John Carmack Responds to the ATI Humas tweek

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Doh, I've been using his older method here... Gotta try the newer one.

Amazing though how you can just change one line of code to have things go a different route and be so dramatic in speed.

I can't wait to see a 3Dc path instead of the DXTC 1,3, and 5 paths.
 
What is really funny that is if ATI were to officially do this in their drivers the community would go nuts and rip them to pieces. When an ATI employee posts it in a public forum it is another matter. I think if they are going to make these kinds of moves it be done from a standpoint of anonymity by their workers. If not, they should use official channels for their projects. Just my 2 cents.



If you need a performance bump and don't want to deal with artifacts, seriously, just turn of specular lighting. it will give you a big boost in most situations and really is not that big of a difference when it comes down to GAMEPLAY.
 
At most I think ATi might have an applet, like a registry editor, so you could toggle it on and off if Carmack gave the go ahead < At least I hope this would be the way its done.
 
I saw the 10 fps jump that you guys say is rare. I can't explain it when people are getting smaller jumps, but it works very nicely for me. Also, the artifacting isn't an issue anymore, please quit bringing it up...
 
Why do you people care if Humus' posts this stuff? Just because he works for ATI doesn't in any way restrict him from sharing tweaks as a fellow gamer. If he offered this as an official ATI-endorsed hack that would be one thing, but thats not what he has done.

If you don't like it, don't use it - no harm, no foul.
 
gordon151 said:
There's been no visible backlash towards nVidia for using those techniques in popular games, so it would be rather weird if ATI actually got flak for doing shader replacements in doom3. Either way why do people think Humus is doing this on behalf of ATI? Does he even work for the department that normally does this? If ati really wanted to do something like this they probably would have done it anonymously rather than having Humus, a very well known employee of ati, release it. I think humus just did this because he has the knowhow and is an extreme ati !!!!!! (hehe why is that word blacklisted) at the moment. For him to not have done something like this would have been the surprising thing.
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For sure!
 
gordon151 said:
There's been no visible backlash towards nVidia for using those techniques in popular games, so it would be rather weird if ATI actually got flak for doing shader replacements in doom3.
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Wow, you have not been around for long have you.

That said, NV goes about it in an official way and I think ATI should as well. Humus is an ATI employee and that is where it ends. When it comes to public forums, you either work for someone or you do not. I don't get the chance to post just a "Kyle" unless I hide my identity. Otherwise I am always a HardOCP rep, not matter what time it is and that goes for all of our editors. They represent HardOCP whether they like it or not and the same goes for Humus and ATI. That association is not something like a lightswitch...
 
Now that we have programmable video engines, I think this will start to become a more common thing. IE: There is no point to having a programmable engine if you can't improve speed and quality with some code changes. Its the right way to go, IMO.
 
Humus tweek worked for me. I got about a 9% improvement in framerate from that timedemo, 51fps to 56.5 or so. Not huge but something. I have NO artifacts at all, even on my overclocked system. It looks pretty much the same to me so far.
 
ZenOps said:
Now that we have programmable video engines, I think this will start to become a more common thing. IE: There is no point to having a programmable engine if you can't improve speed and quality with some code changes. Its the right way to go, IMO.
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I totally agree with you, I think this whole thing kicks ass. BUT, it needs to be done by the community and not ATI employees. I am not saying there is any harm in this instance, I just think something like this will be tainted as being "one sided" by many folks that argue the issue because Humus is who he is. It would be better accepted if the source were "nondenominational." :)
 
gordon151 said:
That is the older method, he's since improved it and no one seems to be reporting any artifacts with the newer method. The newer one also increases fps much more than the first one so people are seeing better gains. With the newer method the artifacts seem to be gone and the performance is up, why you want to deny this to the ati users who benefit from it is beyond me.
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I'm not denying anything. In my post I said "more power to you" if you want to use it. I'm just saying, if I had an X800, I would want all the detail to the MAX, and unless Carmak comes out and says "this mod is mathmatically equivilent" I wouldn't be installing it. If the author of it says that is isn't mathmatically equivilent until Carmak builds it into the engine, then I would say that it isn't equivilent. But, for real, don't let that stop you. If you want to install the patch go ahead. I'm just saying that I think the IQ will be lower if you use it.
 
I tried this tweak out ...my timedemo went from 43.2 to 44.9 1024x768@high settings, at medium it only gained ~0.1fps though.
 
Yeah, its nice if the general programming public does it first. It always looks a little suspect when it comes from the hardware company.

BTW: I'm a MSDN, been so for many years. And yet still a lot of this stuff just *shoop* goes right over my head.
 
