New Tim Sweeney Interview (UT3)

[dmodert66]

New Tim Sweeney Interview below...honestly a few questions are over my head, but...

http://www.evga.com/gaming/gaming_news/gn_100.asp

Q. Does Unreal Tournament 3 take advantage of over 512MB of video memory?

A. We’re going to significant lengths to take advantage of 512MB video cards and PCs with lots of memory. On PC, we’re shipping lots of 2048x2048 textures, a higher resolution than we can support pervasively on console platforms. However, PCs running 32-bit Windows XP or Vista run up against a glass ceiling pretty quickly above 512MB of video memory. Because of the way the OS maps video memory into the 32- bit address space, going beyond 512MB doesn’t really increase the overall usable memory. Thus, we’re not focusing on exploiting more than 512MB video cards.

That situation will change over the next few years as Windows Vista 64-bit adoption takes off, because the 64-bit OS eliminates the address space bottlenecks and enables video cards to scale way up in usable video memory. But, if you look at the latest data on what gamers are actually using, e.g. with Valve’s excellent survey of gamer hardware ( http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html), it’s clear that 64-bit Vista isn’t taking off yet. Give the industry a couple years, and this will change.

 

[Ionium]

I don't care how good the GFX look with DX10 in vista... vista IMO is still an immature operating system and needs alot of work, would not use it again until SP2.

Oh yeah and this game is going to pwn all others.

 

[Silus]

I don't care how good the GFX look with DX10 in vista... vista IMO is still an immature operating system and needs alot of work, would not use it again until SP2.

Oh yeah and this game is going to pwn all others.

Not really IMHO. Neither is out yet, but Crysis already takes the crown, in terms of graphics, which is the only thing we can compare at this moment.
And we still haven't seen exactly how good Crysis may be, in terms of Multiplayer.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

I'm fairly certain id will give Epic a serious run for their money though with their next game...

Anyone else see the Tech5 demo shown @ this year's MacExpo? Pretty amazing at the level of variation and detail in the textures, and the lighting looked great. The million dollar question though is it going to be as good (if not better) than UT3. Anyways 32-Bit OS tech and CPUs have pretty much hit a wall. It's been a good 20-year run though since the 386.

 

[Down8]

I like the multi-core talk, as this is the game I'm upgrading for (planning Q6600/X3210 if I can find it).

Q. How will Unreal Tournament 3 use multiple cores on a CPU? Does it take advantage of Quad Core CPU's? If so, how/what task is assigned to each core?

A. Unreal Engine 3 is a transitional multithreaded architecture. It runs two heavyweight threads, and a pool of helper threads.

The primary thread is responsible for running UnrealScript AI and gameplay logic and networking. The secondary thread is responsible for all rendering work. The pool of helper threads accelerate additional modular tasks such as physics, data decompression, and streaming.

Thus UE3 runs significantly faster on CPUs which support two or more high-performance threads. This includes dual-core Intel and AMD PC CPUs, the Xbox 360 (which sports 3 CPU cores and 2 hardware threads per core), and PlayStation 3 (with 1 CPU core running 2 high-performance hardware threads per core.)

Beyond two cores or hardware threads, UE3 performance continues to scale up, as the additional threads accelerate physics and decompression work. However, not all scenes are performance-bound by such things, so there are diminishing returns as you go beyond 4 cores. By the time CPUs with large numbers of cores are available – thinking 16-core and beyond – we’ll be on the start of a new engine generation, with some significant changes in software architecture to enable greater scaling.

-bZj

 

[Obi_Kwiet]

64bit is finally becoming necessary. Games like SupCom start having issues when they run into the 2GB per app limit. And now we have problems addressing VRAM too.

EDIT: Wait- what the heck does this mean!?

The most visible DirectX 10-exclusive feature is support for MSAA on high-end video cards. Once you max out the resolution your monitor supports natively, antialiasing becomes the key to achieving higher quality visuals.

If DX9 users can't use AA, I'm going to be ticked.

 

[Byle_Kennett]

64bit is finally becoming necessary. Games like SupCom start having issues when they run into the 2GB per app limit. And now we have problems addressing VRAM too.

EDIT: Wait- what the heck does this mean!?


If DX9 users can't use AA, I'm going to be ticked.

Q. Does Unreal Tournament 3 support HDR rendering with Anti-aliasing?

A. Yes, on Windows Vista. On all PC platforms, we support running with 16-bit-per-component frame buffer (64 bits total). MSAA anti-aliasing support is only enabled on DirectX 10, because the deferred rendering techniques used by the engine require some capabilities not included in DirectX 9.

:O.

 

[krameriffic]

I'm fairly certain id will give Epic a serious run for their money though with their next game...

Anyone else see the Tech5 demo shown @ this year's MacExpo? Pretty amazing at the level of variation and detail in the textures, and the lighting looked great. The million dollar question though is it going to be as good (if not better) than UT3. Anyways 32-Bit OS tech and CPUs have pretty much hit a wall. It's been a good 20-year run though since the 386.

