Question about PS1.4 hardware

[mczak]

maybe they're telling 3dmark03 the GFFX is only PS 1.1 depending what the benchmark wants to do.

I don't believe this is possible. At CAPs reporting time, you don't know anything about the application calling you. Either you report PS 2.0 or you don't. Since 3D Mark 2003 is using the DX9 interface on GT2,3,4 (not sure about GT1 at the moment), PS 2.0 should be reported.

MS has made it so you can't tell the name of the application calling you, so I don't see how you could change your behavior without any hints.

Sounds right. But then that means Nvidias driver gets the PS 1.4 shaders and "recompiles" them to multi-pass PS 1.1 shaders?
Here's the relevant quote from http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,888228,00.asp :

When asked what specifically nVidia did to improve GeForceFX's performance, a company official stated that driver writers tightened up vertex shader processing code, fixed several small bugs revealed by the benchmark, and made decisions on whether to process PS 1.4 pixel shader code using PS 1.4 (via PS 2.0), or to fall back to doing more rendering passes using PS 1.1.

 

[Clootie]

At CAPs reporting time, you don't know anything about the application calling you. Either you report PS 2.0 or you don't. Since 3D Mark 2003 is using the DX9 interface on GT2,3,4 (not sure about GT1 at the moment), PS 2.0 should be reported.

MS has made it so you can't tell the name of the application calling you, so I don't see how you could change your behavior without any hints.

Are DX9 CAPS reported by drivers at some "init time" and cached by DirectX API layer later? By init time I assume first time any application initialized DX9 interfaces.

 

[Luke Philpot]

Just FYI, the R9100 is the same as the 8500.

 

[Tagrineth]

Just FYI, the R9100 is the same as the 8500.

Shhh! The Teeming Millions aren't supposed to know that!

 

[Tahir2]

huh? Now I have two more questions then.
1) Why is 3DMark03 not using the PS1.4 support via PS2.0 in its tests.
2) Why are they even using PS1.4 since only one hardware company supports it?

1) Only the GFFX is would receive benefit from this and it does IIRC as does the Radeon 9500/9700 series

Wouldn't any DX9 card benefit from this?

2) Only one company supported Pixel Shaders when 3DMark 2001 was out, FutureMark expects other manufacturers to join the bandwagon with PS2.0 giving compatibility to PS1.4. In essence all DX9 cards will support it and 3DMark03 is meant to be a forward looking benchmark.

Maybe I am missing something here. How can other manufacturers join the bandwagon via PS2.0 when 3DMark03 will not use PS1.4 via PS2.0?

Dont get me wrong I think PS1.4 great and very useful. But since PS2.0 is here what good is writing for just PS1.4?

1) Yes any DX9 card would benefit from it, or that is the theory at any rate. Since GFFX and Radeon 9500/9700 series are the only known cards manufactured at this time to be DX9 they would both support PS1.4 via PS2.0

2) Already answered and again in theory it will use PS1.4 in the PS1.4 capable tests.

Whether the GFFX utilises PS1.4 or not is not something anyone has looked at in enough detail yet and it is a shame in the forthcoming Preview at B3D we will have to wait longer for an answer. I will say though that I expected the GFFX to be utilising PS1.4 in the relevant tests.
It has been tested with tb's ShaderMark that the GFFX is capable of PS1.4.