Graphics cards with features beyond DirectX 9

[Floor]

Hmmm...

I wonder if Nvidia is doing something that I've always wanted to happen in the graphics card industry.

Making a card that is not only current tech compliant, but future tech compliant as well. So, as DX is updated, the card can naturally do what is featured in the update.

Now, I know that you might say "They can't know what is going to be updated...", but I point you to the information released earlier about how Nvidia was working closely with Microsoft, and that their card would be released when DX9 was released, for very shortly after.

Could Nvidia and Microsoft hooked up on some level and created a card that could handle up to...say DX 10.x?

For that very fact, the card would be worth getting because you'd be current for the next generation or two. Amazing...

[netviper13]

I think it just means going way beyond what the spec. calls for. Although if NV30 is as revolutionary as the rumored specs would show, then many of its features could very well be seen in DirectX 10.

[SurfMonkey]

I would say that nVidia are definately looking to the future. The distance they've gone beyond spec and the fact that they've chosen to lose the lead by waiting for .13u tech to mature, though they may have hoped for an earlier maturation date , and their purchase of Exluna would seem to point in a definate attempt at completing their goal of bringing Cinematic qualtity rendering to a screen near you.

If they pull this one off then they've produced a total coupe de grace with ATI. It's going to take them, ATI, a long time to bring their architecture around to .13u and by that time nVidia will have got a lead of over four or five months just in the design.

Whether the extensions have anything to do with any not yet defined DX spec is questionable. But if they become popular then they will definately be included. M$ have a poor reputation for innovation, they tend to borrow, steal, or re-name their technologies and then re-market them.

But the difference is that the technology is riding far in advance of the software, and it maybe that someone, other than M$, will take the lead with their definition of the future and what is included in it.

[sancheuz]

I dont know, because i dont think microsoft has evan began working on dx10, so how could they know what features would be in dx10? You understand what i'm saying. Maybe they mean dx 9.1 or 2 or whatever. That could be something. Anyhow, the nv30 is going to be very good. I'm excited because so many games are going to be coming out for pc shortly finaly with very good effects. Pcs are going to surpass the consoles at last by far. I wonder when we will look back at the nv30 7 years from now and think of it as slow old thing, such as we do now with the voodoo 3.

[Moose]

Originally posted by sancheuz
[B I wonder when we will look back at the nv30 7 years from now and think of it as slow old thing, such as we do now with the voodoo 3. [/b]

hehe I still remember my old monocrome monitor and upgrading to CGA! WOW What a concept!! 4 amazing colors!!!!

Oh and the quality of games back then.
Hardball, Gamestar Hockey, King's Quest, Space Quest etc etc...

ah the good old days...


Damn, compared to that these new cards are like the space age!!!

[sancheuz]

You could say that again!!! We think the nv30 is going to be awesome, maybe in thirty years, there will be no gpu. It will be some floating start trek like plasma gas that developes images not in computer monitors, but in complete 360 degrees sphere holograms that surround you in a virtual environment, and there will be no more advance in computer effects, because the effect will just be plain real, cant tell the difference between real life and virtual reality. If you think about it, that is pretty scary.

[PCarr78]

I have a feeling i know what my favorite holodeck programs would involve...

[Smokey]

Originally posted by [Corporal Dan]
I have a feeling i know what my favorite holodeck programs would involve...

Judging from your pic there Corp, im guessing something to do with lego?


Smokey

[PCarr78]

Err. yeessss. Lego. That's the ticket!

what is DX10? i heard that what DX10 was going to be will now be released as DX9.1

either way, whether DX10 surpasses NV30's capabilities(it no doubt will) or not, we still have Carmack to look forward to. he said his next game will use NV30 as the lowend baseline

[o.d.]

I don't know much about dx 9 and 'beyond' but we do know when they say the nv30 is 'beyond' dx 9 specs they only mention the program (or instruction) lengths....

wouldn't it need to have higher versions of pixel/vertex shaders than 2.0 to be 'future' proof so to speak as well?

Unless they reached the realization of PS/VS already, I doubt any card will be forward compatible for long.... not to mention the leaps and jumps that are coming with regards to the power that the cards can deliver....

[jbirney]

Just remember the 8500 went beyond the Dx8 and Dx8.1 specs and still today we have not been able to use those features. Once again when vendors go above and beyond the min spec then those features tend not to get use in the cards lifetime for most of us here (meaning that most of the forum goers are a bit more gunho and update their cards more freq then joe six pack does). Developers target the base line for almost all their games. Remember Doom 3 was be possible thanks to what the oringal GF brought us. However I am sure if you only had a oringal GF to play it on it would suck big time. Like wise by the time anything is really used on the nV30 we will have nV50+ to play with...