GF3, (DX 8.0 card) and DX 8.1 games

[djbehr27]

I hope someone can help. I've written to a few publishers, developers, and Nvidia but nobody seems to give a doody about end-users. I just bought a Geforce 3 (first version), mostly because I got it for only $67.

I'm wondering what happens when I run DX 8.1 games on a DX8.0 card. IIRC, the main differences were slightly updated vertex and pixel shaders. Will those games run 'those' features in software, not at all, or just fine? I'm thinking right now of LOMAC, F1 2001, 2002, and America's Army based on the new UT engine. Thanks in advance!

DBehr

 

[BD2003]

Should be compatible. If not, noone will program for 8.1.

 

[AnAndAustin]

😉 Very simply DX8.1 added a tiny bit more flexibility to the DX8 hw funcs (pixel and vertex) and that's about it. Truly makes no diff, esp with DX9 pretty much out, developers will program with DX8 and DX9 in mind and forget DX8.1, don't worry you won't be relying on sw, anything DX8.1 can do DX8.0 can mimick, you won't notice any difference.

 

[Rand]

As far as I know DX8.1 merely has stricter hardware requirements, and more flexible pixel shader capabilities- those are the only hardware specific differences I'm aware of.

DX8.0 to 8.1 is absolutely nothing to worry about.
Absolutely everything that DX8.1 is capable of a DX8.0 compliant card can render perfectly in hardware, it will not have to resort to software rendering at all.

The biggest differences are in the realm of pixel shading and they've made some strides to improve pixel shading efficiency and simplifed a few rendering effects.
All of which can be duplicated, by a DX8.0 card with a little effort. In most cases it'll require multiple passes, and less efficient usage of shader resources which will penialize performance relative to a fully DX8.1 compliant renderer.
All effects will be able to be rendered however, and in hardware.

 

[djbehr27]

Great. Thx guys (girls too?). It's also nice to see that you all agree; that resolves it for me.

David