Transistor budgets for next-gen engine features.

[PeterAce]

After reading a few old and new threads just recently, a couple of questions come to mind :

1) Is the 'best' graphics card for the game developer necessarily the same 'best' card for the consumer ?

Or maybe the question should be :

2) How much die space (transistor budget) of current generation cards should be dedicated to features that help game developers research for next-generation game engines?

 

[Geo]

1. Well, that might depend a bit on where they are in the development lifecycle, wouldn't you say? The closer you get to release, the more the two coalesce into the same answer.

2. Certainly this is one of NV's claims to "leadership" (at the risk of raising the spectre of you-know-which thread) over the years. In part that is what leaders are supposed to do --"take a little hit for the team", so to speak. Gauging that accurately so you don't put yourself totally in the crapper against capable competition must be a real balancing act. I'd say they did it very well with NV40. As we also know, sometimes "bread on the waters" of this nature pays off later tho. . .in better compatibililty/stability with what actually gets shipped in games. It Remains To Be Seen if this shall prove out again re SM3.0.