Unigine Heaven Linux Release Pushed Back

[Svartalf]

Hmm, tesellation has been out for quite some time and game consoles
like the Xbox 360 are capable of this feature. A lot of technology
like tesellation has been around for quite some time, like 10-15 years, but not part of the CORE API feature set.

Tessellation's been a software feature set item for 10-15 years, but it's only been a hardware feature item since about the 360 as it's the first one to expose a hardware accelerated version as part of it's "core" API set. Moreover, the one being used is a superset of the 360's, if they're using it fully here (no telling, haven't seen the demo...)- and the 360 can't do all of what is specified in the DX11 or OGL3.2 specs.

All in all, it's a fairly cool detail item to have going forward.

[Kano]

Did you try it with ATI cards yet via opengl?

[BlackStar]

Tessellation's been a software feature set item for 10-15 years, but it's only been a hardware feature item since about the 360

Actually, that's incorrect. To the best of my knowledge, the first cards that sported tessellation hardware were Ati's R200 series. This feature was moved to software in R300 and finally removed completely at some point during the R500 lifetime, only to be reintroduced in Xenos (the Xbox360 GPU).

I used to play Morrowing with tessellation enabled, and the increase in visual quality was astonishing. Ok, the decrease in performance was astonishing, too (it was only with a X1950 that I was able to maintain fluid framerates with tessellation enabled), but I'm glad to see the feature back in full swing.

[Svartalf]

Actually, that's incorrect. To the best of my knowledge, the first cards that sported tessellation hardware were Ati's R200 series. This feature was moved to software in R300 and finally removed completely at some point during the R500 lifetime, only to be reintroduced in Xenos (the Xbox360 GPU).

I stand corrected on the earliest that it was done in hardware- I'd actually forgotten about the R200 having TrueForm as a feature. Do note, though, that the tessellation you refer to isn't the same tessellation process we're talking about now. At it's basics, it is, but in usage, etc. it's not.

I used to play Morrowing with tessellation enabled, and the increase in visual quality was astonishing. Ok, the decrease in performance was astonishing, too (it was only with a X1950 that I was able to maintain fluid framerates with tessellation enabled), but I'm glad to see the feature back in full swing.

That's more because the tessellation done with TrueForm generated such vertex volume that it swamped the card quickly. The R500 card you referred to had more than enough muscle to handle the abuse well enough to make it playable (Heh...I'd have hoped that it was playable...that card had more muscle than any other card at the time it came out...and I had two of them at my disposal at one point in time...wish I had them now...). The stuff we're seeing now, though, is quite a bit more advanced and supports things like using a bump map to provide input into the tessellation process.