1. Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Real-life Case Studies in Optimizing Games for Intel® GMA Graphics Larry Wickstrom Content: Adam Lake, Cody Northrop

2. - 2 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Topics  Intro to Intel® GMA 950  Developer highlights from 04/05  Things to catch before release  Contacting Intel  Call to Action

3. - 3 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Recent Intel Graphics  Intel Extreme Graphics –2000: 815G –2002: 845G –2003: 865G  Intel Graphics Media Accelerator –2004: 915G  GMA900 –2005: 945G  GMA950

4. - 4 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Intel® GMA 950 vs. Intel® GMA 900  Improved Graphics Core –Increased core clock speed – –333 MHz vs. 400 MHz (1.6 GP/s)  Improved Platform –Support Dual Core CPU –Up to 2x faster vertex processing performance  Improved Graphics Bandwidth –Faster memory support via DDR2-667 –From 8.5GB/s to 10.6 GB/s * Other brands and names may be claimed as the property of others

5. - 5 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved.  Intel® GMA 900 graphics provides excellent 3D performance compared to ATI* 9200SE 64MB AGP card  Intel GMA 900 graphics provides 3D performance comparable to Nvidia* 5200FX 128MB AGP card with 256MB system memory  Lower potential system cost with Intel graphics  Intel GMA 900 graphics performance scales with memory size and type to meet various price/performance targets Intel® GMA 900 platform: Shuttle XPC81P, Intel® Pentium® 4 processor 520 (3.0 GHz), Intel® 915G Express Chipset, 2 DDR400 Memory sticks ATI 9200SE platform: Shuttle XB61, Intel® Pentium® 4 processor with HT Technology 3.0 GHz, Intel® 865G Express Chipset, 2 DDR400 Memory sticks ** Platform material differences contribute to the results described here – see configuration details below 3DMark03 Benchmark Intel ® GMA 900 compared to discrete entry level solutions Configurations and Disclaimers Source: Intel. Configuration: Intel ® 915G Express Chipset Platform – Intel ® 915G Express Chipset Board Shuttle SB81, DDR400 CL3-3-3, Integrated Graphics with Intel ® Graphics Media Accelerator 900, Intel ® 915G Express Integrated Graphics driver 6.14.10. 3865, Intel ® Chipset Software Installation Utility 6.0.1.1002; Intel ® Pentium ® 4 Processor with HT Technology 3E GHz, Maxtor* Maxline III 250GB SATA150 Hard Drive – BANC16HO, DirectX* 9.0b, Windows* XP Build 2600 SP2 ATI* 9200SE Platform/Nvidia 5200FX Platform – Intel ® 865G Chipset Board, Shuttle SB81, DDR400 CL3-3-3, ATI 9200SE 64MB AGP adapter or Nvidia 5200FX 128MB AGP card, ATI Catalyst 3.6 driver or Nvidia 6.14.10.6177 driver; Intel ® Pentium ® 4 Processor with HT Technology 3E GHz, Maxtor* Maxline III 250GB SATA150 Hard Drive – BANC16HO, DirectX* 9.0b, Windows* XP Build 2600 SP2 Performance tests and ratings are measured using specific computer systems and/or components and reflect the approximate performance of Intel products as measured by those tests. Any difference in system hardware or software design or configuration may affect actual performance. Intel Confidential 256MB DDR400 System Memory 512MB DDR400 System Memory 256MB DDR400 512MB DDR400 512MB DDR2 533 512MB DDR2 533 System Memory

6. - 6 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Intel Graphics Specification Comparison Intel ® Extreme Graphics Intel ® GMA 900 Intel ® GMA 950* Platform Intel ® 865G Chipset Intel ® 915G Express Chipset Intel ® 945G Express Chipset DirectX* Hardware DirectX* 7.1 DirectX 9 Vertex Shader 3.0 Pixel Shader 2.0 DirectX 9 Vertex Shader 3.0 Pixel Shader 2.0 OpenGL* Version Support 1.3 1.31.4 1.4 with vertex buffer and EXT_Shadow extensions Pixel Rate 266 MP/s 1.3 GP/s 1.6 GP/s Core Clock 300 MHz 333 MHz 400 MHz Pixel Pipes 144 Display Support (through SDVO devices) Single (dual clone only) Dual Independent Max Dynamic Video Memory 96MB 224MB 1 Max Fixed Video Memory 16MB 128MB 1 Max Memory Bandwidth 6.4 GB/s 8.5 GB/s 10.6 GB/s Max Resolution QXGA 60Hz (2048x1536) QXGA 75Hz (2048x1536) 1 128MB fixed and 224MB dynamic of video memory only on systems with at least 512MB of system memory *Features subject to change prior to product release

