Super-high color depth
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I can imagine 32 bit color will be around for a while. But at some point, probably on high-end workstations first, there''s got to be some improvement. I pluged the numbers in my calc for 64 bits, and came up with over 281 trillion colors at 16.16.16.16 and over 18 million trillion colors at 21.22.21. Are there any plans by any of the vid card makers, or are there no plans whatever?
where is the need to have more that 32 bits colors?
the human eye cant even see all those colors...
the human eye cant even see all those colors...
Actually there is plenty of use for color depths above 32bit. Workstations have been doing it for years. I have an old issue of Byte magazine (1989) which covers all sorts of hardware. There''s talk in there of machines with 96 bits per pixel color (1989!!!).
The reason is, although we cannot distinguish above the 16M colors (we can actually distinguish less than that - n64s output in 21bit color I believe). Have you ever blended a _LOT_ of scene elements together? You''ll notice it in 16bit earlier, but you will notice it in 32bit as well - it gets rounding errors.
So output at lower bit depths is fine. Calculation at higher bit depths is becoming more and more essential. It will take a while before fill rate on video cards comes to a point where programmers put in all those passes and we start going ''ewwwwww...look at the banding''. That day will come.
The reason is, although we cannot distinguish above the 16M colors (we can actually distinguish less than that - n64s output in 21bit color I believe). Have you ever blended a _LOT_ of scene elements together? You''ll notice it in 16bit earlier, but you will notice it in 32bit as well - it gets rounding errors.
So output at lower bit depths is fine. Calculation at higher bit depths is becoming more and more essential. It will take a while before fill rate on video cards comes to a point where programmers put in all those passes and we start going ''ewwwwww...look at the banding''. That day will come.
I already do go, ewwww banding. Any extremely noticeable banding has got to be a fault in your hardware/software setup, or extreme laziness on the programmers part. I''m sorry if I sound harsh, but banding is something not to be taken lightly. Read my pamphlet, Banding and You. It delves into banding and how it will be the end of mankind. Hitler delved in banding, see where it got him! Dead in a pine box, and hated by nearly everyone!. eheh 
ok, for a LOT of multi passes, maybe it will take 64 bit for the processing, but there, imagine how much processing power it will requiere to do that!!!!!!! but i have to admit that probably a day will come that it will be like that! after all, someone once said that 64KB of memory should be enough forever!!!!
quote:Original post by cyberg
ok, for a LOT of multi passes, maybe it will take 64 bit for the processing, but there, imagine how much processing power it will requiere to do that!!!!!!!
In the absolute worst case, only twice as much processing power, which is 1.5 years of computer technology advancement according to Moore''s Law.
Perhaps we''d see 64bit colour values with 4 16-bit floats instead of ints, now THERE would be a nice improvement.
People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
Mad Keith the V.
Given modern hardware, it''s not really the processing power we have to worry about so much as the already limited memory bandwidth
Without breaking NDAs, all I can say is: watch DirectX and consumer graphics hardware (ie. coming to a store near you) - although initially still using the same maximum amount of space (hmm do we really need those unused 8 bits in the frame buffer ?, what if....)
Any extremely noticeable banding has got to be a fault in your hardware/software setup, or extreme laziness on the programmers part. I''m sorry if I sound harsh, but banding is something not to be taken lightly.
Hehe, I guess that means Carmack is a horrible programmer, either that or there''s something seriously wrong with the GF3s running Doom 3
.
Carmack did some evangelising about this subject a while ago.
Check
Carmack''s finger
for date 4/29/00
You know, I never wanted to be a programmer...
Alexandre Moura
Check
Carmack''s finger
for date 4/29/00
You know, I never wanted to be a programmer...
Alexandre Moura
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