Kyro II FSAA and other questions...

[opus512]

What the hell is the difference between horizontal and vertical? Is it as simple as only doing FSAA either on the top or the sides? What would the equivelant of the 3dfx 2xFSAA be? I had it forced at 4x, but it was a bit choppy in TFC at 1024. I may have had it set for 32 bit, too, not sure still messing with it.

Got the beta 3 of Powerstrip on it right now, anyone overclocking it at all? Kind of itching to see what it can do after I put heatsinks on the memory, heh. Also, I found one tweak utility at 3dfiles.com, it that the only one around? Can't remember the name of it, but it was the only I saw at 3dfiles.

Any registry tricks or anytihng anyone has found? I would like to run it in 16 vs 32 bit, just to see if I notice a speed difference, but I don't see anywhere to force either 16 or 32 bit?

[ 06-06-2001: Message edited by: opus512 ]

[Ailuros]

opus,

Go to www.tweakfiles.com (http://www.tweakfiles.com) and search for PCI list it´ll tell you if AGP texturing is enabled.

For overclocking use this one: http://www.mitrax.de/files/kclk.exe

works for win9x and win2k.

You change colour rendering within the game and I´d advise you to do the same what TC concerns.

List some games you want to play with and I´ll see where and how I can help.

Forget that kyrotool thingy it hasn´t been updated and is only for the k1.

What FSAA concerns it is basically 1x2 or 2x1, but I use personally vertical cause I find it more effective, although horizontal often has much less performance decrease.

You´ll get quite often confused if you´re using 16 or 32 bit hehehehe so watch out for it. :)

EDIT:

As soon as I´ll get home I´ll put up a Serious Sam optimising thread. Nothing really special, just info and experiences I´ve collected so far.

[ 06-06-2001: Message edited by: Ailuros ]

[GrimFaceOfReality]

Ail,

Does Kyro 2 offer ~2X FSAA that is using both vertical and horizontal samples? (ie 1.4x1.4)?

[ 06-06-2001: Message edited by: GrimFaceOfReality ]

[Ailuros]

Hehehehe Grim,

I´ve been searching for some white papers quite some time. Here´s the only thing I was able to locate until now:

KYRO II renders at high resolution and at 32 bpp into it's internal tile buffer. This high resolution image can then be filtered in either X or Y (2X FSAA), or in both X and Y (4X FSAA) to generate the final image which is then written into the external frame buffer at either 16 or 32 bpp

If you think I understand what you actually mean by true FSAA, then you didn´t think twice. I´m not the tech expert remember? All I know is that it uses ordered grid but performs the AA on the tiles (32x16bits if I remember correctly).

My guess reading the above is that the difference between horizontal and vertical is that it depends on the axis (X or Y, don´t ask which for which you´ll embarass me again hehehehe :) ) it takes the samples from. I just hope this makes any sense.

Until now all I know is that vertical does a much better job, but that could really depend on the game. If it interests you I can make two comparable screenshots, as soon as I get home, so you can study them for themselves (one vertical, one horizontal, if you prefer q3 and a certain map let me know).

What I can say is that the performance hit for applying any form of FSAA is there. It just seems to be bigger with vertical vs. horizontal.

[opus512]

I don't think either 2x is both, since they wouldn't both be listed. Right now I can't tell what is running the card, Powerstrip or the tabs in Advanced Display Properties.

And man I miss the 3dfx drivers, there's no friggin help associated with the Kyro drivers :(

I found 4x with Anisotropic to be realy nice looking, not as sharp as the V5, but pretty nice, better then the FSAA I seen on a Radeon 64 and a GTS2U. But where is an LOD setting? This thing need's an LOD *bad*, heh. I can't find anything for it anywhere, is there a setting available with any utility or anything?

[Ailuros]

I've been yelling my throat sore about a LOD bias slider and I still have to mail IT about it.

I did some minor research and it seems to take 2 samples just from a different axis as I figured. 2 samples horizontal or 2 samples vertical. 4xFSAA is 2x2, 2 samples from each axis combined.

Where the heck did you see anisotropic? Don't tell me Q3a or I'll slap you to death hehehehehe. You can see it however in Serious Sam or in D3D games but it kills performance so it's a no go.

I hope you made a clean driver install and are using the 7.103.

I can answer only specific questions opus hehehe so feel free to ask. The only thing you should touch in the drivers as of now to avoid inconveniences is TC in D3D wherever possible, anti-aliasing (both D3D/openGL) and "render until flip" in D3D if you intend to run fraps.

