Truform
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Truform is a graphics texture technology created by ATI and employed in DirectX 8 and OpenGL, on both Mac and PC. The technology was first employed on the Radeon 8500. However, ATI was never able to find a way around conflicts between Truform and the new graphical effects (realtime shadows, DX9 shaders, OpenGL fragment programs, etc...) premiering in many games just a few months after its release, the much-hyped technology was only used in the few games that didn't support the conflicting features and ultimately fell by the wayside. Typically, curved 3D shapes in modern games are simulated by large numbers of triangles. The more triangles are used, the more detailed the surface appears. Truform creates a true curved surface using the existing triangles, and tessellates this surface to make a new, more detailed polygonal model. It is designed to increase visual quality, without significantly impacting frame rates.
