PS/VS 3.0: Who Cares?

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Flyermax2k3

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Mar 1, 2003
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I've been reading quite a bit of speculation about the NV4x and R420 lately, and I began to wonder why everyone is so concerned with PS/VS 3.0 capability in the next gen VPUs. It's only been within the past few months that the first games which utilize PS/VS 2.0 have even appeared, so what does it matter if PS/VS 3.0 is available in the upcoming generation of VPUs or not? Not only that, but there's not even an API which supports PS/VS 3.0 currently available so how can said features be utilized in the first place? DX 9.0 does not support PS/VS 3.0 nor does the current OpenGL spec (unless I'm mistaken) so arguing that PS/VS 3.0 need to be implemented in hardware now is a moot point IMHO.
On the other side of the coin we have the long-standing fact that hardware is always ahead of software by at least 12 months. Also, some may say "but a new DX 9x release is on the way shortly and that might have support for PS/VS 3.0". To that I say bullocks! MS has stated DX 9.0b would be the last DX9 release, and even if there is another DX9 release contrary to what MS has stated, it will only be another revision of 9.0 (probably "c"). One definite plus to implementing PS/VS 3.0 support in hardware now is so that software developers have hardware to work on for their next-gen games.
Some may compare this scenario to the AMD-64 situation where there is hardware supporting a certain feature (64-bit computing) but no software. I can't altogether disagree with this assessment, but would have to add that a 64-bit MS OS is right around the corner, and 64-bit apps have already been announced.
I'm not saying that there is no need for PS/VS 3.0, just that consumers more than likely won't see the benefits for a year or more. What I'm getting at here is that even if NV4x supports PS/VS 3.0 and R420 doesn't *fully* support it, it won't really matter in the long run because NV50 and R500 will be out by the time PS/VS 3.0 is finally taken advantage of in software.
Anyway, that's my two cents
 
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PCTweaker5

Banned
Jun 5, 2003
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Really! These companies need to slow down and let us catch up, they think we're gonna buy new vid cards every year or what.
 
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VIAN

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2003
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DX9 is 2 years old and there are barely any games out supporting it.
 
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Tab

Lifer
Sep 15, 2002
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Originally posted by: VIAN
DX9 is 2 years old and there are barely any games out supporting it.
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2? You sure? I thought it was younger than that.
 
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Flyermax2k3

Diamond Member
Mar 1, 2003
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Originally posted by: PCTweaker5
Really! These companies need to slow down and let us catch up, they think we're gonna buy new vid cards every year or what.
Click to expand...

LOL, that's not what I'm saying ;)
All I'm saying is that there's a bunch of hoopla surrounding PS/VS 3.0 and it's just not that important, IMHO. ATI & Nvidia can go ahead and implement it in hardware if they so choose, but there's absolutely ZERO software support for it (including an API) so it shouldn't be a determining factor in anyone's decision to buy a next-gen video card. It's like someone buying a Geforce1 because it had hardware T&L and "all the next-gen games will utilize hardware T&L". When those games finally came out the Geforce1 wasn't even fast enough to run them, regardless of hardware T&L support.
 
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VIAN

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2003
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Alright, 1 and 1/3.

9700 Technology was released late 2002, about November. We are in early 2004.

Really! These companies need to slow down and let us catch up, they think we're gonna buy new vid cards every year or what.
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Seriously, I think we can do fine with DX7 capabilities. Just look at Doom3.
 
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Flyermax2k3

Diamond Member
Mar 1, 2003
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Originally posted by: Tabb
Originally posted by: VIAN
DX9 is 2 years old and there are barely any games out supporting it.
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2? You sure? I thought it was younger than that.
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D'oh! n/m. Came out after the Radeon 9700 was released late '02. How could I have forgotten that? It sure is hard to keep track of what came out when in the PC hardware world :)
 
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Matthias99

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2003
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From what I've heard, MS *IS* planning a DX9.0c, which will expose the PS3.0/VS3.0 calls. Don't know about *official* OGL support, but it would certainly be doable through hardware-specific extensions.

