MSAA + HDR (FP16 blended)

[tornadotsunamilife]

How many of you would like to see MSAA and HDR(FP16) in conjunction with each other? Would this be a 'killer feature' of a card or what?

I'm just interested in how people feel about this if a hardware came along and did it (note I didn't use a poll because I just want opinions, something I feel a graph cannot provide )

Personally I feel it may be similar to what HDR(FP16) was last gen (NV4x) a nice feature but extremely hardware limited. But I've heard many hardware enthuiasts wanting (heck I want it ) this and could turn the table and make playing at lower resolutions for HDR (FP16, sorry for me saying it a lot but I don't want people biting my head off saying 'but you already can with I8/I16/whatever') more bearable.

 

[BullseyeBob]

I've always liked HDR when its not overdone and all washed out bright. But no AA was the major turn off for me. And the performance hit too. AA + HDR = good performance is the win!

 

[Apple740]

Well, according Digit-life, R520 can do MSAA & FP16 HDR.

"The R520 presumably supports FP16 blending, which allows FP16 HDR without much efforts (and performance loss to additional calculations in pixel shaders), as it's been done in NV4x/G70 chips for over a year. ROPs, completely orthogonal to the frame buffer format, must be a nice addition. They will allow MSAA in case of FP16 HDR — such a function is not available in the NV4x/G70..."

If this is true Ati releases the power of 4 instead of 3.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/video/3dvideoforpc-05q2.html

 

[tornadotsunamilife]

Well, according Digit-life, R520 can do MSAA & FP16 HDR.

"The R520 presumably supports FP16 blending, which allows FP16 HDR without much efforts (and performance loss to additional calculations in pixel shaders), as it's been done in NV4x/G70 chips for over a year. ROPs, completely orthogonal to the frame buffer format, must be a nice addition. They will allow MSAA in case of FP16 HDR — such a function is not available in the NV4x/G70..."

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/video/3dvideoforpc-05q2.html

Partly the reason why I'm asking people here. Man I sure hope it does...

 

[finalgt]

"Presumably."

 

[Brent_Justice]

How many of you would like to see MSAA and HDR(FP16) in conjunction with each other? Would this be a 'killer feature' of a card or what?

Yes, IMO. This would be a killer feature to have, mind you, also have the performance to do it at playable framerates.

 

[tornadotsunamilife]

Yes, IMO. This would be a killer feature to have, mind you, also have the performance to do it at playable framerates.

That's what I was getting at. Say if ATi did introduce it now (as in R5x0 cores) would the performance hit be too much? They may opt for FP10 (a la Xenos), which would suit me if they could pull it off with MSAA but who knows? All I DO know is that ATi need to bring something compettive to the table.

 

[kcthebrewer]

Yes, IMO. This would be a killer feature to have, mind you, also have the performance to do it at playable framerates.

Presuming it is as fast as the 7800GTX, AA would have to take a very small penalty to work.

I am kind of worried about some sort of rendering lag due to the bandwidth required.

 

[razor1]

Its not purely performance that the card needs it will also need a bit more vram. Each sample takes up a conciderable amount of vram, now doing HDR in a composite renderer it will take quite a bit more plus the extra bandwidth neccessary. I don't see how it will be usable with fp16 and this is why the xenos opted for fp10. The xenos can be seen as a 40+8 pipeline part at 500 mhz quite a bit more bandwidth then the supposed r520 specs.

Just for kicks HDR at 1600x1200 using multiple render targets takes close to 30 mb of vram Each time a sample is taken with MSAA, each render target will be sampled x amount of times. Well at x 2 thats 30 x4=120 mb. Now factor in bandwidth restrictions, its a huge burden.