Some of the earlier shader model had different precision rules at the software level. Off the top of my head, SM1 was required to use at least 12bit precision iirc - how that actually translated to the hardware I don't remember. D3D10 and SM4 are a lot stricter about this sort of thing which is good :smile:
On a recent trip to see the guys at MS one of them made a very interesting comment regarding future graphics that was a bit obvious once said but I hadn't really considered it before. Basically, art content is becoming the most expensive part of current/future games - just think about how many models and textures are required (the 10's of gigabytes of installed data is a good hint
). We can do fancy effects and high quality rendering, but feeding those algorithms with data requires a huge amount of resource and effort...The basic idea is that technology (probably led by software, but following through to hardware) might try to help out and reduce the workload on artists. Comments by David Blythe (I think it was him - was in a series of interviews about 6 months ago) about moving towards procedural content would fit in nicely here...
Oh, and for those talking about 64bpc - maybe there's some use in the high-end workstation/CAD/Art segment, but I don't see the need for it in the consumer/gaming space anytime soon.
Cheers,
Jack
