Ambient occlusion - new nV drivers - examples

[lemonadesoda]

This thread is for the discussion of ambient occlusion. Pictures are welcome.

nV has recently updated their drivers to incl. ambient occlusion feature. To see how this works, look at the picture below. It is the same model and same CPU render, only that AO has been enabled in the graphics driver.

Half Life 2 scene:

First picture is without Ambient Occlusion, ... and the second picture is with Ambient Occlusion

(look at the natural shadow effect in the corners of the room/walls, and behind the phone).

What do you think? Do you think it is an improvement in graphics quality?

So far, I dont know what the performance hit is for using this feature - nor how many games will allow us to use the feature. If it can be used in older games I think it will MAJORLY improve what they look like.

If you have this driver, see if you can do a BEFORE and AFTER in your favourite game and post a screenshot and any comments on FPS hit.

 

[DrPepper]

I love ambient occlusion. I mean it adds such subtle yet effective details. Most people think god rays and bloom are good but for me AO is such a nice feature.

 

[DarkMatter]

I love AO. After seing one image with AO, I can't stand looking at one without it because it just looks unrealistic, like if everything had been artificially put there (which in fact it is just put there in an editor lol, but you get the point). But I have not voted because none of the options coincide with what I think about it. For me is much more than just an interesting concept, but at the same time it doesn't have it me "woot!"-ing. Especially the Nvidia's implementation, because the performance hit was big, the last time I checked. Then again it improves the visuals on older games too and there the hit won't be noticed. It's there where visuals are most improved, so welcome.

Anyway I want AO implemented in the game engine (better results, better performance), that's why I'm not extremely excited about driver forced AO. But I do support the practice of adding it, pushing technology fordward that's what matters.

EDIT: Lemonadesoda, I've seen you changing the HL2 SS's many times. Now it's much better to compare, but maybe an animated gif would be better.

 

[DrPepper]

Agreed forced AO through drivers will make alot of people unhappy. I want my GTX back so I can test this on all my old games. I mean OLD games like Rise of Nations which is a 2.5d game and BF2 etc.

 

[lemonadesoda]

EDIT: Lemonadesoda, I've seen you changing the HL2 SS's many times. Now it's much better to compare, but maybe an animated gif would be better.

Too technical! LOL.

I agree that putting Ambient Occlusion in the game engine is where it should be done, in theory, except for two facts:

1./ This is a great way to improve the visual quality of existing engines. After all, if anyone can make an older game look better without having to install community hacks then great!

2./ Similar to PhysX it might be very slow to put this in the "right place" ie in the CPU based engine. Sticking it in the GPU-CUDA sounds like the best place to achieve speed-up

---

It's a great way for nV to put CUDA to use for the average Joe user/gamer. If someone is fence sitting between a new nV or ATI card, this could nudge them over to nV. I'm in the market for a new GPU in the next month or so, and based on this, I think I'll GTX260 or 275.

 

[DarkMatter]

Too technical! LOL.

I agree that putting Ambient Occlusion in the game engine is where it should be done, in theory, except for two facts:

1./ This is a great way to improve the visual quality of existing engines. After all, if anyone can make an older game look better without having to install community hacks then great!

2./ As with physics/CUDA it might be very slow to put his in the "right place" ie in the CPU based engine. Sticking it in the GPU-CUDA sounds like the best place to achieve speed-up

Totally agree to 1. I guess that the only thing I was trying to say is that developers shouldn't expect the drivers do the work for them. This feature must be present in any future engine and I think it is already anyway.

I wasn't questioning the validity of the driver feature, nor that it should dissapear, no I want it for older titles forever, but it's relevance should fade away over the time, because titles already have built-in AO, like Crysis for example.

I don't know if AO can be greatly accelerated by CUDA, most of it's work is done under DirectX, I'm sure of that. But it could be CUDA/OpenCL accelerated in the game engine anyway.

 

[DrPepper]

Even though its black and white its alot more detailed than todays graphics with colour and hdr etc.

 

[imperialreign]

hehe . . . I read ambient occlusion, and figured this thread was about ambient audio occlusion

 

[DrPepper]

hehe . . . I read ambient occlusion, and figured this thread was about ambient audio occlusion

boo you suck ! jk What is that ambient audio occlusion anyway ?

 

[DarkMatter]

Even though its black and white its alot more detailed than todays graphics with colour and hdr etc.

http://en.9jcg.com/featured_artists/toni_bratincevic/slow_decay_files/slow_decay_14_l.jpg

Crysis does have a similar looking AO or it can be tweaked to obtain those same results anyway. At stock Crysis SSAO isn't all that detailed but the performance hit is minimal in comparison to the improvements it brings.