7. - 7 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Next Generation of Graphics Performance Intel ® 945G Express Chipset  3DMark03* performance increases by 20%  PCMark*04 Graphics performance increases 21%  Intel ® 915G Express chipset vs. upcoming Intel ® 945G Express Chipset Configurations and Disclaimers Source: Intel. Configuration: Intel ® Pentium ® 4 processor 550 with HT Technology on Intel ® 915G Chipset Platform – Intel ® D915GUX Desktop Board, 1GB DDR2-533 at CL4-4-4-12, Integrated graphics with Intel ® GMA 900, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver v6.14.10. 3961, DVMT set to 128MB, Seagate* 160GB ST3160023AS Serial ATA Hard Drive, Intel ® Chipset Software Installation Utility 7.0.0.1006; Intel ® 945G Chipset Platform – pre-production 945G chipset reference design, 1GB DDR2-533 at CL4-4-4-12, Integrated graphics with Intel® GMA 950, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver v6.14.10. 3961, DVMT set to 128MB, Seagate* 160GB ST3160023AS Serial ATA Hard Drive, Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility 7.0.0.1006 All Platforms – DirectX* 9.0c, Windows* XP Build 2600 SP2. Performance tests and ratings are measured using specific computer systems and/or components and reflect the approximate performance of Intel products as measured by those tests. Any difference in system hardware or software design or configuration may affect actual performance. Intel® 945G Express Chipset brings outstanding graphics performance to the desktop PC* 1.00 Performance normalized to Intel® 915G Express Chipset 20% 21% * As measured by the benchmarks shown

8. - 8 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Intel GMA 950 Advances Integrated 3D Performance 3DMark05*  3DMark05* –Full DirectX* 9 support vertex and pixel processing shader models –Implements a new rendering engine  GMA 950 graphics provides better 3D responsiveness as measured by 3DMark05* –Faster Pixel/Texel Rates and Pixel Shader throughput –Faster memory support & FSB All performance data taken on Intel ® Pentium® 4 processor 550 supporting HT Technology Configurations and Disclaimers Intel® 945G Express Chipset provides satisfying visual quality and responsive 3D performance 1.00 2.01 2X 3DMark05* Performance normalized to Intel® 915G Express Chipset Source: Intel. Configuration: Intel ® Pentium ® 4 processor 550 with HT Technology on Intel ® 915G Chipset Platform – Intel ® D915GUX Desktop Board, 1GB DDR2-533 at CL4-4-4-12, Integrated graphics with Intel ® GMA 900, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver v6.14.10. 3961, DVMT set to 128MB, Seagate* 160GB ST3160023AS Serial ATA Hard Drive, Intel ® Chipset Software Installation Utility 7.0.0.1006; Intel ® 945G Chipset Platform – pre-production 945G chipset reference design, 1GB DDR2-533 at CL4-4-4-12, Integrated graphics with Intel® GMA 950, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver v6.14.10. 3961, DVMT set to 128MB, Seagate* 160GB ST3160023AS Serial ATA Hard Drive, Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility 7.0.0.1006 All Platforms – DirectX* 9.0c, Windows* XP Build 2600 SP2. Performance tests and ratings are measured using specific computer systems and/or components and reflect the approximate performance of Intel products as measured by those tests. Any difference in system hardware or software design or configuration may affect actual performance.

9. - 9 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Did you know? “For the past two years the market has been defined by the growth of integrated chip sets, which in 2004 became the majority graphics solution in both desktop and portable systems...with Intel estimated to have captured 70% of the segment.” Source: Mercury Research “PC Graphics 2005 4Q2004” Intel major supplier of desktop graphics * Other brands and names may be claimed as the property of others **Features subject to change prior to product release

10. - 10 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. 04/05 Developer Case Studies

11. - 11 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Relic - Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War* * Other brands and names may be claimed as the property of others **Features subject to change prior to product release

12. - 12 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Relic - Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War*  Visual problem occurred between last beta drop and release  Only seen when rotated camera could see into distance  Occurred on any software device * Other brands and names may be claimed as the property of others **Features subject to change prior to product release

13. - 13 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Software device (BEFORE) * Other brands and names may be claimed as the property of others **Features subject to change prior to product release

14. - 14 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. The Issue  Software vertex pipeline was not obeying the disabling of texture transforms for a texture stage. –PSGP issue  Texture was still being transformed and was using an un-initialized matrix.

