[Article] NVIDIA Developer Toolkit @ GDC 2007

[Arun]

Coinciding with today's presentation of NVIDIA's new developer toolkit at GDC 2007, we've just published on article on just that subject! Tune in and find out what's new....

Thanks to the absolutely wonderful (read: not so practical) CMS we currently have at Beyond3D, we will have two discussion threads for this article. This one, and the one in the Beyond3D Articles comment section. Anyhow, here's an excerpt:

As any 3D application developer will be acutely aware, intimate knowledge of your target APIs and hardware will only take you so far down the development path. Hardware and software bugs and quirks will forever conspire against you, throwing mini spanners in any 3D works; APIs can get in the way with caps bit hell, poor documentation and lack of good examples to learn from (to name just a few hurdles there); and no developer is perfect, so mistakes are bound to be made at some point in the development process.

Therefore any 3D application developer should also be acutely aware that excellent developer tools are a key component in the dev process, helping you avoid the pitfalls and obstacles when developing anything that relies on 3D hardware acceleration on all manner of target platforms. Even the Sweeneys, Carmacks, McGraths and Wenzels of this world need a helping hand now and again. So who better to get that help from than an IHV's devrel and tools development groups, right?

 

[Arun]

Just thought I'd mention I locked this thread, so people can comment on it in the other thread if they want to.