Catalyst 8.3: Better Hardware through Drivers

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Max Slowik
Kurtis
AMD
Mar. 4, 2008

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Tessellation

Back when the HD 2000-series came out, AMD made a big deal over tessellation, because it actually is a big deal. In a pinch, it works like this: 3D models only need rudimentary polygon outlines. The GPU can calculate where more polygons are needed on the fly to make things look smooth, thereby maximizing the detail level for any given hardware. If it's close to the camera, where detail is scrutinized, the models' polygon count goes way up. Things that are far away and represented by a couple dozen pixels shouldn't use system resources only to be cut down to a few squares, so the absolute minimum number of polygons are used to represent the models.

While this sounds like adding work for the GPU, the gains outwiegh the additional process. This is in part how the Xbox 360 does so much with relatively so little, but it's just not implemented by computer games. Why? Developers don't do it, I dunno, it's up to them, to a point.

While all HD Radeons have a tessellation engine, the drivers have not supported it... until now. Then consider that NVIDIA doesn't have a tessellation engine, and you've got two good reasons not to program tessellation into PC games.

But, kindly as they are, AMD has developed tools for game developers to mimic tessellation on NVIDIA hardware, and since there are plenty of cross-platform games, AMD has decided that now's a good time to officially activate their tessellation hardware.

This is a forward-looking option; that is to say, it's not going to help anyone out when they're installing the 8.3 drivers. But now it's available, even if it only amounts to a cap-feather.

Folding@Home

A mystery! I've tried getting F@H to work on my GPU, but it's weird and cludgy, and then everthing crashes. As much as I'd like to help out, it's just too much of a pain and I'm not in the business of folding and just folding.

This new driver, on the other hand, is specifically optimized for a to-be-determined F@H release, "Expected this spring."

Let's pwn us some PS3s. (Editor: You'll never catch me, see. Nyah.)

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Page 3 of 4

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Page 1: Introduction & CrossFireX
Page 2: Hybrid Graphics & HydraVision
Page 3: Tessellation & Folding@Home
Page 4: More Stuff Still... And the Conclusion

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3 User Comments

1 - Posted by Jayb on March 5, 2008 - 10:38 am

Except that Nvidia's 9000-series is just the 8000-series with a little fine tuning. There are already cards out there that can be clocked to the speeds (purportedly) being offered on the 9800. The performance of these cards is not a mystery and they will certainly beat AMD's line-up, at least in a card for card match-up. AMD needs to get the 4000's out the door, and soon.

2 - Posted by aireiq on March 7, 2008 - 9:56 am

> Every once in a while it even means new features, or rather, features delivered on promises made when the hardware was released, just now working right or even at all.

"just now working right"?

editor, editor, make me an edit.

3 - Posted by Kurtis on March 7, 2008 - 11:30 am

/SLAP

Snap out of it, man!

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