Crysis 2 Tessellation Article

[Silverforce11]

Damn you guys are still going at it.. god this lack of any new tech release must be boring everyone.

For the newcomer, summary: There's no proof of NV telling crytek to make useless sub-pixel tessellation on flat objects or objects not being rendered or beyond view or not possible (ocean under land). There will never be proof unless Crytek or NV came out and says it or someone hacks into their email exchanges. Just because its an NV sponsored game and rumors of NV giving crytek a few $M to add tessellation, does not incriminate anyone. That's basically it.

 

[Arkadrel]

Damn you guys are still going at it.. god this lack of any new tech release must be boring everyone.

For the newcomer, summary: There's no proof of NV telling crytek to make useless sub-pixel tessellation on flat objects or objects not being rendered or beyond view or not possible (ocean under land). There will never be proof unless Crytek or NV came out and says it or someone hacks into their email exchanges. Just because its an NV sponsored game and rumors of NV giving crytek a few $M to add tessellation, does not incriminate anyone. That's basically it.

+1. Thread should just be locked.


Summery continued:

There is a invisible ocean with tessellation, and flat object with crazy amounts of tessellation for virtually no imagine quality differnce.

Is this nvidia fault or Cryteks? We ll never know, just like Silverforce stated.

The AMD fanboys will say, its nvidia payed them to make it so, so they do better in benchmark sites with their cards.

The nvidia fanboys will say, its amds fault for not haveing a stronger tessellation unit than nvidia. And that nvidia/crytek can use tessellation however they want, in whatever amounts they want.



Thats basically what 24 pages of this has come too.
If you "doubt" there is a invisible ocean with tessellation, and objects that dont need tessellation that have it, go read the "research" artitical that started this intire thread.

 

[sontin]

The nvidia fanboys will say, its amds fault for not haveing a stronger tessellation unit than nvidia. And that nvidia/crytek can use tessellation however they want, in whatever amounts they want.

And this is the problem.
There was complaining about HAWX2 because Ubisoft used Tessellation for the terrain. Everytime there is game which has a lot tessellation you can and will read the same comments. I think this is not a coincidence.

Maybe someone should start a thread about Batman: Arkham City. nVidia annoucend that it will use Tessellation, too. :biggrin:

 

[Lonbjerg]

+1. Thread should just be locked.


Summery continued:

There is a invisible ocean with tessellation, and flat object with crazy amounts of tessellation for virtually no imagine quality differnce.

Is this nvidia fault or Cryteks? We ll never know, just like Silverforce stated.

Next time read the thread before posting.
We have established that the same ocean is present in Crysis 1 so that is not related to tesselation, but how Crytek makes maps.
Seero has then given the tehcnical reasons for an such approach.

I guess you missed both.

The AMD fanboys will say, its nvidia payed them to make it so, so they do better in benchmark sites with their cards.

The nvidia fanboys will say, its amds fault for not haveing a stronger tessellation unit than nvidia. And that nvidia/crytek can use tessellation however they want, in whatever amounts they want.



Thats basically what 24 pages of this has come too.
If you "doubt" there is a invisible ocean with tessellation, and objects that dont need tessellation that have it, go read the "research" artitical that started this intire thread.

I almost thought you had quit your AMD PR job...and then you post, against facts...0/10

 

[Arkadrel]

@Lonbjerg

Its just there are so many Nvidia trolls in these woods
I like AMD products, and yes Im a fanboy.
If you can call me a AMD PR job guy, then I can call you a Nvidia troll.

Is the invisible ocean in crysis 1 tessellated? Nope.

But I admit you got a point, with the crysis1 haveing a invisible ocean too.
That most likely puts the blame on Crytek and not on Nvidia.
Crytek just dont make good use of tessellation.

 

[Keysplayr]

@Lonbjerg



Is the invisible ocean in crysis 1 tessellated? Nope.

Irrelevant question. I'm pretty sure you know why it was not. Had there been a DX11 patch for Crysis 1 that included the same level of tesselation as Crysis 2 and DX11 hardware to run it at the time, I'm pretty certain the invisible ocean would have been tesselated. Just like it is now. It's a characteristic of the game engine itself.

