Immediate Mode Rendering is not the most efficient type of rendering available, and you would think Video Card makers would migrate to a more efficient way of rendering in 3D. Well, for the most part they have not. Other modes of rendering have not received widespread support. One has gotten limited support though. It is called Tile-Based Rendering.

The KyroII Chipset has gained good support, thanks to the Video Card Giant Hercules' endorsement
© 2001 by www.hercules.com

Tile-Based rendering is quite a good technique for rendering 3D images faster. The makers of the Kyro2 GPU knew that more than 2/3 of everything that is rendered by standard IMR (Image Mode Rendering) Video Cards does not actually get used. They also knew that the whole 3D image had to be wire framed, just like it is in IMR, to keep the right perspective. Texturing wire frames which will not be used is where most of the performance gets lost, so they found a way to cut down on this factor to increase the efficiency tremendously.

How did they do it? Well, the standard IMR Video Card wire frames everything, and then textures everything. Finally, when it finishes texturing, it does a depth perspective test to figure out what is displayed, and what is not. The KyroII GPU does the same thing, except in a different order.

It first wire frames everything, just like IMR Video Cards. Next, instead of applying textures, it does the depth perspective test to figure out what will be displayed and what will not. Finally, it textures only the parts which will be displayed, saving time, and being more efficient. Tile-Based Rendering also reduces the problem with the memory speed bottleneck, allowing for faster innovation, and greater Video Card speeds.

As you can see from this illustration, to render the image on the top, much less work has to be done with Tile-Based rendering than Immediate Mode Rendering. Currently, Hercules is one of the only Video Card producers to use the KyroII GPU, but this will probably change, especially when the Kyro3 (a more advanced Tile-Based Rendering GPU) is released.