Does ATI T&L = Nvidia T&L or is it like 3dnow and SSE

[Shudder]

Meaning, if a game developer writes a game that will use T&L GPU, does it matter which card you have, just as long as it supports T&L, or will it be specific code to ATI's cards and separate code to Nvidia's?

 

[Fallen Kell]

Good question. I believe though, that the same code will work on both systems. The reason is that I think all they ned to do is run a check to see if the T&L can be run on the video card as opposed to the CPU and then the video card takes over from there if the check passes. Not entirely sure though, but I would think this is how it would work.

 

[jpprod]

T&L is something utilized by developers through API calls, not coded directly to the metal. Any T&L program out there that works with GeForce also works with Radeon or any other current and upcoming T&L capable accelerator with functional drivers thanks to DirectX 7.0/later and OpenGL.

 

[BFG10K]

As Jpprod says, all 3D programs are coded through standard API calls. When the drivers receive the calls it's up to them to handle the request explicitly tailored to video card they're running on.

For that matter, 3dfx's T&L isn't even hardware accelerated and is instead implemented via SSE/3Dnow! instructions. Yet it should work just fine with any Direct 3D T&L program.