Volumetrics - fast real-time volume rendering

[sinbad]

Great work!

Yes, I like the depth map version best, and it's best to look at the upper smoke particle to get a view to how it might look in a real app, like this:


As you can see, the frame rate on my 9800 is pretty good

[jacmoe]

Yes, I like the depth map version best, and it's best to look at the upper smoke particle to get a view to how it might look in a real app, like this:

Yummy! Looks fabulous.

[metaldev]

wow, i have never seen any technique like this. very impressive.

[iloseall]

I should try use your methods in my project.
Thanks for share.

[tdev]

nice demonstration
my results with nvidia 9600GT mobile:


22:04:55:
BENCHMARK
System information:
Allow NVPerfHUD: No
Anti aliasing: None
Floating-point mode: Fastest
Full Screen: Yes
Rendering Device: %NVIDIA_G84.DEV_0407.3%
VSync: No
Video Mode: 1024 x 768 @ 32-bit colour
Results:
Different materials Planar unshaded particle without texture 1 3735
Different materials Planar mesh with 5 slices without texture 1 2737
Different materials Planar mesh with 9 slices without texture 1 2165
Different materials Planar mesh with 19 slices without texture 1 1213
Different materials Planar mesh with 39 slices without texture 1 726
Different materials Planar mesh with 79 slices without texture 1 412
Different materials Planar mesh with 5 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered) 1 1812
Different materials Planar mesh with 9 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered) 1 1537
Different materials Planar mesh with 19 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered) 1 981
Different materials Planar mesh with 39 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered) 1 633
Different materials Planar mesh with 79 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered) 1 379
Different materials Unshaded constant volume without texture 1 1876
Different materials Unshaded lineair volume without texture 1 1810
Different materials Unshaded spherical volume without texture 1 1626
Different materials Unshaded depth map volume without texture 1 1856
Different materials Shaded spherical volume without texture 1 1325
Different materials Planar unshaded particle with texture 1 3338
Different materials Planar mesh with 5 slices with texture 1 2403
Different materials Planar mesh with 9 slices with texture 1 1812
Different materials Planar mesh with 19 slices with texture 1 1035
Different materials Planar mesh with 39 slices with texture 1 604
Different materials Planar mesh with 79 slices with texture 1 337
Different materials Planar mesh with 5 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered) 1 1656
Different materials Planar mesh with 9 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered) 1 1343
Different materials Planar mesh with 19 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered) 1 858
Different materials Planar mesh with 39 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered) 1 538
Different materials Planar mesh with 79 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered) 1 314
Different materials Planar mesh with 5 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer 1 1073
Different materials Planar mesh with 9 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer 1 848
Different materials Planar mesh with 19 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer 1 525
Different materials Planar mesh with 39 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer 1 317
Different materials Planar mesh with 79 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer 1 175
Different materials Unshaded constant volume with texture 1 1863
Different materials Unshaded lineair volume with texture 1 1806
Different materials Unshaded spherical volume with texture 1 1627
Different materials Unshaded depth map volume with texture 1 1837
Different materials Shaded spherical volume with texture 1 1300
Finished benchmarking!

[kajjjak]

Realy cool effect. I was wondering how to create effects like this. Nice work.

[Oogst]

I finally did some final tweaking and have my little program ready to do benchmarking! So what I would like to request is that some people run my little benchmark and send me the results. I hope some of you have time for this! It takes about ten minutes and runs automatically, just press F5 in the program. There is a file Explanation.txt that explains exactly what to do, please have a look at it before running for the right settings! Here is the executable (plus the source for who is interested):

Volumetrics v07 benchmark.zip

Edit: please run these tests at the heighest resolution your monitor supports, not necessarily at 1024*768. On newer computers, framerates tend to be too high to measure otherwise.

[xadhoom]

Very cool project. Can you please post a link here to your thesis after you finished it?

http://www.mediafire.com/file/1n2jdm4zdod/benchmark.ip

xad

[jimanjr]

I love those particles O.O

I guess you need benchmark results from lower end systems, but here you go anyway.

[stealth977]

My Test Results:

Code: Select all

13:17:26: 
BENCHMARK Volumetrics v7
System information:
  Allow NVPerfHUD: No
  Anti aliasing: None
  Floating-point mode: Fastest
  Full Screen: Yes
  Rendering Device: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470
  VSync: No
  Video Mode: 800 x 600 @ 32-bit colour
Results:
  Different materials	Planar unshaded particle without texture	1	2490
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 5 slices without texture	1	1710
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 9 slices without texture	1	1343
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 19 slices without texture	1	931
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 39 slices without texture	1	587
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 79 slices without texture	1	320
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 5 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	909
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 9 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	796
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 19 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	631
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 39 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	449
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 79 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	274
  Different materials	Unshaded constant volume without texture	1	932
  Different materials	Unshaded lineair volume without texture	1	926
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume without texture, logarithmic density (default)	1	847
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume without texture, lineair density	1	852
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume without texture, square root density	1	820
  Different materials	Unshaded depth map volume without texture	1	907
  Different materials	Shaded spherical volume without texture	1	767
  Different materials	Planar unshaded particle with texture	1	2135
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 5 slices with texture	1	1463
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 9 slices with texture	1	1072
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 19 slices with texture	1	691
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 39 slices with texture	1	405
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 79 slices with texture	1	223
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 5 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	834
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 9 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	689
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 19 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	509
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 39 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	333
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 79 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	200
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 5 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer	1	611
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 9 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer	1	481
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 19 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer	1	332
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 39 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer	1	205
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 79 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer	1	115
  Different materials	Unshaded constant volume with texture	1	898
  Different materials	Unshaded lineair volume with texture	1	890
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume with texture, logarithmic density (default)	1	831
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume with texture, lineair density	1	835
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume with texture, square root density	1	792
  Different materials	Unshaded depth map volume with texture	1	906
  Different materials	Shaded spherical volume with texture	1	756
  Finished benchmarking!

