HDR+AA not working on X1800XTs

[nRollo]

It would seem the value of the much hyped HDR+AA on the X1800XT was grossly overstated, at least at this point in time:

Serious Sam2

There is a rendering problem with HDR enabled on the ATI Radeon X1800 XT.

Therefore, we had to do the unthinkable for a high-end video card and set the resolution to 1024x768. To our surprise, -- even at 1024x768 with 4XAA and then 2XAA -- performance was unplayable in some situations in the game. As hard as it is to believe, we found that we had to disable AA at 1024x768 just to get acceptable HDR performance in Serious Sam 2 on the Radeon X1800 XT.

FarCry

I wonder how long it will take before X1K owners can use HDR + AA in Farcry.

Wth is the patch?

Does anyone know of a link to an article that actually has HDR + AA working?

For something that was hyped as the "big IQ improvement", this is disappointing to say the least.

Personally, I wondered a lot about what performance would be for this, even if it was working.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

hell even if it did work, it wasnt going to be more than a tech demo style feature where its simply too slow to be useful but works well enough for them to say they have an edge.

i saw HDR AND AA being like the orginal HDR for far cry was. wasnt really all that playble or useful, but if you just bear with it you can get a glimpse of whats to come from future hardware.

 

[dug777]

from what we saw from beyond3d (i think) HDR +AA was playable in farcry with ethe x1800s...

go back and look at that article i guess

I would suspect this was a driver problem rather than something more sinister

 

[dug777]

wait, wtf? the patch isn;t out anyway, so NO ONE can play Farcry with HDR & AA :|

EDIT: and can't you have AA & HDR with Source on both Nv and ATI cards?

 

[jiffylube1024]

On my 7800GT, HDR at 1680X1050 is smooth for most of the game but dips too low (below 30fps) in some parts of the game. This was overclocked at 460/1100 too. HDR is a performance killer, and I don't think HDR + AA will perform that well even on X1800XT hardware.

As for the HDR in Serious Sam, yeah that looks bugged alright. ATI better get crackin' on a fix.

 

[Matt2]

I can't wait to see HDR in action

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: dug777
wait, wtf? the patch isn;t out anyway, so NO ONE can play Farcry with HDR & AA :|

This sounds more like a bug with FarCry than necessarily a hardware problem with the X1800 cards. The SS2 thing looks like it is most likely a driver issue, since it is working on the 7800GTX but not the X1800XT.

EDIT: and can't you have AA & HDR with Source on both Nv and ATI cards?

Yes, but they do their HDR totally differently, via pixel shaders.

The R520-based cards are supposed to be able to use OpenEXR FP framebuffers while still providing AA (although I would imagine performance is pretty low, as HardOCP found). I haven't seen anything that confirms this, however.

 

[nitromullet]

This sounds more like a bug with FarCry than necessarily a hardware problem with the X1800 cards. The SS2 thing looks like it is most likely a driver issue, since it is working on the 7800GTX but not the X1800XT.

That is kind of bizarre that ATI would actually put screen shots of HDR+AA in FarCry on their website if it wasn't possible right now. Well, "bizarre" might not be the correct term...

I was really seriously considering a single X1800XT in place of my SLI'ed 7800GTX's at one time becasue the shimmering issue/AF IQ with the NV cards pissed me off that much. However, ATI has done absolutely nothing to help me go in that direction. Their claims of better IQ seem to be false at every turn. Either HDR+AA doesn't work properly in FarCry, leaving me with the same IQ I had with a 6800GT, or they have blockiness in SS2 with HDR enabled. How about SC:CT...? Not that I even play the copy I bought for $50, but still curious if HDR+AA works on that.

Honestly, the rumors of an "early" release of R580 didn't help point me in the direction of an X1800XT either, but that's another story altogether.

 

[SPARTAN VI]

Originally posted by: Matt2
I can't wait to see HDR in action

PGR3 for XBOX360 looks so gorgeous with HDR.

 

[tuteja1986]

I had no problem with Farcry's HDR not working with my X1800XL or AA :!

 

[Todd33]

Rollo, go buy a X1800XT, test it and then give it to your cat.

 

[nts]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
That is kind of bizarre that ATI would actually put screen shots of HDR+AA in FarCry on their website if it wasn't possible right now. Well, "bizarre" might not be the correct term...

It is possible, there is a beta 1.4 patch circulating among reviewers and other sites. The patch isn't officially released due to some internal problems between Ubisoft and Crytek. Ubisoft is no longer the publisher for Crytek and their contract (for FarCry) was for 3 patches. AFAIK the patch is done (from Crytek's end) and was sent to Ubisoft for QA and Testing. When Ubi will release it (or if it decides to), nobody knows....

 

[Munky]

I remember reading at b3d that there's a new patch for Farcry that allows HDR + AA, I think only some reviewers have it though, as it hasnt been released to the public yet.

 

[Elfear]

I'd expect a patch is coming soon. Pretty sure HDR + AA works in HL2: Lost Coast.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Elfear
I'd expect a patch is coming soon. Pretty sure HDR + AA works in HL2: Lost Coast.

As mentioned before (and in a million other threads), the Source engine uses a completely different method of doing HDR than FarCry. They're not directly comparable.

 

[Genx87]

This is a little off topic but why dont engine writers do HDR within their engine like Valve does with HL2? HL2 has flawless performance on last generation hardware(6800+) with HDR + AA and it works on either brands cards.

