All you radeon users that wish we had a force triple buffer option in D3D, read this

[5150 Joker]

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33699972&highlight=triple+buffering

Nice thread there about why we need a force triple buffering for D3D/OpenGL (although some people have already found a work around for OpenGL). I submitted a request to the Catalyst Crew and I'd urge those who would like this feature to do the same. Hell mention a color saturation slider while you're at it too. :)

[GlowStick]

Tripple buffering dose some like a pritty cool feature to have. Seems useing the registry you can fix it for most OpenGL games already though.

[DivotMaker]

Originally posted by 5150 Joker
Hell mention a color saturation slider while you're at it too. :)

Totally unnecessary with the Cat 3.6 drivers. The new sliders in the Colors tab do everything I ever asked DV to do in nVidia drivers. This is the best looking desktop and gaming colors I have ever seen on my 21" Viewsonic....

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by BigBerthaEA
Totally unnecessary with the Cat 3.6 drivers. The new sliders in the Colors tab do everything I ever asked DV to do in nVidia drivers. This is the best looking desktop and gaming colors I have ever seen on my 21" Viewsonic....

Did they change the sliders from Cat3.5?

[DivotMaker]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
Did they change the sliders from Cat3.5?

Never had a chance to look at Cat 3.5....but they have changed dramatically (in the Color tab) since the Cat3.4's that I had used last...

[5150 Joker]

Originally posted by BigBerthaEA
Never had a chance to look at Cat 3.5....but they have changed dramatically (in the Color tab) since the Cat3.4's that I had used last...

Dude you don't know what you're talking about, no offense. The color tab in the catalyst driver does not provide for any saturation changes, just gamma/bright/contrast and those are NOT what people who want DV are complaining about. I do not wish to get into a long drawn out discussion about DV again, a simple search will reveal many threads about this already, I'd advise you to read up on them.

[DivotMaker]

Originally posted by 5150 Joker
Dude you don't know what you're talking about, no offense. The color tab in the catalyst driver does not provide for any saturation changes, just gamma/bright/contrast and those are NOT what people who want DV are complaining about. I do not wish to get into a long drawn out discussion about DV again, a simple search will reveal many threads about this already, I'd advise you to read up on them.

DUDE...

I know exactly what I am talking about. I don't need to read up on a thing. What I am saying if you would READ my post is that you do not NEED a color saturation feature in the ATI drivers if you know what the hell you are doing. I have a better looking desktop/screen now with a 9800 Pro and the 3.6 driver features than I ever had with any desktop with Digital Vibrance. The new ATI Color tab features render the need for any sort of DV-like functionality moot. Now can you understand that?

[GlowStick]

After playing with Vsync in Unreal II (directx) i found that i guess i am effected by not being able to have tripple buffer.

The question is, if you have a good monitor with the refresh around 100ish, woudlnt it almost have no effect for not haveing vsync on if it uses every frame the card can put out?

[5150 Joker]

Originally posted by BigBerthaEA
DUDE...

I know exactly what I am talking about. I don't need to read up on a thing. What I am saying if you would READ my post is that you do not NEED a color saturation feature in the ATI drivers if you know what the hell you are doing. I have a better looking desktop/screen now with a 9800 Pro and the 3.6 driver features than I ever had with any desktop with Digital Vibrance. The new ATI Color tab features render the need for any sort of DV-like functionality moot. Now can you understand that?

THAT IS NOT THE POINT. You may very well have an expensive monitor with perfect color calibration which many people do not have. They are the ones requesting DV for better color saturation and many of us that DO have a good monitor STILL want a DV option because we like more color saturation in games. The new ATi color tab does not come close to offering anything that DV does.

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by GlowStick
After playing with Vsync in Unreal II (directx) i found that i guess i am effected by not being able to have tripple buffer.

The question is, if you have a good monitor with the refresh around 100ish, woudlnt it almost have no effect for not haveing vsync on if it uses every frame the card can put out?

I'm not sure what you're asking here.

If vsync is off, you will have screen tearing. Even with a 100Hz refresh rate.

Triplebuffering is for when vsync is on. When vsync is on, some frames may be lost if triplebuffering is not used.

For example, at 100Hz, your screen can update 100 times/sec. This means that your monitor can handle these frame rates, 100/1, 100/2, 100/3, 100/4, ... , 100/100. So if you get 75 fps, you will be dropped down to 50 fps. In other words, the fps drawn by the video card is compared to the highest fps possible that your monitor can drawn.

Formula for possible framerate is found by this equation: x/n for all n>0, n<=x. Where x is the refresh rate.

In the above example, if vsync is off, your fps will be 75, and you will have tearing. With vsync on and triple buffering on, your fps will be 75, and you will not have tearing.

[Hanners]

Uh-oh... Another DV argument thread. :surrender

[Chalnoth]

Originally posted by GlowStick
The question is, if you have a good monitor with the refresh around 100ish, woudlnt it almost have no effect for not haveing vsync on if it uses every frame the card can put out?
A more accurate description of vsync is "wait for vblank."

