I found some interesting info about Aquamark3

[Hellbinder]

I was looking for another thread to post this in but i could not find one.

Anyway.. I had been trying to Figure out how the 5900U could be so competative with the 9800pro in this "Modern" Benchmark. Then I found this..

30 PS 1.1 Shaders

5 PS 1.4 Shaders

4 PS 2.0 Shaders

That is the actual count of the type and Number of Pixel shaders used in the Benchmark. Which of course ends up making sense why the Two cards peform so Closely together.

Which brings me to a little Side Question. Doesnt it seem a little odd that Nvidia is not Screeming about this benchmark for the same Reasons they hammered 3dmark03?

[Moo]

AM3 doesn't have nearly the name recognition as 3dMark.

Hellbinder,

Is that the standard codepath, or a special NV3x codepath?

Originally posted by Hellbinder
Which briungs me to a little Side Question. Doesnt it seem a little odd that Nvidia is not Screeming about this benchmark for the same Reasons they hammered 3dmark03?

No it doesn't. For the same reason why NVIDIA denounced 3dmark03 then continued to "optimize" for it. I think you know as well as I do, along with everyone else, than NVIDIA attacked Futuremark purely for PR reasons.

[digitalwanderer]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
Hellbinder,

Is that the standard codepath, or a special NV3x codepath?

Are we going to have control over which path a card runs regardless of what it wants or does the program choose based on the card and that's that...it's something I'm a tad confused on.

[bkswaney]

Do me a favor... Tell us what this means.
I'm sure there r many who do not know.

[MikeC]

The SVIST (Shader Visualisation Technique ) test indicates the type of pixel shader that's being used. When I ran SVIST on the 9800 Pro, I would say that 50-60% of the output was based on PS 2.0. I'm not sure if the test provides ending statistics since I cancelled it after 3 minutes or so.





This information is from the AM3 documentation on shaders.


The effects and their variations are currently implemented by 190 different vertex shaders and 39 pixel shaders. These numbers of shaders in combinations with the various non-pixel shader rendering techniques for DirectX 7 class hardware allow for testing the rendering hardware and their resource management to its limits. In the following table you find an AquaMark3 shader overview.

Number of shaders:

VS1.1 (DX8) : 190
VS2.0 (DX9) : 3
PS1.1 (DX8) : 30
PS1.4 (DX8) : 5
PS2.0 (DX9) : 4

Average number of insturctions per shader:

VS1.1 (DX8) : up to 70
VS2.0 (DX9) : up to 50
PS1.1 (DX8) : up to 13
PS1.4 (DX8) : up to 13
PS2.0 (DX9) : up to 40


4.1.2 Floating Point Numbers In Shaders

AquaMark3 applies the whole range from FP64 to FP128 floating point accuracy. We think the developer is still in charge to decide which accuracy should be considered for a certain effect to optimize the rendering efficiency.

In general, every effect with floating point numbers covering a wide numerical range and the need to be represented by an exponent (as world space coordinates per pixel) benefits from a high internal precision (FP128). That means mainly special effects which use geometric information inside the pixel shader (as high dynamic range illuminated normal mapping with a self shadowing term) need high precision. AquaMark3 does not require functionality in this respect.

Nevertheless we use high internal precision for the texture coordinate iterators because AquaMark3 utilizes effects which calculate texture coordinates on the basis of world space positions (caustics, fog, detail maps etc.). Besides, the majority of AquaMark3s effects are implemented in less accuracy and make availible precision hints to the API.


There's a thread in the AM3 forum where this was being dicussed. It appears that AM3 will not "fall back" to an earlier shader version in the TRISCORE (default benchmark) run.

http://arc.aquamark3.com/forum/showt...=&threadid=101

Originally posted by bkswaney
Do me a favor... Tell us what this means.
I'm sure there r many who do not know.

It means it's more of a DX8 benchmark than a DX9 benchmark.

One thing I'm still not clear on, is whether there are different codepaths for different IHVs. So far it sounds like there are. But I thought Massive said no IHVs received preferential treatment in their benchmark, which would make no sense if there were different codepaths of different cards.

[MikeC]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
It means it's more of a DX8 benchmark than a DX9 benchmark.

Hard to say at this point based on my previous comments on the SVIST test. AM3 may be more of a DX9 benchmark for graphics cards built around DX9 technology.

[bkswaney]

Is AM3 based off aquanox 2? Or is it totally new?

Originally posted by bkswaney
Is AM3 based off aquanox 2? Or is it totally new?

AQ2 IS new.

[bkswaney]

Originally posted by The Baron
AQ2 IS new.

I know that B.

I was just wondering if AM3 was based off it or something even newer.
So AN2 uses DX9? I did not know that. I figured it was just a DX8.1 game.