Forthcoming ATI interview with Richard Huddy

***Zardon*** · Feb 10, 2003, 12:57 PM

Our last interviews with Terry Makedon and Ben Bar Haim in ATI have been a great success and many sites followed in our footsteps. It is my pleasure to announce a further interview with Richard Huddy, Director of European Developer Relations. I am opening questions to our members so you can get to ask Richard whatever is on your mind.

Everything you wanted to know about ATI's relationship to game developers

So if you want to ask Richard questions about the advanced Technology features of their products and how games use them, you could even ask about what hidden features remain untapped in their products and what new games are technologically challenging, or just to get a general feel for how the cycle works between ATI and the developers.

Ill be taking a selection of the best or most interesting questions and presenting them to Richard in a short while, so please if you have something you wish to get directly to Richard, please post in this thread !

digitalwanderer · Feb 10, 2003, 01:07 PM

Did they ever even consult ATI in regards to the horrible performance issues with GTA3? There's a rumor going around that they only tested it on nVidia GF3s and I'd sort of like to hear his take on it. Also, have they/will they be in touch about Vice City? (Please, please, PLEASE say "yes"! )

So-Unreal · Feb 10, 2003, 01:16 PM

Will we get to see any "Made For ATI" at the start of games???

So-Unreal · Feb 10, 2003, 01:23 PM

OFF THE SUBJECT BUT!!! When will I get to see a new TV Wonder, I know about the All in Wonder VE but now about remoring that 7500 off of it. Also is ATI already ahead in the Dixv hardware encoding field.

Feb 10, 2003, 01:57 PM

Hello Zardon! This will be great!

I have severalk question, seriously! Thanks for including them!

Here are...

Personal field

1. I think you're the Director of European Developer Relations of ATI per contract basis via The Code Mafia http://www.codemafia.co.uk/. Scuzi, Don Ricardo,

but after so many years at NVIDIA how do you feel working for the competitor?

2. Could you, please, tell us about that time when you and the co-founders of The Code Mafia left NVIDIA? Especially in the light of NV's last 8 months problems and current disappointment? Did you see the forthcoming problems, wrong management decisions at the time when you left?

Developer field

3. What do you think about R400 from a developer viewpoint? Last year at R300's announcement party Mr.Orton seems more excited about the R400 than R300...

4. Long time question about X1: is there any chance to see in the foreseenable future promised real-time VPU-based rendering plugins for Maya and 3dsmax? Is ATI working on it? Or has ATI dropped it?

5. What do you think about very limited availability of the Fire GL X1 256MB? There are rumours about more than 90% of all manufactured R300 chips goes to the 9700-manufacturers - when will we see X1 'en masse' available?

6. What dou you think about GFFX vs 9700 and QuadroFX vs X1? It seems ATI wins on desktop but loses on workstation...
Based on its specs, X1 obviously should be MUCH STRONGER/FASTER than it is right now - will ATI fix it's really mediocre driver performance?

Customer field

7. Is there any chance to see ANYTIME in this year a WORKING TV-WONDER PCI driver for WINXP? Last official driver is dated 2001, last beta (non-supported) dated last July but ATI claims full WinXP compatibility on its box - what do you think about this kind of attitude?

ChangWufei · Feb 10, 2003, 06:04 PM

I would like to ask him if ATI are going to sort out the issues with the catalist drivers and Maya (and maya like programs) with the 9700 Pro! Ive just installed the catalist 3.1 drivers to see if these issue has been resolved, but still no luck. Looks like im going to have to go back to the SoftFireGl X1 drivers where maya works fine, runs 3x faster and my game performance isnt affected!

Good luck on fixing the prob.

Thanks.

Topha · Feb 10, 2003, 06:35 PM

1. Will there be an AIW card with 2 VGA/DVI outputs AND the TV out?

2. Will there be a card with a tripleHead and Surround Gaming like the Matrox Parhelia?

thanks

ToshiroOC · Feb 10, 2003, 07:04 PM

What role do you see ATI playing in the laying out of the features of future 3d graphics? Do hardware manufacturers like ATI play a great part in the process that gets features added to APIs, or do hardware manufacturers simply implement what is decided upon by the people on the software end? Do you feel that hardware innovation is beginning to outpace software implementation (e.g. Doom III just beginning to use the full capabilities of the more recent cards, and few other games on the horizon using the full capacity of the most powerful cards and systems of today)? Finally, for the aspiring programmers interested in 3D graphics out there (myself included

), what fields of study do you see as having the most potential for growth and expansion and the most future in within the next decade or so?

night · Feb 10, 2003, 09:04 PM

screw triple head/surround gaming (dont necessarily put it that way

) but there are many, many, MANY people that would give up a lot to have stereo drivers/support.

there are people ditching ATI cards all the time to get nVidia simply for the 3D glasses support.
why buy multiple monitors when u can buy $70 3d glasses that put any 'surround' gaming to shame.

im sure you can make a good question out of that, but that is my point to be made

.
please ask him this, or throw a hint at it, or something. with the power of these cards, its insane not to be able to use the extra for some true 3D.