Microsoft has repeatedly stated that they want to stick with DirectX 9 until Longhorn (ie, at least through 2005 and probably 2006). So I suspect today's DX9 cards will hold up for a while yet (at least the FX5600U/R9600Pro and above).

As for DX9 support in games... remember, changing over to using pixel and vertex shaders (as well as things like stencil shadows) is a LOT more involved than, say, implementing multi-texturing on top of a DX7 engine. And there were *supposed* to be two big DX9 games last year; they've just both gotten delayed a bit... :p Seriously, though, it takes a LONG time for enough people to own new enough hardware that you can release games requiring it (and writing game engines that meaningfully support multiple levels of DirectX and don't suck is very hard). I mean, most games weren't requiring DX8 cards until last year (BF1942 is the first major release I can think of that *has* to have DX8.1 and HW T&L), and some still don't!
 
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Flyermax2k3

Diamond Member
Mar 1, 2003
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Originally posted by: Matthias99
From what I've heard, MS *IS* planning a DX9.0c, which will expose the PS3.0/VS3.0 calls. Don't know about *official* OGL support, but it would certainly be doable through hardware-specific extensions.

Microsoft has repeatedly stated that they want to stick with DirectX 9 until Longhorn (ie, at least through 2005 and probably 2006). So I suspect today's DX9 cards will hold up for a while yet (at least the FX5600U/R9600Pro and above).

As for DX9 support in games... remember, changing over to using pixel and vertex shaders (as well as things like stencil shadows) is a LOT more involved than, say, implementing multi-texturing on top of a DX7 engine. And there were *supposed* to be two big DX9 games last year; they've just both gotten delayed a bit... :p Seriously, though, it takes a LONG time for enough people to own new enough hardware that you can release games requiring it (and writing game engines that meaningfully support multiple levels of DirectX and don't suck is very hard). I mean, most games weren't requiring DX8 cards until last year (BF1942 is the first major release I can think of that *has* to have DX8.1 and HW T&L), and some still don't!
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Interesting points, and I concur with you for the most part. It takes a long time for software to catch up with hardware (as I stated in my original post) so I understand that IHVs need to implement features long before they're ever taken advantage of by software.
RE: DX9.0C: it's still unconfirmed, and any rumors of PS/VS 3.0 support is pure speculation. Sorry, I just don't see MS adding PS/VS 3.0 to to DX9 on top of PS/VS 2.0. Not that it's impossible, I just don't see it happening is all.
 
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BenSkywalker

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
9,140
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RE: DX9.0C: it's still unconfirmed, and any rumors of PS/VS 3.0 support is pure speculation. Sorry, I just don't see MS adding PS/VS 3.0 to to DX9 on top of PS/VS 2.0. Not that it's impossible, I just don't see it happening is all.
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PS/VS 3.0 is already fully supported in DX9, it was in the original shipping version. The only update needed is to the SDK, the runtime has supported PS/VS 3.0 from day one.
 
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Pete

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
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I'm beginning to wonder if ATi won't wait until its next refresh to support PS/VS3.0. I'd be surprised if they'd skip it entirely, as it seems to be a desirable milestone to want to achieve before DX10, at least in terms of testing out the features before attempting the more ambitious, full DX10 feature set.

But it'd be interesting indeed to see ATi skip PS3.0 entirely (R420 is rumored to support VS3.0, just not PS3.0--at least, not fully). What would this mean of Xbox2? And what would that do to nV's support of PS3.0: render it extraneous, like PS1.4?

It would be a good year for irony, that's for sure. :)

Edit: If I could reach B3D, I'd point to (I believe it was) Dany LePage's enthusiasm for PS/VS3.0. At least one developer is looking forward to it.
 
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Flyermax2k3

Diamond Member
Mar 1, 2003
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Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
RE: DX9.0C: it's still unconfirmed, and any rumors of PS/VS 3.0 support is pure speculation. Sorry, I just don't see MS adding PS/VS 3.0 to to DX9 on top of PS/VS 2.0. Not that it's impossible, I just don't see it happening is all.
Click to expand...

