Doom3 not even using UltraShadow yet?

[GeniusInABottle]

"The most startling part about it is that NVIDIA’s ace in the hole, UltraShadow, isn’t even enabled currently in DOOM 3. With the extensive use of stencil shadows throughout DOOM 3’s dark levels, UltraShadow could play a huge role in improving NVIDIA’s current performance even more."

Taken from this article on firingsquad. Thats just.. scary.

 

[Ludic]

I saw a post somewhere, (I think on NVNews) that shows how to enable UltraShadow in the game. I'll have to search for it.

 

[pxc]

it's in the "official doom3 faq" thread at beyond3d.com:

Using NVIDIA's "UltraShadow"
Not fully implemented in box version of game. The variable that toggles/controls this is "r_usedepthboundstest". Set this to either 0 (off) of 1 (enabled) and do a vid_restart. Explanations of this is kinda hard to come by atm coz Carmack refuses to reply to my emails about this.

[edit]Ah, John was probably too busy when I last asked him. He just (Aug 6th) told me :
John Carmack, to Rev via email, wrote:
"Nvidia claims some improvement, but it might require unreleased drivers. It's not a big deal one way or another."

 

[GeniusInABottle]

Someone wanna do some benches? I can't load d3 at the moment or I would myself.

 

[pxc]

just did some with 61.77

I don't think it's enabled in the drivers now. The margin of error is within the scores I got:

r_usedepthboundstest 0
1600x1200 8xaf High Quality 65.4fps

r_usedepthboundstest 1
1600x1200 8xaf High Quality 65.7fps

My CPU tops out around 90fps, so it's not a CPU limitation (i.e. @ 800x600 HQ). The drivers probably don't have it enabled yet, as Carmack suggested. It's not a big deal because 6800GT/Ultra cards already run at high quality almost steady 60fps (max in-game fps). Timedemo scores are pretty much worthless at that level.

 

[^eMpTy^]

So ultrashadow isn't used in any games right now right? So we have no idea what it can do yet right?

 

[[RIP]Zeus]

is ultrashadowing enabled in the 62.xx drivers??????

and i wonder if there will be a speed increase...very interesting

 

[Lord of Shadows]

http://www.nvnews.net/previews/geforce_fx_5900_ultra/index.shtml -explains depth bound test on nvidia hardware.

Stumbled upon this while looking for a pic of a fx5900 stock cooler =)

 

[Leright]

hmm...someone try this.

 

[pxc]

62.20, trilinear/AF opts disabled, 6800GT @ 400/1100 (r_usedepthboundstest 0/1):

640x480 LQ 86.8fps/86.5fps
800x600 MQ 86.5fps/86.4fps
1024x768 HQ 84.5fps/84.9fps
1600x1200 HQ 61.7fps/61.9fps
1600x1200 UQ 58.0fps/59.4fps <-- the only significant improvement I saw +2.4%

+/- 0.3fps is nothing since the timedemo varies by that much without changing anything.

I was about to write off US in 62.20 until I ran 1600x1200 UQ. The scores were consistent in that mode, so maybe there is US enabled in the 62.20 beta drivers. Hopefully the next beta/release will have a better improvement.

My left hand fingers hurt from playing through 8 sections in Doom3 on my laptop today. Half done now.

 

[Xenozx]

i used timedemo1
1600x1200 4xaa/8xaf
first run of bench
31.8 fps without ultrashadow
34.3 fps with ultrashadow

8% increase there

2nd run of bench
37.2 fps without ultrashadow
38.2 fps with ultrashadow

about 2.5% there

theres definately an increase.

 

[LabRat]

John Carmack wrote:
"Nvidia claims some improvement, but it might require unreleased drivers. It's not a big deal one way or another."

By Carmack's comment, he doesn't seem overly impressed with ultrashadow. For now I'll just put it into the "marketing feature" catagory. Doom3 is impressive enough without it. The one thing I would have liked to see is some Trueform-type ability to smooth out these characters. The characters look great until you get a look at those octagonal heads.

 

[oozish]

i used timedemo1
1600x1200 4xaa/8xaf
first run of bench
31.8 fps without ultrashadow
34.3 fps with ultrashadow

8% increase there

2nd run of bench
37.2 fps without ultrashadow
38.2 fps with ultrashadow

about 2.5% there

theres definately an increase.

uh, what drivers were you using for that?

 

[pxc]

n/m...

 

[Lord of Shadows]

John Carmack wrote:
"Nvidia claims some improvement, but it might require unreleased drivers. It's not a big deal one way or another."

By Carmack's comment, he doesn't seem overly impressed with ultrashadow. For now I'll just put it into the "marketing feature" catagory. Doom3 is impressive enough without it. The one thing I would have liked to see is some Trueform-type ability to smooth out these characters. The characters look great until you get a look at those octagonal heads.

The polys were intentionally kept down to improve shadow performance, they go to a higher polygon model during cutscene's. Im sure with a little elbow grease you could keep these high poly models all the time, assuming they share animations.

