GTX 580 EndlessCity demo on GTX 480

[Roadhog]

Originally Posted by Vardant

All of you, who think it looks bad or it repeats, the answer is simple. Read the description.



Also, it's pretty obvious, that the small objects used in the demo to build the structures have low details for a reason. Tessellation looks more impressive that way. The tech demo is all about the future, where developers don't have to spend so many resources on the details, because tessellation will do it for them, thus making everything cheaper.

Pretty sure minecraft does that minus the tessellation part.

[jeffmd]

Well, no, tessellation does not omit the requirement for the artist to detail models. The artist still needs to make the base object (static mesh or what ever you wanna store it as). Tessellation will allow angles and curves to be smoother without further editing, but if you want something detailed up close, it needs to be modeled in detail.

it is interesting though to use tessellation instead of LOD. Frankly though I expect more for my 600 million polys, but this is just the beginning.. its just a demo.

[18vti]

Originally Posted by 18vti

Hi!

endlesscity64.exe has stopped responding

According to windows error logs this is related to a DX11 error...will reinstall DX11 then.
The funny thing is that all other DX11 demos work really good.

[wysiwyg]

alien vs triangles was a better demo and works great on the 480

[18vti]

Reinstalled DX11, still it crashes when I try to fly through the city..about 2 seconds and then it crashes...screen freezes, programm not responding.

This is the errorlog:

Logboeknaam: Application
Bron: Application Error
Datum: 13-11-2010 16:08:42
Gebeurtenis-id:1000
Taakcategorie: (100)
Niveau: Fout
Trefwoorden: Klassiek
Gebruiker: n.v.t.
Computer: i7-POWER
Beschrijving:
Naam van toepassing met fout: EndlessCity64.exe, versie: 0.0.0.0, tijdstempel: 0x4cd47c3e
Naam van module met fout: atkdx11dispx.dll, versie: 7.14.10.305, tijdstempel: 0x4bc6f990
Uitzonderingscode: 0xc0000005
Foutoffset: 0x00000000000166b3
Id van proces met fout: 0x76c
Starttijd van toepassing met fout: 0x01cb83448bcf65bf
Pad naar toepassing met fout: C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\NVIDIA Demos\Endless City\bin\EndlessCity64.exe
Pad naar module met fout: C:\Windows\system32\atkdx11dispx.dll
Rapport-id: e65104bc-ef37-11df-85c0-00248c7ef1de
Gebeurtenis-XML:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Application Error" />
<EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>100</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2010-11-13T15:08:42.000000000Z" />
<EventRecordID>25813</EventRecordID>
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>i7-POWER</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>EndlessCity64.exe</Data>
<Data>0.0.0.0</Data>
<Data>4cd47c3e</Data>
<Data>atkdx11dispx.dll</Data>
<Data>7.14.10.305</Data>
<Data>4bc6f990</Data>
<Data>c0000005</Data>
<Data>00000000000166b3</Data>
<Data>76c</Data>
<Data>01cb83448bcf65bf</Data>
<Data>C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\NVIDIA Demos\Endless City\bin\EndlessCity64.exe</Data>
<Data>C:\Windows\system32\atkdx11dispx.dll</Data>
<Data>e65104bc-ef37-11df-85c0-00248c7ef1de</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

[jolle]

Originally Posted by Vardant

Also, it's pretty obvious, that the small objects used in the demo to build the structures have low details for a reason. Tessellation looks more impressive that way. The tech demo is all about the future, where developers don't have to spend so many resources on the details, because tessellation will do it for them, thus making everything cheaper.

The details come from displacement maps, usually generated from a high res mesh.
So the same amount of work is there, much like today we have low res meshes using normal maps generated from high res meshes.
There is however much less geometry to send to the card, as its created on the GPU, and you can scale the geometry density very well providing dynamic LODing.

using JUST tesselation to smooth things out doesnt require extra content though, but thats generally not what you want.

[FlakMagnet]

I have a (possibly) dumb question...

Why do the flat surfaces in the demo need to be tessellated also? My understanding of tessellation is that it generates additional triangles that actually change the surface of an object - say to make it more bumpy. But then why does this implementation generate 100's of triangles for a flat surface? The additional triangles in this case do nothing to change the shape of the object.

If tessellation only added triangles where they were needed, it would greatly reduce the number of required triangles to get the same result.

Or am I missing something here?

[azanon]

I'm glad some of you guys can get the two new demos to run. I just get a black screen after I launch. I have the latest drivers and pretty much all other games/demos run fine (suggesting it's the demos, and not my system that's at fault). I have a GTX 580, btw, running windows 7, 64-bit.

[jlippo]

Originally Posted by FlakMagnet

I have a (possibly) dumb question...

Why do the flat surfaces in the demo need to be tessellated also? My understanding of tessellation is that it generates additional triangles that actually change the surface of an object - say to make it more bumpy. But then why does this implementation generate 100's of triangles for a flat surface? The additional triangles in this case do nothing to change the shape of the object.

If tessellation only added triangles where they were needed, it would greatly reduce the number of required triangles to get the same result.

Or am I missing something here?

Nope, you are right that properly done view and surface/slope dependant tesselation is desireable and is something that should be used in most cases.

Sadly many of the demos only have distance dependant tesselation and many of those do not even account the size of original quad. (when equally close both huge and 1 pixel quads are tesselated to same 64 triangles.)
This is clearly seen is haven as things like doors get ridiculously over tesselated as they are done with way too many polygons originally, same goes to that dragon.

Dragons spikes also show what happens when tesselation factor is low and you have high frequency details on the object.
When you come closer to the dragon the spikes suddenly grow from nothing.

This is something that could be fixed by view and surface dependant tesselation, you could sample the surface with higher rate and tesslate only where really needed.
On edges the amount of small polygons would be higher, but camera facing polygons would be bigger.
More work on surface evaluation, but far less pixel shading due to the very inefficent rendering.