Truform

[Harabecw]

Will ATI continue to support Truform?
It makes games look a lot better but right now its too hard on the card to be used with AA/AF, which I prefer over it.
What gives better performance with Truform? high core or memory speed?

 

[kylebisme]

on an r3xx card a faster cpu and agp bus are what helps trueform seeing as how it is all done in software but if you have an r200 card it works like a dream. as for future support, i think it is all moving to trueform2.

 

[Harabecw]

R3xx cards do it in software?!
thats....odd, to say the least.
the next line of radeons will support this in hardware, right? heh.
what is the main difference between current truform and truform2? better "resolution" for the models?

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Harabecw
what is the main difference between current truform and truform2? better "resolution" for the models?

probably just better marketing

 

[Lonyo]

Anandtech Truform article
Digit life
Mac central

Nalasco says that ATI's ultimate goal is to bring the same cinematic style and quality to computers that you can see in movies like Toy Story 2 and Shrek. That's easier said than done, though -- cinematic computer graphics use a fundamentally different way of representing 3D models, according to Nalasco -- they use curved lines, rather than polygons.

Seems like it's ATi who were the first to try and bring about cinematic gaming, if we take the cinema to be animated (CG) films.

Lets hope it is used in the future more and more, if it can bring about new levels of detail.

ATi Truform whitepaper, might shed some light on whether memory/core speeds help Truform speed

 

[gururu]

truform indeed makes games so much more vibrant. i don't use it because it seriously kills performance.
why? because its all hardware (gpu).


LINKAGE

With a product that supports TRUFORM? in hardware, such as the RADEON 8500, the graphics rendering occurs within the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). The games visual appearance is greatly improved, while having a minimal affect on frame rates.

although I must disagree with the 'minimal affect on frame rates' part. well, maybe its true if aa and af are off.

i do think it is here to stay. it doesn't seem to take much for a game to support it.

 

[Harabecw]

guuruu, what 3D card do you have? I assume a 9700?
btw lonyo, thanks for the links. ATI says it improves bandwidth/memory usage, while real world games get slaughtered by it >
its weird.

 

[gururu]

that's right harabecw. i have a 9700pro. i was thinking about truform for a couple of days now. i'm glad you posted. one thing I wondered is if it can compensate for texture quality or if these settings were to be reduced.


with all the bells and whistles and high res. I can't see it being feasible until the core speeds get cranked up.
maybe a few generations after the 9800.

 

[Harabecw]

Hmm...Raven Shield supports Truform. Hey, I'll post a pic with both Truform On and Off in a bit. also tell you how much it slows the game down.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

Originally posted by: Harabecw
Hmm...Raven Shield supports Truform. Hey, I'll post a pic with both Truform On and Off in a bit. also tell you how much it slows the game down.

doesnt it work on any game?

thats what i got from anands article.

Matt

 

[Harabecw]

Nope, game needs to support it.
what they mean is that you dont need special code for it.
Here are the pics:
No Truform

With Truform

Things to note: actual gameplay looks WAY better with truform.
however, performance is cut in half. unacceptable for now.

What I'd like to see is how it does on a 380mhz+ core Radeon 9800 Pro. my 9700 only goes at 279mhz.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

that does look alot nicer.

Matt

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: Harabecw
Nope, game needs to support it.
what they mean is that you dont need special code for it.
Here are the pics:
No Truform

With Truform

Things to note: actual gameplay looks WAY better with truform.
however, performance is cut in half. unacceptable for now.

What I'd like to see is how it does on a 380mhz+ core Radeon 9800 Pro. my 9700 only goes at 279mhz.

like i said, what you need is a faster cpu as the truform is done on the cpu.


and yes it is weird that it is not done on the gpu but that was one of the sacrifices they made when designing the chip.

 

[Harabecw]

I see. I'll check how this performs once I get the new springdale chipset with some real memory, and put the 9700 in AGPx8 mode. P4 2.4ghz...would the above help any?

 

[JonnyBlaze]

is there a site that lists games that support it?

 

[kylebisme]

it is somewhere on ati's site.

 

[LordMaul]

Originally posted by: Harabecw
Nope, game needs to support it.
what they mean is that you dont need special code for it.
Here are the pics:
No Truform

With Truform

Things to note: actual gameplay looks WAY better with truform.
however, performance is cut in half. unacceptable for now.

What I'd like to see is how it does on a 380mhz+ core Radeon 9800 Pro. my 9700 only goes at 279mhz.

What game is that?

 

[Harabecw]

Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6: Raven Shield.

based on the U2 engine.

 

[Goi]

Does Q3A/UT2K3/U2 support it? I remember seeing an article showing TruForm on Q3A.

Anyway, how do you enable it?

 

[Harabecw]

set it to application preference. you can't force it like AF/AA. if the game supports it, it will use it.

 

[Goi]

Hmmn, I don't see any options in Q3A/UT2K3/U2/RtCW, so I assume there's no support for it?

 

[kylebisme]

not in q3 or u2 as far as i know but ut2003 and rtcw-sp can use trueform. rtcw has an option in the menu and i think ut2003 has it on by defaut but if not it is in the ut2003.ini.

 

[Goi]

What's rtcw-sp? Special Edition? I have rtcw-game of the year edition(I think that's what its called), is that the one?

 

[Doh!]

sp - single player?

 

[bedrocked]

to be perfectly honest i can't tell the diff betwee your screenshots.. what am i looking for? i guess i'll try it out myself to see the diff.