|
HyperZ
HyperZ is the brand for a set of processing techniques developed by ATI Technologies and later Advanced Micro Devices and implemented in their Radeon-GPUs. HyperZ was announced in November 2000 and was still available in the TeraScale-based Radeon HD 2000 Series and in current Graphics Core Next-based graphics products. On the Radeon R100-based cores, Radeon DDR through 7500, where HyperZ debuted, ATI claimed a 20% improvement in overall rendering efficiency. They stated that with HyperZ, Radeon could be said to offer 1.5 gigatexels per second fillrate performance instead of the card's apparent theoretical rate of 1.2 gigatexels. In testing it was shown that HyperZ did indeed offer a tangible performance improvement that allowed the less endowed Radeon to keep up with the less efficient GeForce 2 GTS. Functionality HyperZ consists of three mechanisms: ; Z compression: The Z-buffer is stored in a lossless compressed format to minimize the Z-Buffer bandwidth as Z read or writes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radeon 7500
The Radeon R100 is the first generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. The line features 3D computer graphics, 3D acceleration based upon Direct3D 7.0 and OpenGL, OpenGL 1.3, and all but the entry-level versions offloading host geometry calculations to a transform and lighting, hardware transform and lighting (T&L) engine, a major improvement in features and performance compared to the preceding ATI Rage, Rage design. The processors also include 2d computer graphics, 2D GUI acceleration, video acceleration, and multiple display outputs. "R100" refers to the development codename of the initially released GPU of the generation. It is the basis for a variety of other succeeding products. Development Architecture The first-generation Radeon GPU was launched in 2000, and was initially code-named ''Rage 6'' (later ''R100''), as the successor to ATI's aging ATI Rage, Rage 128 Pro which was unable to compete with the GeForce 256. The card also had been described as ''Ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radeon R100
The Radeon R100 is the first generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. The line features 3D acceleration based upon Direct3D 7.0 and OpenGL 1.3, and all but the entry-level versions offloading host geometry calculations to a hardware transform and lighting (T&L) engine, a major improvement in features and performance compared to the preceding Rage design. The processors also include 2D GUI acceleration, video acceleration, and multiple display outputs. "R100" refers to the development codename of the initially released GPU of the generation. It is the basis for a variety of other succeeding products. Development Architecture The first-generation Radeon GPU was launched in 2000, and was initially code-named ''Rage 6'' (later ''R100''), as the successor to ATI's aging Rage 128 Pro which was unable to compete with the GeForce 256. The card also had been described as ''Radeon 256'' in the months leading up to its launch, possibly to draw comparisons with the co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radeon R100 Series
The Radeon R100 is the first generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. The line features 3D computer graphics, 3D acceleration based upon Direct3D 7.0 and OpenGL, OpenGL 1.3, and all but the entry-level versions offloading host geometry calculations to a transform and lighting, hardware transform and lighting (T&L) engine, a major improvement in features and performance compared to the preceding ATI Rage, Rage design. The processors also include 2d computer graphics, 2D GUI acceleration, video acceleration, and multiple display outputs. "R100" refers to the development codename of the initially released GPU of the generation. It is the basis for a variety of other succeeding products. Development Architecture The first-generation Radeon GPU was launched in 2000, and was initially code-named ''Rage 6'' (later ''R100''), as the successor to ATI's aging ATI Rage, Rage 128 Pro which was unable to compete with the GeForce 256. The card also had been described as ''Ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radeon R300 Series
The R300 GPU, introduced in August 2002 and developed by ATI Technologies, is its third generation of GPU used in ''Radeon'' graphics cards. This GPU features 3D acceleration based upon Direct3D 9.0 and OpenGL 2.0, a major improvement in features and performance compared to the preceding R200 design. R300 was the first fully Direct3D 9-capable consumer graphics chip. The processors also include 2D GUI acceleration, video acceleration, and multiple display outputs. The first graphics cards using the R300 to be released were the Radeon 9700. It was the first time that ATI marketed its GPU as a Visual Processing Unit (VPU). R300 and its derivatives would form the basis for ATI's consumer and professional product lines for over 3 years. The integrated graphics processor based upon R300 is the ''Xpress 200''. Development ATI had held the lead for a while with the Radeon 8500 but Nvidia retook the performance crown with the launch of the GeForce 4 Ti line. A new high-end refresh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radeon
Radeon () is a brand of computer products, including graphics processing units, random-access memory, RAM disk software, and solid-state drives, produced by Radeon Technologies Group, a division of AMD. The brand was launched in 2000 by ATI Technologies, which was acquired by AMD in 2006 for US$5.4 billion. Radeon Graphics Radeon Graphics is the successor to the Rage line. Three different families of microarchitectures can be roughly distinguished, the fixed-pipeline family, the unified shader model-families of TeraScale and Graphics Core Next. ATI/AMD have developed different technologies, such as TruForm, HyperMemory, HyperZ, XGP, Eyefinity for multi-monitor setups, PowerPlay for power-saving, CrossFire (for multi-GPU) or Hybrid Graphics. A range of SIP blocks is also to be found on certain models in the Radeon products line: Unified Video Decoder, Video Coding Engine and TrueAudio. The brand was previously only known as "ATI Radeon" until August 2010, when it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irregular Z-buffer
The irregular Z-buffer is an algorithm designed to solve the visibility problem in real-time 3-d computer graphics. It is related to the classical Z-buffer in that it maintains a depth value for each image sample and uses these to determine which geometric elements of a scene are visible. The key difference, however, between the classical Z-buffer and the irregular Z-buffer is that the latter allows arbitrary placement of image samples in the image plane, whereas the former requires samples to be arranged in a regular grid. These depth samples are explicitly stored in a two-dimensional spatial data structure. During rasterization, triangles are projected onto the image plane as usual, and the data structure is queried to determine which samples overlap each projected triangle. Finally, for each overlapping sample, the standard Z-compare and (conditional) frame buffer update are performed. Implementation The classical rasterization algorithm projects each polygon onto the image pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TeraScale (microarchitecture)
