ATI's "Fudo" to have Shader 3.0

[russo121]

According to theinquierer http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18086.

"...One more thing, the R520 will be developed by the R300 team – I cannot remember whether that is the East or West Coast team. You know what? Those guys made graphic turn over for ATI in summer two years ago. We don't know quite what to expect but it's full of Eastern, or Western promise. µ..."

What can we conclude about this last statement? Guess

 

[Xmas]

The six months comment doesn't quite fit.

Very wild guess: GDC.

 

[russo121]

With this info I have a feeling it will be just another speed bump. Thé real inovations will come with longhorn IMO.

 

[hstewarth]

This sounds like to me that 3.0 has got ATI worry that they could be possible left out of something. IE we (as ATI) are going to support 3.0 in 6 months.

I think the fact that NVidia's low end 6600's support 3.0 shaders have got ATI worry.

I would be more curious when dual PCI-e 16's are going be supported for Intel Based cpus.. I currently have 6800GT on 3.2Ghz P4 and my next upgrade I desired dual Xeon's with SLI on Video cpus.

 

[Vortigern_red]

I think we can guess that Fudos "insider" is none other than DaveB on these very boards. LOL.

Thats what my first thought was anyway. Of course somebody else could have also mentioned that in the last couple of days.

 

[whql]

This sounds like to me that 3.0 has got ATI worry that they could be possible left out of something. IE we (as ATI) are going to support 3.0 in 6 months.

I think the fact that NVidia's low end 6600's support 3.0 shaders have got ATI worry.

Sounds to me like they have a roadmap and they are following that roadmap. These things take 2 years or more to develop.

 

[IbaneZ]

SM3.0 is crap ain't it?

I believe i've read that somewhere..

 

[WaltC]

Amazing. Six paragraphs, no information whatever... "Fudo" indeed, heh... I thought that "Fudo" was the Inquirer's previous pseudonym for the person now using the "R520" pseudonym.

 

[hstewarth]

This sounds like to me that 3.0 has got ATI worry that they could be possible left out of something. IE we (as ATI) are going to support 3.0 in 6 months.

I think the fact that NVidia's low end 6600's support 3.0 shaders have got ATI worry.

Sounds to me like they have a roadmap and they are following that roadmap. These things take 2 years or more to develop.

A road map that NVidia has already done with 6 series.. It would be interesting also to find out what the NV50 series will be since 3.0 support is already here. My guess is that NVidia will make it even better with concentration on SLI techniques. Maybe even dual GPU's on the same video card.

I am happy with my choice of cards, it is first series of cards to support the full DX9 specification. ( as far as my understanding ). It supports 3.0 and 2.0 shaders which I believe that all in the specs. I don't believe that extensions are actually part of the spec.

Is there any thing in 3.0 spec that the 6800 series does not support? If so I believe that will be next. Not stuff added in in 2.0b stuff which is not part of 3.0.

I also think that that ATI will state that there cards supports 3.0A or something like because they want them to be different that 3.0 that NVidia uses..

 

[Pete]

I think we can guess that Fudos "insider" is none other than DaveB on these very boards. LOL.

Thats what my first thought was anyway. Of course somebody else could have also mentioned that in the last couple of days.

My thoughts exactly, but Fudo doesn't even bother to read Dave's Orton interview and the subsequent posts to figure out which team is which.

 

[Trawler]

I'm hoping both IHV's target vastly improved AA algos. Nvidia can't claim they had other features to work on for nv50.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Is there any thing in 3.0 spec that the 6800 series does not support? If so I believe that will be next. Not stuff added in in 2.0b stuff which is not part of 3.0.

I also think that that ATI will state that there cards supports 3.0A or something like because they want them to be different that 3.0 that NVidia uses..

Dear god, where are we digging these people up from these days?

If it support PS3.0 then it'll be called PS3.0 - if it support something more than PS3.0 and Microsoft makes a different profile (which I doubt they will) then it'll support what MS calls that profile. If it support more than PS3.0 and MS doesn't create a profile then it will still be called SM3.0.

 

[Ailuros]

Is there any thing in 3.0 spec that the 6800 series does not support? If so I believe that will be next.

Yep higher efficiency or performance if you prefer. Or do you really think that current SM3.0 hardware has outsourced every inch of improvements that can be made on such architectures?

If anything irrelevant to which degree at each side (and to the Shader Model supported), both ATI and NVIDIA´s current generation sollutions have increased in arithmetic efficiency compared to the former generation.

 

[cho]

maybe there are two new 3.x shader model will be appear

 

[jvd]

A road map that NVidia has already done with 6 series.. It would be interesting also to find out what the NV50 series will be since 3.0 support is already here. My guess is that NVidia will make it even better with concentration on SLI techniques. Maybe even dual GPU's on the same video card

It could support more than 3.0 sure. But there is nothing after 3.0 . I highly doubt it will suport longhorn features as thats still 2 years away .

As for dual gpus on the same core i doubt we'd see that from nvidia . The geforce 6800ultras are using dual slot coolers and was the case with the last gen of products. I don't see that changing. I also don't see how they would cool two gpus that put out that much heat and require that much power



As for the r520. It depends . Ati has shown they don't need to support sm3.0 . They already have a few features from it. Though i'm sure at some point they will suport all of it.

But from my understanding and what dave has pointed out is that they wont move to it till 90nm tech. They feel the trade off isn't there yet .

 

[KimB]

I think the fact that NVidia's low end 6600's support 3.0 shaders have got ATI worry.

6600 isn't low-end. It's mid-range. Low-end should be coming by the end of the year.

Is there any thing in 3.0 spec that the 6800 series does not support? If so I believe that will be next. Not stuff added in in 2.0b stuff which is not part of 3.0.

Yes. It could support longer shaders (at least, longer than current drivers: nVidia's website states that the hardware supports more than is currently exposed in the drivers). It could also support FP32 blending. But all in all, no, there's not a whole lot more that ATI could do that nVidia is not currently doing, not without a significant change to the API.

And by the way, PS 2.0b is not an extension. It's a separate PS 2.x profile that compiles to the R4xx's specific hardware, much like the PS 2.0a profile compiles to the NV3x's specific hardware.

If ATI finally releases a PS 3.0 GPU, it is unlikely that it will both support the exact same limits and have the exact same optimization characteristics, so I would expect to see a PS 3.0a profile around the time of release. This doesn't have anything to do with extending the API: it has to do with the fact that the HLSL compiler is within the API, and thus must be updated any time you want to support a new piece of hardware.

 

[Bjorn]

Dear god, where are we digging these people up from these days?

If it support PS3.0 then it'll be called PS3.0 - if it support something more than PS3.0 and Microsoft makes a different profile (which I doubt they will) then it'll support what MS calls that profile. If it support more than PS3.0 and MS doesn't create a profile then it will still be called SM3.0.

Ever heard about PS2.0+ ?

 

[Moloch]

Is it posssible for this forum to block links to certain sites?
I think we should clock links to the inquirier, you never learn anything, and any actuall facts have been learned from here..
Waste of a space..

 

[Blastman]

SM3.0 is crap ain't it?

I believe i've read that somewhere..

The cowpie is drying up and might actually be useful in a while.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I heard that Microsoft is coming out with SM3.1, at least that's what TeamDX is saying.