DirectX 9: from R300 to NV30

[Bjorn]

]

Just as it's going to be fun to see (and already are) ATi supporters complain about the breaking of standards, The same people that claimed the Radeon 8500's superiority because it supported DX 8.4 vs DX 8.1 for the GeForce 3.

Excuse me, but PS 1.4 WAS THE STANDARD!!!!!!!!!!

I get so tired of this constant twisting of the truth........ Nvidia had a full product cyle with the Gf4 to go with Ps 1.4 and did not. on the flip side ATi has already stated R350 will be DX9.1

But they didn't with the GF3. MS added ps 1.4 for the 8500 which was released later. And now MS might do the EXACT same thing for the NV 30.

Can you please enligthen me on what the difference is ?

You also say:

on the flip side ATi has already stated R350 will be DX9.1

Which basically makes your entire first statement useless.

 

[Hellbinder]

JVd,

No fro what i'm reading dx9 is extremely MORE difficult to program for. which is why Cg, Rendermonkey etc are being developed.

 

[Hellbinder]

But they didn't with the GF3. MS added ps 1.4 for the 8500 which was released later. And now MS might do the EXACT same thing for the NV 30.

Can you please enligthen me on what the difference is ?

The difference is Nvidia can release a whole new product, After Dx8.1 without PS 1.4, and becuase of media bias get away with it. In fact it has gone so far as all the sites saying PS 1.4 was a waste of time. Where ATi is already getting maligned by every site on the net for "not having gone far enough".

That is the difference. You asked, i told you.

 

[Bjorn]

]The difference is Nvidia can release a whole new product, After Dx8.1 without PS 1.4, and becuase of media bias get away with it. In fact it has gone so far as all the sites saying PS 1.4 was a waste of time. Where ATi is already getting maligned by every site on the net for "not having gone far enough".

That is the difference. You asked, i told you.

Well, that's a answer to a different question imo.

And, how do you know that people won't make the same comments regarding the NV 30 and DX 9.1 ?
After all, it's in the future and you can't really know that already can you.

Nevertheless

Where ATi is already getting maligned by every site on the net for "not having gone far enough".

I haven't seen anything but praise for the R9700 so far.
But maybe i'm not visiting the same sites as you are.

 

[jvd]

]JVd,

No fro what i'm reading dx9 is extremely MORE difficult to program for. which is why Cg, Rendermonkey etc are being developed.

yea i can see where your coming from ... Your right of course hey while we are throwing stuff around anyone find good deals on the 9700 ? i want one for my birthday

 

[OpenGL guy]

hey while we are throwing stuff around anyone find good deals on the 9700 ? i want one for my birthday

Pay off my mortgage and you can have mine

 

[Joe DeFuria]

MS added ps 1.4 for the 8500 which was released later. And now MS might do the EXACT same thing for the NV 30.

Can you please enligthen me on what the difference is ?

Actually, the potential difference might be big. The problem is, RC wasn't particularly clear with their rumor. Based on what RC said, I see two possible scenarios:

Possibility 1: MS will release "DX9" for the R-300, and "DX9.1" for the NV30. In this case, no difference from DX8 situation.

Possibility 2: MS skips DX 9.0, and ONLY releases DX 9.1, one way to read the rumor is that DX "9.0" might not actually be released. In that case, R-300 would be DX 9.1 "compatible" but perhaps not compliant. (Like GeForce4 is to DX 8.1).

As you can see, possibility number 2 is a big difference. If that happens, it would be analogous to MS not releasing DX 8.0, and "waiting" for ATI to release the Radeon 8500 and just releasing DX 8.1. Thus, the "first to market" in this case would get screwed, which is not how it should work.

I hope possibility two is not the case. That would indeed look like some MS conspiracy with nVidia....

 

[jvd]

hey while we are throwing stuff around anyone find good deals on the 9700 ? i want one for my birthday

Pay off my mortgage and you can have mine

well if you can get me a job i will help you pay off your mortgage as long as i can sleep in the basement , i'm just asking about a good deal see my friend danielle told me that I can have anything i want for my 21st birthday and well i said i want a r9700.

 

[Xmas]

Heh, so MS manages to *yet again* completely arse up the whole point of DirectX, which is essentially to provide a single target platform for developers to code to. We'll be looking at another Dx8/8.1 issue if there really is going to be a Dx9 and Dx9.1 again as well.

If that turns out to be true, it kinda defeats the purpose of the whole thing... and doesn't really make it any different than needing to support seperate vendor extensions in OpenGL to expose each cards capabilities.

I tend to disagree here. The purpose of DirectX is to expose hardware features in a standardized way. Not to restrict developers' access to capabilities not widely supported. The whole idea of having "a single target platform for developers to code to" becomes completely ridiculous if you look at the diversity of hardware amongst PC gamers.

Developers make sure that they target a broad range of hardware, because of economic reasons. That's not the responsibility of the API.

