SwiftShader_Demo

############################################################################ TransGaming Technologies Inc. SwiftShader Demonstration October 18, 2005 SwiftShader is Copyright(c)2003-2005 TransGaming Technologies Inc. ############################################################################ Thank you for downloading TransGaming's demonstration release of SwiftShader, our high-speed pure-software 3D renderer. SwiftShader is a revolutionary software-only 3D renderer that supports DirectX 9 features including both Pixel and Vertex Shaders and can be more than 50 times faster than Microsoft's reference rasterizer. SwiftShader achieves this level of performance through the use of TransGaming's SwiftAsm runtime code generation system. SwiftAsm allows developers to easily and efficiently generate highly optimized code entirely at runtime. SwiftShader uses SwiftAsm to translate both shader-based and fixed function geometry and pixel pipeline operations into high-speed x86 SSE and MMX code, which is then cached for later reuse as needed. NOTE: Use of the SwiftShader Demonstration Release is subject to the enclosed SwiftShader License agreement which you must have agreed to before downloading this package. System requirements ------------------- * 700 MHz (or higher) x86 CPU with SSE extensions. Pentium-M CPU recommended. * Basic 2D video card - no 3D card necessary! * Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP OR * Linux system running TransGaming's Cedega * 256 MB RAM * 25 MB free hard disk space Installation ------------ TransGaming's SwiftShader 3D renderer is packaged into two DLL files: D3D8.DLL and D3D9.DLL These DLL files can be dropped into a directory containing an application that uses Direct3D, and SwiftShader will automatically be used in place of the built-in OS version of Direct3D. Note that some applications may load the D3D DLL directly from the Windows System32 directory. Such programs will not work directly with SwiftShader without modification. In addition to the DLL file, an optional configuration file can be used with SwiftShader. This file, SwiftShader.ini, should also be put in the same directory as the application. The comments in the SwiftShader.ini file provide basic documentation on the available options. The commercial version of SwiftShader includes an API for changing many of these settings at runtime. Sample Software --------------- This SwiftShader Demonstration release includes four pre-built sample programs, CubeMap, Spheremap, DolphinVS and EffectEdit. These samples are part of the standard Microsoft DirectX 8 and DirectX 9 SDKs. A final example, a demonstration version of Max Payne, Remedy Entertainment's popular 3rd person action game, can be downloaded separately from various web sites and used with the enclosed SwiftShader.ini configuration file. You may wish to try other software with SwiftShader, such as: Unreal Tournament 2004, Max Payne 2 (in low detail mode), and 3DMark2001 SE. The SwiftShader logo overlay cannot be removed in the Demonstration release. It is of course disabled in the commercial version. Max Payne --------- The Max Payne title makes a convincing case for the performance of SwiftShader. To run it with SwiftShader, simply install the game, and drop the D3D8.dll and SwiftShader.ini file into the target folder for the installed game. When starting Max Payne, select a 640x480 resolution, and medium graphics options from the options dialog accessible from the startup screen. The game is quite fast on Pentium M CPUs. For additional performance in the game, you can try both lowering the in-game detail settings, as well as editing the SwiftShader.ini file to set the TextureFilterQuality option to 'Point'. This forces the renderer to use point filtering instead of bilinear filtering when texturing. DolphinVS --------- The DolphinVS sample is a basic test of Direct3D vertex shaders. To try it, simply run the DolphinVS.exe file included in the directory. All required media files are included in the directory already, and SwiftShader is pre-installed. This version of DolphinVS is built against the Direct3D 8 API, so includes the D3D8.dll version of SwiftShader. The DolphinVS sample includes four vertex shader files with the .vsh extension. These files can be viewed and modified if desired, and are unmodified from the DirectX 8 SDK. To compare SwiftShader performance vs the Microsoft Reference Rasterizer, choose 'Change Device' from the file menu, and switch the Device from HAL to REF. SwiftShader's performance will be many times faster, regardless of the size of the window used. The smaller the window, the more time is be spent on geometry calculations instead of rasterization, so changing the window size can allow for a rough measure of rasterization vs geometry performance. Environment Mapping ------------------- The two samples involving environment mapping, the Direct3D 9 CubeMap and SphereMap samples, show the versatility of SwiftShader including its support for rendering to cubemaps. In the CubeMap sample, an airplane model is rendered to a cubic environment map, which is then used to render the reflection from a mirrored teapot. In the SphereMap sample, the same mirrored teapot is rendered, but with a static environment. The SphereMap sample uses a Vertex Shader to calculate the texture coordinates and other geometry required to render the teapot. EffectEdit ---------- The EffectEdit sample is a generic editor for Direct3D 'effects' files. These files consist of high level shader based descriptions of how to display a given effect. A number of sample effects are included in the EffectEdit directory, as well as a number of .x geometry description files which can be used within the effect file to specify a sample object to apply the effect to. The available .fx files can be opened directly within EffectEdit through the File..Open menu command. The EffectEdit sample allows you to explore the performance of any supported vertex or pixel shader operation within SwiftShader. If a shader operation is not supported by SwiftShader, it may cause the demo to crash. Please see the Functionality and Limitations section below to learn about the shader operations currently supported by SwiftShader. Functionality and Limitations ----------------------------- SwiftShader includes support for all Vertex Shader 1.1 operations and the Vertex Shader 2.0 arithmetic operations: abs, crs, lrp, mova, nrm, pow and sgn Using other Vertex Shader 2.0 operations may cause a crash. SwiftShader includes support for most Pixel Shader 1.4 operations, with the exception of the following: texdp3 (PS 1.2) texm3x3 (PS 1.2) texm3x2depth (PS 1.3) bem (PS 1.4) texdepth (PS 1.4) Using these Pixel Shader operations, or Pixel Shader 2.0 operations may cause a crash. Future SwiftShader releases will support the full spectrum of Shader Model 2.0 instructions. SwiftShader does not currently support stencil buffers. They will be available in upcoming releases. My application doesn�t work with SwiftShader installed. Why not? ----------------------------------------------------------------- There are a number of possible reasons for this. If your application explicitly loads the D3D DLL from the system32 directory, it will not load SwiftShader in place of the standard D3D DLL until you explicitly change the call used to load the D3D DLL. It is also possible that your application uses a feature that SwiftShader does not support at this time. SwiftShader will throw an internal C++ exception when a feature is not supported, which is then caught