TeraScale is the codename for a family of graphics processing unit microarchitectures developed by ATI Technologies/Advanced Micro Devices, AMD and their second microarchitecture implementing the unified shader model following ''Xenos (graphics chip), Xenos''. TeraScale replaced the old Pipeline (computing), fixed-pipeline microarchitectures and competed directly with Nvidia's first unified shader microarchitecture named Tesla (microarchitecture), Tesla. TeraScale was used in Radeon HD 2000 series, HD 2000 manufactured in 80 nm and 65 nm process, 65 nm, Radeon HD 3000 series, HD 3000 manufactured in 65 nm and 55 nm, Radeon HD 4000 series, HD 4000 manufactured in 55 nm and 40 nm, Radeon HD 5000 series, HD 5000 and Radeon HD 6000 series, HD 6000 manufactured in 40 nm. TeraScale was also used in the AMD Accelerated Processing Units code-named "Brazos", "Llano", "Trinity" and "Richland". TeraScale is even found in some of the succeeding graphics card ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Z-buffering
A depth buffer, also known as a z-buffer, is a type of data buffer used in computer graphics to represent depth information of objects in 3D space from a particular perspective. Depth buffers are an aid to rendering a scene to ensure that the correct polygons properly occlude other polygons. Z-buffering was first described in 1974 by Wolfgang Straßer in his PhD thesis on fast algorithms for rendering occluded objects. A similar solution to determining overlapping polygons is the painter's algorithm, which is capable of handling non-opaque scene elements, though at the cost of efficiency and incorrect results. In a 3D-rendering pipeline, when an object is projected on the screen, the depth (z-value) of a generated fragment in the projected screen image is compared to the value already stored in the buffer (depth test), and replaces it if the new value is closer. It works in tandem with the rasterizer, which computes the colored values. The fragment output by the rasterizer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ATi Radeon R200 Series
The R200 is the second generation of GPUs used in Radeon graphics cards and developed by ATI Technologies. This GPU features 3D acceleration based upon Microsoft Direct3D 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3, a major improvement in features and performance compared to the preceding Radeon R100 design. The GPU also includes 2D GUI acceleration, video acceleration, and multiple display outputs. "R200" refers to the development codename of the initially released GPU of the generation. It is the basis for a variety of other succeeding products. Architecture R200's 3D hardware consists of 4 pixel pipelines, each with 2 texture sampling units. It has 2 vertex shader units and a legacy Direct3D 7 TCL unit, marketed as ''Charisma Engine II''. It is ATI's first GPU with programmable pixel and vertex processors, called ''Pixel Tapestry II'' and compliant with Direct3D 8.1. R200 has advanced memory bandwidth saving and overdraw reduction hardware called ''HyperZ II'' that consists of occlusion culling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radeon R400 Series
The R420 GPU, developed by ATI Technologies, was the company's basis for its 3rd-generation DirectX 9.0/OpenGL 2.0-capable graphics cards. Used first on the Radeon X800, the R420 was produced on a 0.13 micrometer (130 nm) low-''K'' photolithography process and used GDDR-3 memory. The chip was designed for AGP graphics cards. Driver support of this core was discontinued as of Catalyst 9.4, and as a result there is no official Windows 7 support for any of the X700 - X850 products. Development In terms of supported DirectX features, R420 (codenamed Loki) was very similar to the R300. R420 basically takes a "wider is better" approach to the previous architecture, with some small tweaks thrown in to enhance it in various ways. The chip came equipped with over double the pixel and vertex pushing resources compared to the Radeon 9800 XT's R360 (a minor evolution of the R350), with 16 DirectX 9.0b pixel pipelines and 16 ROPs. One would not be far off seeing the X800 XT basically as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Z-Buffer
A depth buffer, also known as a z-buffer, is a type of data buffer used in computer graphics to represent depth information of objects in 3D space from a particular perspective. Depth buffers are an aid to rendering a scene to ensure that the correct polygons properly occlude other polygons. Z-buffering was first described in 1974 by Wolfgang Straßer in his PhD thesis on fast algorithms for rendering occluded objects. A similar solution to determining overlapping polygons is the painter's algorithm, which is capable of handling non-opaque scene elements, though at the cost of efficiency and incorrect results. In a 3D-rendering pipeline, when an object is projected on the screen, the depth (z-value) of a generated fragment in the projected screen image is compared to the value already stored in the buffer (depth test), and replaces it if the new value is closer. It works in tandem with the rasterizer, which computes the colored values. The fragment output by the rasterizer i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radeon 8500
The R200 is the second generation of GPUs used in Radeon graphics cards and developed by ATI Technologies. This GPU features 3D acceleration based upon Microsoft Direct3D 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3, a major improvement in features and performance compared to the preceding Radeon R100 design. The GPU also includes 2D GUI acceleration, video acceleration, and multiple display outputs. "R200" refers to the development codename of the initially released GPU of the generation. It is the basis for a variety of other succeeding products. Architecture R200's 3D hardware consists of 4 pixel pipelines, each with 2 texture sampling units. It has 2 vertex shader units and a legacy Direct3D 7 TCL unit, marketed as ''Charisma Engine II''. It is ATI's first GPU with programmable pixel and vertex processors, called ''Pixel Tapestry II'' and compliant with Direct3D 8.1. R200 has advanced memory bandwidth saving and overdraw reduction hardware called ''HyperZ II'' that consists of occlusion cullin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