 

[3DVagabond]

Irrelevant question. I'm pretty sure you know why it was not. Had there been a DX11 patch for Crysis 1 that included the same level of tesselation as Crysis 2 and DX11 hardware to run it at the time, I'm pretty certain the invisible ocean would have been tesselated. Just like it is now. It's a characteristic of the game engine itself.

Any game I've ever worked with has script calls for models. Even map objects. I'm not familiar with a model being part of the game engine. Source?

If true it would mean any game using CryEngine 3 will have an ocean in it whether it uses one or not? Makes no sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryEngine_3#Games_using_CryEngine_3

 

[Keysplayr]

Any game I've ever worked with has script calls for models. Even map objects. I'm not familiar with a model being part of the game engine. Source?

If true it would mean any game using CryEngine 3 will have an ocean in it whether it uses one or not? Makes no sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryEngine_3#Games_using_CryEngine_3

Should I have said game "model" then? Whichever, you probably got the drift.

 

[3DVagabond]

Should I have said game "model" then? Whichever, you probably got the drift.

If that's the case then your assertion isn't valid. It doesn't have to be there. It has to be purposely placed in the scene.

 

[SirPauly]

Is the tessellated ocean being drawn all the time or is it a clipping error in a specific place?

 

[SirPauly]

The nvidia fanboys will say, its amds fault for not haveing a stronger tessellation unit than nvidia. And that nvidia/crytek can use tessellation however they want, in whatever amounts they want.

I don't remember that part!

The key to me is why did nVidia place so much resources engineering a robust tessellation ability then? Why would nVidia take so much time to engineer these abilities if there are no benefits?

The accusation is waste but yet when one clamps the level of tessellation; it starts the slippery slope of trading image quality for performance with artifacts. Can you explain that?

 

[AtenRa]

Tessellating the Ocean doesn't stress the Graphic Cards that much, and generally, i haven't been convinced yet that Tessellation alone is responsible for the big performance hit in the Ultra mode.

 

[SirPauly]

Damn you guys are still going at it.. god this lack of any new tech release must be boring everyone.

For the newcomer, summary: There's no proof of NV telling crytek to make useless sub-pixel tessellation on flat objects or objects not being rendered or beyond view or not possible (ocean under land). There will never be proof unless Crytek or NV came out and says it or someone hacks into their email exchanges. Just because its an NV sponsored game and rumors of NV giving crytek a few $M to add tessellation, does not incriminate anyone. That's basically it.

You're offering the illusion there are no benefits with higher levels of tessellation. Now, is this sub-pixel tessellation?

 

[Jacky60]

It is wasteful in Crysis 2 on concrete barriers and water, however, it is used very well on building walls and certain sections of the ground (tiles, rocks, etc.). The pics you linked show increased detail level ONLY at the top part of the concrete barrier. The barrier itself has 6 faces (although we can't physically see the bottom of the barrier). They could have only tessellated the top face. Instead, the Tessellation was applied to the entire concrete barrier, yet none of the textures for the remaining 5 faces of the barrier show any new detail whatsoever. And Tessellated water in Crysis 2, well that's just a complete waste. It doesn't hold a candle to Just Cause 2's water.

Taken directly from NV's website:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tessellation.html

"In its most basic form, tessellation is a method of breaking down polygons into finer pieces. For example, if you take a square and cut it across its diagonal, you’ve “tessellated” this square into two triangles. By itself, tessellation does little to improve realism. For example, in a game, it doesn’t really matter if a square is rendered as two triangles or two thousand triangles—tessellation only improves realism if the new triangles are put to use in depicting new information."

No new information is depicted in the 4 faces of the concrete barriers. In other words, Tessellation is used inefficiently. Why would you break up 1000 triangles and reassemble almost the exact same object with 1 million triangles? They could have "disassembled" the top face only and applied tessellation to that small section.

Thanks for the injection of sanity, it seems in the rush to defend Nvidia and Crytek's either malicious or abysmal coding many people believe that tessellating flat surfaces is somehow a good thing. Even the well informed and technologically literate are somehow finding a way to justify this other than the obvious i.e. It hurts AMD more than it hurts Nvidia therefore it must be a good thing.

 

[Jacky60]

Data and investigations are so much better than just wild conjecture.

I think screenshots is the word you're looking for!

