Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

ok, somebody give me a straight answer here....

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • ok, somebody give me a straight answer here....

    I've searched all over the net ,and haven't gotten a good answer yet, I understand that the parhelia is a GPU and so far all gpu's are understood to have hardware t&l, but nowhere have I found any ads for like "3rd generation t&l engine" or something along those lines, So does it , or not, have HARDWARE TRANSFORM & LIGHTING?


    Thanks, Jordo

  • #2
    From everything that i have read the Parhelia does have a vertex shader.

    Comment


    • #3
      And it would seem it has incorporated a pixel shader too...

      Comment


      • #4
        Hehe.

        Basically, with a vertex shader (introduced with DirectX8) you don't really use the Transform & Lighting pipeline anymore. A vertex shader is a lot more flexible and is done all in hardware.

        There is something aboutFundamentals of Vertex Shaders if you are at all interested in this topic.

        Comment


        • #5
          so basically you're saying that all gpu's hardware t&l ever consisted of were pixel shaders and vertex shaders?... hmm...
          this doesn't seem right... and why isn't matrox using the term t&l....

          I know it sounds picky but I do want to know...

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by jordo256
            so basically you're saying that all gpu's hardware t&l ever consisted of were pixel shaders and vertex shaders?... hmm...
            this doesn't seem right... and why isn't matrox using the term t&l....

            I know it sounds picky but I do want to know...
            I guess you mean the crappy old DX7 T&L which has been used by Max Payne and 3dMark 2001 for example...
            I don't think that Matrox included one, because it is just outdated. Today the CPUs are so fast, that there is no need to keep included DX7 T&L units for games which are at least one year old. Also the most T&L games didn't get a huge performance boost, Max Payne for example isn't much faster when you enable T&L.... if the CPU is fast enough (>1 GHz)
            The Parhelia of course has programmable DX8 T&L, which would be pixel and vertex shaders, they are being used in Aquanox and 3dMark 2002 for example.
            Specs:
            MSI 745 Ultra :: AMD Athlon XP 2000+ :: 1024 MB PC-266 DDR-RAM :: HIS Radeon 9700 (Catalyst 3.1) :: Creative Soundblaster Live! 1024 :: Pioneer DVD-106S :: Western Digital WD800BB :: IBM IC35L040AVVN07

            Comment


            • #7
              T&L is an old term. Matrox's programmable shaders do everything that T&L did and more.
              When running apps that require hardware T&L, it is detected and works with Parhelia.
              Core2 Duo E7500 2.93, Asus P5Q Pro Turbo, 4gig 1066 DDR2, 1gig Asus ENGTS250, SB X-Fi Gamer ,WD Caviar Black 1tb, Plextor PX-880SA, Dual Samsung 2494s

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by jordo256
                so basically you're saying that all gpu's hardware t&l ever consisted of were pixel shaders and vertex shaders?... hmm...
                this doesn't seem right... and why isn't matrox using the term t&l....
                Not at all. A hardware T&L pipeline like that of the GeForce 256 that was first supported with DirectX7 only supports a fixed set of operations.

                Those exact same operations can be done using Vertex Shaders (VS). VS support appeared with the GeForce 3 and DirectX8.0.

                You no longer need a dedicated hardware T&L pipeline if you have VS support. You can program the VS to do everything a hardware T&L pipeline can do and a whole lot more.

                I call one the first method hardware T&L and the other which uses vertex shaders as programmable T&L.

                Thats just me, I'm not sure if others use the same terminology or not.

                Comment


                • #9
                  I remember someone asking this question to Haig over there at Moatrox' support forums. Don't know the exact words now, but I think you get the idea, and please (as always) correct me, if I'm wrong

                  Question: What about games that require H/W DirectX 7 T&L?
                  Answer: They will be fine.

                  That's exactly what Kruzin stated here, so I wouldn't worry.
                  main system: P4 Northwood 2.0 @ 2.5GHz, Asus P4PE (LAN + Audio onboard), 512MB Infineon PC333 CL2.5, Sapphire/BBA Radeon 9500@9700 128MB (hardmodded), IBM 100GB ATA-100, 17" Belinea (crappy), and some other toys...ADSL (1,5mbit/s down, 256kbit/s up...sweeeeeet!)

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Like Kruzin said, Vertex & Pixel shaders are like a (very) advanced form of hardware t&l - standard hardwired t&l is WAY outdated, and is emulated (in hardware, of course) by all modern GPUs.

                    No need to worry

                    AZ
                    There's an Opera in my macbook.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      thanks, guys, and kruzin for clearing that up... I'm still running my radeon 64 ddr vivo that I got 2 years ago this july.. I still play all my games fine right now, so I haven't kept up on the T&l thing....

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by jordo256
                        I'm still running my radeon 64 ddr vivo that I got 2 years ago this july.. I still play all my games fine right now....
                        There is an assessment that is all too missing in the world these days...

                        "my card isn't the latest and greatest, but it meets my current needs..."

                        Three cheers for jordo!



                        CEM
                        System: P4 2.4, 512k 533FSB, Giga-Byte GA-8PE667 Ultra, 1024MB Corsair XMS PC333, Maxtor D740x 60GB, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, PCPower&Cooling Silencer 400.

                        Capture Drives (for now): IBM 36LZX 9.1, Quantum Atlas 10KII 9.1 on Adaptec 29160

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Keep in mind GPU is a bogus marketing term coined by nVidia. It is just another name for the little piece of silicon that does all the work. Calling something a GPU does not imply any particular features.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Well, with graphic chips being more complex than CPUs these days, I think it's only fair to call them GPUs, although this indeed was an nVidia marketing term when it was invented. The general consensus is that any graphics chip with TnL is called a GPU.

                            AZ
                            There's an Opera in my macbook.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              <B>Well, with graphic chips being more complex than CPUs these days</B>, I think it's only fair to call them GPUs, although this indeed was an nVidia marketing term when it was invented. The general consensus is that any graphics chip with TnL is called a GPU.
                              Whoa! Hold up!!! That's a load of crap!
                              Gigabyte P35-DS3L with a Q6600, 2GB Kingston HyperX (after *3* bad pairs of Crucial Ballistix 1066), Galaxy 8800GT 512MB, SB X-Fi, some drives, and a Dell 2005fpw. Running WinXP.

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X