2.8Ghz P4 HT
1024MB RAM
Visiontek Xtasy ATI Radeon 9600XT 256MB
800 x 600 High Quality (AF edited to 4x instead of 8x in DoomConfig.cfg)
Set to High Performance in the OpenGL tab of the ATI Control Panel

timedemo demo1 (without tweak)
=30.6

timedemo demo1 (with tweak)
=32.4

I think defragging will help me gain about 2 extra FPS because if I run the timedemo two times in a row without exiting Doom or anything, I gain 2 FPS.
 
Also let me add, I love to see our ATI and NVIDIA spending more time on optimizing for a game rather than 3DMark for a change. :cool:
 
gordon151 said:
Well I'm commenting on the fact that they are doing it now and so far no one really cares since it has no visible defects. Either way his conduct is apparently subjective because he obviously thinks little of doing such a thing because in his mind he's just playing around with his personal copy of doom3 and doing his thing as an ati *enthusiast* (hehe other word is banned i guess).
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Yea but he's not just playing around with a personal copy of DOOM 3 and he's not just another gamer. He works for ATI and he has alot to gain from boosting ATI's performance in DOOM 3 because of that. DOOM 3 is one of the biggest games to release in the history of PC gaming. nVidia and ATI want every fps they can get.

Humus can't work for ATI one minute and be an average Joe gamer the next. He's ither one or the other. If this tweak had been found by an end user then it wouldn't of been an issue. Humus represents ATI and his actions reflect ATI as a whole, not just him.

Just like the ATI employee that leaked the DOOM 3 Alpha, people dont remember the guys name, just that it was leaked by an ATI employee.

Once again, you dont see any nVidia employees posting stuff like this openly on forums.

I'm glad you all think Humus is so honest but he could very well be working in conjunction with ATI to get this out in the open because of the fact there is hardly a chance in hell of it getting implemented into a patch for DOOM3 and ATI's performance in DOOM 3 is killer because of what the game represents.

People can toot their HL2 horn all they want but nothing touches the ramifications of the release of DOOM 3.
 
he has alot to gain from boosting ATI's performance in DOOM 3 because of that
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We don't?

Nvidia and ATI want every fps they can get.
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We don't?

but he could very well be working in conjunction with ATI to get this out in the open
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How dare he improve my performance. Wait, why is this bad?

there is hardly a chance in hell of it getting implemented into a patch for DOOM3
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Actually looking at JC's comments it seems to be the opposite
 
hallucinated said:
2.8Ghz P4 HT
1024MB RAM
Visiontek Xtasy ATI Radeon 9600XT 256MB
800 x 600 High Quality (AF edited to 4x instead of 8x in DoomConfig.cfg)
Set to High Performance in the OpenGL tab of the ATI Control Panel

timedemo demo1 (without tweak)
=30.6

timedemo demo1 (with tweak)
=32.4

I think defragging will help me gain about 2 extra FPS because if I run the timedemo two times in a row without exiting Doom or anything, I gain 2 FPS.
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Run it 3 times. I run it twice to make sure it's loaded into my 512mb of ram :(. But the third time gives me better results. First time, 40fps, second time, 54fps, third time 56 fps.
 
burningrave101 said:
Once again, you dont see any nVidia employees posting stuff like this openly on forums.
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You will. Carmack has said that the smallest change in nVidia's drivers could seriously impact DOOM 3 performance, because they've already been tuned to tightly to DOOM 3. I'd be willing to bet that they're going to start to loosen those drivers to increase performance in other games, and start coming up with shader mods that will accomplish the same goals.

And why the hell shouldn't they? As I've said before, all I care about is that it's not being done without my knowledge. As long as you're not changing anything I didn't explictily tell you not to change, I couldn't care less. We all win in the end.

burningrave101 said:
I'm glad you all think Humus is so honest but he could very well be working in conjunction with ATI to get this out in the open because of the fact there is hardly a chance in hell of it getting implemented into a patch for DOOM3 and ATI's performance in DOOM 3 is killer because of what the game represents.
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Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. I don't think that it matters. Does my getting more peformance hurt you somehow? Seriously, I don't think you're making your point very well, because I'm agreeing with everything except your connotation. Yes, there is likely ZERO chance of this making it into an offical DOOM 3 update, because Carmack wants to keep the ARB2 path intact. Does this make the hack any less viable? I certainly don't think so. The only think I care about is that this doesn't change the playing field for multiplayer games, but not only does it NOT do that, but most people are going to be disabling the high-end graphics features in order to get pure speed anyway, when it comes to multiplayer.

Maybe I'm being thick-headed here, but someone please explain to me (without reposting everything that's already been beaten to death) how exactly this is BAD for anyone?

