Pacific Fighters VTF follow up

[Rogodin2]

I forgot to mention the opengl requirement-thanks m8

Here is the X800 same settings except it isn't vertex shading the water though it is running 'perfect' and the water looks much better than non-ps water:

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
2615, 61900, 20, 126, 42.246

This is on:

AMD 64 3200+
Chaintech Vnf4Ultra 754socket
1 gb PC3200 DDR
80 gb WD SATA
AGP X800 GTO 256mb
Integrated Sound

Rogo

 

[Matt2]

Thanks Rogo, I knew something wasnt right. I was frantically scaning the ubisoft forums but couldnt find what I was doing wrong!

BTW- VTF is a freakin hog!

 

[Rogodin2]

It sure is m8! Runs badly-but I'll try it on the 6800GS when it's open and post the numbers

I'm also going to post some high res pics of both the VTF on the 6800 along with the non vtf but perfect on the x800.

Welcome Matt

Rogo

 

[RobertR1]

The x1800 should be able to run that game with VFT enabled correct?

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: RobertR1
The x1800 should be able to run that game with VFT enabled correct?

Negative.

X1800 requires a workaround to enable VTF. Sm 3.0 done right

 

[nts]

Originally posted by: RobertR1
The x1800 should be able to run that game with VFT enabled correct?

No, firstly the X1800 don't support VTF directly (optional in SM3) and secondly even if they did the shaders would need to be rewritten (currently in nv specific vertex and fragment programs).

 

[Rogodin2]

Here are High Quality Screens using the 6800vanilla with 16xAF and 8xAA @ 1024x768@32bit with VTF enabled water-I did some long shots so to get a nice grasp of how the water looks.

I'll have the non VTF shots with the X800 with 6xAA and 16x AF here in a bit.

1. 1st Shot

2. 2nd

3. 3rd

4. 4th


The game is unplayable with those settings and Perfect water enabled though.

Rogo

 

[Rogodin2]

Here are the non VTF shots with a Radeon x800GTO

1024x768@32bit with 6xAA 16xAF.

1. 1st

2. 2nd

3. 3rd

4. 4th


Rogo

 

[Pete]

Thanks, Rogo. Hmm, no question that the NV water looks better. Those SSs I linked do seem to show a nice IQ improvement in ATI's water rendering with the new DLLs.

Does disabling VTF change the water quality? If so, does it now look like the ATI cards?

 

[Rogodin2]

Pete

You're welcome and-
It looks alot worse than ATI's water if ATI is set to 'perfect' and nvidia is set to 'excellent'. I'll go pull a screen shot in a bit so as to show the difference.

Rogo

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: nts

Originally posted by: RobertR1
The x1800 should be able to run that game with VFT enabled correct?

No, firstly the X1800 don't support VTF directly (optional in SM3) and secondly even if they did the shaders would need to be rewritten (currently in nv specific vertex and fragment programs).

hold on a minute . . . we don't know that . . . ATi's claim is that they do [indirectly] . . . that is part of what we are testing and i'd like to see Robert1 get the game to benchmark on x1800 series.

However, there is supposedly a big performance hit with the x1800 series running VTF . . . and we don't know if ATi's "workaround" works slowly or at all]

thanks for the tests Rogo!
awesome to have access to so many cards
:thumbsup:

are we seeing a 'trend' yet?
[x800 is slower than 6800 which also looks better, generally, i guess, so far we just havent seen x1800 series]

 

[nts]

Originally posted by: apoppin
hold on a minute . . . we don't know that . . . ATi's claim is that they do [indirectly] . . . that is part of what we are testing and i'd like to see Robert1 get the game to benchmark on x1800 series.

Yes its true that they can get it to work through the driver with a simple loop around with R2VB but I didn't know that was in place yet.

