Results 1 to 5 of 5

Thread: Rumour that ATI Catalyst 10.5 will improve tessellation performance??

  1. #1
    Moosing about! CAT-THE-FIFTH's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Not here
    Posts
    31,621
    Thanks
    3,757
    Thanked
    5,060 times in 3,912 posts
    • CAT-THE-FIFTH's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Less E-PEEN
      • CPU:
      • Massive E-PEEN
      • Memory:
      • RGB E-PEEN
      • Storage:
      • Not in any order
      • Graphics card(s):
      • EVEN BIGGER E-PEEN
      • PSU:
      • OVERSIZED
      • Case:
      • UNDERSIZED
      • Operating System:
      • DOS 6.22
      • Monitor(s):
      • NOT USUALLY ON....WHEN I POST
      • Internet:
      • FUNCTIONAL

    Rumour that ATI Catalyst 10.5 will improve tessellation performance??

    I saw this on OcUK today:

    http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...php?t=18145991

    If true this means the shaders can also be used to assist the tessellator in tessellation heavy scenes.

  2. #2
    Banhammer in peace PeterB kalniel's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Posts
    30,749
    Thanks
    1,788
    Thanked
    3,288 times in 2,647 posts
    • kalniel's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Ultra
      • CPU:
      • Intel i9 9900k
      • Memory:
      • 32GB DDR4 3200 CL16
      • Storage:
      • 1TB Samsung 970Evo+ NVMe
      • Graphics card(s):
      • nVidia GTX 1060 6GB
      • PSU:
      • Seasonic 600W
      • Case:
      • Cooler Master HAF 912
      • Operating System:
      • Win 10 Pro x64
      • Monitor(s):
      • Dell S2721DGF
      • Internet:
      • rubbish

    Re: Rumour that ATI Catalyst 10.5 will improve tessellation performance??

    *sigh* a triumph for benchmarks over real world performance.

    The reason you don't want to use general purpose shaders for tessellation is that they should be busy doing all the other important things. Only in an artificial situation where they are being under-used should you really gain an advantage from using them for tessellation - a bit like physX really. But I guess AMD have been forced to follow nVidia's benchmark-centric approach

  3. #3
    Registered User
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Posts
    2
    Thanks
    0
    Thanked
    0 times in 0 posts

    Re: Rumour that ATI Catalyst 10.5 will improve tessellation performance??

    I think this is actually a great idea from ATI and I look forward to it.

    Their current HD5XXX series tesselation solution is hardware bottlenecked on anything over "moderate" tesselation, and if you need proof run Unigine or Stone Giant, turn on the wireframe and see what happens when you get the number of triangles up to high!

    Nvidia's GTX 4XX solution scales up to crazy levels of geometry without the steep performance drop off curve, (theoretically this is because they beefed up the vertex fetching to 8 per clock). This is a good thing, and undoubtedly superior to ATI at the moment.

    ATI have no choice but to focus on the synthetic benchmarks since the only significant tesselating game around at the moment is metro 2033. It's true that some synthetic benchmarks are fairly unrelated to real-world gaming, but for vanilla DX11 tesselation, these benchmarks should be fairly representative.

    It's true that the shaders are not "supposed" to be doing tesselation from a purist hardware resolve standpoint, but why not have them help out? All grist to the mill - and shaders these days are extremely general purpose processors!

    The trade off from the loss of shaders working on traditional activities, which are now given over to tesselation activites for the same frame, should hopefully equate to better overall efficiency and better minimum frame rates!

    We'll see.

  4. #4
    Banhammer in peace PeterB kalniel's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Posts
    30,749
    Thanks
    1,788
    Thanked
    3,288 times in 2,647 posts
    • kalniel's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Ultra
      • CPU:
      • Intel i9 9900k
      • Memory:
      • 32GB DDR4 3200 CL16
      • Storage:
      • 1TB Samsung 970Evo+ NVMe
      • Graphics card(s):
      • nVidia GTX 1060 6GB
      • PSU:
      • Seasonic 600W
      • Case:
      • Cooler Master HAF 912
      • Operating System:
      • Win 10 Pro x64
      • Monitor(s):
      • Dell S2721DGF
      • Internet:
      • rubbish

    Re: Rumour that ATI Catalyst 10.5 will improve tessellation performance??

    Quote Originally Posted by temporarychicke View Post
    It's true that some synthetic benchmarks are fairly unrelated to real-world gaming, but for vanilla DX11 tesselation, these benchmarks should be fairly representative.
    Why? As far as I can tell, they vastly over weight the computation towards tessellation compared to likely real world usage. It's not far from extolling the virtues of PhysX when running a CPU test at 640x480..

  5. #5
    Registered User
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Posts
    2
    Thanks
    0
    Thanked
    0 times in 0 posts

    Re: Rumour that ATI Catalyst 10.5 will improve tessellation performance??

    I agree with you that the Unigine demo takes the tesselation a bit far, especially on any setting higher than what they call "moderate". Their idea of "normal" tesselation is too strong for my HD5870 and it crumples on the min-framerate with this setting applied and as for "high", forget it.

    However, the better example is the Stone Giant demo. This is good in that you can change the tesselation setting inside the demo, and using the wireframe option, look at the number of primitives generated and make up your own mind about the level of geometry on the different models, at a given draw distance.

    To me, the stone giant demo looks reasonable in what it terms "medium" and "high" tesselation given the amount of geometry generated.

    I take the physx comparison on board, where the shaders are forced to do both physics and graphics rendering simultaneously, giving a possible worst of both worlds scenario in some cases. At least with physx you can ring-fence another GPU (or hopelessly try and use the CPU) - ATI shader tesselation acceleration will only fit the first of these scenarios.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Similar Threads

  1. Replies: 5
    Last Post: 26-03-2010, 09:07 AM
  2. Replies: 5
    Last Post: 26-02-2009, 12:25 PM
  3. Ati Catalyst 4.8 Drivers out Today?
    By chiyau in forum Graphics Cards
    Replies: 7
    Last Post: 16-08-2004, 10:12 PM
  4. Catalyst 4.2 Driver Out
    By Ethos in forum Graphics Cards
    Replies: 15
    Last Post: 14-02-2004, 04:43 PM
  5. Catalyst 4.2
    By Ferral in forum Software
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 12-02-2004, 11:22 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •