TRUFORM?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dennis Le
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Dennis Le

I was browsing through the Anandtech website and reading about
TRUFORM (an older document from a couple of years ago, when the
feature was first introduced),and it seems to be a nice feature for
increasing image quality. However, the Catalyst drivers only have
"Always off" and "Application preference" for selecting TRUFORM ...
yet, I don't know of any games that have an option to turn TRUFORM on.
Also, there doesn't seem to be a way to force TRUFORM to be on (like
forcing anti-aliasing in older games), so is it just a feature that's
not being utilized? Or are games utilizing it even without it being
selected? Any thought would be helpful. Thanks.

Dennis
 
I think some games are using this feature, but not a lot. UT2003 uses, but
no option is available in setup menu(s). You have to edit the config and
make some changes. I forget what the changes are though. Do a search on
the 'net for UT2003 sites. Somewhere, one will tell you. Look for a tweak
section or something like that. I bet games based on the UT2003 engine can
do Trueform as well, such as America's Army and Splinter Cell. However,
that's not a given.

Seems like some other games can use, but not a lot do. I bet something
along the lines of TrueForm makes into an updated DX9 or maybe DX10, seems
like I read somewhere it was going to happen. Until that happens, I doubt
you'll see it used a lot. If game producers starting writing to the
hardware, it would take forever to get games out and such, IMO.

Chris Smith
 
there is a fps optomizer for morrowind that lets you enable truform and it
looks cool
makes things more round and real
 
I was browsing through the Anandtech website and reading about
TRUFORM (an older document from a couple of years ago, when the
feature was first introduced),and it seems to be a nice feature for
increasing image quality. However, the Catalyst drivers only have
"Always off" and "Application preference" for selecting TRUFORM ...
yet, I don't know of any games that have an option to turn TRUFORM on.
Also, there doesn't seem to be a way to force TRUFORM to be on (like
forcing anti-aliasing in older games), so is it just a feature that's
not being utilized? Or are games utilizing it even without it being
selected? Any thought would be helpful. Thanks.

Dennis
Click to expand...
You can't force a game to use TRUFORM (like u can with FSAA or AF) the
game has to actually have support for it thats why there only 2 option
of OFF and "application preference" (ie let the game choose to use it).

Why it defaults to OFF by default I dont know, seem pretty stupid to me
if ATI wants developer to use it.

Games I know have support are UT2003 (you have to edit an INI file
manually), RTCW (theres a menu option for it) and Morrowind (IIRC its a
patch you have to apply).
 
Clive said:
You can't force a game to use TRUFORM (like u can with FSAA or AF) the
game has to actually have support for it thats why there only 2 option
of OFF and "application preference" (ie let the game choose to use it).
Click to expand...
Why it defaults to OFF by default I dont know, seem pretty stupid to me
if ATI wants developer to use it.
Click to expand...

Because in R300 and onwards it's implemented in software and will
thus hurt performance. (IIRC someone else, possibly Matrox, holds the
patent on hardware implementation.)

-a
 
Because in R300 and onwards it's implemented in software and will
thus hurt performance. (IIRC someone else, possibly Matrox, holds the
patent on hardware implementation.)
Click to expand...

That would be news to me... I think the defaulted to off because some
games that can use Truform, like Counter Strike or Half Life, don't always
look right with it on.

Raven Shield has Truform support, so does Myth III, Serious Sam, several
others. In a properly written game, Truform's impact on performance is
minimal.
 
Well, I did some checking and currently Truform is "broken", ie, it will
slow down your computer way too much. The odd thing is I bought a Radeon
9700 Pro soon after it's launch, and I don't remember ANY problems using
Truform in games like Serious Sam, Myth III, etc. (and yes, it was enabled).
I even remember running the Dolphin demo a couple weeks ago and it ran fine.
Although, to be honest, I play only a handful of Truform games and I also
use an NVidia card sometimes, so maybe it slipped my mind. It's a real
shame becaues when I run the Dolphin demo now it says that the 9700 Pro has
no hardware truform support, and in a game like Half Life the framerate is
much, much worse with the latest drivers.

The real shame is a game like Raven Shield, where the art direction was
heavily based on Truform technology- now all that's broken and you just have
to run the game with blocky-head guys no better than SWAT 3 (why couldn't
they have made some high-polygon models?).
 
sherman said:
there is a fps optomizer for morrowind that lets you enable truform and it
looks cool
makes things more round and real
Click to expand...

Can you tell me where to find this file? I'd like to give it a go.
 
Skid said:
Can you tell me where to find this file? I'd like to give it a go.
Click to expand...

Found it myself, thanks. Still trying to decide whether I like it.

I was already running 1024x768 with 4X AA and 8X AF with excellent
framerates.

In this game, Truform seems to remove the few remaining jaggies and makes
some objects look more natural, others just seem less sharp. The help file
says I can edit individual objects, but that seems a lot more trouble than
it's worth for a relatively minor improvement.
 
Because in R300 and onwards it's implemented in software and will
thus hurt performance. (IIRC someone else, possibly Matrox, holds the
patent on hardware implementation.)
Click to expand...
Hmm Radeon 8500/9000-9200 have hardware-support for Truform, why it got
demoted to software-support on Radeon 9500+ is a mystery but probably
because they believed that it is fast enough to do it in software
 
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