| JaggedSac said: Can we get a link to the article about the 360 having a hard time rendering to multiple targets? Any post processing using pixel shaders is rendering to different targets. |
http://blogs.msdn.com/shawnhar/archive/2007/11/21/rendertarget-changes-in-xna-game-studio-2-0.aspx
It's actually the eDRAM of the GPU that's the issue. It gets clobbered every time the rendertarget is switched. Multiple targets is possible on the X360, but it doesn't look like its decently fast, due to this issue. Lots of memory copying to support the feature, it seems.
Shawn Hargreaves, the MS engineer whose MSDN blog this is says it clearly enough: "Deferred rendering is actually quite an awkward fit for the 360, because of the limited size but very fast EDRAM hardware design. The technique as a whole may work ok, but I think that light volumes idea is probably more work than it is worth."
Deferred Rendering is great for fancy lighting, and some fancy lighting/shading techniques, when it comes to speed. The X360's flexible GPU allows it to largely get around this issue, if the game is engineered well, I imagine, but it may not look quite as good as an engine using deferred rendering -- depends on how much of a graphics fanatic you are, I suppose. Game reviewers go crazy for it, but the general public may only be able to tell the difference in a subtle "I dunno, it just looks better" kinda way.