Fair warning: fraps does not read accurately on kyros. If you don't enable render till flip it'll kill performance and reading will be even more inaccurate as it even is.

Leave the rest alone, it is more there for "special occasions" and most games work without them. Uh oh leave the internal buffer in openGL on.

On top where it says "Global" you'll notice to arrows on the right side. Click on the right arrow and let a new window open. It allows you to save game specific settings in the registry.

Example you want to play SS with 2xFSAA, but you prefer no FSAA in Q3. The saved settings just take care of it so you don't have to enable/disable every time you start any game. :)

Patience they will improove much more.

How is your desktop? Any misplacements? Hack the registry monitor timings and change the optimal RR's to the highest your monitor takes. And use E-colour from your driver CD. That default gamma looks like utterly shit. Just save the colour monitor profile and delete e-colour afterwards the settings will remain after that in the colour inf file.

That for now :D

[GrimFaceOfReality]

Hey Ail

I messed up a little :) I actually found the answer to my first question while typing it, but I hit submit before I could change it to what its now. Sorry about that.

[Ailuros]

I wasn't so sure about my answer myself, but in any case no biggy d00d. You've corrected me so many times, I have to be VERY but VERY VERY careful what I write.

ROTFLMAO :D

[[NSM]Nemesis]

opus dont worry bout 16 and 32 bit comparisons too much I tried it where i could set it in games, no speed diff, max i gained was like 4 frames... not even worth the hassle...

[Ailuros]

Nemesis,

before I got the card and seing the first benchmarks arrive I was asking myself why the heck they included 16 bits in the first place.

Try one of those older 16bits only games out and you'll see why :D

[[NSM]Nemesis]

i know :D

I need it too,
but still, a comparison in games where u can choose between 16 or 32 bits... well so much for choice, its nice to have but if theres no diff... ;)

[[NSM]Nemesis]

damn I just figured i need to use these boards more often... I friggin got a LOW post counter hehehehe

[Kristof-PowerVR]

Try adding a "MIPMapThreshold" key in the registry for the app that you want to change the LOD... :p

K-

[opus512]

I have uhm..., yeah the 7013's. In there there is an option for Force Anisotropic Filtering, to be honest don't know if it even does anything, heh.

The only thing I have changed in the driver settings from default is to turn on Vertical FSAA 2x, Force Anisotropic, Disable Waiting for Vsync and Force Texture Compresion, in both D3D and OGL.

Is there a FAQ some where that runs through all the settings? Some I know, like Force Trilinear Texture Filtering, etc., but what the hell is Enable Soft Edges on Cut-out Textures? Or Enable Scene Manager?

God Damnit I miss my V5 drivers!!!!

Force Scissor Support Off?

What would Force Single Buffer do?

Again, is there a freakin' FAQ somewhere? Heheh.

And btw, this card *tanks* in 3DM2k! Please, remember who your talking to, I have always said 3DM2K is propietary shit and to pay no attention to it, but I do find it to be a convienient, although limited, comparison. But man, I mean my Duron 700 system with a V3 in it walks away from the KII in a Tbird 850@1000!

Anyway, like the card so far, not my V5 of course, but a decent card for the money. I hope new drivers improve on it.

[edit] Check out Powerstrip beta 3 if you haven't, has some cool stuff in it.

[ 06-07-2001: Message edited by: opus512 ]

[Ailuros]

opus,

do you mean 3dmark2000 or 2001? The latter has a problem that still has to be fixed ("render to textures").

If you get higher scores in 2000 on the v3, errrr uhhm than there's something very wrong there. (when I first ran it untweaked I got 4732 3dmark shitpoints in 1024x768x32 and it still got higher than that)

Kristof,

thanks for the tip, but with what value? Something like:

"MIPMapThreshold" "-2" ???

arghhhhhhh please don't make me experiment for hours again :)

[ 06-07-2001: Message edited by: Ailuros ]

[opus512]

Ailuros,
You are correct, there was something very wrong, heh. I did the VIA driver install the way you wrote down, and much, much inproved performance in 3DM2K. I haven't even ran the full test yet, but just he Helicopter one scored 10 times higher, literaly, so that was that.

