One of the two foci comprising ATI's next generation product will be their Charisma Engine - an advanced transformation, lighting, and clipping engine that ATI has boasted as the fastest that will be available on the market.
1. Transform, Clipping and Lighting (TCL)
Making a similar argument as NDIVIA, ATI is touting T&L as the answer to achieve higher poly models and environments. In the illustration below, we see the model on the left created using 900 polygons whereas the right-hand model sports 9,000.
Low vs. High Polygon
Utilizing ten times as many polygons, the model on the right appears much smoother with natural looking facial details. Instead of a series of lines and angles, the high-poly characters' hands and feet can be made to look more realistic.
According to ATI, their next generation part should increase polygon throughput by a factor of ten, raising the potential for developers to use more lifelike characters and complex shapes and curves in building architecture.
More than likely we'll see support for up to eight hardware lights per polygon in the Charisma Engine, matching the GeForce 256.
"The more hardware lights, the merrier. Greater than eight is indeed useful, because it enables us to break up geometry into larger chunks that are hit by more lights." - Tim Sweeny