HyperZ is the brand for a set of processing techniques developed by

ATI Technologies ATI Technologies Inc. (commonly called ATI) was a Canadian semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technology Inc., ...

and later

Advanced Micro Devices 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 manufact ...

and implemented in their Radeon-

GPUs A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobil ...

. HyperZ was announced in November 2000 and was still available in the TeraScale-based

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 ...

and in current

Graphics Core Next Graphics Core Next (GCN) is the codename for a series of microarchitectures and an instruction set architecture that were developed by AMD for its GPUs as the successor to its TeraScale microarchitecture. The first product featuring GCN was la ...

-based graphics products. On the

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 ...

-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 Lossless compression is a class of data compression that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data with no loss of information. Lossless compression is possible because most real-world data exhibits statistic ...

compressed format to minimize the

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 Three-dimensional space, 3D space from a particular Perspective (graphical), perspective. Depth buffers are ...

bandwidth as Z read or writes are taking place. The compression scheme ATI used on

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 ...

operated 20% more effectively than on the original Radeon and

Radeon 7500 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 h ...

. ; Fast Z clear: Rather than writing zeros throughout the entire Z-buffer, and thus using the bandwidth of another Z-Buffer write, a Fast Z Clear technique is used that can tag entire blocks of the Z-Buffer as cleared, such that only each of these blocks need be tagged as cleared. On

, ATI claimed that this process could clear the Z-Buffer up to approximately 64 times faster than that of a card without fast Z clear. ; Hierarchical Z-buffer: This feature allows for the pixel being rendered to be checked against the

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 Three-dimensional space, 3D space from a particular Perspective (graphical), perspective. Depth buffers are ...

before the pixel actually arrives in the rendering pipelines. This allows useless pixels to be thrown out early (early Z reject), before the Radeon has to render them.

Versions of HyperZ

With each new microarchitecture, ATI has revised and improved the technology. * HyperZ –

R100 His Majesty's Airship R100 was a privately designed and built British rigid airship made as part of a two-ship competition to develop a commercial airship service for use on British Empire routes as part of the Imperial Airship Scheme. The ot ...

* HyperZ II –

R200 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 ...

(8500-9250) * HyperZ III –

R300 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 featu ...

in Radeon 9700 * HyperZ III+ – R350 used in Radeon 9800, Radeon 9800 XL, Radeon 9800 Pro and Radeon 9800 SE * HyperZ HD –

R420 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'' photoli ...

used in Radeon X700 to Radeon X850 XT PE

References

External links

Anandtech's Preview of Radeon 256

AMD press release about HyperZ
AMD technologies ATI Technologies Graphics cards {{compu-hardware-stub

Functionality

Versions of HyperZ

See also

References

External links