Thanks for the suggestion, big time :)

[Kilo311]

I am no techie but I found a answer to your question. I don't know what all of it means though!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by opus512:
[

Is there a FAQ some where that runs through all the settings? Some I know, like Force Trilinear Texture Filtering, etc., but what the hell is Enable Soft Edges on Cut-out Textures? Or Enable Scene Manager?

People keep asking me what the options in the Kyro drivers do, so here is a list taken from the Kyro help file.

D3D: 1st option
Four settings are provided to enable you to control Full Scene Anti-aliasing, you may want to try different settings depending on the type of graphics or movement you are displaying:
·Force 4x (2x2) Anti-aliasing – this generates a 2x2 pixel block and averages to one pixel.
·Force 2x Horizontal Anti-aliasing – this generates a 2x1 pixel block and averages to one pixel.
·Force 2x Vertical Anti-aliasing – this generates a 1x2 pixel block and averages to one pixel. This may be particularly effective if you are using a TV screen.
·Application Specified Anti-aliasing – this is the default setting.

D3D:2nd option
Vertical Sync synchronises Vivid!XS to your monitor’s refresh rate.
By turning Disable Waiting for Vertical Sync on, you are disabling this synchronisation between Vivid!XS and your monitor. This means Vivid!XS can run at top speed because it isn’t waiting for the next screen image to be displayed, but this may result in the image ‘tearing’.

D3D:3rd option
Defer Render Until Flip waits until a full scene has been supplied before rendering it.
Turning this on may remove artefacts from the display and improve performance, but it may also create unusual artefacts.

D3D:4th option
Force Anisotropic Filtering provides anti-aliasing for all MIP mapped textures within a scene. It resolves detail on textures that are ‘tilted’ on the screen, such as notices on walls or half-open doors that are at an angle to your viewpoint.
Turning this on improves image quality, but will reduce performance.

D3D:5th option
Texture compression forces textures to be compressed using the ‘DXT’ texture compression format where possible, even if the application does not attempt to use texture compression.
Turning Force Texture Compression on enhances performance but may result in some visual artefacts.

D3D:6th option
Trilinear filtering blends between texture maps for a smoother transition between distances, and is especially noticeable as an object moves towards or away from you. It also resolves detail on textures that are ‘tilted’ on the screen, such as notices on walls or half-open doors that are at an angle to your viewpoint.
Turning on Force Trilinear Texture Filtering doubles the speed of this filtering technique when compressed textures are used.

D3D:7th option
RHW (Reciprocal Homogenous W) is an alternative method to Z for creating depth comparisons.
Turning Force W Buffering on may improve the accuracy of the game’s depth comparisons by using Vivid!XS’s RHW calculation, but may introduce artefacts to the display.

D3D:8th option
Soft Edges on Cut-out textures improve the quality of ‘punch-through’ objects. This is where a texture has some parts rendered so that it looks like a shape has been ‘punched’ through it and is used for objects like leaves.
Turning this on should soften the edges of these objects but may also introduce some artefacts on the edges of some objects. Performance should not be adversely affected.

D3D:9th option
Enable External Depth/Stencil Buffer

Turning on Enable External Depth/Stencil Buffer causes the generation of an external depth buffer and causes Vivid!XS to use it. There are three sub-options you can enable to further tweak this option to suit your application:

1.Enable Direct 3D Depth/Stencil Buffer Format
Turning Enable Direct 3D Depth/Stencil Buffer Format on enables translation of PowerVR’s Depth Buffer format to standard Direct 3D format for use by applications and enables applications to apply advanced effects such as volumetrics.


2.Enable Depth/Stencil Buffer Storing
Turning Enable Depth/Stencil Buffer Storing on causes hardware to store the depth buffer to an external source after rendering.


3.Enable Depth/Stencil Buffer Loading
Turning Enable Depth/Stencil Buffer Loading on causes hardware to load the depth buffer from an external source before rendering.


The following combinations of the above are recommended:

3+2 enables loading and storing of depth buffer to handle games which break render into multiple passes with direct manipulation of the frame buffer between passes.

1+3 enables games to preload their own depth buffer values.

2+1 enables games to access to the depth buffer results from rendering.

1+2+3 provides a combination of the above two points.