 

[Neurofreeze]

John Carmack wrote:
"Nvidia claims some improvement, but it might require unreleased drivers. It's not a big deal one way or another."

By Carmack's comment, he doesn't seem overly impressed with ultrashadow. For now I'll just put it into the "marketing feature" catagory. Doom3 is impressive enough without it. The one thing I would have liked to see is some Trueform-type ability to smooth out these characters. The characters look great until you get a look at those octagonal heads.

He discussed it in a .plan file a long time back when TruForm and N-Patches were making its first big splash. Basically it created some problems with incorrect calculations with lighting and stencil shadows, I think.

 

[pxc]

John Carmack wrote:
"Nvidia claims some improvement, but it might require unreleased drivers. It's not a big deal one way or another."

By Carmack's comment, he doesn't seem overly impressed with ultrashadow. For now I'll just put it into the "marketing feature" catagory. Doom3 is impressive enough without it. The one thing I would have liked to see is some Trueform-type ability to smooth out these characters. The characters look great until you get a look at those octagonal heads.

Don't look at the new half-life 2 screenshots then. The heads look pretty pointy.

 

[The Batman]

John Carmack wrote:
"Nvidia claims some improvement, but it might require unreleased drivers. It's not a big deal one way or another."

By Carmack's comment, he doesn't seem overly impressed with ultrashadow. For now I'll just put it into the "marketing feature" catagory. Doom3 is impressive enough without it. The one thing I would have liked to see is some Trueform-type ability to smooth out these characters. The characters look great until you get a look at those octagonal heads.

I wouldn't say he doesn't seem impressed. More like the current 6800s don't need the feature. They run D3 just fine, and a hell of alot better than their ATI counterparts. Still, I hope Nvidia enables US2 in their next driver set.

 

[LabRat]

I wouldn't say he doesn't seem impressed. More like the current 6800s don't need the feature. They run D3 just fine, and a hell of alot better than their ATI counterparts. Still, I hope Nvidia enables US2 in their next driver set.

???

You think JC doesn't think it is a big deal because "the card is fast enough already", despite that fact that it can't do high res, AF/AA? I believe JC would applaude any feature that increased performance in his game, regardless of the IHV. His "meh" attitude towards ultrashadow suggests to me that it does little for Doom3 game performance.

pxc: I haven't seen any HL2 screens, but that is dissapointing news. I was hoping to get away from coneheads with this generation of cards.

Neurofreeze: Thanks for the info. I suppose I do prefer all that pretty lighting to smooth heads.

 

[tornadotsunamilife]

IIRC the nv40 core doesn't recieve a big decrease in performance with high AA enabled

 

[^eMpTy^]

???

You think JC doesn't think it is a big deal because "the card is fast enough already", despite that fact that it can't do high res, AF/AA? I believe JC would applaude any feature that increased performance in his game, regardless of the IHV. His "meh" attitude towards ultrashadow suggests to me that it does little for Doom3 game performance.

pxc: I haven't seen any HL2 screens, but that is dissapointing news. I was hoping to get away from coneheads with this generation of cards.

Neurofreeze: Thanks for the info. I suppose I do prefer all that pretty lighting to smooth heads.

I really don't think there's enough to go on to call it one way or the other...I'm guessing Ultrashadow won't be too big of a deal, probably not more than a few fps...but that's just a guess...chances are most likely JC didn't seem to care too much because the doom3 engine probably does it's own thing with shadows and can't really make use of ultrashadow...

 

[rancor]

I think the doom 3 engine already has shadow culling algos in effect, they have been around since the quake 3 days, Ultra shadow should help out a bit more but its a small amount.

 

[burningrave101]

I really don't think there's enough to go on to call it one way or the other...I'm guessing Ultrashadow won't be too big of a deal, probably not more than a few fps...but that's just a guess...chances are most likely JC didn't seem to care too much because the doom3 engine probably does it's own thing with shadows and can't really make use of ultrashadow...

UltraShadow II is most likely going to give a nice performance boost. DOOM 3 has the most extensive use of stencil shadows that we've seen out of any game yet.

UltraShadow II has not been enabled in any of the recent or leaked drivers yet from nVidia that i've seen. Thats the reason why you guys aren't seeing any kind of real performance increase.

This technology was first implemented in the NV35 / 38 generation of cards (read more here) and allows for faster shadow calculations. With the new and improved version Ultra Shadow II, the NV40 is a good four times faster than the previous generation. As a result, it seems safe to say that the chip will be ready for upcoming games such as Doom III, which will make extensive use of stencil shadows.

A game does not need to be optimized in any special way for Ultra Shadow II to accelerate shadow calculations. However, adapting the game's code will yield additional speed increases as well. For example, certain areas can be defined through the game's engine in which the shadows will be visible. This reduces unnecessary calculations, as only those shadows will be calculated that are supposed to be visible.

Ultra Shadow II will also run smooth in conjunction with FSAA, so shadow edges will appear antialiased.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040414/geforce_6800-13.html#ultra_shadow_ii