John

billou2k · Feb 10, 2003, 09:40 PM

and what about asking him about the half resolution yuv overlay we're getting when the resolution/refresh rate gets "too high" on radeon 8500-9700 series?
( see http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthre...broken+overlay
and http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthre...broken+overlay)
is that an issue we are supposed to accept and leave like that or is ATI going to tell us wy it is and what to do apart from deactivating yuv overlay??
thanks !

SuperOperater · Feb 10, 2003, 09:56 PM

What is going on with ATI - HERCULES colaboration?
Why aren't there any HERCULES RADEON AIW 9700Pro and are there gonna be one someday?

ANd, please, clear this up for us in Europe, who have much more oportunity to buy different SUPPORTED BY ATI then real ATI products...

Are those HERCULES RADEONS Build By Ati, as every HERCULES reseller swears???

I hope so; I got their version of AIW8500DV... But, then, again, there was no other version of AIW cards in Croatian market, only HERCULES ones....

For the end; I wonder if my AIW 8500DV can function properly with CAT 3.1...

Thnx and keep on rocking!!!

demalion · Feb 10, 2003, 10:04 PM

What are your thoughts on the future of graphics RAM quantity? With screen resolutions relatively fixed due to monitor viewable areas achieving their practical limit, and graphical detail increases being focused on shaders and not textures, it seems to me (and I hope I'm not quoted for this like a certain billionaire) that even with no increased efficiency in AA algorithms, 512MB seems like the absolute maximum, and 256MB looks good enough if RAM usage efficiency increases at all...your thoughts?
What are your thoughts on the need for increased graphics RAM bandwidth in the future?
What kind of shader instruction count would be able to be rendered in realtime (games) next year?
What is the future of n-patches and other "HOS" solutions as a high performance quality enhancing feature (which it does not seem to be on the R300 currently, though it seems so to me on the 8500)?
You've almost got gamma correction completely covered...can we look forward to any further advances? Also, in conjunction with that, will 10-bit per component color output be supported soon...are developers looking to address the rare cases where gamma correction and 8-bit per component color can still cause noticable banding? EDIT: I should clarify I'm talking about display of 10 bit per component.
Do developers tell you they have any use for future bus standards such as PCI Express, and if so, have they specified what they have in mind (if it isn't a secret )?
Pretty please, give us an example of an exciting new idea or implementation that you may have heard being discussed by developers, that we haven't seen demonstrated in ATI's wonderful tech demos already (not that they aren't enough to whet our appetites). With a digital cherry on top, to boot.

Feb 11, 2003, 12:09 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by night
screw triple head/surround gaming (dont necessarily put it that way ) but there are many, many, MANY people that would give up a lot to have stereo drivers/support.

Did you ever try 3-mode? I doubt it coz then you wouldn't say this - terrific, unbelievable fun and cool! MUCH BETTER than any cheap, stupid 3d-goggles... I tried several 3d goggles - all are stupid IMHO, more or less.

If ATI would implement a sort of 3 display mode gaming... that would be really great!

Feb 11, 2003, 12:12 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by So-Unreal
Will we get to see any "Made For ATI" at the start of games???

I hope never.

rwolf · Feb 11, 2003, 01:57 AM

1) What does AGP 8X buy us and when will it start to become noticable?

2) Is the difference between 16-bit color and 32-bit color noticable?

3) Is it possible use real time video as a texture input and use it to texture 3d objects? Are there any applications doing this currently? Can the the 9700 do NewTek video toaster like effects with video?

4) What tools would you recommend for novices to play with 3d graphics?

night · Feb 11, 2003, 02:06 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by T2k
Did you ever try 3-mode? I doubt it coz then you wouldn't say this - terrific, unbelievable fun and cool! MUCH BETTER than any cheap, stupid 3d-goggles... I tried several 3d goggles - all are stupid IMHO, more or less.

