The catch with 3Dc potentially gaining traction with ISVs even as a one-pony trick is that developers already working with normal maps can very easily take advantage of the feature, either through better performance (via compression) or more detailed maps.
3Dc
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Bjorn said:But they have other things on their agenda, like SM3.0 f.e, so i'm thinking that since Ati is pushing it, they won't bother that much.
That might turn out to be for NVs detriment. So far all I hear about is dev support for 3Dc. When suddenly ATi has vastly superior IQ over NV in reviews for little to no performance hit 3Dc might come off as less of a marketing gimmick and more of a serious feature resulting in higher sales of R420 based cards. If rumors are correct this compression technique must be relatively easy to implement because there are a number of titles coming out in the near future that will support 3Dc. 3Dc could be a major boon for ATi particularly if competitors have no dev support for DXT5.
Bjorn said:
Agreed. Personally, as a gamer I'd rather not see it as a proprietary feature in the market.
Bjorn said:
Ok then.. well if I were NV I certainly wouldn't want lower quality in terms of performance or IQ. But the argument is some is better then none. The thing is though more performance and IQ is always better. NV won't win anything by supporting a less efficient standard. But some is better then none...
Bjorn said:
I see vastly superior IQ in this comparison.
http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/r420_x800/images/ss2_3dc2.jpg
Sabastian said:
Yeah, but that's a comparison of compressed maps versus uncompressed, not a difference between 3Dc adn DXT5
Dio said:
Great then... The only thing that NV has to worry about now would be IQ and performance disparities then. 3Dc must be an advance of some sort else ATi would not bother. DXT5 must be comparable.. I can't really rationalize debating against the fallback it makes no sense. So what is the argument again? NV should adopt teh 3Dc speck? not if DXT5 is good enough.
Since it's only a minor tweak to DXT5, it would be easy for all IHVs to support it in their next designs. And until then, game developers could either implement a DXT5 fallback with a very small amount of work, or IHVs implement 3Dc emulation (via converting to DXT5/changing a swizzle) in their drivers.
Xmas said:
Since it's only a minor tweak to DXT5, who would the "royalties" for suppporting it under Open GL go to ?
(This has been discussed in another thread, Simon F thought that it would fall under the S3 patent (hope i remember that correctly because i can't find his post now, to much going on here at the moment
)Yep. That's my understanding. The easiest way to come up with a patent is to start with an existing patent and make some tweaks.DemoCoder said:I think you can patent an improvement on a technique and reference the old patent as "prior art" without having to get a license on the prior patent. In any case, MS could "license" 3Dc from S3
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