sure that those aren't actually part of the SM3.0 specification, and are just something NV does and ATi doesn't.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: DaBrain on September 29, 2005, 11:10:38 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Styxx
HDR is just a shader like any other. The Pixel Shader Model 3.0 allows it because it has 32 bit floating point support, which is required for HDR effects. Oh, and add this 32 bit floating point support to my previous list.


Uhm... I thought 32-bit was 'real' HDR, while NV40/G70 can only use 16-Bit.

And the HDR in HL² is 8-Bit, so nowhere near 'real' HDR.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: phatosealpha on September 29, 2005, 11:15:28 pm
Strictly speaking, doesn't 'real' HDR require a HDR display?
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: Turnsky on September 29, 2005, 11:38:53 pm
Quote
Originally posted by phatosealpha
Strictly speaking, doesn't 'real' HDR require a HDR display?


no, you're thinking of High-Definition Televisions..
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: phatosealpha on September 29, 2005, 11:59:26 pm
No, I mean HDR.  It implies a large dynamic range of brightnesses, and I'm pretty sure modern displays simply can't do it.  An LCD has like 8 bits per channel if it's a good one, and it's not enough for real HDR.  CRTs are a bit better, but even they aren't exactly up to being called High Dynamic.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: ZylonBane on September 30, 2005, 12:28:54 am
You know, I could have sworn that Giants: Citizen Kabuto was doing years ago what everyone is now calling HDR.

Everything old is new again.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: CP5670 on September 30, 2005, 01:32:01 am
The AOE3 HDR looks rather messed up from what I'm seeing in screenshots. It's overdone. Far Cry and SCCT provide much better examples of what it can do, although you have to tone it down in FC to get it to look right. Does anyone know how the pseudo HDR in Half Life 2 looks?

Quote
The reason some games support HDR only on nVidia cards is because the nV cards support 32 bit framebuffers. I'm fairly sure that those aren't actually part of the SM3.0 specification, and are just something NV does and ATi doesn't.


It seems that the X1800 line will have the OpenEXR FP16 support in addition to SM3 since games are starting to use that. SM3 and HDR are quite separate as you said, but they seem to go together for some reason in terms of both video card and game support.

Quote
No, I mean HDR. It implies a large dynamic range of brightnesses, and I'm pretty sure modern displays simply can't do it. An LCD has like 8 bits per channel if it's a good one, and it's not enough for real HDR. CRTs are a bit better, but even they aren't exactly up to being called High Dynamic.


Some CRTs and 10-bit LCDs can display HDR. Well, technically CRTs have no limit to how many colors they can display, but that's without considering external lighting and glare. Of course, none of the gaming video cards can output more than 32 bit color, so it's kind of a moot point. I think a downsampling technique called tone mapping is used to show HDR images on a normal 24/32 bit screen.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: Descenterace on September 30, 2005, 01:41:45 am
Quote
Originally posted by phatosealpha
No, I mean HDR.  It implies a large dynamic range of brightnesses, and I'm pretty sure modern displays simply can't do it.  An LCD has like 8 bits per channel if it's a good one, and it's not enough for real HDR.  CRTs are a bit better, but even they aren't exactly up to being called High Dynamic.


Yeah, and games do it by EMULATING it. HDR in games does not require an HDR monitor; in fact, the whole point of doing it in the graphics hardware is so you don't NEED a special monitor.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: CP5670 on September 30, 2005, 01:51:53 am
Doesn't hurt to have one though. :D

It's too bad HDR causes a sizeable performance hit with current cards. It's not as much as many people say (about the same as 4xAA), but I have to drop down a resolution level to use it. Still well worth it in games where it's supported, though.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: Turnsky on September 30, 2005, 02:54:08 am
newer radeon cards use shader 2.0a, and 2.0b i think
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: Prophet on September 30, 2005, 04:14:30 am
Stupid shaders... I bought the Project Snowblind recently. Then I noticed that my Radeon 9200 cant handle the game.
It makes me angry because the two first levels work like a dream, look great and run smoothly. Then the third level is just this grayish green haze, only the weapon and hud displays are drawn correctly. Other people at the Eidos forums are reporting the same problem and think the it may have something to do with pixel shaders... So I can't play the game until I get a new graphics card.
BTW. Due to the numerous bugs present in Snowblind, Eidos has decided not to update the game. Well done Eidos...

Anyway This is my opinion on shaders: :ick:
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: DaBrain on September 30, 2005, 05:46:52 am
The main problem is (imho) that most people think a game has to use Pixel Shaders to look good, which is just not true.

There are many games, that rely on PS too much, while the content is pretty bad. (Low-res maps, low-poly models)


Pixel shaders are great. I think FS2 could look incredibly cool with some shader effect, but we should never forget that shaders are no guaranty for good graphics.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: CP5670 on September 30, 2005, 07:48:33 am
You might be right about that. Textures in modern games simply suck. They look quite pathetic compared to what we had a few years ago and the detail texturing effect is nowhere to be seen. The models have been okay though.

With FS2 we already have very good content (except for high res textures for the FS2-only ships, but those are going to be tough to do), so things like bloom on bright objects or even full blown HDR might look nice.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: aldo_14 on September 30, 2005, 07:59:46 am
The sheer work requriements for most modern games IMO means that you'll see a continuing drop in texture quality as artists get overloaded.  Just look at all the GTA-clones promised a world of xx km; that's got to require corner cutting by the artists to get it done on time, whether it's reuse of stuff, a general lower quality of texture/model, or resorting to less visually impressive procedural techniques.
Title: Shader Model 3.0
Post by: IceFire on October 01, 2005, 09:30:49 am
Quote
Originally posted by Turnsky
newer radeon cards use shader 2.0a, and 2.0b i think

The next gen, which is due out in a few days now, will be supporting SM3.0.

Yes they dropped the ball on that a bit...but eh.