If ATI would implement a sort of 3 display mode gaming... that would be really great!

the 3d glasses are not the crap they used to be. they are very good.

i have no doubt surround gaming would be awesome, but it is far from mainstream. and much more suited for sim purists.
3d glasses support is much more feasible and only requires driver support, not new hardware that creates extra cost.
personally, i think CRT's are cheap enough id consider getting 3 19's to do it, but relativly very few would.
perhaps someday we will all have 3x21" screens with 3d glasses, but that wont be anytime soon.

i understand your point, but im gonna push for whats practical.
and i will have a 16:10 sony tube in soon (tax money coming). that is my surround gaming. pretty sad when i feel 'need' to go to a 22.5 widescreen from a 19.1 ....

JLP · Feb 11, 2003, 02:56 AM

I would like to know if you are doing anything to support developers that produce games for Linux and other OSes? Is the support here also as low as is with drivers for non-Windows OSes? What are ATI doing to improve support for alternative OSes that are quickly gaining more market share.

michael_7581 · Feb 11, 2003, 03:47 AM

1. In an Interview you (ATI) stated to release 8-10 new Catalyst drivers per year.
Could you give a similar statement for the Linux drivers? The lastes driver is from november 2002 and still has a lot of problems as I read in the Suse-linux mailing list.

2. Will it be possible for ATI to include AGP support for NForce Motherboards in the Linux drivers - so that ATI cards work in an Nvidia Mainboard?

3. Will the binary ATI Linux driver support the AMD64 architecture?

Please include a Linux driver question in your list.

Best regards
Michael

K.I.L.E.R · Feb 11, 2003, 05:20 AM

When will programs take full advantage of Ati's fullstream/videoshader?

ToshiroOC · Feb 11, 2003, 06:11 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by rwolf
2) Is the difference between 16-bit color and 32-bit color noticable?

I think the question is more of is the difference between 32 bit color and 64 and 128 bit color noticable? If you look at a gradient in 16 bit, you will undoubtedly see banding, regardless of how good the dithering is... but in 32 bit color, the banding is very noticably reduced... and I still haven't seen anything ever before in anything above 32 bit

So-Unreal · Feb 11, 2003, 02:50 PM

I want a ATI 9500 Pro but I dont have a PC right now. What should I get for the rest of the hardware??? Also I want a AMD CPU and I have like $1000 for this new setup. What does ATI think I should get???

guysaban · Feb 11, 2003, 04:05 PM

Will ATI continue focusing on increasing polygon output of its Radeon range or will ATI focus on texture effects/manupulation on surfaces and interpolation of polygon structure.

rwolf · Feb 12, 2003, 02:54 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ToshiroOC
I think the question is more of is the difference between 32 bit color and 64 and 128 bit color noticable? If you look at a gradient in 16 bit, you will undoubtedly see banding, regardless of how good the dithering is... but in 32 bit color, the banding is very noticably reduced... and I still haven't seen anything ever before in anything above 32 bit

Sorry, I should have been clear. ATI supports 32-bits per color (24-bit per color in the PS - 94/128-bit). Nvidia has a 16-bit per color (64-bit color) mode and I was wondering if you can really tell the difference between rendering with 16-bit vs 32/24-bit. Why did ATI feel they had to go from 8-bit per color all the way to 32/24-bit?

ToshiroOC · Feb 12, 2003, 03:28 AM

Ah, yes, that makes more sense if you are talking bits per color

I wonder though if digital displays are capable of handling these new color settings, like LCDs etc., but thats not really the sort of question you ask Mr. Huddy

rwolf · Feb 12, 2003, 03:45 AM

Sure it is. He was teaching new features to developers at ATI. He should be more aware of the pros and cons of the different technologies than most ATI people you would interview.

The 128-bit color is only used for internal precision, the output is 10/10/10/2 vs the GeforceFX 8/8/8/8. (RGB & alpha).

ToshiroOC · Feb 12, 2003, 03:54 AM

Well, the reason you don't ask Mr. Huddy that sort of a question is because Googling around for the answer solved it without ever needing to ask Mr. Huddy

The answer is that current-generation LCDs are limited to a color depth of 24 bits overall... and I don't think that the 10/10/10/2 works on LCDs either because the DVI interface, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't support more than 8/8/8

***Zardon*** · Feb 12, 2003, 09:01 AM

keep this thread on topic please.

@uthority · Feb 12, 2003, 03:00 PM

What do you think of the Nvidia’s opinion on futuremark2003 of not being a legitimate 3D gaming benchmark, whereas before they supported them wholeheartedly? Why?

What do you think of it? And what would you like to see in future versions?