Deano Calver
Newcomer
For some reason lots of people see every game thats beginning to support SM3.0 as being 'pro' NVIDIA.
People seem to forget that time spent on SM3.0 is good for the future wheras SM2.0B isn't. Any time/money spent on SM3.0 is a good investment, most game devs have to work tight budgets and deadlines, so getting some code out as a patch to an existing project is good business sense. The code/experience will be useful for the next project and at least the code isn't thrown away but benefits a few people and hopefully builds some 'good will' (even if its just those who currently have an NV40).
Would people prefer companies experiment with SM3.0 on there current engines and then didn't release it? The argument that it could be done on SM2.0B is irrelevant, it still costs extra time/money to port back to SM2.0B and if its a patch its a freebie not costing you anything whereas there will be a serious cost (dev time and regression testing) for the company.
And if NVIDIA is paying for the patch, thats great for everybody. It means ATI and NVIDIA customers all will benefit in future from NVIDIA generisity (remember ATI will get SM3.0 soon enough).
Its a crucial time in the games industry and the NV40 is the best developers card out there at the moment. What it can do that the others can't is extremely relevant for the next 5-8 years of gaming. I know of a fair few console only devs who don't even do PC games exploring SM3.0 on NV40.
Any state of art engines starting today are SM3.0+, in around two years you will see the results but not nessecarily running on NVIDIA hardware
People seem to forget that time spent on SM3.0 is good for the future wheras SM2.0B isn't. Any time/money spent on SM3.0 is a good investment, most game devs have to work tight budgets and deadlines, so getting some code out as a patch to an existing project is good business sense. The code/experience will be useful for the next project and at least the code isn't thrown away but benefits a few people and hopefully builds some 'good will' (even if its just those who currently have an NV40).
Would people prefer companies experiment with SM3.0 on there current engines and then didn't release it? The argument that it could be done on SM2.0B is irrelevant, it still costs extra time/money to port back to SM2.0B and if its a patch its a freebie not costing you anything whereas there will be a serious cost (dev time and regression testing) for the company.
And if NVIDIA is paying for the patch, thats great for everybody. It means ATI and NVIDIA customers all will benefit in future from NVIDIA generisity (remember ATI will get SM3.0 soon enough).
Its a crucial time in the games industry and the NV40 is the best developers card out there at the moment. What it can do that the others can't is extremely relevant for the next 5-8 years of gaming. I know of a fair few console only devs who don't even do PC games exploring SM3.0 on NV40.
Any state of art engines starting today are SM3.0+, in around two years you will see the results but not nessecarily running on NVIDIA hardware
