The Dark Mod - TTLG Forums

New Horizon on 1/11/2009 at 19:50

Quote Posted by MoroseTroll

New Horizon: Parallax mapping is a graphics feature that runs on GPU (I mean it's a pixel shader), so it cannot slow down tasks that runs on CPU :).

It's all related though. If your cpu and gpu still have to communicate, and if the cpu is already underpowered then you're going to see a hit if it can't handled extra communications from the gpu.

That's my understanding of it anyway. I've tried paralax on my system and it definitely hurt performance.

Renzatic on 1/11/2009 at 21:03

Parallax mapping shouldn't even give you a hiccup on a modern (Geforce 8x +) card. I remember trying to D3 parallax mod back in the day on my Radeon 9800 Pro, and it slowed things down considerably. But now, on my Geforce 8800GTS? It doesn't even bat an eye.

New Horizon on 1/11/2009 at 21:08

Quote Posted by Renzatic

lol Yes, I know. The majority of our target audience may not have that kind of power for another year or two though. That being the case, it can easily await Doom 3 going open source so the renderer can be better optimized anyway.

Thelvyn on 1/11/2009 at 21:22

Quote Posted by MoroseTroll

Thelvyn: I don't mean that I'd buy anybody some modern graphics hardware :). I mean that many of taffers are already have that hardware, and I think they'd welcome any eye-candy features implemented in TDM.

New Horizon: Parallax mapping is a graphics feature that runs on GPU (I mean it's a pixel shader), so it cannot slow down tasks that runs on CPU :).

Schwaa2: Don't worry :)! Your graphics card is fast enough for parallax mapping. Why do I know that? Because I ran FEAR 1 on by integrated Radeon HD 3200 in 1024*768 with almost all maximum graphics features (including parallax mapping but excluding soft shadows and FSAA), and I can assure you that Radeon HD 3200 is much more slower than your GeForce 8600.

That's called sarcasm.

Quote Posted by Renzatic

I happen to have a 8600gt and I see a lot of slowdowns. If you add more stress to the GPU I will see more slowdowns.
I for one can not afford a new gpu at this time. Next year sometime yea but not before.

There is a WORLD of difference between a 8600(low end when it came out)
and a 8800gts(High end on arrival).

Comparing them is like having a rabbit and turtle race and calling it competitive.

MoroseTroll on 2/11/2009 at 07:26

New Horizon: Ok. BTW, what about some hardware survey like Valve's Steam does? This feature could be integrated into the TDM Launcher/Update, and thus you would know the real situation. Something tells me that most of taffers already have power enough hardware :).

Thelvyn: Yes, I understand your sarcasm, but I have a habit to answer any question/commentary addressed to me :). As for the parallax mapping: this feature could be an option like the bloom, so every user would toggle it on and off at his/her will.

salass00 on 2/11/2009 at 09:15

Quote Posted by Thelvyn

I happen to have a 8600gt and I see a lot of slowdowns.

I have a 8600gt too and play Dark Mod in 1680x1050 and don't notice any slowdowns. What CPU do you have in your system?

Springheel on 2/11/2009 at 14:19

Quote:

As for the parallax mapping: this feature could be an option like the bloom, so every user would toggle it on and off at his/her will.

That's actually a very good comparison. We're removing bloom from the menu options on our next release (which won't affect anyone who currently has it on, so don't panic) because it has been responsible for about 25% of all our tech problems. As someone else's mod, it wasn't created by the team and was never meant to be officially supported--just an extra that people could play around with if they wanted. Parallax mapping would be the same story.

Yandros on 2/11/2009 at 14:26

Is there going to be a fix for the inverted sky on ATI cards? It doesn't bother me to the point of not being able to play, but it would be nice to see the sky as it's meant to be.

Springheel on 2/11/2009 at 14:31

People have already reported a fix for it; disabling the Catalyst AI apparently fixes the problem (as well as speeding up loading times for some).

inselaffe on 2/11/2009 at 15:16

Doesn't having catalyst ai on improve the lighting in doom 3 engined games though? Strange and annoying that it would cause bugs. I guess the problem is it does too many things all under one name without anyone knowing exactly what. (http://www.driverheaven.net/articles/atiop/)