DegustatoR, please don't take up radar's sometime role in posting absurdity and then leaving in an imaginary huff. Your last post was nothing more than inane repetition of previously discredited intepretation, as has been pointed out repeatedly.
It's quite simple. The only DX9 nV hardware with which HL2 defaults to a DX8 path is the FX series. Engineers are probably not the most explicit communicators, thus Raja left out the qualifier, "Our [competing DX9] hardware is [...]." He's not a marketer, trained to form only complete, exquisitely quotable sentences.
It's painfully obvious that--in the context of the question, which refers ONLY to DX9 nV cards that HL2 runs in DX8 mode--Raja is referring to competing ATi cards, not ATi's complete line-up.
And your throwaway comment that ATi h/w doesn't run "all" DX9 shaders is a complete non-sequitur. Did Valve even put any shaders above PS2.0 in HL2? So what relevance does PS3 or DXInfinity-1 have to do with HL2?
People are calling you names b/c you refuse to act the part of a mature, thinking participant in this discussion, and instead obstinately stick to an obviously incorrect interpretation of Raja's answer. Not to mention that you throw around "fanb0y," which is another way of saying "moron, dumbass, and troll."
But feel free to run off. I'm done here, too.
