Can anyone name the games that SM 3.0 make a visual difference in?

[NoStateofMind]

I'm trying to see the benefits of SM 3.0, Can someone please list some games that make a visual difference?




PS. If you could post screenies that would be awesome!


Thanks Guys!

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: PC Surgeon
I'm trying to see the benefits of SM 3.0, Can someone please list some games that make a visual difference?




PS. If you could post screenies that would be awesome!


Thanks Guys!

Any game that uses HDR

 

[NoStateofMind]

Doesn't SM 2.0b have HDR? or capable of it?

 

[Lord Banshee]

Age of Empires 3 is one

 

[otispunkmeyer]

AOE3
Splinter Cell Choas theory.....HDR, parallax mapping, and gets rid of some horrible banding evident in the SM1 mode

 

[Gstanfor]

Okay this doesn't actually relate to any SM3.0 games, but I do have an observation I'd like to relate regarding SM3.0 performance.

I was fiddling around with the new (unofficial) beta FW 82.65 and decided I didn't like the driver, so I restored my system back to my previous driver which was 79.11.

I also installed the DirectX update.

The performance of 79.11 under the DirectX update is much faster than 79.11 before the update was applied (I back my system up using Drive Image, so I can "go back in time" and test).

To make sure 82.65 wasn't causing the speedup, I restored the old 79.11 backup, added the DX update, uninstalled the driver and reinstalled cleanly.

Nalu & Mad Mod Mike now run a fair bit faster and MUCH smoother than before. Both are SM3.0 demos that utilize dynamic branching.

Makes you wonder if ATi's "superior branching" is architecture related or API related... I seem to recall that one of the highups in Microsofts DirectX team left Microsoft to join ATi not long before R300's launch...

 

[Lord Banshee]

are you saying dx9b is faster than dx9c on nvidia hardware?

 

[Gstanfor]

Originally posted by: Lord Banshee
are you saying dx9b is faster than dx9c on nvidia hardware?

How one earth could you extrapolate that from what I wrote?

I just found it very interesting that ATi's R5xx product line is touted as having superior Dynamic branching (SM3.0) capabilites compared to nVidia, and yet a DirectX update seems to provide a significant speedup in the same capabilites for nVidia (especially evident in Nalu's hair).

 

[Lord Banshee]

lol half asleep ...

i thought you meant the inverse of what you said... ah need to wake up

 

[Sc4freak]

Originally posted by: wizboy11

Originally posted by: PC Surgeon
I'm trying to see the benefits of SM 3.0, Can someone please list some games that make a visual difference?




PS. If you could post screenies that would be awesome!


Thanks Guys!

Any game that uses HDR

...Except that HDR has absolutely nothing to do with SM3.

 

[Munky]

I can think of 3 so far:

Farcry - uses sm3 for minor speed boost
Chronicles of Riddick - has a sm2+ mode for soft shadows, but kills sperformance
AOE3 - uses sm3 for additional effects

Chaos Theory has a sm2 patch that allows the same features on Ati sm2 cards as the sm3 mode, so I dont count that one. Also, note I didnt list HDR anywhere, because HDR has nothing to do with sm3, although it just happens that cards supporting sm3 also support FP bending. But there are other methods of HDR like the one used in Source-based games that do not require FP blending, and do not require sm3 either.

 

[A554SS1N]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer

Splinter Cell Choas theory.....HDR

 

[the Chase]

I thought someone here compiled a list once....can't seem to find it though..

hans0939 ?correct? would know them all.

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: Sc4freak

Originally posted by: wizboy11

Originally posted by: PC Surgeon
I'm trying to see the benefits of SM 3.0, Can someone please list some games that make a visual difference?




PS. If you could post screenies that would be awesome!


Thanks Guys!

Any game that uses HDR

...Except that HDR has absolutely nothing to do with SM3.

^^^

Most people assume that HDR is part of SM3. When in fact it is not.

 

[John Reynolds]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Most people assume that HDR is part of SM3. When in fact it is not.

Mainly because of games like Chaos Theory artificially limiting such features to a specific shader profile in the title itself. I saw people posting that parallax mapping was a SM3.0 feature because of Chaos Theory.