Atleast I don't think their last SDK (October05) had anything in it for it... (also have an X1800)

However, there is supposedly a big performance hit with the x1800 series running VTF . . . and we don't know if 'perfect' can even be enabled or not or whether the "workaround" works slowly or at all]

Source for the performance hit?

If the work around is implemented like I think it is then there should be a very small performance hit...

btw I'm pretty sure the water shaders are coded for NVIDIA specific OpenGL extensions which ATi doesn't support.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: nts

Originally posted by: apoppin
hold on a minute . . . we don't know that . . . ATi's claim is that they do [indirectly] . . . that is part of what we are testing and i'd like to see Robert1 get the game to benchmark on x1800 series.

Yes its true that they can get it to work through the driver with a simple loop around with R2VB but I didn't know that was in place yet.

Atleast I don't think their last SDK (October05) had anything in it for it... (also have an X1800)

However, there is supposedly a big performance hit with the x1800 series running VTF . . . and we don't know if 'perfect' can even be enabled or not or whether the "workaround" works slowly or at all]

Source for the performance hit?

If the work around is implemented like I think it is then there should be a very small performance hit...

btw I'm pretty sure the water shaders are coded for NVIDIA specific OpenGL extensions which ATi doesn't support.

the source was the OP . . . one of his three threads about VTF had it running slower on 1800 cards than 7800 cards . . .

i thought that was part of what we wanted to test . . . and as to 'who' gets it to test, it coming in a kind of order . . . i am waiting for a DVD from Matt2, will test and send it on.

so far . . . the water shaders do look better on bVidia cards.

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: RobertR1
The x1800 should be able to run that game with VFT enabled correct?

Negative.

X1800 requires a workaround to enable VTF. Sm 3.0 done right

It wouldnt run that game with VTF anyways. As its a custome code for NV cards.

As this thread shows, SM3 is done right.

 

[route66]

Good work, Rogo.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: RobertR1
The x1800 should be able to run that game with VFT enabled correct?

Negative.

X1800 requires a workaround to enable VTF. Sm 3.0 done right

It wouldnt run that game with VTF anyways. As its a custome code for NV cards.

As this thread shows, SM3 is done right.

There is no VTF on any ATI cards other than the XboX360

SM3 done incomplete.

 

[Pete]

Originally posted by: apoppin
the source was the OP . . . one of his three threads about VTF had it running slower on 1800 cards than 7800 cards . . .

We've debunked that, as Rollo confirmed a few posts ago (see his two points post). ATI doesn't "natively" support VTF--they just pass MS's SM3 compliance test thru an apparent loophole--and I'm not sure their R2VB workaround is working yet.

That said, VTF still seems to extract a sizable toll on performance (50->35fps on Rogo's 6800), but 35fps still sounds decent, and the SSs do show it to be real purty. That said, some water=2 SSs with the new DLLs look pretty close.

 

[Rogodin2]

You're welcome guys-I'll try to post a few more benchies from all the cards I have-and maybe some different games. Next card we're getting is a 7800gt, just a few more weeks and I'll have it to bench too

I sure like doing what I'm doing now and I hope to be able to help out some on benchmarks.

Rogo

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: RobertR1
The x1800 should be able to run that game with VFT enabled correct?

Negative.

X1800 requires a workaround to enable VTF. Sm 3.0 done right

It wouldnt run that game with VTF anyways. As its a custome code for NV cards.

As this thread shows, SM3 is done right.

There is no VTF on any ATI cards other than the XboX360

SM3 done incomplete.

If they wanted to code it in the game, they could. They can do it via software. The fact is, VTF is not required. Dont try and spread misinformation.

No game uses it, other than Pacific Fighters. No game coming down the pipe does unless I missed it. It kills frames worse than HDR every did, and devs could get it to work on ATi cards if they wanted. You're only showing your ignorance trying to act like they dont have SM3 compliance.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: RobertR1
The x1800 should be able to run that game with VFT enabled correct?

Negative.