Edit: Demirug at the Beyond3D forums has posted another tweak similar to the Humus one. He doesn't work for ATI, but I seem to recall him saying that he was hired to do this sort of thing. Why aren't we debating that, too?
 
SnakEyez187 said:
We don't?
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You gaining a FEW fps in DOOM 3 nowhere even begins to compare with what Humus has to gain from boosting ATI's performance in D3 lmao.

SnakEyez187 said:
Actually looking at JC's comments it seems to be the opposite
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Link me to these comments. I want to see where JC has given any kind of inclination at all that there is even a chance in hell of it being implemented in a patch.

SuperRob said:
Maybe I'm being thick-headed here, but someone please explain to me (without reposting everything that's already been beaten to death) how exactly this is BAD for anyone?
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There isn't anything wrong with it except for the fact i dont agree with the way Humus goes about doing these things. This isn't the first instance.

Quote from the previous thread on this subject:

tranCendenZ said:
There was no need to go public with this. Did you see Nvidia post the Shader Model 3.0 patch on Beyond3D before it was officially available from FarCry even though it could have given boosts to Nvidia users? No. Does Humus work for a graphics company? Yes. Could he have done this the proper way through the proper private channels instead of publically busting open carmacks code and "fixing" it his way since he works for ATI? Yes.

So the question is, why did he go through the public channel?

Could be any number of reasons:
A) Because he didn't want to wait to do it the official way and just wanted to get the tweak out there after he discovered it, and didn't think it would be a big deal. Totally innocent, just wanting to help, just never thought about the negative impacts of what he did and said and how they may reflect on Carmack and his engine being that he is an ATI representative, not to mention the community reaction.

B) To attempt to lessen Nvidia's Doom3 performance lead with an unofficial release that might not translate into an official patch, similar to how he did with the sm2.0b Dynamic Branching Demo & Nvidia's Shader Model 3.0 when the FarCry patch came out... because of personal negative feelings towards nvidia who didn't hire him; to quote humus when he released the dynamic branching demo: "nvidia can consider themselves pwned!"

C) To attempt to lessen Nvidia's Doom3 performance lead with an unofficial release that might not translate into an official patch, similar to how he did with the sm2.0b Dynamic Branching Demo & Nvidia's Shader Model 3.0 when the FarCry patch came out... under the supervision of ATI, as something like this could never be officially released by ATI themselves. One can say Humus did it on personal time all one wants, but in the end he does work for ATI; plus, 2 out of the 3 "personal" demos he programmed since he was hired by ATI used ATI-specific technology designed to show that ATI is as good or better than Nvidia in the areas the demos showcased, and his Doom3 tweak only improves performance on ATI cards, not NV cards.

D) Because he has a big ego and wanted to feed it, including publically examining and changing Carmack's code to what he felt was better.

Could be any of these reasons, but those are some ideas.

Should what Humus have done be a model graphic companies should follow? Should Nvidia get a rep in beyond3d that can bust open half life 2's shaders if they suspect optimization can be done, then tell gabe how he didn't optimize properly and provide a optimized fix? Should all new games just be busted open and reoptimized by representatives of the respective companies in public forums? It's a slippery slope.
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I have no respect for ATI whatsoever.

Humus does nothing but show poor conduct as a representative of ATI by going open about everything he finds instead of doing it the proper way.

An ATI employee leaked the DOOM 3 Alpha.

And ATI just got caught with their pants down over their trylinear filtering tricks.

http://techreport.com/etc/2004q2/filtering/index.x?pg=1

Tech Report said:
Whatever the merits of ATI's adaptive trilinear filtering algorithm, ATI appears to have intentionally deceived members of the press, and by extension, the public, by claiming to use "full" trilinear filtering "all of the time" and recommending the use of colored mip map tools in order to verify this claim. Encouraging reviewers to make comparisons to NVIDIA products with NVIDIA's similar trilinear optimizations turned off compounded the offense. Any points ATI has scored on NVIDIA over the past couple of years as NVIDIA has been caught in driver "optimizations" and the like are, in my book, wiped out.
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Well, as long as we've finally distilled this argument down to "you don't agree with the way this was done", I think I'm satisfied. I just wanted to know if there was some aspect of this I was missing with. Seems that it's just a matter of opinion, so I'll let it rest at that, as long as we agree on the facts. I don't care WHY he did it. I'm just glad it was done like this instead of secretly.

burningrave101 said:
I have no respect for ATI whatsoever.

Humus does nothing but show poor conduct as a representative of ATI by going open about everything he finds instead of doing it the proper way.

An ATI employee leaked the DOOM 3 Alpha.