WoW, while not as intensive does appear to be doing HDR + AA within the engine and anybody with a halfway decent card can play it at full blast upto 1600X1200 or higher.

It doesnt appear to be as efficient using the cards features to do HDR and to be honest I think Valves HDR looks better than Cryteks anyday of the week.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Genx87
This is a little off topic but why dont engine writers do HDR within their engine like Valve does with HL2? HL2 has flawless performance on last generation hardware(6800+) with HDR + AA and it works on either brands cards.

WoW, while not as intensive does appear to be doing HDR + AA within the engine and anybody with a halfway decent card can play it at full blast upto 1600X1200 or higher.

Short answer: it takes a lot more work to do it the way it was done in HL2, and it puts a decently heavy load on the pixel shaders to do it as well. Using FP16 framebuffers combined with a final tone mapping step is a lot easier to implement, and doesn't tie up the shader hardware as much. However, this requires hardware support for this type of framebuffer throughout the graphics pipeline (and slows the whole pipeline down), and may be overkill for some situations.

It doesnt appear to be as efficient using the cards features to do HDR and to be honest I think Valves HDR looks better than Cryteks anyday of the week.

Which one looks "better" is somewhat debatable and depends on the exact situation you're in. Certainly it's not clear which method will become dominant, or if both will continue to be used.

 

[Steelski]

Originally posted by: Elfear
I'd expect a patch is coming soon. Pretty sure HDR + AA works in HL2: Lost Coast.

sure does. I even use it when playing on my 9800Pro with what i see as acceptable.
I use 10x7 2xAA.

 

[Elfear]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Elfear
I'd expect a patch is coming soon. Pretty sure HDR + AA works in HL2: Lost Coast.

As mentioned before (and in a million other threads), the Source engine uses a completely different method of doing HDR than FarCry. They're not directly comparable.

Sorry I guess my post was a little misleading. I realize the HDR implementation is different between the two companies, I was just pointing out to Rollo that HDR + AA does in fact work on the X1800 series cards.

 

[lavaheadache]

Originally posted by: Rollo
It would seem the value of the much hyped HDR+AA on the X1800XT was grossly overstated, at least at this point in time:

Serious Sam2

There is a rendering problem with HDR enabled on the ATI Radeon X1800 XT.

Therefore, we had to do the unthinkable for a high-end video card and set the resolution to 1024x768. To our surprise, -- even at 1024x768 with 4XAA and then 2XAA -- performance was unplayable in some situations in the game. As hard as it is to believe, we found that we had to disable AA at 1024x768 just to get acceptable HDR performance in Serious Sam 2 on the Radeon X1800 XT.

FarCry

I wonder how long it will take before X1K owners can use HDR + AA in Farcry.

Wth is the patch?

Does anyone know of a link to an article that actually has HDR + AA working?

For something that was hyped as the "big IQ improvement", this is disappointing to say the least.

Personally, I wondered a lot about what performance would be for this, even if it was working.

As usual, Rollo either posts something positive about NVidia or something negative about ATi. You are about as predicatable as bad gas after eating Wendy's chili! Back when the 6series came out and HDR on farcry, I recall you stating how great and all it was. You were running it on an SLI setup where it probably was decent. For those of us on AGP 6 series cards and non-sli rigs we thought all the hyped "big IQ improvement" was disappointing to say the least aswell. So the x1800 is having a few glitches, Remember pure video? Where was that feature?. I know it said it on the box to my 6800GT! I would just love to hear you say that both companies are equally competetive and both capable of comparable products. FA FA FA FANBOY!!!!

 

[DaveBaumann]

HDR via FP16 blending is not an automatic thing, since the FP16 "buffer" (surface) is not actually the display "buffer" - a pass has to be done to downsample the FP16 surface into a displayable format; for this reason developers need to actually enabled AA in their app in order for it to operate on the FP16 surface. If you just enabled AA through the control panel all you would be doing is enabling it on the display format, which isnt actually the primary render target is in this instance, so you would see no AA but still be paying for it.

 

[Wreckage]

Wow I have heard of paper launches, but a paper feature? That's just too much.

:laugh:

Maybe it only works on the crossfire 1800's.... Oh wait those don't exist yet either. :disgust:

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: DaveBaumann
HDR via FP16 blending is not an automatic thing, since the FP16 "buffer" (surface) is not actually the display "buffer" - a pass has to be done to downsample the FP16 surface into a displayable format; for this reason developers need to actually enabled AA in their app in order for it to operate on the FP16 surface. If you just enabled AA through the control panel all you would be doing is enabling it on the display format, which isnt actually the primary render target is in this instance, so you would see no AA but still be paying for it.

Interesting... the driver doesn't know to do the sampling on the FP16 buffer when this mode is being used? Although I guess if it did, it could break things that aren't driving the display directly from that buffer...

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Elfear

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Elfear
I'd expect a patch is coming soon. Pretty sure HDR + AA works in HL2: Lost Coast.

As mentioned before (and in a million other threads), the Source engine uses a completely different method of doing HDR than FarCry. They're not directly comparable.

Sorry I guess my post was a little misleading. I realize the HDR implementation is different between the two companies, I was just pointing out to Rollo that HDR + AA does in fact work on the X1800 series cards.

I actually knew that it worked on the HL2 Lost Coast level for both companies products, but I consider that more a tech demo. You can't play through HL2 with HDR +AA on, at least AFAIK.

 

[KeepItRed]

What kind of problem is this? Software or hardware related?

So there will be a patch coming?