View Full Version : Geforce FX does not support Displacement Mapping or N-Patching.
Bigus Dickus
11-26-02, 04:02 PM
Originally posted by gravioli
How can the Geforce FX have the "most complete support" for DX9 shaders? He seems to be implying that none of the current Geforce FX competitors (i.e. 9700) have complete support for DX9 shaders. Both the Geforce FX and the 9700 have complete support for DX9 shaders. "Complete support" is "complete support.".......saying the "most complete support" for DX9+ shaders is another story, though. :)
Actually, there is no "DX9+" yet to really talk about. The GF FX has "complete support" for VS/PS 2.0, but DX9 includes both VS/PS 2.0 and 3.0. Therefore, both cards can have "complete support" for VS/PS 2.0, but one can have "more complete support" for VS/PS 2.0+ (2.x ?), and still not have "complete support" at all for DX9.
:D
Just semantics, I know, but it is an important point to note that both 2.0 and 3.0 PS/VS versions are contained within DX9, and neither card really comes close to meeting version 3.0 yet.
Originally posted by gravioli
How can the Geforce FX have the "most complete support" for DX9 shaders? He seems to be implying that none of the current Geforce FX competitors (i.e. 9700) have complete support for DX9 shaders. Both the Geforce FX and the 9700 have complete support for DX9 shaders. "Complete support" is "complete support.".......saying the "most complete support" for DX9+ shaders is another story, though. :)
I didnt think that DirectX9 was final yet? Isnt there a chance that Microsoft can change the shader spec for DirectX9? I mean ATI did that to Nvidia with DirectX8 didnt they?
There's 3 types of VS/PS support : 2.0 as with 9700 , 2.0 with caps GeforceFX and 3.0 which no card announced can do.- Tony Tamasi Nvidia's product director for GPUs (forgot his exact title) . Therefore while you can say both the 9700 and GeforceFX are DX9 compliant, neither can do all of the PS/VS 3.0 features of DX9 and completely support all the DX9 features
gravioli
11-26-02, 09:42 PM
Originally posted by Bigus Dickus
Actually, there is no "DX9+" yet to really talk about. The GF FX has "complete support" for VS/PS 2.0, but DX9 includes both VS/PS 2.0 and 3.0. Therefore, both cards can have "complete support" for VS/PS 2.0, but one can have "more complete support" for VS/PS 2.0+ (2.x ?), and still not have "complete support" at all for DX9.
:D
Just semantics, I know, but it is an important point to note that both 2.0 and 3.0 PS/VS versions are contained within DX9, and neither card really comes close to meeting version 3.0 yet.
Thanks for clarifying things. :) So in other words, the GeforceFX does have the "most complete support" for DX9?
Bigus Dickus
11-26-02, 10:41 PM
Originally posted by gravioli
Thanks for clarifying things. :) So in other words, the GeforceFX does have the "most complete support" for DX9? In some ways, yes. Both the R300 and NV30 support DX9 instructions and features that the other doesn't, but I think the dynamic branching in the NV30 is probably the most significant in terms of closing the gap from version 2.0 to 3.0 shaders. I don't know that it is the most important in terms of speed, or developer usage, but it is perhaps the most difficult architecturally to implement.
On the whole, I think I would say that the NV30 is "more complete" than the R300, but really just saying "different" might be more accurate.
JonathanM
11-27-02, 09:36 PM
Interesting info about Displacement Mapping from nV News reader Emil P:
Regarding the post on the front page of www.nvnews.net ...
The nV guy refers to presampled displacement mapping, which is what the GFFX supports. The same goes for the Radeon 9700.
It's basically useless. It offers no realy advantage over just having a fatass mesh to begin with.
Only Matrox supports what I call "real" displacement mapping. This involves dynamically sampling the displacement map and tesselating a fine mesh from a low-res mesh and a texture. This is the only useful displacement mapping model in my opinon as a developer. For this reason, I don't think displacement mapping will be used seriously before the next generation hardware unless Matrox does an extremely good job convincing developers to support it.
Unfortunately I don't have any hands on experience in this realm and as such I wasn't aware of the different "types" of displacement mapping. So I'll leave this conversation up to you guys and just enjoy reading the result :)
Originally posted by StealthHawk
if only Parhelia supports "useful" DM we will be able to count the number of games supporting it on one hand.
sometimes, I wonder how many fingers you have on your hand... Surround Gaming is only possible with Parhelia and well...
http://www.matrox.com/mga/3d_gaming/surrgame.cfm
Titles supported now:
1. Aliens vs. PredatorTM 2
2. Aliens vs. PredatorTM 2: Primal Hunt
3. Anarchy Online
4. BallisticsTM
5. Clive Barker's UndyingTM
6. Deus Ex
7. Dogs Playing Poker
8. Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project
9. Gore: Ultimate Soldier
10. Grand Prix 4
11. Heavy Metal: FAKK2
12. Microsoft® Combat Flight Simulator 3
13. Microsoft® Flight Simulator 2002
14. Mobile Forces
15. NASCAR® Racing 2002 Season
16. Neverwinter Nights
17. Operation Flashpoint: Resistance
18. Quake 3 ArenaTM
19. Quake 3 Team ArenaTM
20. RUNE
21. Return to Castle WolfensteinTM
22. Star TrekTM Voyager: Elite Force
23. Star TrekTM Voyager: Elite Force Expansion Pack
24. Star Wars® Jedi Knight 2 - Jedi OutcastTM
25. Tactical Ops: Assault On Terror
26. The Wheel of TimeTM
27. Tom Clancy's Ghost ReconTM
28. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Desert SiegeTM
29. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Island ThunderTM
30. Tribes 2
31. Trainz®
32. Unreal® Tournament 2003
33. Unreal® Tournament
34. X-Plane
...you have about 20 to 34 (if you don't want count expansion packs.) fingers on your hand.