And ATI just got caught with their pants down over their trylinear filtering tricks.
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Now what do the last two things have to do with what Humus did? The last two were done secretly, the first was public and openly. I agree, the last two things are despicable, and I in no way condone those actions. I see nothing wrong with how Humus handled this shader optimization.
 
SuperRob said:
Now what do the last two things have to do with what Humus did? The last two were done secretly, the first was public and openly. I agree, the last two things are despicable, and I in no way condone those actions. I see nothing wrong with how Humus handled this shader optimization.
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I was making mention of the reasons why i have no respect for ATI and not just Humus himself who has it out for nVidia because of the fact they wouldn't hire him lol.

Kyle = HardOCP and HardOCP = Kyle

Humus = ATI and ATI = Humus

If you work for a business, your actions reflect the business as a whole and that is why the owner of the business chooses his employees wisely.
 
I tried this tweak on my 9600pro and it didn't change anything. The fps are the same as before. Anyone know why?
 
burningrave101 said:
I was making mention of the reasons why i have no respect for ATI and not just Humus himself who has it out for nVidia because of the fact they wouldn't hire him lol.

Kyle = HardOCP and HardOCP = Kyle

Humus = ATI and ATI = Humus

If you work for a business, your actions reflect the business as a whole and that is why the owner of the business chooses his employees wisely.
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Frankly, I find that a little sad. I'd hate to think that I'm nothing more than my company, and that anything I do is always going to be colored by who I work for. We condemn them for doing things secretly, and now we're condemning them for doing it in the open, just because it was one guy doing it in his free time.

I swear, I think you guys would be pissed if they hung you with a new rope.

(Sorry, that's an old-guy saying there.)
 
I understand why this was locked --> http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1026439835#post1026439835

But damn I get accused of tampering a SS because two posters think I am an ATi !!!!!! LOL what a joke. I go with what ever hardware is better for the price and the games I play, the 9800 NON Pro was my first ATi product. I am in the market for a new video card and leaning towards the BFG 6800 Ultra since I cant find an X800 XT but I think I may wait for HL2 to come out now before I make a purchase.. Also I added the text AFTER I did the SS splitting which makes more sense to me anyway. My whole post wasn’t to show ANY FPS increase but to show the IQ difference which is VERY hard to notice when playing the game..

In the timedemo demo1 I get 3.5 FPS or so increase, but overall the game runs better with this tweak.
 
burningrave101 said:
I was making mention of the reasons why i have no respect for ATI and not just Humus himself who has it out for nVidia because of the fact they wouldn't hire him lol.
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He's always supported ATI more, not just because nvidia "wouldn't hire him." It was because he owned ATI cards. If you look through some of his old posts, even after nvidia rejected him, he didn't seem to take that personally as far as his programming went. I remember he still worked at resolving nvidia problems with his demos even though he didn't have a nvidia card.

I agree he has gotten more little "enthusiastic" about ATI since he's worked there. Of course you don't have to respect him, but I think you're blowing a disagreement in choice far out of proportion. He might be a little grating sometimes, but I understand his point of view. He seems to be driven by showing what others don't think is possible. His presentation is off (he's pretty immature sometimes), but his effort and knowledge are pretty good. He's wrong sometimes, but who isn't? ;)
 
SuperRob said:
Frankly, I find that a little sad. I'd hate to think that I'm nothing more than my company, and that anything I do is always going to be colored by who I work for. We condemn them for doing things secretly, and now we're condemning them for doing it in the open, just because it was one guy doing it in his free time.

I swear, I think you guys would be pissed if they hung you with a new rope.

(Sorry, that's an old-guy saying there.)
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Well I think it all depends on what arena you are standing in and what is being commented on. Let's say that SuperRob works for a company called "SuckitBitch Toilets," and decides to post an IQ hack for DOOM 3. I don't think your affiliation with SBT is going to be called into question. However, if you are suggesting mods for the latest low flow shitters that impact their ability to reduce skidder marks, you might be seen as a rep for your company.

It is all not as black and white as you are trying to make it...

As for ropes, I got calluses around my neck from dealing with you guys for so many years. ;)
 
GabooN said:
I understand why this was locked --> http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1026439835#post1026439835

But damn I get accused of tampering a SS because two posters think I am an ATi !!!!!! LOL what a joke. I go with what ever hardware is better for the price and the games I play, the 9800 NON Pro was my first ATi product. I am in the market for a new video card and leaning towards the BFG 6800 Ultra since I cant find an X800 XT but I think I may wait for HL2 to come out now before I make a purchase.. Also I added the text AFTER I did the SS splitting which makes more sense to me anyway. My whole post wasn’t to show ANY FPS increase but to show the IQ difference which is VERY hard to notice when playing the game..

