ATI Technologies X1650 SmartShader HD, SmoothVision HD, Specular Highlight, Super Anti-aliasing

134

SmartShader™ HD

SmartShader™ HD contains advanced vertex and pixel-shading capabilities. A shader is a small program that runs on the GPU and describes how an image should be rendered. Vertex shaders manipulate the individual polygons that make up 3D objects, and pixel shaders operate on the individual pixels that fill in these polygons to create a visible image.

SmartShader™ HD is designed to alleviate the resource constraints of earlier shader hardware, paving the way for more complex, detailed, and realistic shader effects in applications requiring high-performance 3D rendering.

SmoothVision™ HD

SmoothVision™ HD incorporates improved anti-aliasing, anisotropic

filtering and 3Dc™ compression features designed to further enhance image quality. Anti-aliasing performance is improved, providing better overall detail and image quality. The enhanced anisotropic filtering ensures

sharper and clearer pictures at higher frame rates, and the new 3Dc™ compression technology makes it possible to display higher polygon counts for 3D rendered objects.

Specular Highlight

The bright, usually small, intense light reflected from a 3D surface with a high refraction value. From the intensity and spread of this highlight users can differentiate between a “hard,” smooth surface, such as metal or porcelain, or a “soft,” textured surface, such as fabric or skin.

Super Anti-aliasing

A feature that improves image quality by combining the results of full-

screen anti-aliasing across two graphics cards in a CrossFire™ configuration. The two graphics cards work on different anti-aliasing patterns within each frame. The results of which are combined by the

compositing engine on the CrossFire™ Master graphics card to produce 3D images featuring smoother contours, lines, and shading effects.