ID seems to have forgotten how to make a multiplayer game that does not suck complete monkey balls, so don't count on it.

 

[maotsan]

:O.

I agree completely, I can't believe they really aren't able to support msaa on xp.. only 1xAA? lol

Does this sound like a Vista cross-marketing scheme to you? UT has been one of my favorite games since the first release but i'll be damned if i am gonna upgrade to Vista just to play it.

 

[Obi_Kwiet]

:O.

Jerks! Well this game's off my look forward to list. What's the point of pretty graphics if you can't have AA? I might pick this up after I get Vista, but this game certainly won't hurry up my decision to purchase it. No AA is ridicules. That's been standard for over seven years!

"Yeah, our last two engines could be anti-aliased no problem, but our latest one has to run in DX10 to perform this basic feature." Give me a break.

 

[Cousin Patty]

guess im gonna be getting a hold of vista sooner than i thought...

From the article: "I believe many of the things that were hinted at in the late 1990’s will finally start to happen – very efficient deferred software renderers, sub-pixel triangle rendering, analytic antialising, and novel new rendering schemes around voxels, frequency-space volumetric rendering, pseudo-realtime radiosity solvers, and so on."

I dont know what that stuff is... but it sounds pretty insane

 

[jbrukardt]

You do realize that not all AA is MSAA. Theyre just limited MSAA (which is fairly new) + HDR to DX10.

You can have your 8 or even 16x normal AA depending on your card in XP, or at least I dont see any reason why you couldnt.

 

[phide]

No AA is ridicules. That's been standard for over seven years! "Yeah, our last two engines could be anti-aliased no problem, but our latest one has to run in DX10 to perform this basic feature." Give me a break.

You can't possibly be serious.

...can he?

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

You can't possibly be serious.

...can he?

Apparently he is. Let the flaming begin.... >:-D

 

[Frosteh]

Indeed due to deffered shading used by the engine, MSAA cannot be used unless you're using DX10. Other AA techniques maybe usable it remains to be seen but MSAA and anything spawned by that technology (for example Nvidia CSAA and MS TSAA) are by far the most popular methods of applying AA due to the speed at which it can be done, you could go back to super sampling AA (SSAA) and whether that works or not right now is speculation but you're going to have one MASSIVE performance hit with that enabled.

We're reaching a point now with computers where we need to consider the future upgrade paths and where this is all going. In my opinion Vista came along with DX10 at just the right time, it's re-write from the ground up was a painful but entirely necessary move to eliminate the inefficiencies that have built up over years of basing new technology off of old technolgy.

But at the same time we're starting to slowly aproach the limitations of 32bit operating systems, with a total mappable memory size of only 4Gb a 32bit operating system has to cram ALL memory locations (not just system RAM) into 4Gb, with a high end video card with 512Mb+ vRAM you're quite often left with 2.5 to 3.0gb of addressable space left for system RAM. Which is actually not that much, gamers have been recommended to have 2Gb of system RAM pretty much since BF2 was released, it wont be long before that's bumped another ~500mb and we've hit our limit.

Just like with UT2003/4, UT3 will sit just below the cusp of the technology movement to target the biggest audience possible, UT2004 was afterall an entirely DX8 game in a time where DX9 was becoming available, and it appears they're aiming for high end DX9 and leaving a lot of the DX10 features alone, at least for the time being.

I think gamers opinions on DX10 and Vista, and 64bit operating systems are going to radically change in a very short period of time, with the release of the Unreal 3 engine (which will no doubt eventually power 100's of games) and several high profile DX10 titles such as UT3 and Crysis, we'll see people come around.

 

[Obi_Kwiet]

You do realize that not all AA is MSAA. Theyre just limited MSAA (which is fairly new) + HDR to DX10.

You can have your 8 or even 16x normal AA depending on your card in XP, or at least I dont see any reason why you couldnt.

EDIT: It's been so long since I've fooled with these settings, but isn't MS AA just for anti-aliasing inside polygons, eg. transparency AA?
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1836781,00.asp

Ok, with a minute I'll see if I can figure this out. When adaptive AA first came out we distinguished between regular AA, and MSAA, and SSAA which were adaptive or transparency AA. MSAA seems to be the standard method of anti aliasing since the Geforce 3, and can be either adaptive or not. I'm not sure if adaptive SSAA is really super sampleing as that seems to have fallen out of use with the Geforce 2, because it involved quadrupling the rendered resolution, and then down sizing it.

Looking at what he said in context, it appears that my original assumption of MSAA = regular AA was probably correct. All these stupid acronyms have come back to bite us in the rear.

 

[maotsan]

Multisample anti-aliasing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Multisample anti-aliasing (MSAA) is a type of anti-aliasing, a technique used in computer graphics to improve image quality.

The term generally refers to a hardware optimization of supersampling. Initial implementations of full-scene anti-aliasing (FSAA) worked by simply rendering a scene at a higher resolution, and then downconverting to a lower-resolution output. With "multisampling", support for sampling and computing multiple samples within a pixel is added directly in the graphics pipeline hardware, providing much better performance. This method can also employ nonuniform sample patterns for improved visual quality.

