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In the Forums... |
Posted: December 14th, 2004
This technology or rather subset of technologies is Nvidia's new 3D engine aiming to take reality to the next level. The third generation housing Shader Model 3.0 includes improvements made to both the Vertex and Pixel shader Model. From a consumer point of view this allows developers to write more complex shader routines but also maintain or even surpass performance efficiency over Shader Model 2.0. CineFX 3.0 fully confirms to Microsoft's DirectX 9C API standard and as such allows for amongst other improvements a far greater or in practical terms freedom approach to the number of maximum instructions possible in pixel and vertex shading paradigms. In comparison to Shader Model 2.0 the maximum instruction count for pixel and vertex operations was 96 and 256 respectively, within Shader Model 3.0 this is now 65535+ and 65535. In real world and non theory terms such advancement opens the window to enabling virtually limitless and thus very realistic lightning and texturing scenarios, something game developers will be taking advantage of well into 2005, most game titles at present still employ Shader Model 2.0. By also enforcing 32bit floating point precision textures themselves become more vibrant and yield greater clarity, a feature absent from SM 2.0. In order to not hinder processing efficiency by increasing scene complexity SM 3.0 introduces flow control which itself introduces refinement in how developers program shading into their products. By introducing looping/branching and subroutine call/return functions less code is necessary to perform the same visual effects, it is also as a result more condensed and when combined can yield significant saving of GPU resources but also memory bandwidth. This can be for example ilustrated by instancing, a new feature allowing programmers to create multiple versions of the same object without having to reconfigure each sample individually - only their differences in behavior must be modified hence the reduction in otherwise unnecessary overhead. Of course technical details such as these often confuse the consumer and mystify their view of what technology or feature is more commendable, CineFX 3.0 thus Shader Model 3.0 as it stands is undeniably a forward thinking and otherwise future friendly technology to consider when purchasing a graphics card. Currently only Nvidia offers SM 3.0 support in their Geforce 6 series GPU's but ATI it set to follow during 2005.
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