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ATI and Shader Model 3

A

Alowishus

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 21, 2004
Messages
268
This has probably been asked before, but whats ATI's deal with shader model 3? Why havent they implemented shader model 3 into any of their newer cards?

ps. Im looking for an explanation not a fight, I like ATI.
 
Basically, ATi felt that SM 3.0 was useless, no new games use it, and it'll be atleast a year or more before any games support SM 3.0.
 
I would understand that on an lower end PCI-E or AGP card, but if Im buying a 600 dollar PCI-E x850 xt pe then I plan on keeping it for well over a year.
 
Yeah, that's the problem. If you're going to keep the graphics card for a year plus, then get a nVidia with SM 3.0.

The graphics card market is all messed up right now.
 
Alowishus said:
This has probably been asked before, but whats ATI's deal with shader model 3? Why havent they implemented shader model 3 into any of their newer cards?

ps. Im looking for an explanation not a fight, I like ATI.
Click to expand...

ATI's stance was that SM 3.0 would not be important for a while and that SM 2.0 can produce the same image quality as SM 3.0. They said they would wait until the time is right to release a SM 3.0 card.
 
Brent_Justice said:
ATI's stance was that SM 3.0 would not be important for a while and that SM 2.0 can produce the same image quality as SM 3.0. They said they would wait until the time is right to release a SM 3.0 card.
Click to expand...

More specifically, they wanted to spend their transistor budget on other things they thought would improve performance, because implementing SM3.0 costs lots of transistors.
 
ATi hasn't released a new architecture since the R300. They've just expanded on it.
They will build an SM3 card (probably the next card they'll release), they're just taking their time... This may be a good thing. There are some things in SM3, like branching, which are hard to get efficient. I think they're taking their time to solve the problems, and create an architecture that performs great, and can scale on for a few years, like the R300.
That would make perfect sense... So far only FarCry supports SM3, so it's not such a big deal not to have SM3 hardware yet.
We've also seen (in a Humus demo for example), that branching in the 6800 wasn't all that efficient yet, so it may well be that the future SM3 cards from ATi (and NV) are a lot faster with SM3 code.

That's the optimistic view. The pessimistic view is that ATi is now having a "GeForce FX" affair of its own. In other words, an architecture that was designed poorly, and was delayed because they were trying to fix it (and didn't succeed).
I find this unlikely however, since the move from SM2 to SM3 should be simpler than the move from SM1.x to SM2, and ATi already has excellent SM2 hardware.

Anyway, yes it seems like a problem if you buy a high-end ATi card now, that you'll miss out on SM3 until your next upgrade...
But it could also be that the future SM3 cards from ATi (and NV) are much faster than the 6800s, and that you can't really run SM3 software on the 6800 in practice, because it turns out to be too slow (much like GeForce FX and SM2).

I really can't say.. I guess the best strategy is to wait, as usual :)
Or buy a not-so-high-end card that you won't mind upgrading next year.
Or, just live with the fact that you can't run SM3 software, SM2 is very nice aswell (ATi is mostly right... their cards have enough speed to implement most SM3 stuff in a less optimal way with SM2.0b) :)
 
To add:

So far we dont have any real data to suggest just how much faster an SM3 card will be over a card that lacks it. We only have Farcry to go on. Benchmarks have shown that its faster on the 6800 serries on SM3 vrs SM2 paths which is a good thing. However AIT's card running on the SM2.0b showed that its just as fast on that path. Thus the over all conclusion and impact is unknow. Granted all things being equal its a good thing to have. However its not a must nor would I consider it a instant deal breaker if a card did not have it...
 
SM 3.0 has no visual improvement over SM 2.0, just a perfomance increase. (Read what [H]ard|OCP has to say.)

My guess is that ATI thought it was a waste of transistors and the money could be better spent else-ware.
 
Dr. X said:
Uh, nothing in that thread shows an ati card "wiping the floor" with and nvidia card. :confused:
Click to expand...

I guess you did not both to read the thread as the poster had this to say:

Sadly that was my performance on the 6800GT & BTW 16xAF/HQ was forced in that shot .
the X800 card get double that framerate @1600x1200,8xAF,HQ .. go figure!"
Click to expand...
 
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