DX7 GFX CAN MATCH DX9 GFX LEVEL GRAPHICS!!
- Thread starter NeoCool
- Start date
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
Tagrineth said:
There is water, but you only see it on the higher graphical settings, and it's behaviour is simplified for low end systems. If you look at some of the third party maps, some people have used the Karma physics to do water that wave and wakes properly as you move through it, but the physics take expensive calculations on the CPU.
The best rendered fluid I've seen is probably from ATI's Lava Cave screensaver. It's cool how you can watch a distinct chunk flow down the river of lava and around obstacles in the way. I wish I knew how the managed that. . .
And yeah. . . Water can look great on many different levels of hardware, but it can also be done in many different ways. Humus' demo is cool mostly because it, like his mandelbrot set and perlin noise demos, shows just what kind of computational complexity can be implemented using shaders.
And yeah. . . Water can look great on many different levels of hardware, but it can also be done in many different ways. Humus' demo is cool mostly because it, like his mandelbrot set and perlin noise demos, shows just what kind of computational complexity can be implemented using shaders.
The water in UT2k3/U2 ain't anything special. The water in ut2k3 is just environment maps and all they require really is a direct-x 7 hardware T & L fixed function card to get those environmental maps, although ut2k3 is basically a dx7 game, you may see some added additional dx8 details in ut2k3 if you have a dx8/dx9 card. 
Ostsol said:
I have no clue, but if it is simply precomputed that it will do so it is not exciting. It is the player interaction, the feeling that wow I knocked a crate (yes the ubiquitous crate) into the water and now it is flowing around it while slowing rolling it downstream, the makes the game seem more real...
Neocool - serious question here... are you an NV employee or have you worked there in the past year? I am trying to rack my brains but there is not one group/person I can think of but them who have been promoting DX7/8/8.1 *features* over DX9.... Can anyone think of anyone else?
"dx8 details" (?) as in what and where exactly?
http://users.otenet.gr/~ailuros/RSC2scr.jpg
Just one example. I'm not going to capture every other effect in a multitude of games to prove the exact opposite.
**edit: must be 3 or 4 years old:
http://www.matrox.com/mga/news/demos_downloads/shockwave/embm/embm_trans.cfm
**
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As far as UT2k3 goes there are a few 3rd party maps that use render2texture reflections on water (can't remember them now from the top of my head), Rustatorium (see Epic Bonus pack) has some reflections on oil pits, from which CliffyB's DM-Icetomb by the way is my alltime favourite map of them all
I am trying to understand the spirit of NeoCool post and in someway I agree.
Doom 3 is supposed to be one of the most impressive (gfx) game coming and the engine is based on the DX7 level hardware. In the end it is not WHAT you use but HOW do you use it. Doom3 use pervasive DOT3 and other effects, but probably will look better than many games with some DX9 effects.
For the enduser (gamer) the WOW factor is what matters, not the poor use of isolated DX9 effects.
Probably we will have to wait until Carmack write his next engine using the DX9 level hardware as the base level to really appreciate what this technology can do.
IMHO software (games) is not in the same level of development as hardware because of many factors like HW installed base, developers experience, etc...
Doom 3 is supposed to be one of the most impressive (gfx) game coming and the engine is based on the DX7 level hardware. In the end it is not WHAT you use but HOW do you use it. Doom3 use pervasive DOT3 and other effects, but probably will look better than many games with some DX9 effects.
For the enduser (gamer) the WOW factor is what matters, not the poor use of isolated DX9 effects.
Probably we will have to wait until Carmack write his next engine using the DX9 level hardware as the base level to really appreciate what this technology can do.
IMHO software (games) is not in the same level of development as hardware because of many factors like HW installed base, developers experience, etc...
The EBM TRANS link doesn't work, btw. And yeah, a GeForce1/2/4MX/Radeon 7xxx level of hardware in d3 @ 320x240 with HIGH detail settings should gain like 30fps or so. The graphics cards themselves support the stencil buffer through hardware through geometry acceleration, and combine that with their specular lighting support, hardware T & L, DOT3BM/EBM support, and you could certainly play d3 at a reasonable frame rate at high settings, you'd just have to settle for a reeealllly low resolution and no AA/AF.
Doom 3 will still require DOT3 and Cube Map though. So even if you use your DX7 class card that can to Alpha and Stencil in 16 BPP, it still wont work correctly for the game.