ismail,

[xadhoom]

@jimanjr: your spec file is missing
@Stealth799: it seams you did not set the correct resolution (1024x768) and missed the other files as mentioned in the readme...

xad

[Oogst]

Wow, those are some really quick reactions, nice!

I am not really looking for specifically low end or high end systems, just variation (old/new, mobile/normal, Ati/Nvidia).

I do note that framerates are extremely high on new computers and that such high framerates are actually less correct, since GPUs are not always optimal at such framerates. I see that in these scores: for the first four tests, my 6600GT gets these scores (divide by 5 to get the framerate): 3573, 2324, 1691, 1066. However, xadhoom's scores are so high, that they are all capped by the GPU: 7233 7111 7135 7328. Maybe I should ask people to run on the heighest resolution their monitor supports? That seems a better idea.

That makes it unnecessary to use specific resolutions, so then stealth977's results are useable as they were posted.

@jimanjr/stealth977: Since the spec files are missing: could you both give me these details on your computer?
-RAM
-video RAM
-processor type and speed
-Operating system (XP/Vista/something else)

... Can you please post a link here to your thesis after you finished it? ...

Sure! It is almost done actually, should be ready in a month or something like that. (Almost done? A month? Yes, I do my thesis in my spare time next to a full-time job, so it goes really slow...)

[stealth977]

My laptop:
Processor: Core2Duo P8600 2.4GHZ
RAM 3GB 800 Mhz
VRAM: 256 MB
OS: Vista

ismail,

[reptor]

Here, the benchmark logs and spec file from me.

There are some errors in the Ogre.log.

If the errors are a problem, you can ask me to run it again, if you think you know what the problem is.

[Oogst]

Wow, errors, I forgot to check for that! I did a little check and it turns out that the problematic material is not being used and should already have been removed, so it is no problem.

[reptor]

OK, great it's not a problem.

[jimanjr]

Oh, sorry about that. The specs are in my sig:

ATi HD4870x2, Q9550 @ 3.7GHz, 4GB 870MHz, Vista Business 64-bit
MSI X48C Platinum, Antec 900, Corsair HX1000, Scythe Mugen
BenQ 2200HD 22" 1920x1080 + Lenovo L171 17" 1280x1024
Razer DeathAdder, Razer eXactMat, Logitech G15

I could run the test in 1920x1080 and AAx8 if it helps.

I'm really interested in how fast those techniques are. I might have a few uses for them

Edit: The specs.txt won't change no matter what. I still see what I guess is your laptop

Edit2: I added a new log. I saved the specs.txt manually. And I see the CPU speed is wrong, so there's the CPU-Z screenie. This test was run with 1920x1080 resolution, AA set to "Level 8", and I enabled 16x anisotropic filtering and supersampling (adaptive anti-aliasing) from the Catalyst Control Center. I managed to lower the framerate

[Oogst]

For everyone who ran the tests so far: thank you very much! I will run a few more tests on the computers at work to get a more complete set of results, and then I will post the results early next week. In the meanwhile: anyone who is still willing to run the tests is more than welcome! I have the results for 8 different configurations now and tests at work will add two more to that, bringing the total so far to ten.

[Nargil]

Code: Select all

23:18:55: 
BENCHMARK Volumetrics v7
System information:
  Allow NVPerfHUD: No
  Anti aliasing: None
  Floating-point mode: Fastest
  Full Screen: Yes
  Rendering Device: NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M (Prerelease - WDDM 1.1)
  VSync: No
  Video Mode: 1024 x 768 @ 32-bit colour
Results:
  Different materials	Planar unshaded particle without texture	1	3114
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 5 slices without texture	1	2008
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 9 slices without texture	1	1532
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 19 slices without texture	1	1012
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 39 slices without texture	1	604
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 79 slices without texture	1	335
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 5 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	1592
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 9 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	1269
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 19 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	883
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 39 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	554
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 79 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	319
  Different materials	Unshaded constant volume without texture	1	1929
  Different materials	Unshaded lineair volume without texture	1	1899
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume without texture, logarithmic density (default)	1	1804
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume without texture, lineair density	1	1812
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume without texture, square root density	1	1784
  Different materials	Unshaded depth map volume without texture	1	1943
  Different materials	Shaded spherical volume without texture	1	1592
  Different materials	Planar unshaded particle with texture	1	2951
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 5 slices with texture	1	2065
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 9 slices with texture	1	1615
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 19 slices with texture	1	1097
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 39 slices with texture	1	681
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 79 slices with texture	1	395
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 5 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	1617
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 9 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	1326
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 19 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	956
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 39 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	621
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 79 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	372
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 5 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer	1	1466
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 9 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer	1	1199
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 19 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer	1	854
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 39 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer	1	551
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 79 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer	1	324
  Different materials	Unshaded constant volume with texture	1	1930
  Different materials	Unshaded lineair volume with texture	1	1887
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume with texture, logarithmic density (default)	1	1794
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume with texture, lineair density	1	1807
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume with texture, square root density	1	1749
  Different materials	Unshaded depth map volume with texture	1	1937
  Different materials	Shaded spherical volume with texture	1	1576
  Finished benchmarking!

