R420 might only support pixel shader 2.0

haha yea it is useless .


Its very sad actually .

All i know is if it wasn't for nvidia i could have had pretty water with the g400 instead of having to wait for my geforce 3 .

 

And what visual effects in UT 2003 or Doom 3 are essential and require PS 3.0 or FP32? Sounds like the same gimmick you called water effects with EMBM (except you have not provided any details on any essential effects). I am pretty sure there is no visual effect PS3.0 or FP32 will provide that is essential to my gaming experience. They will just look a little nicer.

 

more polygons just made it look better, no more so than EMBM water or pixel shaders.

if we had gimmick free games we'd have flat shaded polygons everywhere.

 

Pong owns!

 

those are just black and white sprites not even polygons .

If we all wanted gimick free games we woulnd't have games since they all have a gimick

 

Code:

gimmick

   1.
         1. A device employed to cheat, deceive, or trick, especially a mechanism for the secret and dishonest control of gambling apparatus.
         2. An innovative or unusual mechanical contrivance; a gadget.
   2.
         1. An innovative stratagem or scheme employed especially to promote a project: an advertising gimmick.
         2. A significant feature that is obscured, misrepresented, or not readily evident; a catch.
   3. A small object whose name does not come readily to mind.

hmmm..................................



........................

 

No, I don't think they'll look nicer. They should just run more efficiently.

As I said, it's VS 3.0 that's the big change.

 

How is conditional branching - the big addition of PS3.0 - going to increase efficency? I just can't imagine that.

 

This is only a problem on the geoforce FX cards. especially 5600 and below series of cards. R3XX cards do not have this problem. Even the top end FX cards have problems running at full precision. So all you are doing with this argument is defending your precious NVidia cards

Are you sure about that?/ Lets compair your logic with reality..here is yours :

Now lets put this argument into reality.

If company X decided to, they could stop advancing any sort of programmability or other features, and merely go for a product that is as fast as possible and looks as possible while only features in use today.

We have already heard about the EMBM issue and how NVidia stalled that technology. Yeah you may say it is just a gimmic. But seemed to be a real good gimmic that would add precious IQ to games. This was stalled because of NVidia's lack of support.

Lets look elswhere..How about NVidia saying that FX5200 and FX5600 being able to run ps2.0?? Has that stalled technology. Lets face it More people buy midrange cards then high end. Also considering the fact that NVidia has held the market for so long..they were the best selling cards for awhile. Thus who in their right mind is going to program a game with PS2.0 when more than half the midrange cards will never be able to use this technology..Sure ATI's cards can run it But that was such a small market, it was not worth it. It is not until the expected release of NV40 and R420 that we are finally seeing games come out that are using more than a few ps2.0 shaders.. So it would appear that NV has halted technology as you stated in your senario.

Lets go back to ps 1.4 NVidia did not use that in there TI series of cards..again holding back technology (How many games actually use ps1.2 - 1.3 shaders?? Most either use 1.1 or 1.4..And 1.4 was not used mainly because again most of the cards did not support it!.

No what is ther to lead us to believe that NV40, although it may support ps3.0, will even be able to run them?? They have failed before, there is no reason to believe they will not fail again. So if NV40 supports but can't run PS3.0 and ATI does not support it..neither card has an advantage over the other when it comes to 3.0 shaders..

FX is supposed to run FP-32 but they can't for the most part..In supporting FP-32 they used up space thay could have used to boost ps2.0 performance. But instead they wanted a selling point to help sell their cards. Then they tell us a year later that FP-16 is more than good enough to run today's games. And that FP-32 is not needed. I will get the quote if you would like!

Sounds alot like the FX series of cards to me, Although I know you will deny it!!

You must be the only person here who thinks that..Most people feel anything that will add to IQ and make a game look better is worth it. Again this is just your NVidiocy coming out.
Lets not forget, FX series of cards do not support advanced HDR rendering that will be seen in HL-2..I guess that is just a gimmick??

