Since we're already a quarter of the way into 2004, and the new cards aren't even out yet, I couldn't see Unreal 3 being more relevant. Whether you're buying for it or not, the likelihood is it'll be out while you still own tech for this generation, if you're upgrading now. If that shouldn't factor into a purchasing decision, let's stop this nonsense about considering future games, and admit that the talk of good PS2.0 support was important for the R3xx was a bunch of old tosh. We won't because it's not true, so let's not pretend 2005 isn't relevant to 2004 cards.
I don't understand what you are talking about .
The only reason why there weren't p.s 2.0 games out the first year of ati's launch is because they were delayed (doom3 and half life 2 ) .
Unreal 3 engine is supposed to be done in 2 years . Most likely a game will come out in 2 -3 years .
If that is indeed the first game that requires 3.0 or higher that is 2 years in which people will upgrade their cards .
Thats assuming that people upgrade their card with the 6800ultra.
Of course i don't understand why these p.s 3.0 games can't be run on p.s 2.0 hardware .
As a matter of fact why would they build a p.s 3.0 only game ?
The r3x0 cores will be the main sellers for a long time (they only support 2.0) and the nv3x line will be too (they onyl run 1.4 at reasonable speeds )
I don't see either of these cores going away anytime soon. True they will drop to the low end . Most likely an rv360 at the sub 100$ msrp. But that will only allow it to continue selling better than the nv4x and r42x .
Not to mention the 2 years of sales these cores already have .
Imho it will be the step after p.s 3.0 that will be the next baseline for games .
Not to knock the nv4x because its a great fast card with alot of features.
But hey. I bought the r200 thinking that p.s 1.4 would be the next big thing and I was wrong. For the same reasons i see p.s 3.0 not taking off anytime soon . Even if the r42x supports it .