So, if your monitor refreshes once every 10ms (which would be 100Hz refresh), then this means that these are the only points in time that a frame can be displayed. With double buffering, if a frame is finished at 1ms, then it will not be displayed until 9ms later (the video card will be doing nothing in the meantime).

To put it simply, because a frame can be finished at any time between frames, the video card will have to wait some amount of time for each and every frame displayed.

Triple buffering gets around this by allowing a third frame to be worked on while waiting for the monitor to refresh.

[GlowStick]

awesome, so would it mean that we could enable vsync pritty much penalty free.

unless tripple buffering causes a preformace decrease?

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by GlowStick
awesome, so would it mean that we could enable vsync pritty much penalty free.

unless tripple buffering causes a preformace decrease?

Triple buffering uses a little bit of VRAM...but with today's cards there shouldn't be much of a problem. Unless you play at 1600X1200 and crank up FSAA you probably won't be running out of VRAM.

[schuey74]

I did the registry hack last week to force triple buffering in OGL and the difference is big. Without, my frames would drop to half the refresh rate or if I played w/ the vsync off I would get the occasional tearing, which really wasn't too bad, but now it's perfect. There is absolutely no noticable performance hit in any of the OGL games I've played. But I've got a 9800pro so I don't know how it would affect weaker cards. I really can't understand why ATI does not set triple buffering as default, or at least give us the option in the control panel. This is the way the games we meant to be played!

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by schuey74
I really can't understand why ATI does not set triple buffering as default, or at least give us the option in the control panel. This is the way the games we meant to be played!

Read the link posted in this thread. Not all games run correctly when triple buffering is forced on.

[Darth Rancid]

Back when S3 forced triple buffering by default, (on the old Savage3D), it was "evil" and close to cheating, because it inflated benchmark scores.

If memory serves me correctly this was because some people claimed that triple buffering casued an increased latency between controls and video, making the game feel more sluggish.

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by Darth Rancid
If memory serves me correctly this was because some people claimed that triple buffering casued an increased latency between controls and video, making the game feel more sluggish.

Actually, that is true. Again, read the thread linked as it has all the information you ever needed to know about triple buffering on ATI cards, and some general knowledge on triple buffering in general :)

[schuey74]

That really doesn't explain why the option isn't available, only why it doesn't default to it. In most modern games there is no problem and I haven't felt any lag in any of the OGL games I play. The general consensus appears to be that there's more good than bad to be had. I guess that ATI figures people will consider whatever problems come up as bugs and their driver teams will have even more work to do.:D

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by schuey74
That really doesn't explain why the option isn't available, only why it doesn't default to it. In most modern games there is no problem and I haven't felt any lag in any of the OGL games I play. The general consensus appears to be that there's more good than bad to be had. I guess that ATI figures people will consider whatever problems come up as bugs and their driver teams will have even more work to do.:D

It also doesn't work in all games. It doesn't work in UT2003 in OGL.

[Chalnoth]

Originally posted by Darth Rancid
Back when S3 forced triple buffering by default, (on the old Savage3D), it was "evil" and close to cheating, because it inflated benchmark scores.

If memory serves me correctly this was because some people claimed that triple buffering casued an increased latency between controls and video, making the game feel more sluggish.
Sounds like an utter fallacy to me:

1. VSYNC should be disabled for all benchmarks anyway. When VSYNC is not in use, triple buffering cannot help.

2. Triple buffering will not increase latency. Remember, all that triple buffering does is gives the video card something to do while the video card is waiting for the monitor to refresh. If anything, triple buffering reduces latency, because it gives the video card a "jump start" on the next frame.

Edit: It is conceivable that a poor implementation of triple buffering would increase latency, though that shouldn't be noticeable except at very low framerates (read: <30 fps). A proper implementation should not.

[schuey74]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
It also doesn't work in all games. It doesn't work in UT2003 in OGL.
The only current game that it doesn't work in and I'm sure virtually everyone uses DirectX anyways. Still doesn't explain, no option for it

[Morrow]

Originally posted by BigBerthaEA
Totally unnecessary with the Cat 3.6 drivers. The new sliders in the Colors tab do everything I ever asked DV to do in nVidia drivers. This is the best looking desktop and gaming colors I have ever seen on my 21" Viewsonic....

What Viewsonic LCD is that? I'm currently looking for an excellent 21'' LCD so any comment on yours would be helpful...

[DivotMaker]

Originally posted by Morrow
What Viewsonic LCD is that? I'm currently looking for an excellent 21'' LCD so any comment on yours would be helpful...

Sorry, it is not an LCD...it is a G-810-5 CRT...

[surfhurleydude]

God, triple buffering being enabled all the time would be a Godsend... Really, it seriously would help me in the barracks where I can only have either a laptop or a mini PC with an LCD... and LCD's are **** for games because of the low refresh rates. However, triple buffering would solve this problem...