Newsgroup: it.comp.hardware.video-3d
Titolo: Intervista tecnica per Oblivion

http://www.beyond3d.com/interviews/oblivion/
Saluti

 Saluti
interessante:
Oblivion's HDR solution does make use of floating point textures to give 
greater accuracy and precision for the effect and uses floating point buffer 
blending. Blending in the pixel shader would end up being prohibitively 
expensive given the complexity of our scenes.
cosi vedremo il gioco con l'antialias con le X1x00
Shader model 2.0 to 3.0 is the targeted range. For shader model 3.0 effects, 
we do take advantage of some looping and branching, but mostly we use it for 
performance increases. In 3.0 we are able to do all lighting in a single 
pass, as well as full lighting on blended objects.
e qui vedremo usare il branching, son curioso di vedere le prestazioni di 
R520 e confrontarle con quelle di R580 (hanno una granularità diversa)
Suffice to say that our triangle and vertex counts are on the high side, but 
in line with what Microsoft and the major video card companies recommend for 
next-gen development. For pixel shaders, if you take into account all the 
different configurations that result from compiling for different cards, 
there are hundreds. However, there are probably about 25 major shader 
effects that are utilized in general situations. The instruction count 
scales with shader model, so our lower-end 2.0 shaders are kept pretty 
compact while the 3.0 lighting shaders are quite long and will appreciate a 
fast video card.
questo significa che un incremento della potenza shaders rispetto al 
texturing, da grande giovamento all'engine sm 3.0
rispecchia la tendenza generale degli ultimi titoli
qui invece dice che XNA non è ancora disponibile..
As a PC and Xbox 360 developer how have you been finding Microsoft's XNA? 
Other developers praise its profiling tools and impressive multi-platform 
integration. What do you like best?
XNA Studio still isn't released, but the tools they have provided for 
development and profiling on the Xbox 360 are outstanding. The PIX tool for 
performance profiling is particularly fantastic and it's something we use on 
a daily basis around here.
How different is developing for the PC and Xbox 360 now compared to the PC 
and original Xbox when you were creating Morrowind?
It's quite a bit different considering that the original Xbox was 
fundamentally very similar to PC architecture. The 360 is much more like a 
traditional game console, in that it is tuned first and foremost for gaming. 
The differences in things like the multicore architecture and unified memory 
systems do create some technical challenges, but that is the nature of 
cross-platform development. The support we've received from Microsoft has 
been tremendous, even better than it was for the original Xbox.
e qui che oblivion userà l' Havok
va a finire che sto ageia lo userà giusto unreal tournament...
Physics is the new buzzword and with such a rich environment how have you 
been balancing that with other high CPU utilization subsystems (like A.I. or 
even the renderer)? Do you think nowadays developers treat physics as a 
first-class citizen? Should they?
We've worked closely with Havok to make sure our implementation of physics 
is as optimal as possible. I think anyone who's played Half-Life 2 realizes 
that physics can add a ton of great gameplay to a game. Developers have 
definitely taken notice of the importance of physics in games and it's 
pretty rare that you see a game without them anymore. I look forward to the 
advances in gameplay that they'll bring.
While we're on the subject, although you've mentioned you're quite happy 
with Havok, is a PhysX/Novodex path later on as a patch a possible 
expectation for Oblivion?
We certainly always have our eye on new technology that might make good 
additions to our games. As far as physics goes, Havok is the market leader 
and for good reason. It's proven itself in well over 100 games and the 
amount of support they've provided us in implementing and optimizing their 
system for Oblivion has been invaluable. Either way, I think adding support 
for an entirely new physics system is far beyond the scope of a patch.

 R520 e confrontarle con quelle di R580 (hanno una granularità diversa).
Ti riferisci al maggior numero di shader unit presente in R580 o ad altro?
Infine una curiosità su R500... questa VPU possiede 48 shader unit, ma non
ricordo quante Alu per unità, 2 per caso?

 ma non ricordo quante Alu per unità, 2 per caso?
la alu è un unità shaders a se stante (48 organizzate in 3 array di SIMD da 
16)
se mi stai chiedendo il tipo di operazioni per alu/shader, ognuna di esse 
può elaborare contemporaneamente un istruzione vettoriale (Vec4) ed una 
scalare, permettendo "5D" per ciclo
le alu usano come precisione FP32 e non contemplano quella inferiore FP16 
tanto in voga nel mondo pc
in aggiunta agli shaders c'è un circuito specifico che elabora tutte le 
interpolazioni dei calcoli degli shaders, che ATI dice dare un extra 33% in 
più nella capacità computazionale shaders del sistema
(fonte articolo tecnico su beyond3d)
qui il confronto tra gli shaders di X360 (sm4.0 con alcune modifiche 
riguardanti i geometry shaders/memexport/procedural synth)
http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/xenos/index.php?p=09


Grazie 1000... questo articolo mi era sfuggito ;-)

 Grazie 1000... questo articolo mi era sfuggito ;-)
è fatto molto bene
a proposito, dato che qualche giorno fa il troll parlava della ps3 come del 
messia
lo sai che gli sviluppatori, gli stessi che lavorano ai giochi ps3 e che han 
preparato le demo per l'E3 2005 sulla console, dicono che son delusi dalla 
macchina, e pare che l'opinione comune sia che è meglio x360?
leggi un pò qua:
Now I've spoken with people who are on the technical side of the PS3. I've
also talked with people on the technical side of the XBOX 360. The
consistent comment I am hearing from people on my end is, "The XBOX 360 is
better". They are saying that it is capable of just doing more.
http://www.downinfront.tv/Game_Reviews/Playstation_3/PS3_Console_Review/
 

 macchina, e pare che l'opinione comune sia che è meglio x360?
Andiamo bene... mah, a me sta PS3 onestamente piace sempre di meno.
Vedremo come si comporterà alla prova dei fatti, ovvero al debutto e con
i giochi "veri", non solo delle tech demo, pergiunta prerenderizzate....

 prerenderizzate..
ricorda queste parole:
quando vedrai i primi giochi ps3, e finiranno i tempi dei filmati 
prerenderizzati, vedrai grafica mediocre, sotto lo standard attuale
vediamo se mi sbaglio
http://home.comcast.net/~iceberg_is_on_fire/mini1.gif
 


L'hai letto poi Black? ;))


si
non hanno approfondito come speravo..
:(