gosh, must be very annoying to shake someone's hand.
oh dear! your hand will have 16 more fingers on your hand soon... Matrox has list about games that will support SG when released.
and I know it's not the same thing as DM... SG is even more niche feature. DM will be supported by some others in future, but I doubt that any one else will add SG support. (as no one else still has even Dual Head gaming support that Matrox launched with G400 three years ago. even that was supported by game makers.)
thcdru2k
11-28-02, 04:09 PM
games are not made to have surround gaming compatible, heck the latest unreal tournament patch was over a year ago, surround gaming wasn't around. matrox configured their drivers to work with the games, its just fov adjustments. there really is only enough games to count on one hand that have DM.
Originally posted by thcdru2k
there really is only enough games to count on one hand that have DM.
lol, how about games that have PS 2.0 support right now? afaik, you don't need hands at all to count them.
Maybe fact that DX9 isn't out yet, has something to do with fact how many games are supporting DX9 feature (in this case Hardware Displacement Mapping) ? :)
and maybe I have to remind you that it took loong before anyone else supported EMBM and still Matrox had (and still has) wide list of games supporting it. It took all way to Dx8 card from nVidia to implement it, though it was available already on DX6. ( I don't care why they didn't do it. was it that they thought it doesn't matter or what, but in any case, everyone else was supporting it before them.)
Matrox dev rel is famous about it's efficiency. When Matrox brings new features, there are usually first patches for games supporting it within a month of card shipping, if there is just an api to support it.
StealthHawk
11-29-02, 02:47 AM
exactly. none of the games that were mentioned AFAIK were programmed for Surround Gaming.
your argument is totally incomparable. DM is something that must be programmed for. SG apparrently isn't.
and maybe I have to remind you that it took loong before anyone else supported EMBM and still Matrox had (and still has) wide list of games supporting it.
how many games use EMBM? not many. no game uses it anymore, and hasn't in a long time AFAIK. i doubt i would be wrong if i said that no game since Giants has used EMBM, and that includes Giants itself, which used Dot3BM.
please point me to this extensive list of games that use EMBM.
Stealth Hawk: take a another look:
http://www.matrox.com/mga/3d_gaming/embm.cfm
plus, EMBM was originally just an example of powerful features of Programmable pixelpipeline in Pyramid3D. It was mean to do on pixel shader originally. (in 1997.) It is still possible to do on PS. (and so far, it's the only PS feature used by games.) I don't know how Matrox implemented EMBM to G400, nor I don't know how it has been done to Kyro and Radeon, but all of them are capable doing it.
Originally posted by StealthHawk
none of the games that were mentioned AFAIK were programmed for Surround Gaming.
Are you sure what you are talking about?
Matrox dev rel pages has 3 ways to implement it. Not all games uses method #1 as you suggest.
StealthHawk
11-29-02, 05:13 AM
Originally posted by 1eppan
Stealth Hawk: take a another look:
http://www.matrox.com/mga/3d_gaming/embm.cfm
how many of those games are/were available in retail in the US? honestly i have never heard of or seen over half of them. there are maybe 5 that if mentioned people would recognize. add to that fact that again, AFAIK, none of those are new or fairly new, and you can see where this is going.
oh, i'm sure there will be some games supporting DM. i never said otherwise.
i question how many games will use it, to what extent it will be used, and more importantly, what good games or what big name games will use it.
Are you sure what you are talking about?
Matrox dev rel pages has 3 ways to implement it. Not all games uses method #1 as you suggest.
no, i'm not actually. i know all quake 3 engine games out of the box supported SG. and someone in this thread said that Unreal games were supported without a patch. how many of the games on the list were patched, if any?
but as i said, you're still comparing apples to oranges. Surround Gaming is something that has been proven to work without patches. i think games using DM will use DM from the get go, it's not something that will ever be patched into the game.
also, the EMBM analogy is flawed in that the G400 was actually the fastest D3D card at one time. will devs care so much about implementing Matrox specific DM when Parhelia is so obviously behind in terms of DX9 features as well as performance?
Thats outdated as UT2003 and Imperium Galatica III supports it. IG-III rox with bump mapping the ships look incrediable :cool:
StealthHawk
11-29-02, 07:07 PM
Originally posted by Dazz
Thats outdated as UT2003 and Imperium Galatica III supports it. IG-III rox with bump mapping the ships look incrediable :cool:
there are other forms of bumpmapping besides EMBM. i haven't even seen any bumpmapping in UT2003 either :confused:
SavagePaladin
11-30-02, 02:10 PM
Rollcage stage 2 -> Death Track Racing in the states, I love that game
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