Great post there HBringer. Very informative. I give you a Score:5 Insightful and a bonus point for not being an "anonymous coward"
I quote:
"In a nutshell, Carmack is basically saying that to get equal performance out of the cards, he's had to go out of his way to create a special set of code for the nVidia hardware"
This is exactly the reason why Valve(Gabe) is pissed at Nvidia. He is sick of writing special (non-standard) code so that Nvidia's latest dx8 card, I mean "dx9" (ahem) can run his engine properly. ATI does not require this.
However, whether the D3 engine is "optimised" in favor of Nvidia (OpenGL) or not, we still have to consider this engine will be used in many games in the future. The same goes for the HL2 engine.
Most probably:
ATI will run HL2 faster/quality than Nvidia.
but Nvidia will run D3 faster/quality than ATI.
This is an assumption and the reason I'm waiting to see with my very own eyes.
Looking at what API (DirectX/OpenGL) and more importantly what engines (HL2 or Doom3 - don't forget Unreal) the games of the next 3 years will be using would probably be a more accurate measure to decide which card to buy if money is not an issue.
Strength is irrelevant, resistance is futile. I am being assimulated by the ATI BORG... MEEP MEEP.
This comment was edited on Sep 18, 06:05.