ATI TRUFORM Technology - Powering the next generation Radeon

Conclusion

So, with a little bit of magic, ATI's TRUFORM technology has the potential to increase image quality of future and past games without any decrease in performance. A miracle, right? Let's hope so.

There are still some things that need to happen in order for TRUFORM to deliver as promised. First off, there must be developer support for it. Saying that it is a supported DirectX 8 and OpenGL feature may not be enough, because if no one programs with TRUFORM in mind, the benefits of the technology will be limited. Sure it will look cool to apply it to games, but it will look much better to see a game designed with TRUFORM as a majority technology. ATI assures us that developers are enthusiastic about their newest technology, but we will have to wait an see before we can judge its adoption to new games.

As far as improving older games goes, one of two things needs to happen. Either the developer of the game needs to patch their game to enable TRUFORM properly (remember it is just one line of code) or a setting needs to be made available in the drivers. We would rather have the latter, with control of TRUFORM given to the user, and imagine that many of you feel the same way. Hopefully, ATI will decide to give us this privilege and that the image problems associated with TRUFORMing objects that need not be are minor.

The best thing that TRUFORM has going for it is the fact that enabling the technology in future ATI products will not hinder performance at all. In fact, it will finally allow the T&L engine to do what it is good at: transform, light, and clip triangles. Add to this the obvious visual quality improvements that come with TRUFORM technology and it seems that we may have something to get excited about. Although the calculations are complex, and understanding the technology is a bit confusing, TRUFORM boils down to better image quality without a sacrifice in speed. And isn't that all that really matters?