PS/VS 3.0 is already fully supported in DX9, it was in the original shipping version. The only update needed is to the SDK, the runtime has supported PS/VS 3.0 from day one.
Click to expand...

Not that I don't believe you, but can you point to any documentation from MS or IHVs/developers which backs this up?
 
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BenSkywalker

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
9,140
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Not that I don't believe you, but can you point to any documentation from MS or IHVs/developers which backs this up?
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Some of the confusion may be due to us shipping support for 3.0 shader models in the DirectX 9 runtime. This was specifically to reduce the amount of churn in the API. When some 3.0 hardware is produced we'll evaluate how close the API fits the hardware (there's always some tuning), and we may need to release an update - but remember the definitions, this would most likely be a "letter" change runtime release, not a "minor".

There is no DirectX 9.1 or DirectX 9.2 external release, nor are they currently planned. We will remove any internal-only project names that have slipped into the documentation and tools to help avoid potential confusion in the future."
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Link.
 
L

Lonyo

Lifer
Aug 10, 2002
21,938
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81
Originally posted by: VIAN
Alright, 1 and 1/3.

9700 Technology was released late 2002, about November. We are in early 2004.

Really! These companies need to slow down and let us catch up, they think we're gonna buy new vid cards every year or what.
Click to expand...
Seriously, I think we can do fine with DX7 capabilities. Just look at Doom3.
Click to expand...

Doom3 that OpenGL game?
 
V

VIAN

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2003
6,575
1
0
Yeah, but the DX equivalent is DX7. There might be some add-on too for shaders.
 
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nRollo

Banned
Jan 11, 2002
10,460
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0
It's only been within the past few months that the first games which utilize PS/VS 2.0 have even appeared, so what does it matter if PS/VS 3.0 is available in the upcoming generation of VPUs or not?
Click to expand...
SssshhhhhhhhhH! By quiet, for God's sake!!!!

Don't you realize you've just invalidated evryones "Wah. But 9700/9800 has better PS2 support!" argument for the last 18 months?!?! The whole board is likely to turn on you like a pack of piranhas!

Repeat after me, 500 times:

"Superior PS/VS 3.0 support is the single most important feature a video card can have, whether any games use it or not. This is the case with PS2 as well."

If you live by this wisdom, you will be very popular here. UNLESS the nV40 has superior PS3 support, in which case repeat the following 500 times:

"ATI antialiasing smooths a few more jaggies than nVidia AA. This is the single most important factor in buying a video card."

There you go dude. I've given you all you need to know to argue to the death in the AT video forum.
 
N

nRollo

Banned
Jan 11, 2002
10,460
0
0
Really! These companies need to slow down and let us catch up, they think we're gonna buy new vid cards every year or what.
Click to expand...

Yeah we wouldn't want the technology to keep getting better, that would really suxorz.
rolleye.gif
 
M

McArra

Diamond Member
May 21, 2003
3,295
0
0
Originally posted by: Rollo
It's only been within the past few months that the first games which utilize PS/VS 2.0 have even appeared, so what does it matter if PS/VS 3.0 is available in the upcoming generation of VPUs or not?
Click to expand...
SssshhhhhhhhhH! By quiet, for God's sake!!!!

Don't you realize you've just invalidated evryones "Wah. But 9700/9800 has better PS2 support!" argument for the last 18 months?!?! The whole board is likely to turn on you like a pack of piranhas!

Repeat after me, 500 times:

"Superior PS/VS 3.0 support is the single most important feature a video card can have, whether any games use it or not. This is the case with PS2 as well."

If you live by this wisdom, you will be very popular here. UNLESS the nV40 has superior PS3 support, in which case repeat the following 500 times:

"ATI antialiasing smooths a few more jaggies than nVidia AA. This is the single most important factor in buying a video card."

There you go dude. I've given you all you need to know to argue to the death in the AT video forum.
Click to expand...



rolleye.gif
 
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