X1800 requires a workaround to enable VTF. Sm 3.0 done right

It wouldnt run that game with VTF anyways. As its a custome code for NV cards.

As this thread shows, SM3 is done right.

There is no VTF on any ATI cards other than the XboX360

SM3 done incomplete.

If they wanted to code it in the game, they could. They can do it via software. The fact is, VTF is not required. Dont try and spread misinformation.

No game uses it, other than Pacific Fighters. No game coming down the pipe does unless I missed it. It kills frames worse than HDR every did, and devs could get it to work on ATi cards if they wanted. You're only showing your ignorance trying to act like they dont have SM3 compliance.

He didn't say "compliance" he said "incomplete" and VTF is missing from ATI cards. No way around that.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Pete

Originally posted by: apoppin
the source was the OP . . . one of his three threads about VTF had it running slower on 1800 cards than 7800 cards . . .

We've debunked that, as Rollo confirmed a few posts ago (see his two points post). ATI doesn't "natively" support VTF--they just pass MS's SM3 compliance test thru an apparent loophole--and I'm not sure their R2VB workaround is working yet.

That said, VTF still seems to extract a sizable toll on performance (50->35fps on Rogo's 6800), but 35fps still sounds decent, and the SSs do show it to be real purty. That said, some water=2 SSs with the new DLLs look pretty close.

i know that ATi doesn't support VTF "natively" . . . they claim a "workaround"
ATI has work around VTF lack

Richard Huddy confirmed that the X1000 generation of R520 based cards and derived R530 and RV515 ca not directly support vertex texture fetch (VTF). ATI decided to do it as an optional feature of Shader model 3.0. I guess ATI would support it if it could but it found another way around it.

ATI supports a feature called Renter to Vertex Buffer (R2VB) and it allows developers to do anything that they would want of VTF. "In its simplest form you can see that R2VB is capable of everything that VTF can do because you could trivially simply copy the vertex texture data into the vertex stream using R2VB." He added.

He believe that this is better than just doing vertex texture cache. Render to vertex buffer is built on the pixel Shader and therefore you will have all the Shader's texturing capabilities.

When Nvidia is doing Vertex texture fetch it is limited to only isotropically point samples of two different texture formats. If you use ATI's Render to Vertex Buffer you can anisotropically trilinear filter any texture format that ATI supports. ATI believes that Renter to vertex buffer is just more flexible and better way to solve the same problem and even more.

isn't that what we are looking at? IF the x1800's R2VB workaround is working [yet]?

Matt2, is that PF DVD on the way? . . . i'd like to pass it on to Robert1 [or someone else willing to bench it on the x1800]

 

[Linearsoup]

does pacific fighters use vtf automaticly on 7800s?wondering as when i tried it my water didnt look anywhere near as good as some of the pics on this thread,ive put the water upto 3 in the config file

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Linearsoup
does pacific fighters use vtf automaticly on 7800s?wondering as when i tried it my water didnt look anywhere near as good as some of the pics on this thread,ive put the water upto 3 in the config file

Look at Rogo's posts. I think he mentioned a "perfect water" setting in game options.

 

[John Reynolds]

It's an additional landscape option, available only in OpenGL mode.

 

[Rogodin2]

You must select 'perfect' under video options-custom-landscape detail on the ingame settings.

Here is the 6800GS

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
2390, 60153, 17, 76, 39.732

EVGA Geforce 6800GS PCIE 1024x768 @ 32bit NOAA NOAF sound effects off.
Perfect-water 3


XFX 6800Vanilla 256mb PCIE

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
2194, 61423, 17, 76, 35.720

Water 3, 1024x768@32bit, no aa, no af, hardware sound effects turned off.


Connect3d Radeon X800GTO 256mb AGP 8X

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
2615, 61900, 20, 126, 42.246

Water 3, 1024x768@32bit, noaa, noaf, hardware sound effects off.


I'll do all three with non-perfect water (nonPS non VTF) here in a bit.

Rogo