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Originally posted by Steppy
You're making some faulty statement here.
1. Both the 32-bit FP(would be 128-bit color as its 32-bit PER CHANNEL) and 24-bit FP( results are downsampled when they are rendered. The FP people are talking about is for color calculations NOT output. It's much the same as the old 3dfx 22-bit color thing...it rendered higher quality 16-bit because all of its calculations were done in 32-bit.
2. It's been shown time and time again that going above DX specs yields nothing as those feature never get supported in games using that API. They may get used in OGL, but few use them.
3. Carnack's comments had NOTHING to do with ATI being 24-bit as opposed to 32...it was about the instruction count being used in situations he was screwing around with NOT game situations, and this has already been addressed in R350 which surpasses the FX's dx9"+"specs.
4. ATI's card being "minimum DX9" is pretty irrelevant as we're probably at LEAST a year a way from games making ANY use of DX9, and TWO years away from games using DX9 as much as DX8 is used now.
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Look buddy I disagree with you on several levels ehre, So let me tackle them.
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4. ATI's card being "minimum DX9" is pretty irrelevant as we're probably at LEAST a year a way from games making ANY use of DX9, and TWO years away from games using DX9 as much as DX8 is used now.
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Improved programmability is never a bad thing, Coming from a programmer,
And the situation where the r300 is"limited" in programmability compared to the r350 and Geforce FX, is somewhat disapointing, Its in ability to be programmed at multiple levels of precision makes it "under" DirectX 9.0 specifications and limits what can be done with DirectX 9.0. There's no argument the r300 is DX 9.0 compliant in a way that leaves no room for imagination. Savvy?
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2. It's been shown time and time again that going above DX specs yields nothing as those feature never get supported in games using that API. They may get used in OGL, but few use them.
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Irrelevent, Whether it gets used in DirectX 9.0 or DirectX 10. More programmability in the future is good. The r300 is the most limited DirectX 9.0 card available right now. If you don't buy for new tech, Then what are you buying for? People claim the r300 is very future proof, In Actuality, It's not, Your argument basically reiterates that.
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Carnack's comments had NOTHING to do with ATI being 24-bit as opposed to 32...it was about the instruction count being used in situations he was screwing around with NOT game situations, and this has already been addressed in R350 which surpasses the FX's dx9"+"specs.
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What the hell are you talking about here? He specifically stated he would prefer 16 bit precision, he also stated 24 bit yielded no significant IQ improvement over the r200's 16 bit. He also stated that 32 bit had marginal Image Quality improvements over 24 bit.
If you don't believe me. All you gotta do is load up your browser, Go to beyond3d.com and check out their carmack interviews. I'd point you there, But I am not gonna spoon feed it
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1. Both the 32-bit FP(would be 128-bit color as its 32-bit PER CHANNEL) and 24-bit FP( results are downsampled when they are rendered. The FP people are talking about is for color calculations NOT output. It's much the same as the old 3dfx 22-bit color thing...it rendered higher quality 16-bit because all of its calculations were done in 32-bit.
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Uh its irrelevent because its not actually outputting at that precision, How thats being done is irrelevent, Its the end result that matters.
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The R300 certainly doesn't appear to have any separate execution units, but the FP24 units could be used to emulate INT16 quite easily (since it does have 1-bit sign and 15-bit mantissa).
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I find this quite strange since people have been dogging on Nvidia for using its Pixel Shader 2.0 to emulate Pixel Shader 1.4