GeforceFX not supporting DirectX9?

[Thor86]

Linky

 

[Slappy00]

omg popup hell....

but it looks like nvidia has a problem on ly with one type of feature that is present in dx9.. It seems that Nvidia is a bit arrogant in that its trying to impose its will on Microsoft (haw haw this outta be good). I think that Nvidia will eventually bow down to support curved surfaces with some sort of patch or work around.. if not this highly stinks of 3DFX and snobish attitudes....

 

[Rand]

Tis' unfortunate isnt it?
I believe it was nVidia's Doug Rogers that first revealed the lack of displacement mapping support in the NV30 a few days ago.

GeforceFX not supporting DirectX9?

Displacement mapping is a technology included in DX9, similar to EMBM was a technology included in DX6, and vertex shading in DX8. It is however most definitely NOT a physical hardware requirement. nVidia is under absolutely no requirements to have displacement mapping capabilities to proclaim full DX9 compliancy.

They've done similarly in the past by not supporting EMBM until DX8... two generations after it initially appeared.
SiS Xabre is able to proclaim full DX8.0 compliancy despite a lack of hardware vertex shading capabilities... as vertex shaders are merely exposed in DX8, but not hardware requirements. (Pixel Shaders however are required)
Another quick example is HigherOrderSurfaces... an option exposed in DX8, the GeForce 3/4 line lacks HOS capabilities.... but is still fully DX8 compliant.

FWIW, next generation hardware with Vertex Shaders 1.3 should be able to do displaccement mapping directly in the vertex shaders... though this wouldnt be a preferable solution.
Current revisions of VS don't support texture sampling in the shaders directly, which would be required for displacement mapping though.... as said, that's not scheduled until VS 3.0


It's a feature I'm strongly in favor of seeing utilized in mainstream gaming... but without wide-spread hardware support it'll likely never see much usage.
It's perhaps not the ideal long-term solution but it should be an excellent technology for the next 3yrs or so.
DM still has room for improvement though, at the moment I really don't consider it a good alternative/extension to/of bump mapping for characters.
It's excellent for terrain though...

 

[Rand]

You know... come to think of it, I'm surprised nVidia didnt comment on their ability to do pre-sampled displacement mapping... VS 2.0 working in combination with the processor can do that pretty easily, and I wouldnt imagine it'd take much effort at all to implement in the drivers.
Then again... pre-sampled DM is extremely limited and inflexible and won't work with adaptive tesselation do it isnt exactly worth a damn.

Mildly surprsing nVidia didnt mention it to at least say they can support some form of DM.

 

[Tab]

Heh, nVidia would be stupid not to include DX9 support, considering the next generation games will use it. Though I would belive nVidia knows alot more than Microsoft about Video Cards.

 

[Slappy00]

Nvidia makes some good video cards (ive had my gf3 for 2 yrs b4 i got a 9700pro), and i think this situation much like was stated before is similar to Bumpmapping of yore.

When i got my MAtrox G400 it was the 1st card to support Bumpmapping in hardware... THe second-rate nvidia cards could only emulate this process (TNT2 if im remembering right.) resulting in crappy framerates when EMBM was turned on. Nvidia did their usual dodge and parry routine, but their next gen cards not only did EMBM but did it alot better thatn my poor old Matrox card...

What I'm saying is that nvidia is pulling the same jive that 3dfx did when 32bit color was becoming all the rage: they are saying its not needed and pointless to incoperate ("here look at our bandwidth instead"). In the next cycle of cards though you might see that they will support this feature and do it better than their competitors. A sneaky tactic to deflect innovation in order to keep an upper hand i.e. let your competitor make the technology, and you make it better.

 

[Rand]

When i got my MAtrox G400 it was the 1st card to support Bumpmapping in hardware... THe second-rate nvidia cards could only emulate this process (TNT2 if im remembering right.) resulting in crappy framerates when EMBM was turned on. Nvidia did their usual dodge and parry routine, but their next gen cards not only did EMBM but did it alot better thatn my poor old Matrox card...

nVidia did not have full hardware capabilities to do EMBM on the level of Matrox's G400 until the nVidia GeForce 3 was released.
The TNT1/2 and GeForce 1/2 cannot do full hardware EMBM, and complete software support cannot be done either.
Indeed, even nVidia's present low end boards in the GF4 MX series cannot do EMBM.
It is able to do a very rough emulation, but at a considerable performance/quality hit, and I don't know of any games/demos that ever supported it without a full hardware level implementation.

The lack of support for EMBM was officially due to the fact that nVidia thought Dot3 dumpmapping was a superior option, and in some respects they were correct IMHO.
They've not presented a viable alternative to displacement mapping however, so I don't agree the two situations are similar.

 

[Slappy00]

HEhe yah ur right my next purchase was a GAinward GF3... /me had a brainfart

 

[Slappy00]

The lack of support for EMBM was officially due to the fact that nVidia thought Dot3 dumpmapping was a superior option, and in some respects they were correct IMHO.

Now waht would happen is that Nvidia would be first out the door with the card taht supported this new technology, and most likely have the most efficent form of Dot3 dumpmapping available. Other manufacturers would be stuck having to use less efficent implemtations.

I think that the graphics industry is back asswards, the software developers should have the say on what video cards should do (with the exception of Carmack who lays the spec smackdown... to techie for my tastes but he dont play), not video card companies developing cards with features that migh or might not get used. Nivdia and ATI are both guilty of proprietry features that make it a pain in ones a$$ to make a game that runs good on both cards.

This kind of squabbling is testimony to the kind of competition that is present in the market, and nvidia will have a viable alternative or a wordy excuse to explain why displacement mapping is garbage. This a small step in Nvidia's attempt ot grasp control in future DX implemitations, but saying no and using their influnce as a large video card manufacturer, they want Microsoft to lean towards them and make future DX versions more attune to what Nvidia rolls out the door.

I guess you can probably most of waht I said as fringe speculation, but not without some merit especially when you see how competitve the graphics market is.