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Posted
on December 04, 2001 by Thomas
McGuire
The
Kyro 1/2 Drivers allow you to create separate profiles for
use with OpenGL/Direct3D Applications & Games (Many
already have Profiles set in the Drivers). This is extremely
useful as you may customize each of your games settings here
for performance, compatibility, visual quality or a
combination. This is the recommended way to customize
Driver settings rather than changing the Global
profile settings that will ignore the Custom
Profiles.
To
create a profile first select the 3D Optimisation
tab then the appropriate API tab, i.e. OpenGL
or Direct3D. Now
select the Right arrow
in the Profile
section & select New.
In
the Executable tab
point to the location of the Game/Applications exe file,
e.g. in the shot above that would be to where I have
Operation Flashpoint installed. Click Ok
once you have created a profile. Now using the Profile
drop-down menu you can select what profile to assign
settings to, with Global
applying to everything, while selecting Operation
Flashpoint, for example,
will only apply any changes to that Game alone.
In
conjunction with DXT1 texture compression the Kyro 1/2 uses
a fast Trilinear texture filtering mode (As compared to the
traditional mode of operation used when DXT1 is not in use).
In this mode the lower detail Mipmap is auto-generated from
the higher detail Mipmap, rather than getting the
samples needed for it from the actual lower detail Mipmap.
This reduces the need for the Kyro to access memory & as
such improves performance even further than using texture
compression alone does.
To
test this out I used PowerVR's Villagemark benchmark test.
Bilinear tests are included to give you a more complete
indication of how the fast mode Trilinear filter improves
performance.
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Texture
compression disabled
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Texture
compression enabled
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Resolution
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Bilinear
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Trilinear
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Bilinear
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Trilinear
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1024
x 768
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130
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69
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134
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132
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The
results need little explanation. With texture compression enabled
the frame rate has slightly more than doubled using
Trilinear texture filtering. While in the case of using
Bilinear filtering there is only a minor frame rate
improvement.
The screenshots beneath from Soldier Of Fortune illustrate
the difference in image quality between Bilinear &
Trilinear texture filtering.
Bilinear
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Trilinear
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As you can see, compared
to the Bilinear filtered image, Trilinear texture filtering
offers some greater texture detail in certain areas of the
image, as well as smoother Mipmap transitions.
In conclusion the one
recommendation I can strongly advise is to enable
texture compression in Games if supported (Or force
it via a Game profile) & similarly enable
Trilinear texture filtering for your Games also (Again, force
it via a Game profile if not an available choice in-game).
This will yield improved image quality in Games & much
improved performance. You should bear this information in
mind when setting the options for Game/Application Profiles.
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