ATI TruForm was a brand by ATI (now

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...

) for a SIP block capable of doing a graphics procedure called

tessellation A tessellation or tiling is the covering of a surface, often a plane, using one or more geometric shapes, called ''tiles'', with no overlaps and no gaps. In mathematics, tessellation can be generalized to higher dimensions and a variety o ...

in computer hardware. ATI TruForm was included into

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 ...

(available from August 2001 on) and newer products. The successor of the SIP block branded "ATI TruForm" was included into

Radeon HD 2000 series The graphics processing unit (GPU) codenamed Radeon R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies. The HD 2000 cards competed with nVidia's GeForce 8 series. Architectu ...

(available from June 2007 on) and newer products: hardware tessellation with TeraScale. Support for hardware tessellation only became mandatory in Direct3D 11 and OpenGL 4. Tessellation as defined in those APIs is only supported by newer TeraScale 2 (VLIW5) products introduced in September 2009 and GCN-based products (available from January 2012 on). The GCN SIP block carrying out the tessellation is the "Geometric processor".

Overview

Before the adoption of pixel shader-enhanced bump mapping methods such as

normal Normal(s) or The Normal(s) may refer to: Film and television * ''Normal'' (2003 film), starring Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson * ''Normal'' (2007 film), starring Carrie-Anne Moss, Kevin Zegers, Callum Keith Rennie, and Andrew Airlie * ''Norma ...

and

parallax mapping Parallax mapping (also called offset mapping or virtual displacement mapping) is an enhancement of the bump mapping or normal mapping techniques applied to textures in 3D rendering applications such as video games. To the end user, this means t ...

that simulate higher mesh detail, curved 3D shapes in games were created with large numbers of triangles. The more triangles are used, the more detailed and thus less polygonal the surface appears. TruForm creates a curved surface using the existing triangles, and tessellates this surface to make a new, more detailed polygonal model. It is designed to increase visual quality, without significantly impacting frame rates, by utilizing hardware processing of geometry. TruForm was not significantly accepted by game developers because it ideally required the models to be designed with TruForm in mind. To enable the feature without causing visual problems, such as ballooned-up weapons, the models had to have flags identifying which areas were to be tessellated. The lack of industry-wide support of the technique from the competition caused developers to ignore the technology. In later version of Catalyst drivers, the TruForm feature is removed. Beginning with Radeon X1000 series, TruForm was no longer advertised as a hardware feature. However, Radeon 9500 and higher (as well as hardware supporting Shader Model 3.0) include Render to

Vertex Buffer This is a glossary of terms relating to computer graphics. For more general computer hardware terms, see glossary of computer hardware terms. 0–9 A B ...

feature, which can be used for tessellation application

In the case of Radeon X1000 series, it supports binding up to 5 R2VB buffers simultaneously. Tessellation as dedicated hardware has returned in Xenos and

Radeon R600 The graphics processing unit (GPU) codenamed Radeon R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies. The HD 2000 cards competed with nVidia's GeForce 8 series. Architect ...

GPUs.

Games with TruForm support

Counter-Strike ''Counter-Strike'' (''CS'') is a series of multiplayer tactical first-person shooter video games in which teams of terrorists battle to perpetrate an act of terror (bombing, hostage-taking, assassination) while counter-terrorists try to preve ...

(ati_subdiv "2.0", ati_npatch "1.0") *

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six ''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six'' (often shortened to ''Rainbow Six'') is a tactical first-person shooter video game franchise by Ubisoft, based on the novel ''Rainbow Six'' by American author Tom Clancy. Critically and commercially successful, the ...

* Soldier of Fortune * Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix * Quake (TruQuake Patch) * Quake 2 (TruQuake2 Patch) *

Hexen II ''Hexen II'' is a dark fantasy first-person shooter (FPS) video game developed by Raven Software and published by id Software. It is the third game in the '' Hexen''/''Heretic'' series, and the last in the ''Serpent Riders'' trilogy. Using a modi ...

(TruHexen2 Patch, edit of the TruQuake2 Patch) (developed by RaVe

*

Unreal Tournament ''Unreal Tournament'' is a first-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. The second installment in the '' Unreal'' series, it was first published by GT Interactive in 1999 for Microsoft Windows, and late ...

(TruUT Patch) * The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (unofficially, with the FPS Optimiz

*

Madden NFL 2004 ''Madden NFL 2004'' is the 15th installment of the '' Madden NFL'' series of American football video games. Former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick is on the cover. Gameplay New features in ''Madden 2004'' include a new owner mode option ...

* Bugdom *

Return to Castle Wolfenstein ''Return to Castle Wolfenstein'' is a first-person shooter video game published by Activision, released on November 19, 2001, for Microsoft Windows and subsequently for PlayStation 2, Xbox, Linux and Macintosh. The game serves as a reboot of the ...

Serious Sam ''Serious Sam'' is a video game series created and primarily developed by Croteam. It consists predominantly of first-person shooters. The series follows the advances of mercenary Sam "Serious" Stone against Mental, an extraterrestrial overl ...

Unreal Tournament 2003 ''Unreal Tournament 2003'' is a first-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes, and published by Infogrames under the Atari brand name. The game is part of the ''Unreal'' franchise, and is a sequel to 1999's ...

and 2004 (must edit the game's ".ini" file and set "UseNPatches=True") * Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory * Command & Conquer: Renegade *

Neverwinter Nights ''Neverwinter Nights'' is a series of video games developed by BioWare and Obsidian Entertainment, based on the ''Forgotten Realms'' campaign setting of the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' role-playing game. Aside from also being set in the Dungeons & Dr ...

(must edit the game's ".ini" file and set "Enable Truform=1") * FTEQW (Quake World, Net Quake, Quake II, Quake, Quake III: Arena, Hexen 2, Nexuiz

*

Quake III Arena ''Quake III Arena'' is a 1999 multiplayer-focused first-person shooter developed by id Software. The third installment of the ''Quake'' series, ''Arena'' differs from previous games by excluding a story-based single-player mode and focusing prima ...

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(developed by RaVeN )

References

External links

Official ATI's List of TruForm Enabled Game TitlesTruForm whitepaperR2VB Programming (March 2006)Render to Vertex Buffer with D3D9area3d.net: NitroGL Demos
- home of TruQuake, TruQuake2 & TruUT {{DEFAULTSORT:TruForm 3D rendering ATI Technologies