Why did NVIDIA skip the revision of Direct X 10.01 on their 9800 GTX/GX2/GTX 260/280?

[jlippo]

Are there currently any games out which make use of DX 10.1?
Assasin's Creed does and gets a nice speed bump from SM4.1.

Honestly, there is no need to worry about the SM4.1, it's the same as Pixel shader models 1.4 and 3_A/B were some years ago.
Shader Model 5 is the next thing and both Ati and Nvidia have already released some papers describing the tech for programmers.

The next generation of cards should be here within a year, finally.
I was just assuming that NVIDIA would have already added Direct X 10.01 revision to their flagship products like with the NVIDIA 260/280 lineup. Windows 7 could end up being delayed again like with Windows Vista. Direct X 11 might not even surface until late 2010 or 2011 And if it's anything like it was from Direct X 9c to Direct X 10 then it's nothing more then marketing hype. I don't think anyone was that impressed with Direct X 10 when it came out. The only thing I think looked cool in direct x 10 was the water effects in Bios Shock.
Considering that nvidia has never upgraded shader model for their speedbump products, I hardly see any reason why they would have done so now, after all 260/280 were what Geforce4 was for Geforce3. (all current chips are still 'G8x based'.)

[fivefeet8]

anyway, the real question is: why didn't nvidia make a 100% compatible aa mode with much better quality than msaa/csaa?


Arguably, they already do have it.

[walterman]

... nvidia and ati aren't too keen about making new feature sets more than every 18 months, just increasing performance; for people like me, who couldn't give a rats ass less about more unnecessary performance, that sucks, but i'm in the minority, like always.

anyway, the real question is: why didn't nvidia make a 100% compatible aa mode with much better quality than msaa/csaa?

...

To enjoy the SSAA or Combined modes, you need a monster gfx card. SSAA is virtually compatible with any rendering technique, and offers superior texture filtering quality. The problem is the speed. I hope to see a 512bit GDDR5 monster not so far :)

[gstanford]

There are pure SSAA modes available as well as the hybrid combined modes.

SSAA is also beneficial for texture filtering quality and is the only way so far to get rid of aliasing introduced by pixel shaders (which is why the combined modes are so valuable to me at least).

[walterman]

But ssaa doesn't do edging all that well since it's ordered grid.

If you mix it with 4x rgms, that takes away compatibility, doesn't it?

True, but, there is SSAA 4x4 too, and even with the ordered grid, produces better results than the combined modes. ;)

It's possible to implement SSAA with a rotated grid too. But, nobody supports it.

Perhaps it could be the standard way to do AA once we reach TB/s of bandwidth. :D

If you mix it with 4x rgms, that takes away compatibility, doesn't it?
Yeah. In theory, you always could render a scene with 2x2 (or more) times more resolution, and shrink it at the end to the size of your screen. With any rendering technique. That is why SSAA could be implemented even with shaders, in the worst of the cases. But the performance cost is huge. Maybe some day it could be possible :)

The problem starts when you use multisampling AA. Deferred shading techniques started the problem. Here is a good description of the problem:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/262491/6800-Leagues-Deferred-Shading

[gstanford]

What are you talking about?! *ALL* AA (except for quincunx) on nv3x (and prior gpus) was ordered grid, regardless of whether it was supersampling or multisampling. With nv4x multisampling became rotated grid, supersampling remained ordered grid. With G80 and above supersampling is still ordered grid, multisampling up to 4x is rotated grid, 8x is sparse grid.

[ChrisRay]

Calling "2x" AA rotated grid is kinda pointless IMO. While technically it is inverted at an angle. It has to be or it wouldnt effect edges on a verticle or horizontal angle at all if it was just a static 1x2 ir 2x1 pattern. Quincunx is just 2x merged with nearby pixels. ((which was very aggressive and blurred the screen significantly due to the sharing of neighboring pixels within a box pattern. Its a technique similar ((Though not identical)) to the way ATI does is tent filters.

[gstanford]

I had a feeling Quincunx wasn't rotated grid (wouldn't make sense just for one mode), but I always place it in its own little hole, since its quite different to any other mode (except 4x9 tap I guess).

[Digital_Trans]

WOW! This thread is still alive!