 

[Jacky60]

Ahhh... you did ask what my mother tongue is. In native English, mother tongue refers to the native language one speaks/understands at birth, which has absolutely nothing to do with my mother's tongue. "First language" is not the correct terms in that context, but I didn't correct you as I am not your English teacher.

As the the obvious part, it is obvious that you are trolling this thread. Please, learn English first before you try to criticize others.

So is it, or is it not a language problem? Is there, or is there not a relation between my mother tongue being English and the problem? You said I have difficulty understand you, but it is clear that you are the one who difficulty reading a sentence in English. I said "anyone else", meaning any other people, not you. I am very sorry if that appears to be confusing to you. I can't help with your English reading skill. If you are the only one who understands yourself, than you may want to seek help in terms of expressing yourself.

Pretty sure no baby speaks or understands any language at birth, are you sure you're referring to the right species?
Lets see if we can keep this going until the bulldozer launch.

 

[Pantalaimon]

You're offering the illusion there are no benefits with higher levels of tessellation. Now, is this sub-pixel tessellation?

How exactly does tessellating the part of the ocean that is not visible improves image quality?

 

[NoQuarter]

I don't remember that part!

The key to me is why did nVidia place so much resources engineering a robust tessellation ability then? Why would nVidia take so much time to engineer these abilities if there are no benefits?

The accusation is waste but yet when one clamps the level of tessellation; it starts the slippery slope of trading image quality for performance with artifacts. Can you explain that?

Again.. and again.. there are benefits to higher tessellation, just not on flat surfaces or invisible water. You don't lose any image quality by clamping tessellation factor on flat surfaces or invisible objects so that's not an issue.

Whether there is a difference in image quality between subpixel triangles or not on non-flat surfaces is something I'd like to see other evidence of to know how the clamping effects tesselation, but it's not necessary to get into that debate for this issue since we are talking about flat surfaces and invisible ocean.

 

[96Firebird]

Thanks for the injection of sanity, it seems in the rush to defend Nvidia and Crytek's either malicious or abysmal coding many people believe that tessellating flat surfaces is somehow a good thing. Even the well informed and technologically literate are somehow finding a way to justify this other than the obvious i.e. It hurts AMD more than it hurts Nvidia therefore it must be a good thing.

What does Nvidia have to do with the "malicious or abysmal coding"? They make GPUs, and market them by sticking a label and intro movie in the game. I'd like to see where Nvidia developed and coded the game.

 

[NoQuarter]

What does Nvidia have to do with the "malicious or abysmal coding"? They make GPUs, and market them by sticking a label and intro movie in the game. I'd like to see where Nvidia developed and coded the game.

nVidia and AMD very often contribute code to a game, devs will send early builds to them so they can help optimize code and such.. that's pretty expected.

 

[96Firebird]

This is news to me. Tell me more...

 

[sontin]

Tessellating the Ocean doesn't stress the Graphic Cards that much, and generally, i haven't been convinced yet that Tessellation alone is responsible for the big performance hit in the Ultra mode.

Object "Ultra" means Tessellation and POM.

 

[SirPauly]

How is this not a good thing?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=32286552&postcount=554

 

[Jacky60]

What does Nvidia have to do with the "malicious or abysmal coding"? They make GPUs, and market them by sticking a label and intro movie in the game. I'd like to see where Nvidia developed and coded the game.

Nvidia's TWIMTBP employs 220 software people to go and 'help' developers make games the way they're meant to be played i.e. with a slower frame rate on AMD hardware and vast levels of tessellation on flat surfaces that can't be seen and invisible tessellated oceans swirling around below cities.
Try reading the thread from the top and you'll see it.

 

[Jacky60]

How is this not a good thing?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=32286552&postcount=554

I think that is a good thing and would not argue otherwise. I don't think any sane contributor would dispute that tessellation used appropriately to improve image quality is good. I am merely saying tessellation implemented to flat or invisible surfaces has no earthly purpose that I can see other than to slow down AMD hardware a bit more than Nvidia hardware. 'Why on earth would Nvidia do that' I hear the doubters ask. Use your imagination it isn't a conspiracy its cut throat business practices, they're a business in this to make money. 'I have a hard time believing Nvidia would put corporate profits ahead of my gaming experience' I hear the doubters yet again say.