 

[DrPepper]

I know crysis has AO I used to lie on the floor admiring it. Also so does empire total war. If you look at the units they are well shaded.

 

[alexp999]

Are you guys using the 185.65 drivers for this?

 

[DrPepper]

Yes

 

[imperialreign]

boo you suck ! What is that ambient audio occlusion anyway ?

audio occlusion is an environmental effect that is applied to a sound to give the impression of an object of some kind (or long amount of distance) between the listener and the audio source. Example: a concrete wall between the player and a gunfight - the sound might be slightly muted, passed through a high-pass filter, or have a slight reverb effect applied to it, giving the impression that there is a gunfight taking place on the other side of that wall.

 

[alexp999]

audio occlusion is an environmental effect that is applied to a sound to give the impression of an object of some kind (or long amount of distance) between the listener and the audio source. Example: a concrete wall between the player and a gunfight - the sound might be slightly muted, passed through a high-pass filter, or have a slight reverb effect applied to it, giving the impression that there is a gunfight taking place on the other side of that wall.

Ambient Occlusion for these drivers is basically the same thing then, except its doing it with light instead of sound.

Gonne give these drivers a go now, might be nice to liven up the old games.

 

[DrPepper]

audio occlusion is an environmental effect that is applied to a sound to give the impression of an object of some kind (or long amount of distance) between the listener and the audio source. Example: a concrete wall between the player and a gunfight - the sound might be slightly muted, passed through a high-pass filter, or have a slight reverb effect applied to it, giving the impression that there is a gunfight taking place on the other side of that wall.

Christ what game did I hear that in. It was incredible to hear. I think it was l4d. Its amazing the difference it can make in a game experience.

 

[imperialreign]

Christ what game did I hear that in. It was incredible to hear. I think it was l4d. Its amazing the difference it can make in a game experience.

if implimented well - a big reason why EAX/OpenAL has earned such a bad reputation, because the devs use these effects as an after thought, instead of developing them along with the game. If you're looking for a title that makes the most use of EAX, look at the Thief series . . . audio is vital to these games.

You can use this program to get an idea of how different environments sound: http://audio.rightmark.org/products/rm3ds.shtml - use the Positioning Accuracy Test




Anyhow, enough of my de-railments . . . back on topic

 

[DrPepper]

This is almost like a little club of people who enjoy subtle graphical effects and audio

 

[Marineborn]

i picked up riddick today for the pc. the one with dark athena in it, it has this in thee option sif you turn it on it turns off the AA...so apparently its made for lower end machines that cant handle aa

 

[imperialreign]

correct me if I'm wrong, though, but AO is a DX10 feature, right?

 

[alexp999]

correct me if I'm wrong, though, but AO is a DX10 feature, right?

Its only avaiable in the Vista drivers yeah.

Gonna load up HL2 now and see what performance difference it makes.

 

[lemonadesoda]

^^ that sucks if true. There is no technical reason why FORCED AO couldnt be implemented in DX7... and therefore enhance older games.

I guess someone has to try this out... Just load up a MoH, CoD or SoF and see if we can run it. If so, then w00t, and I'm buying a GTX275 and retiring the 3850AGP.

 

[DarkMatter]

^^ that sucks if true. There is no technical reason why FORCED AO couldnt be implemented in DX7... and therefore enhance older games.

I guess someone has to try this out... Just load up a MoH, CoD or SoF and see if we can run it. If so, then w00t, and I'm buying a GTX275 and retiring the 3850AGP.

It works in HL2 so it's not DX10 limited. It could be because of how Vista drivers work.

I know crysis has AO I used to lie on the floor admiring it. Also so does empire total war. If you look at the units they are well shaded.

I know, I know. I thought you were saying that games should reach that detail in the future and just wanted to share that Crysis already can. Anyway I always (wrongly) take the best game engine as representative of the generation, so when someone says "todays games" I instntly think of CryEngine2. That's what happened in this case. I see your point though, as I know that nowadays that's probably a big misconception. Hell it's been one year and a half and CryEngine is still the most advanced engine by far.

 

[imperialreign]

correct me again if I'm wrong, but ATI hasn't enabled such a feature yet, have they?


TBH, though, it'd be nice to see games make use of this effect - IMHO, it adds a ton to immersion quality.

 

[Kursah]

I think I might have to try these instead of the recently released whql drivers...I'm curious to see the performance hit from AO.