15. - 15 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Fix  Workaround avoids the transform disable problem by never disabling  Instead, transform with the identity matrix  Texture coordinates remain unchanged  Future PSGP update to resolve this issue

16. - 16 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Software Device (AFTER) * Other brands and names may be claimed as the property of others **Features subject to change prior to product release

17. - 17 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Software/Hardware Results Can Differ  Forcing software rendering during development can expose problems  GMA950 will experience same issues, primarily due to use of PSGP  Rare, but should always be verified  For More info, read Integrated Graphics Developer’s Guide: –http://www.intel.com/cd/ids/developer /asmo-na/eng/168495.htm

18. - 18 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Ubisoft – Prince of Persia Warrior Within* * Other brands and names may be claimed as the property of others **Features subject to change prior to product release

19. - 19 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved.  Performance was very low at early engagement (Meltdown ~7FPS)  Changed DVMT settings in BIOS –DVMT (Dynamic Video Memory Technology) was initially set to 64MB –Changed to 128 and framerate increase 25% (15fps → 20fps)  Scaled effects appropriately  Result: >30FPS at 1024x768  Side-note – Driver fix for glow effect * Other brands and names may be claimed as the property of others **Features subject to change prior to product release Ubisoft – Prince of Persia Warrior Within*

20. - 20 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Demo!  Prince of Persia Warrior Within on Intel GMA 900 series

21. - 21 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Valve – Half Life 2* * Other brands and names may be claimed as the property of others **Features subject to change prior to product release

22. - 22 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Valve – Half Life 2*  Issues we ran into: –Software device with hardware vertex buffers –Large vertex buffers with lots of untransformed polygons –Lack of support for DX9 queries * Other brands and names may be claimed as the property of others **Features subject to change prior to product release

23. - 23 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Sparse Vertex Buffers  The software pipe processes the entire vertex buffer range in the call to DP/DIP –Unlike hardware which process on demand –Try to minimize # of holes within the VB  …  v0v96 vertex buffer Software pipe processes all vertices in VB range  …  v0v96 vertex buffer Most hardware processes vertices on demand

24. - 24 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. DX9 Queries  Optional in DX9  Compute Intensive: –would require regenerating TNL of scene –our tiled architecture does not keep this information around  Had to disable usage of this query

25. - 25 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Resolution  SSG Engineers from Intel on-site to assist in investigation, root cause, and resolution of issues  HL2 now runs well on GMA 900 series hardware

26. - 26 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Other titles running on IIG  Complete list available at: http:// support.intel.co m/support/graphics/sb/ CS-012643.htm http:// support.intel.co m/support/graphics/sb/ CS-012643.htm http:// support.intel.co m/support/graphics/sb/ CS-012643.htm  Google: Intel Game Compatibility List 945G

27. - 27 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Correctness Tips  The next few slides are tips that encapsulate the majority of issues developers run into. They are in no particular order, but we run into them all the time.

28. - 28 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Retrieving correct caps  Don’t check caps before device has been created   IDirect3D9 vs. IDirect3DDevice9 CapabilityIDirect3D9::GetDeviceCaps()IDirect3DDevice9::GetDeviceCaps() MaxActiveLights00xffffffff MaxUserClipPlanes06 MaxVertexBlendMatrices04 MaxStreams116 VertexShaderVersion0.03.0

29. - 29 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Z-Fighting on Intel® GMA  GMA series supports 16-bit Z-bias, but emulates 32-bit in software  Alternative solutions –Increase DirectX* 9 Depth Bias –Loading a new projection matrix –Loading a new viewport –For example code: –http://www.intel.com/cd/ids/developer/asmo-na/eng/168495.htm * Other brands and names may be claimed as the property of others **Features subject to change prior to product release

30. - 30 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Floating Point Textures  No support for floating point textures or render targets in GMA –Don’t require your apps to have float tex support just yet  Alternative: –Emulate using integer formats and convert in shaders –See HDRFormats in DX9 SDK for example using RGBE (8 bits per color channel, 8 bits for shared exponent) –High Dynamic Range Environment Mapping On Mainstream Graphics Hardware http://www.gamedev.net/columns/hardcore/hdrenvmap/

31. - 31 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Shader Compatibility  GMA 900/950 supports –Up to VS 3.0 and PS 2.0  Specific third party extensions in baseline will limit audience  Have a backup method for effects that will run on mainstream device

32. - 32 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Easy development steps  Force software T&L during development –Excellent method for catching problems that will occur on integrated graphics –Can be done with third party tools, or through flags on device creation  Specific configuration for Intel® GMA –VS 3.0/2.0 + PS 2.0 path, lower poly count  Engage early with Intel...

33. - 33 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Early Intel Engagement  Systems are available for development through Intel® Early Access Program http://www.intel.com/IDS/EAP  We’re here to help work through issues  Driver bugs can be identified early –And fixed!

34. - 34 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Call To Action  Include Intel Graphics in your QA pipe  Consider software rendering when finalizing your game  If you see any problems, let us know  If don’t have a system, contact us!

35. - 35 - Copyright © 2005 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Questions? cody.l.northrop@intel.comadam.t.lake@intel.com Intel Graphics –intelgraphics@intel.com Intel Developer Services –http://developer.intel.com/graphics