While hardware can be designed to perform MSAA at full speed for basic cases, MSAA does still consume more memory bandwidth than rendering without anti-aliasing. Programmable shaders are also run for each sample. Furthermore, MSAA performance does not scale well some newer rendering techniques, such as the use of multiple render targets for "deferred" rendering effects.

 

[Obi_Kwiet]

Aye. That's what I was thinking at first, but then I got confused and was thinking that he was referring the transparency MSAA, because transparency MSAA and regular MSAA were called "MSAA" and "FSAA" respectively to distinguish each other.

 

[Frosteh]

As I said in my post above, MSAA is the most common type of AA because of it's huge performance benefits while retaining very good image quality, even if it was only MSAA that didn't work most people would be effected because practically no one uses SSAA or other alternatives, the performance hit is just so massive.

SSAA naturally applies anti aliasing to transparent textures if I remember correctly, transparency AA was brought about to fix a flaw in MSAA which left out transparent textures.

Anyway.

Vista - Check
64bit - Check
4Gb of system RAM - Check
DX10 - Check
DX10 capable video card - Check

Can't wait to play UT3 in all it's DX10 glory with MSAA cranked

 

[maotsan]

I will cringe and weep inside while you have your Extra Super Happy Fun Fun Fite Time.



Have a blast!

 

[Sharps97]

With 64-bits seeming more and more imporant, I just can't shake the feeling that gaming in 64-bit is still years away, given that there is almost zero support for fully functional and stable drivers.

In fact, at this point, I think we pretty much missed the boat on seeing Vista 64 as a viable gaming platform.

Until Microsoft refuses to develop a 32-bit OS, I think we'll have a hard time motivating NVidia and AMD/ATI and Creative, et al. to actually come up with viable 64-bit drivers.

I think whatever OS comes out after Vista will be the first real contender for a useable 64-bit OS in the consumer space.

 

[evilmedic]

With 64-bits seeming more and more imporant, I just can't shake the feeling that gaming in 64-bit is still years away, given that there is almost zero support for fully functional and stable drivers.

In fact, at this point, I think we pretty much missed the boat on seeing Vista 64 as a viable gaming platform.

Until Microsoft refuses to develop a 32-bit OS, I think we'll have a hard time motivating NVidia and AMD/ATI and Creative, et al. to actually come up with viable 64-bit drivers.

I think whatever OS comes out after Vista will be the first real contender for a useable 64-bit OS in the consumer space.

I think vista 64 will defiantely a viable gaming platform. Today, you can pretty much get 64bit drivers for your top teir gaming hardware. Vista 64 drivers are here, and they work.

MB chipset,
Video Card, Nvidia & ATI
Creative == X-fi
etc....etc....

Also, the comming generation of games will work fine on vista too.... Any game which has the "game for windows" logo will run on 64bit platform, and support widescreen resolutions. (examples of games which already have that cert include SupCom, Company of Heros.)

 

[IdiotInCharge]

Still running Vista32 here- mostly because I'm to lazy to play with the 64bit version, however, I do believe that driver releases for 64bit are largely just one release behind the 32bit versions. Realistically, the reason 64bit is hard is because Vista64 has more compatability stuff either disabled, removed or nonfunctional. And that isn't bad. With newer games replacing older games, or engines (such as Valve's Source) being updated for current games, pretty much every gaming or otherwise highend system being built will have Vista64. There's just no reason not to. Honestly, I think Vista32 was more of a softening of the future- instant compatability with pretty much everything, and MS conceded stuff for 32bit that they left out of the 64bit version. Just get ready guys. Also, if you don't like Vista, well, I don't want to hear about it. It rocks. It's fast (faster than XP on newer hardware, slower on older hardware, because it makes better use of hardware. It's even pretty, like a Mac (which is all I have to say about Macs). Get used to it, you'll be running it soon, or you won't be playing


Back to the discussion, ish, I'm waiting for the quad core revolution, and when that hits, that's when Im interested in Vista64 + 4GB+ RAM. That and SLi or something alot faster than a GTS- but that's another discussion. -quad core revolution means when that's all that's sold mainstream, just like dual cores are in everything but the cheapest PC's today. Expect 8 and 16 core systems, especially from AMD for whom that is rediculously easy to be normal then

 

[phide]

SSAA naturally applies anti aliasing to transparent textures if I remember correctly, transparency AA was brought about to fix a flaw in MSAA which left out transparent textures.

Full supersampling provides anti-aliasing for anything that really requires it without degrading overall fidelity. It's even beneficial for normal maps, parallax maps and so on (go back and play Doom 3 with full supersampling for a treat). The result is essentially identical to what you'd see from traditional non-real-time rendering, where 16x supersampling is considered "good".

 

[IdiotInCharge]

Supersampling is just rendering at a higher resolution, and then blending down. That's why it usually reduces perfomance in the neihborhood of the factor you use- 2xSSAA is going to be around half speed, 4xSSAA a quarter... and this is why we don't use it