Apple finally wakes up and updates openGL

[stiv]

over 80 AAA games

I never realized Anti-Aircraft Artillery games were such a popular genre. I must be losing touch...

[E-102 Gamma]

I wonder why over 80 AAA games have made use of SSAO since it was created for Crysis (2007)clear through 2013 releases.

Apparently, some people hold the belief that horrible AO is better than no AO. Either that or they just don't know how bad SSAO is.

Its fatal flaw is that it's implemented as a pixel shader; it's a 2-D effect. Meaning, it is unaware of the geometry that it attempts to add shadows to. So it'll do stupid stuff like put shadows where there shouldn't be shadows, such as where no occlusion occurs, and in direct sunlight (I can take some screenshots to prove this later, if anyone doesn't believe me). It essentially just outlines things that are in front of other things in thick, black shadows.

The shadowing is also completely dependent on the PoV. It will move when the camera does. This video has some pretty good examples in it (watch the outlines and the shadows around them), though it also has some blood and gore in it as well, so viewers beware.

It's also surprisingly performance-intensive. This benchmark documents the performance hit of SSAO (scroll down to "Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO)") and shows a ~26-30% performance hit when SSAO is turned on in Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Basically, in summary, it outlines stuff and wrecks performance while it's at it. I don't understand why anyone actually likes it.

[vexed]

Apple has finally updated the OpenGL support in its new version of OS X. OS X 10.9 codenamed Mavericks will be available with… OpenGL 4.1 core profile!

WZ with tessellation support ?

Do you mean that before this update we couldn't introduce tessellation to wz? Oh well..

Nope.
This would be hardware accelerated.

I meant that we also have some other platforms(win, linux) that support the OGL's tessellation.

Well, technically, on linux, only the nvidia & AMD binary blobs support it. Mesa don't, and I have no idea why people refuse to install binary blobs on their distro.
So, that means only on windows with video cards that support openGL 4+, that leaves out pretty much all the intel, sis, and via guys, with only nvidia cards above 5xx & AMD 68xx and higher.
That would mean about 2% of our user base.

Depressing.

And how did this thread become so OT ?

[NoQ]

I have no idea why people refuse to install binary blobs on their distro.

Having one installed, i do

[MaNGusT]

Well, technically, on linux, only the nvidia & AMD binary blobs support it. Mesa don't, and I have no idea why people refuse to install binary blobs on their distro.
So, that means only on windows with video cards that support openGL 4+, that leaves out pretty much all the intel, sis, and via guys, with only nvidia cards above 5xx & AMD 68xx and higher.
That would mean about 2% of our user base.

Well, the tessellation in wz could be optional but coding tessellation for 2% of users is not a profitable idea too, in value of the time consumption.

[E-102 Gamma]

What would tessellation be applied to, anyway?

(Btw, being on Windows 7 and having two GTX 560 Ti's in SLI, I definitely would be able to use tessellation, were it to be implemented, so this thread is somewhat relevant to my interests. )

[Rman Virgil]

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The value of tesselation really comes to the fore when joined to displacement mapping. With those 2 combined, it's a game changer across the board graphically. But frankly, I think it would truely only shine in WZ if "Drive Mode" was fully developed - for Vtols as well ground units.


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What it is and how it works I understand, but....

What still makes no sense to me in AAA games using SSAO is that when you have a mega dev budget why use a procedure whose pros are so outweighed by its cons, and do so for over half-dozen years ?

=======>

AAA games not only encompass Anti Aircraft Artillery games but also, at least here in the USA, Car Racing games with the Triple A stamp of approval. Man, you're really out of touch.

.

[MaNGusT]

What would tessellation be applied to, anyway?

(Btw, being on Windows 7 and having two GTX 560 Ti's in SLI, I definitely would be able to use tessellation, were it to be implemented, so this thread is somewhat relevant to my interests. )

It'd be applied to the terrain.

