ATI Technologies RADEON X1650 - Manual (Page 67)

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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.