DOOM 3 & DX9 [Sep 17, 2003, 7:08 pm ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
With all the discussion lately about how Half-Life 2 will run on ATI hardware
compared with NVIDIA accelerators, BonusWeb.cz
shot off an email to id Software's John Carmack to ask how DOOM 3 and other
games are likely to be impacted by the difference between the two graphics
platforms running DirectX 9. Here's how he responded:
Unfortunately, it will probably be representative of most DX9 games. Doom has a custom back end that uses the lower precisions on the GF-FX, but when you run it with standard fragment programs just like ATI, it is a lot slower. The precision doesn't really matter to Doom, but that won't be a reasonable option in future games designed around DX9 level hardware as a minimum spec.
Well I sum it up like this. Some hardware developers make mistakes when creating their equipment. 3dfx decdied that, instead of creating a whole new chipset, they would use 4 of their old chips and let them run in sync. They lose, Nvidia takes what it wants (part of the AA tech if I understand correctly) Nvidia buys them up.
Now, Nvidia makes the mistake of making their cards not perform at the DX9 standard of 24 bit across the board performance-- instead giving their card different levels of precision, probably because using their lower (8 bit) is the only way they could keep the speed of ATI in pure DX9 games.
However, it seems its all but 24 bit out there, and since ATIs architecture does it better, it will run faster. The Nvidia cards can do it as well, but since they are built for pure 24 bit sampling, it will be slower.
Now thats how I take it. But even if I have the terminology wrong, precision is what its all about, and ATI's is handling it better then Nvidia for the newest technology, DirectX 9.
Now, Nvidia makes the mistake of making their cards not perform at the DX9 standard of 24 bit across the board performance-- instead giving their card different levels of precision, probably because using their lower (8 bit) is the only way they could keep the speed of ATI in pure DX9 games.
However, it seems its all but 24 bit out there, and since ATIs architecture does it better, it will run faster. The Nvidia cards can do it as well, but since they are built for pure 24 bit sampling, it will be slower.
Now thats how I take it. But even if I have the terminology wrong, precision is what its all about, and ATI's is handling it better then Nvidia for the newest technology, DirectX 9.
Date
Subject
Author
Copyright © 1996-2025 Stephen Heaslip. All rights reserved.
All trademarks are properties of their respective owners.
Privacy Policy. Manage Cookie Settings.
News CGI copyright © 1999-2025 James "furn" Furness & Blue's News. All rights reserved.
Chatbear v1.5.0/blue++: Page generated 20 June 2025, 18:37.