How many sm3 games were compared?

[Geo]

There isn't much in Vista/SM4 (that I know, from what I have been given and what I learned myself) that dramatically enhances 3D for the PC compared to pre-Vista/SM4. My opinion of course.

That wasn't the point, was it? At least not directly. Wasn't the point to make it easier to program, and thus "dramatically enhance 3D for the PC" that way?

 

[SugarCoat]

SM3 is important. Ask multi-platform-target developers why I say so.

I know this forum is more or less PC-centric but with consoles making more money for developers than the PC, it really wouldn't matter how good the next SM is supposed to be if we have the XB360 and PS3 basically being SM3-based. And coming out end of this year and foreseen to be *the* consoles at least 1.5 years after Vista. Note the relationship between PC and console games for the same title(s) and how the PC folks complain about "lack of progress". Royalties rule.

Or can you back up what you just said?

I dont think he ment it that way. When he said stop gap im quite sure he ment that SM3.0 really didnt do much visually, under the surface it did add some usefulness but its very far from what we've seen added in past updates to DX, at least ones that got their own single digit version . Basically, visually, i think MS could of rode the 2.0a/b until what is now dubbed SM4 could be launched. Visually we lose very little by skipping SM3. But i also see what SM3.0 changed and added being intrical to what SM4s goal is, which is much more unified. From what i understood is that MS wants something more programmable without having to worry about what card supports what version. No more 1.1s or SMX.a/b/c. They want the building blocks of Direct X to essentially be on equal playing fields for any card running it.

Ohhh, thaaat. Gee, I must have been watching too much of "Ice Age" with my son.

I ask again, what would SM4 be? For it to be mentioned and commented on by all these folks?

As i said SM4 is going to not only be Unified but Microsoft wants a more dynamic Direct X that they themselves can change and modify without requiring ATI or Nvidia to release small changes to their cards to support it. What marketing sense does it make to cater to only the elite, the majority of people, and yes gamers too, do not upgrade hardware yearly, why should they miss out on big changes when MS says "hey you need to modify that core slightly"? Its bad business sense and a HUGE strong point of consoles. They've done amazing things with 3D on the consoles, on computers though you need to upgrade at least 2 years to enjoy the same level of enjoyment from your graphics, and its remained a huge cripple in PC gaming.

 

[jvd]

what i meant is that for the pc it wont be a standard at all .

You have themost of the dx 9 cards on the market sm 2 and in another year or so or perhaps the next product cycle we will see the first gpus based on dx 10 with new features .

With each revision of the shader model making it easier and more powerfull at the samee time i don't see any reason why pc devs will stay with sm3.0 .

Sure console games will have sm3.0 but many pc versions of the game will have the shader model that replaces it for speed and better effects which has allways been the case in the pc world.

Do you really think that the xbox stoped dx 9 uptake in the pc market ? I think not

 

[Demirug]

With each revision of the shader model making it easier and more powerfull at the samee time i don't see any reason why pc devs will stay with sm3.0.

It is sure that they will not stay with SM3.0 for ever. Because of this we should be more focused on the timeframe it will take to move to D3D10 and SM4.

 

[neliz]

In my opinion... SM4 will have a hard time at introduction.. why? Probably lackluster performance in "older" titles.

The speed of adaptation will determine the success of the G80/R600 - those cards might have a terrible time running the latest SM3.0 games that will run good on R580/G72.

I think we'll see early adopters being punished for going to SM4 based cards because people will compare in to the previous generation .. you can't just expect your new architecture to rule the roost in DX7, 8, 9 AND X (DirectNeXXt?)

 

[Demirug]

Performace should not be a problem as you can still write short and fast shaders with SM4. Yes in this case you normaly don't need SM4 but I have see more than one game that use a SM2 shader for rendering pixel with a fixed color. Something that don't even need a pixelshader at all.

Sure, D3D10 will allow more complex shaders but we can life with the limits of SM3 for current game development. The main improvement in D3D10 is that you need lees CPU power to do the same.