[E-102 Gamma]

What still makes no sense to me in AAA games using SSAO is that when you have a mega dev budget why use a procedure whose pros are so outweighed by its cons, and do so for over half-dozen years ?

Good question.

I guess it's just easy to implement and makes for a good excuse to include one more checked box on the list of graphical features printed on the various advertisements for the various games/engines.

That, and everybody's favorite engine, Unreal 3, has built-in support for it (or so it would seem, anyway), and they figure that perhaps some people prefer awful AO to no AO, so they decide not to go through the trouble of removing it. If that really is the case, it's kind of sad how it works.

As for tessellated terrain in Warzone; if it ever happens, you guys'll have to be very careful not to overdo it. Subtlety in graphical effects is really underrated nowadays, IMO.

[Lord Apocalypse]

Well, the tessellation in wz could be optional but coding tessellation for 2% of users is not a profitable idea too, in value of the time consumption.

EVE Online started using it a few patches back with some nice results. You have to remember though that hardcore games do not let their hardware fall too far behind the bleeding edge. In a cross platform game the idea may be to ignore it, but AAA titles in windows land live or die by the choices hardcore games make.

I have had to upgrade many a computer over the years for gamers that tossed a card two generations old for the current high end crop. With DX11 a lot of shops are trying to support DX9, DX10 (why I can't understand) as well as DX11. That is one thing OpenGL has going for it. One driver that can work on many different systems rather than 9 on XP and up, 10 - Vista up, 11 - win 7 or higher.

For those that haven't played civ 5 you get a choice when you launch the game. Play with 9/10, 11, or touchscreen (haven't played on a touchscreen yet )

[Rman Virgil]

.

The future is here now and many of the procedures mentioned will eventually be replaced by the implemented union of tessellation and displacement mapping. As for just the one application instance of terrain, tessellation with displacement mapping is far superior to tessellation by itself. And that's but one application instance of several that yield supperior results while managing overhead very efficiently. Time to update the knowledge base.
.

[Jorzi]

Tesselation + vector displacement + tangent space normal mapping = sculpt quality deformable models in realtime

As for SSAO: it's a tool just like everything else and you can make it look good if you yourself are good. Crysis is a prime example of this. It rarely if ever displays the typical SSAO flaws, like dark halos around units etc. It is obvious that, after this, some people just threw it into their games just because it was cool. Things didn't become better by nvidia starting support SSAO for games not made for it, like Half Life 2.

Another example of properly used SSAO is starcraft 2, where the shading was designed from the beginning to be pixel-based to reduce the impact of high polycounts like, for exampe, zergling rush.

[Rman Virgil]

.

Now that makes sense to me.

.

[E-102 Gamma]

As for SSAO: it's a tool just like everything else and you can make it look good if you yourself are good. Crysis is a prime example of this. It rarely if ever displays the typical SSAO flaws, like dark halos around units etc.

I disagree. Having seen SSAO first-hand in Crysis and Crysis: Warhead, I can definitely say that it's still ugly there as well.

The scene I most vividly recall was in a forest setting at dusk in C:W. There were gritty shadows all over the place, including attached to the gun my guy was holding. And they would move around when I did, making their grittiness that much more apparent. It just looked really bad.

I also remember pretty much any point where two surfaces met being highlighted in pitch-black darkness. In particular, I remember a crate that was seemingly sitting in a puddle of shadows on the sand, and thick shadows jammed into the corners of all of the walls in indoor scenes. Based off of my experience with it, SSAO seems to be completely devoid of subtlety, which is something that an ambient occlusion effect really needs in order to look good, in my opinion.

I believe there are certain parameters a dev can turn down to make SSAO less overblown, but like I said earlier, SSAO strikes me as being fundamentally flawed in that it is unaware of the geometry that it attempts to add shadows to. I could understand this approach if it was almost free, but in reality, it's usually extremely detrimental to performance, so I don't get how anyone thought it was a good idea.