Win 7 beta. Rest of hw specs in my sig. Nothing overclocked. Mem is 667 5-5-5-15 ... sadly

[jorrit5477]

Here another two benchmarks, one on my regular machine, one on a laptop. The laptop was interesting, it didn't show any textures and couldn't complete all tests (it hung). Looked good on the regular machine though!

[Oogst]

Cool, thanks a lot!

@Nargil: How much video memory does your GPU have?

@jorrit5477: I am surprised the laptop crashed, since its GPU seems to be more than capable of running these tests. The crash was probably caused by my code trying to assign variables to a shader that failed to load. Ogre.log mentions a shader not being supported, but I do not see why. However, since all the other tests ran fine so far, I am not going to try to fix it.

[Nargil]

256 mb, but I think i have to rerun the test. I had AF 16x and AA 2xMS set in the driver.

here are the resoults without

Code: Select all

12:52:44: 
BENCHMARK Volumetrics v7
System information:
  Allow NVPerfHUD: No
  Anti aliasing: None
  Floating-point mode: Fastest
  Full Screen: Yes
  Rendering Device: NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M (Prerelease - WDDM 1.1)
  VSync: No
  Video Mode: 1024 x 768 @ 32-bit colour
Results:
  Different materials	Planar unshaded particle without texture	1	6439
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 5 slices without texture	1	4220
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 9 slices without texture	1	3104
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 19 slices without texture	1	2039
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 39 slices without texture	1	1217
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 79 slices without texture	1	681
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 5 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	2620
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 9 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	2145
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 19 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	1573
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 39 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	1032
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 79 slices without texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	617
  Different materials	Unshaded constant volume without texture	1	2882
  Different materials	Unshaded lineair volume without texture	1	2793
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume without texture, logarithmic density (default)	1	2519
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume without texture, lineair density	1	2545
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume without texture, square root density	1	2487
  Different materials	Unshaded depth map volume without texture	1	2801
  Different materials	Shaded spherical volume without texture	1	2129
  Different materials	Planar unshaded particle with texture	1	6028
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 5 slices with texture	1	3962
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 9 slices with texture	1	2921
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 19 slices with texture	1	1890
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 39 slices with texture	1	1126
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 79 slices with texture	1	633
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 5 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	2522
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 9 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	2051
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 19 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	1484
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 39 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	959
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 79 slices with texture (depth texture still rendered)	1	575
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 5 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer	1	1942
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 9 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer	1	1509
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 19 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer	1	1009
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 39 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer	1	617
  Different materials	Planar mesh with 79 slices with texture, rendered to floating buffer	1	348
  Different materials	Unshaded constant volume with texture	1	2821
  Different materials	Unshaded lineair volume with texture	1	2743
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume with texture, logarithmic density (default)	1	2536
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume with texture, lineair density	1	2570
  Different materials	Unshaded spherical volume with texture, square root density	1	2456
  Different materials	Unshaded depth map volume with texture	1	2822
  Different materials	Shaded spherical volume with texture	1	2133
  Finished benchmarking!

are this good resoults ?

[Oogst]

Funny how that change in settings affects certain tests and others not. The basis scene without effects is rendered twice as fast without the fsaa and aniso, but the heaviest test achieves approximately the same framerate. Makes sense, though: that test is very heavy on floating point pixel blending, but not on anti-aliasing and aniso has no effect there, since the polies are oriented towards the camera.

[Oogst]

Okay, I compiled all the test results into a single file. I removed the names to make it anonymous, but you can find your own PC by looking at the specs. Note that comparisons between computers are not always possible, since the resolutions differ. After all, this test was not done to compare computers, but to compare the performance of different tests on a single computer, and check whether these comparisons result in the same conclusions on different computers. Anyway:

Test results.ods (for Open Office, which I use)
Test results.xls (export to Excel)

[Nargil]

Thanks. Now I see there must be something wrong in my system I should get results compared to the 9650gt card, instead of 8600m gt ;/ Probably fault of the old forceware. I have to use quadro drivers which aren't update as often as geforce drivers ;/

Edit. Oh actually I do get results compared to 9650 gt You put there my results with AA 2xMS and AFx16