OpenGL: 1st option
Four settings are provided to enable you to control Full Scene Anti-aliasing, you may want to try different settings depending on the type of graphics or movement you are displaying:
·Force 4x (2x2) Anti-aliasing – this generates a 2x2 pixel block and averages to one pixel.
·Force 2x Horizontal Anti-aliasing – this generates a 2x1 pixel block and averages to one pixel.
·Force 2x Vertical Anti-aliasing – this generates a 1x2 pixel block and averages to one pixel. This may be particularly effective if you are using a TV screen.
·No Anti-aliasing – this is the default setting.
OpenGL: 2nd option
Vertical Sync synchronises Vivid!XS to your monitor’s refresh rate.
By turning Disable Waiting for Vertical Sync on, you are disabling this synchronisation between Vivid!XS and your monitor. This means Vivid!XS can run at top speed because it isn’t waiting for the next screen image to be displayed, but this may result in the image ‘tearing’.

OpenGL: 3rd option
Under OpenGL applications can only request single or double buffering. Normally the PowerVR drivers will try to improve on this where possible by using triple buffering instead of double buffering. This may allow full screen applications to run with improved frame rate, but without loss of visual quality. If you select Use Application Specified Buffering PowerVR will match the application request, this can sometimes correct issues where the whole screen may not update correctly.

OpenGL: 4th option
This makes the application render to the front buffer only. If Force Single Buffer is turned on, there should be an increase in performance but ‘cut line’ (tearing) may be visible. Only PowerVR can usefully render to the front buffer, and this ability can also make significant extra amounts of memory available for textures.

OpenGL: 5th option
Force Anisotropic Filtering provides anti-aliasing for all MIP mapped textures within a scene. It resolves detail on textures that are ‘tilted’ on the screen, such as notices on walls or half-open doors that are at an angle to your viewpoint.
Turning this on improves image quality, but will reduce performance.

OpenGL: 6th option
Scissoring is a method by which objects are drawn in a restricted rectangle on the screen. Selecting Force Scissor Support Off may provide an increase in performance but you may see objects being drawn in parts of the screen where they do not belong.

OpenGL: 7th option
Texture compression forces textures to be compressed using the ‘DXT’ texture compression format where possible, even if the application does not attempt to use texture compression.
Turning Force Texture Compression on enhances performance but may result in some visual artefacts.

OpenGL: 8th option
Enabling the Scene Manager option may help if your application appears to be missing sections of geometry or nothing at all appears. This enables scenes with very large numbers of polygon to be rendered correctly. Unselecting Enable Internal Depth/Stencil Buffer also may be required for the Scene Manager option to entirely fix application issues.

OpenGL: 9th option
Fast Colour Calculations may marginally improve the performance of some games. You should not select Enable Fast Colour Calculations if colours which were bright now appear dark or black.

OpenGL: 10th option
Enable Internal Depth/Stencil Buffer

The default mode of operation for Vivid!XS is to render the scene using an internal tile sized depth buffer. This has great performance advantages compared to other cards. When operating in this mode the contents of the depth buffer are discarded after each tile, and are not available to the rest of the computer. Some applications may require access to the contents of the depth buffer and in this case Enable Internal Depth/Stencil buffer should be un-checked to make Vivid!XS create a depth buffer image accessible to the rest of the computer. When this option is un-checked the following sub-options are available which may help mitigate the performance degradation caused by the external depth buffer.

·Enable Depth/Stencil Buffer Storing
If this option is checked the driver will immediately return what is currently present in the depth buffer rather wait for the current frame to be completely up to date.

·Enable Asynchronous Depth/Stencil Buffer Access
With this option checked the driver will store the depth buffer every frame. Un-checking this will mean the driver will only store the depth buffer when it thinks the application wants to access it. This will not be infallible, and so may result in visual errors.

[Ailuros]

Kilo,

I read that guide in german over at Mitrax.de, but I leave most of those settings be.

Most of them say anyway.....might increase performance yadda yadda....but might cause some visual errors blablabla :)

But that english version is definitely something to save and keep for future reference. Thanks buddy. :cool:

[opus512]

Yeah dude, about as comprehensive as I could want, thanks loads :)

Btw, I been having problems with my system *all* day :(

Still not sure what the problem/s is/were. Got an AZ11E in it right now out of another LAN system, not sure if my A7V went belly up, or if it was as simple as a friggin' IDE cable going bad, heh.

Couldn't get the 850 stable on the FIC, when it worked at all, default settings or not, so I popped in a Duron and after un-unlocking the Tbird, gonna stick it back in now and see if it boots up default.

I'm having a bad &^@%$*! day right now :(

[Kilo311]

Glad to help anyway that I can ;)

Sorry to hear about your system :mad:

Hopefully you will get it worked out!

Have a good one !