Shader Model 2 Patch Splinter Cell

Benchmarking Splinter Cell. My beef with meat pdf. Could be done with Shader Model 2.0. Perhaps a future patch will add a SM 2.0 mode and enable those effects for users of ATI cards. Discover the Splinter Cell Collection, gathering the games Splinter Cell, Chaos Theory, Double Agent, Conviction Deluxe and Blacklist Deluxe. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. Infiltrate terrorists' positions, acquire critical intelligence by any means necessary, execute with extreme prejudice, and exit without a trace!

By John ReynoldsIntroductionWhen Ubisoft released the newest title in their Splinter Cell series of stealth-action games earlier this year, there was a certain amount of controversy surrounding the visual effects the game supported. Or, perhaps more aptly put, the controversy was based on the fact that Chaos Theory shipped with no support for Shader Model 2.0, largely viewed by the online graphics community as an inflection point for games coded to support DX9-level technology since it is supported by both ATI and NVIDIA hardware, whereas only the latter’s chips currently support SM3.0. The shader profiles found in the shipping game supported SM1.1 and SM3.0, which left those owning graphics boards based on ATI chips limited to the 1.1 profile and its lack of additional features, such as parallax mapping and high quality soft shadows. These visual effects were considered to be artificially, and unfairly, limited to the SM3.0 profile, and various message boards hummed with conspiracy theories and rumors as to why Chaos Theory shipped in such a state. Yet now with the recently released 1.04 patch for the game, an additional shader profile for SM2.0 support has been added to the game, available only for ATI hardware, and this article will detail the shader profile performance differences using an ATI Radeon X800 XT and a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT graphics boards. Before digging into the benchmark results, however, a brief overview of the shader profiles and features supported in Chaos Theory would be appropriate.Ubisoft has built the Splinter Cell games over the last few years using various versions of the Unreal Engine from Epic, though with additional graphics features added by the developer to take advantage of more advanced graphics cards.

The 1.1 profile is obviously named after SM1.1, which was included in DX8 years ago and gives the game compatibility with both the large installed base of DX8 hardware found in the form of discrete graphics cards on the market and with Microsoft’s Xbox console. This particular profile, however, lacked some of the options that the 3.0-and now also 2.0-profile has for the following features:.

high dynamic range (HDR) rendering – when enabled with NVIDIA hardware that supports HDR (such as the 6800 and 7800 product lines), this feature forces a higher level of precision throughout the entire pipeline of the hardware, with FP (floating point) render targets and FP blending and filtering being used. When enabled with the ATI-specific 2.0 profile, we’re not entirely sure what exactly HDR is performing since no ATI hardware currently available supports FP blending.

Overview:Earlier today, we reported that Ubisoft Montreal had updated their excellent Sneak 'em Up - Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - with patch 1.04, allowing ATI's video cards to make use of.It turns out that ATI's developer relations team sat down with Ubisoft Montreal and spent a considerable amount of time working together with them to develop a Shader Model 2.0 path for their current generation video cards. At the time the news broke, we hadn't had the chance to check out the game ourselves to see what the new patch brought to gamers that owned ATI video cards. We had the chance to sit down yesterday afternoon and install the new patch, only to find some interesting additions.New Shader Options:The display settings default to Shader Model 1.1 still, as with all video cards when you first install them. However, on installing an ATI video card, you are given the option to select a Shader Model 2.0 path providing the hardware supports it; legacy cards like the Radeon 8500 don't support it.

Interestingly, there is also the familiar 'Advanced Shader Options' that is present when a Shader Model 3.0-capable video card is installed - currently NVIDIA GeForce 6 series or above, though ATI's next GPU, the R520, will support Shader Model 3.0 as well. ATI have worked with Ubisoft Montreal to bring HDR, Parallax Mapping, High Quality Soft Shadows and Tone Mapping to their current generation video cards.Subjective First Impressions:After playing through the Lighthouse level on our closely followed by a GeForce 7800 GTX, we got the impression that the Shader Model 2.0 HDR implementation is not quite up to the same standard as what could be achieved on NVIDIA's GeForce 6 and GeForce 7 parts.

However, speaking subjectively, the differences were pretty hard to see without running two monitors side by side - the difference wasn't so dramatic that you would feel shortchanged on the Radeon.As you can imagine, HDR is not easy to capture in a screen shot due to the fact that it is rendered dynamically and, of course, on-the-fly by the GPU. Along with that, due to the darkness of the game, and the way it has been engineered; the HDR implementation, in general, is a little more subtle than the implementation that has been seen in the likes of Far Cry. However, we found a good selection of areas showing some great high-dynamic range effects, enabling us to try and make some static comparisons between the two different implementations.