In the timedemo demo1 I get 3.5 FPS or so increase, but overall the game runs better with this tweak.
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That thread had lived its life. Let it be. Had it had to do with you, you would have gotten a PM about it. Move along and do not post off topic in this thread again.
 
tranCendenZ said:
they look pretty similar, but the humus tweak has a darker flashlight and less shiny metal.
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If you noticed in game the flashlight pulsates slightly, and the difference in the positions of the flashlight between the two shots suggests they're not exactly the same frame.
 
burningrave101 said:
How many nVidia employee's do see you openly posting HACKS to game codes on forums?

How many nVidia employee's do you see openly posting information on upcoming performance increases?

NONE
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Easy Burning..... I find it good that manufactures employees are speaking out without all the FUD crap. Humus brings many good things to light without filling us with lies and such......

burningrave101 said:
Its all done through a private channel and professionally instead of out in the open on the forums. It would be one thing if Humus didn't work for ATI but he does.

And where is Carmacks response saying he has no problem with this?
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What you don't know is what actually happened before Humus posted this information. You are out of your mind if you think ATI would like an employee post information before going through the correct "political channels". And if not, hats off to them.
 
why can't people understand the fact that maybe John Carmak didn't write the shaders this way for a reason?
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Because it hurts the performance of NV cards. The hack is done simply because Carmack's method was there to give a middle path for both cards, but the instructions he used weren't optimal for ATI cards, like Nvidia cards would execute the instruction as it was in 1 clock while ATi card took 5, and the change is just to give the same effect, but using a different method which just happens to run faster on ATI cards due to how their architecture is set up
 
nV's employees are not allowed to post or comment on anything pretaining to thier cards unless given premission, unless its already know to the general public. To avoid anything like what is being talked about here.
 
rancor said:
nV's employees are not allowed to post or comment on anything pretaining to thier cards unless given premission, unless its already know to the general public. To avoid anything like what is being talked about here.
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Just imagine if they let their PR machine lose on the forums..... :D You'd need tall boots.
 
I find it amazing, looking at how much forum bullshit it took before I finally decided to reply to something...

I've been reading for a long, long while, and I can safely say that nothing hijacks, skews, bogs down, or otherwise makes a post unpleasant like people posting opinion as The Truth.

A good example of this is Burningrave101. I'm pretty sure he posts nothing but opinions, seeing as how The King of Hell (Ati, supposedly) is not coming for my soul. His posts do nothing but embitter Ati fans and cause readers (like myself) to become tired of searching for the next bit of real information or constructive opinion. I don't know why he hates the idea of someone out there becoming happier with their Doom3 performance, but his attitude strikes me as pretty sadistic.

Moving on, I'd like to throw out the facts as I see them.

1) Humus posts (excitedly) his tweaks that gain him an unbeliveable FPS increase.

2) Empty sees this post, comes to a different forum (?) and throws Humus to the carpet, decrying his efforts as a cheap ploy to make Ati look better.

3) Meanwhile, amid responses and constructive criticism, Humus revises his estimated FPS increase, and revises his tweaks.

4) Several new tests follow, and many improvements are made to his original tweak, culminating with a reply by JC (the ultimate authority, in my eyes) to another poster. This reply results in the final revision by Humus to the tweak/hack.

5) Substantial improvements are provided by some, minor improvements are provided by others. All in all, Ati card owners are happy with their increased performance, and the majority claim no IQ reduction.

6) While 3-6 are occuring, Empty's post (at these forums) mutates. Originally an ethically-motivated post by a guy who really read into Humus's wording and intent ( and did a solid job, imho), it quickly submits to an Ati vs Nvidia flamewar.

Over the course of that 22 page monstrosity, I read through some of the most ignorant, trash-filled replies imaginable. Often it would get back on track, only to be drug down by a handful, hell-bent on either
A) Proving that this tweak will kill your computer, and Ati-card owners shouldn't "Ruin your IQ" for a mere "1-2 FPS increase"
or
B) Proving that Nvidia "SUX" and that "HL2WILLOWNNVIDIOTS" etc...


That thread was thankfully put down by a mod. This thread is starting to slide the same way, however, and it is all due to 3-4 people that simply will not let things go. Move on, assholes! Go away! Or, even better, do something constructive and maybe learn something at the same time.

The Humus thread has effectively tamed it's biggest ass, and he's now posting constructive ideas/tests. I just hope this forum can prove capable of doing the same.

Captain Dirtnap
 
Can ANYONE give some actual info on the hack, since that forum is down :rolleyes:
 
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