And there's a big difference between DX and OpenGL (currently): DirectX doesn't need extensions because its base spec is ahead of the hardware, while OpenGL base spec is far behind.

 

[OpenGL guy]

well if you can get me a job i will help you pay off your mortgage as long as i can sleep in the basement , i'm just asking about a good deal see my friend danielle told me that I can have anything i want for my 21st birthday and well i said i want a r9700.

Heh, you'd have trouble as our house doesn't have a basement They are quite rare in the Bay Area.

 

[Bjorn]

...
Possibility 1: MS will release "DX9" for the R-300, and "DX9.1" for the NV30. In this case, no difference from DX8 situation.

Possibility 2: MS skips DX 9.0, and ONLY releases DX 9.1, one way to read the rumor is that DX "9.0" might not actually be released. In that case, R-300 would be DX 9.1 "compatible" but perhaps not compliant. (Like GeForce4 is to DX 8.1).

As you can see, possibility number 2 is a big difference. If that happens, it would be analogous to MS not releasing DX 8.0, and "waiting" for ATI to release the Radeon 8500 and just releasing DX 8.1. Thus, the "first to market" in this case would get screwed, which is not how it should work.

I hope possibility two is not the case. That would indeed look like some MS conspiracy with nVidia....

Yeah, that would be a big difference. But that wasn't what we discussed and i doubt that it would happen also.

 

[Fred]

The appeal of DirectX to the developer is the nature that its pretty much compatible across video cards, thus I tend to prefer the 'least common denominator' approach. Even though it might slow progress by half a step.

Just like I prefered Dx 8.0 vs DX 8.1, so too would I prefer Dx9.0 vs Dx9.1.

If a gfx card goes above and beyond the capability of DirectX, well thats what shader programs like CG and Opengl vendor extensions are there for. An option for the developer.

 

[multigl2]

also, having an API that takes advantage of more powerfull features is a benefit to developers. Since the 'next step' will most likely include those features, you have a heads up on toying with them. Plus, it's cool to make demos to wow your pals at a lan party

 

[790]

I fail to see the confusion. There article is correct. DX9 will fully expose the extended NV30 capabilities. DX9.1 will happen, but it will be an update for next year's cards.

 

[alexsok]

actually, the Radeon8500 is DX8.1 and the Geforce3 is DX8.

Hmm, maybe i should have said pixel shaders 8.4 vs 8.1.

pst you should try pixel shader 1.4 vs 1.3

well i got beat but i thought the geforce 4 did 1.3 ... although its through software or something like that right ?

Nope, it's not in software!

Pixel Shaders 1.3 required only small modifications and they are very much alike Pixel Shaders 1.1 the GeForce III supports, the difference between them lies in "comfortability", where u have little useful things in PS 1.3 that makes working with them easier than with PS 1.1

Though, it's worth mentioning that Nvidia managed to convince Microsoft to include PS 1.3 in DX8.1, so they could claim full DX8.1 compatibility.

 

[Dravern]

I fail to see the confusion. There article is correct. DX9 will fully expose the extended NV30 capabilities. DX9.1 will happen, but it will be an update for next year's cards.

If so, R300 will be non-fully dx9 compliant card?
I think it won't happen unless MS is willing to intentionally spoil ATI and their new product.

 

[MDolenc]

There probably never was a "fully compliant DX n" card. They always miss few features.

 

[jb]

JVd,


no the difficulty of programming shaders or other DX8/9 will not hold them back from being used more. What will hold them back is whats still and always has been holding them back, the fact that the install base (talking about the average card out there) is still dx7 class (it GF2, GF2MX, ect). Develeopers have to write to this lowest common factor or else loose the chance of selling well the the market with the most volume which we can agree is not a great idea.

CG is a neat and usefully thing. It will help the developers but it wont help getting these features used in games until the install base is ready for them....

 

[790]

If so, R300 will be non-fully dx9 compliant card?
I think it won't happen unless MS is willing to intentionally spoil ATI and their new product.

You have to understand that 'compliance' doesn't really mean anything, beyond perhaps being able to create a device and properly validate capabilities.

Microsoft doesn't and never will define a compliance system for DirectX. It would be unfair and unrealistic to expect IHVs to be able to meet all the features defined in a version. The nature of the hardware industry makes this completely impractical. There has never been a card which has fully supported every DX feature.

 

[KnightBreed]

]JVd,

No fro what i'm reading dx9 is extremely MORE difficult to program for. which is why Cg, Rendermonkey etc are being developed.

Not at all! The entire point of the HLSL was to introduce a simpler C-like language for developers to utilize when writing shaders. Both DX9 and OGL2.0 will introduce higher level shading languages to developers. I believe this is, in part, the reason for the outcry when Cg and Rendermonkey were announced - they thought both would segment the market with proprietary code and tools.