Pixel shader 2 usage to date has been scarce due to the lack of support from NVidia's FX series of cards.. Have you not seen the HL-2 demo. And the realistic face movement brought out by these shaders. They will be used ion the upcoming Medal of Honor game too. Also the other effects that will be brought by the use of PS2.0 will be amazing. Just because your FX series of cards do not support them very well does not mean they are not good and are just GIMMICKS!!

IF NVidia releases a ps3.0 part but can't run it..it will not mean a thing. And logic and past history shows that this is the most likeley senerio. Although I will admit it is possible they may FINALLY get it right. It is unlikely IMO

The big part I do not understand about you is that you have been screaming about GIMMICS or whatever. All these gimmicks have incresed IQ and made games look better. You also screamed that your afraid a company is going to release something that will make games go faster. But hold back other stuff. You say you want a game to look better not certain parts..yet you have already admitted that PS3.0 will not bring any IQ increases to the picture. Just possible performance increases that will help programmers or whatever. So lets set a hypothitical situation here.
and talk only of IQ..If you had a choice of card A which will run the game at 80 FPS and card B that will run the game at 40 FPS which one would you chose?? Both cards have the exact same IQ there is not difference.

By the way Card a does not support 3.0 shaders. Card B runs slower because they are using 3.0 shaders. Get the picture??

 

Why would anyone use 3.0 shaders if they are slower?

 

same reason people own nv3xs ?

 

You seriously dont believe this do you? This is one of my biggest pet peeves is people who assume people bought Nvidia cards and werent educated on it.

 

Are you sure about that? I can't imagine why games would use PS1.0 when all DX8 capable hardware supports PS1.1

 

I was under the impression one of the few and only apps supporting Pixel Shader 1.0 happened to be 3dmark2001.

 

for some wierd reason Lineage2 requires PS1.2 support for it's water effects.... :?

 

Geez, Chalnoth, you are one stubborn bugger for someone who can't blame bias on naivety.

Everyone here can see that many of NVidia's products fit your statement (regarding stagnation of technology) exactly. You keep switching between the G400 and Radeon to fit your timeframe argument as well, which is irrelevant to your statement anyway. The fact is NV1x's success obliterated the good chance EMBM had for success. It became absolutely worthless for developers to incorporate it.

You make a description of your situation that exactly describes the GF4MX, and then hope that I see it's totally different from GF4MX. You defend NV31-34, as it introduces DX9 for the masses, when in actuality it is much slower than the 9000 at DX8 pixel shaders, and horrendous at DX9.

Then, when unanimously defeated, you resort to childish name-calling (of a rendering feature, for god's sake), and say EMBM is a gimmick.

Imagine rain on my windshield warping my view of the road ahead.
Imagine realistic water for games where you are surrounded by it.
Imagine the awesome effect of heat from tarmac rippling the view of a racetrack, like in GT3 (still pretty much the best looking racing game).
Image heat rippling your view across the scorching desert.
Imagine offset mapping used throughout a scene.
Imagine Matrix-style warping of space as bullets whizzed by in Max Payne.

Not only is your gimmick argument complete BS in the eyes of everyone here, but even if it was true each of the preceding examples affects the gaming world, atmosphere, experience, or whatever you want to call it.

 

What why would you buy a video card that is slower , provides less image quality , has drivers that trick you into thinking your getting higher image quality than you want and falsely advertises that its a 8x1 and a dx 9 part when in all games its forced into a mixed mode path that is not dx 9 and its a 4x2 tech that under a blue moon works as an 8x1 .

Because if you bought an nv3x product there is no way you could be educated on the subject . Or you were and were blindly loyal and ended up stuck with crap .

 

I'm not even sure it 3dmark2001 uses PS1.0

http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark2001/?features

The Pixel Shader test uses PS1.1 at least.

That's stretching it. There's nothing wrong with a mixed mode path. Partial precision is part of DX9 :?

 

3DMark2001 uses or used PS1.0 for the water surface in the Nature test (because of a product that never appeared on the market...). The pixel shader tests are PS1.1 so it's possible that the shader revision in Nature was altered when they updated 3DMark2001 to include the APS test. Somebody could just run a shader dump to see.

 

Linux, multiple monitors, older games, a good deal, or previous good experience with Nvidia and bad experience with ATI.