Shader Model 3.0

[oqvist]

In my mind Shader model 3 with todays video card should only be for speed increases. For games that use it to increase image quality like Pacific Fighters it just makes the game run stuttery. A bit strange but 30 fps in PS 2.0 mode is much more smoother than 30 fps in PS 3.0 mode in games like Riddick and Pacific Fighters.

So for me Shader model 3 is of little use until we have video cards powerful enough to make use of it.

 

[PRIME1]

So is SM 3.0 going to be the Big thing to look for graphics wise in games for a while? or is something new on the horizion already.

Short answer: YES.

Long answer: There are other things on the horizon like 3Dc, OpenGL 2.0 and DirectX 10. However those are for games in 2006-2008. So for the next 12-18 months 3.0 will be the most common upgrade for games.

 

[{NG}Fidel]

So for me Shader model 3 is of little use until we have video cards powerful enough to make use of it.

Agreed but it was good of Nvidia to bring it out into the market. They seemed to be very inovative this year round.

There are other things on the horizon like 3Dc, OpenGL 2.0 and DirectX 10. However those are for games in 2006-2008. So for the next 12-18 months 3.0 will be the most common upgrade for games.

Yeah thats pretty much true. Its too bad more games dont support 3Dc as its been out for a while now.

 

[Mr. K6]

Another nod to Hate for his sig, lmao

Anyway, I think there's a ton of new things coming on the horizon, so there's alot of speculation. I'm just excited to see it all be fully used. If what PS3.0 is doing now for games is only the bare minimum of its capabilities, I'm psyched

 

[jacuzz1]

I am not sure how much chaos theory the demo uses 3.o but i can tell you what ever it uses it runs real smooth on an sli rig and the image q is breathtaking

 

[USMC2Hard4U]

Short answer: YES.

Long answer: There are other things on the horizon like 3Dc, OpenGL 2.0 and DirectX 10. However those are for games in 2006-2008. So for the next 12-18 months 3.0 will be the most common upgrade for games.

Sounds good. Thanks

 

[Elios]

I am not sure how much chaos theory the demo uses 3.o but i can tell you what ever it uses it runs real smooth on an sli rig and the image q is breathtaking

runs great on my single 6800GT too
60fps @ 1280x1024 4xAA 8xAF max settings

 

[ivzk]

I don't know about a couple of you guys, but I'm pretty sure that Hate_Bot's signature is quite obviously pro choice.

 

[oqvist]

Yes and he lives up to his name too

 

[GlobalFear]

Far Cry and Painkille with a patch. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and coming out this week Battlefield 2. There are a few others but those are the ones that stand out.

Since when?

 

[Shifra]

 

[Scali]

What is the significance of these screenshots?
What game is it (assuming it's a game)?
Assuming these are SM3.0 screenshots, are there any SM2.0 screenshots available for comparison?
Is there also a video or demo available to see it in motion (since the scenes look like they're mostly static, the lighting could well just be pre-baked, and then you can even run it on DX8.1 hardware quite well, just look at HL2, which does the same)?

The screenshots look very nice, but to me, the most impressive feature is the high detail of the geometry (assuming it's dynamic again).

 

[oqvist]

At least the last one is a pre rendered image .

 

[Hate_Bot]

The screens above ar Age Of Empires 3.

The main thing you see with SM3.0 is the water, this is just a taste of the effects they are putting ino the game (what they said) they have also said, that there is no current card, even with SM3.0, that can render that water. So if you got an Nvidia card with the hopes that SM3.0 will make it last for all games for years, you got your hopes up.

I doubt even a single next gen card (whether R520 or G70) will be able to make use of all the effects. Maube a 7800Ultra SLI or R520 AMR.

 

[Hate_Bot]

At least the last one is a pre rendered image .

Im not sure, but the devs sais all the Images they released, are In game



*drools*

 

[oqvist]

Im not sure, but the devs sais all the Images they released, are In game



*drools*

I have read interviews and the background and such are all prerendered. But the water may well be real-time.

But it´s a non brainer that water won´t be able to be rendered with todays hardware. I mentioned Pacific Fighters and it´s shader model 3.0 water looks extremely good however my 6800 ULTRA doesn´t have the power at all to run it. SLI if it works in IL 2 games should make it possible perhaps if it would eliminate the stutters. high fps is crap if you still get stutters.

 

[Scali]

The main thing you see with SM3.0 is the water, this is just a taste of the effects they are putting ino the game (what they said) they have also said, that there is no current card, even with SM3.0, that can render that water. So if you got an Nvidia card with the hopes that SM3.0 will make it last for all games for years, you got your hopes up.

What's so special about that water then? I've not seen it in motion, but the screenshots don't show anything special... It looks quite like the water in Half-Life 2, 3DMark03 and even 3DMark2001SE... which can be rendered fine with SM1.1 or SM2.0.
Perhaps the difference is the resolution at which this water is rendered, which makes it so slow? But that would be easy to fix for current SM2.0/3.0 hardware.

 

[Hate_Bot]

What's so special about that water then? I've not seen it in motion, but the screenshots don't show anything special... It looks quite like the water in Half-Life 2, 3DMark03 and even 3DMark2001SE... which can be rendered fine with SM1.1 or SM2.0.
Perhaps the difference is the resolution at which this water is rendered, which makes it so slow? But that would be easy to fix for current SM2.0/3.0 hardware.

Im stills it looks normal, now imagine it reacting, moving, swirling, with the reflections all distorting relistically.


Not possible in HL2.


SM3.0 is a good tool, on this gen of cards, it is wasted though

 

[Shifra]

What is the significance of these screenshots?
What game is it (assuming it's a game)?
Assuming these are SM3.0 screenshots, are there any SM2.0 screenshots available for comparison?
Is there also a video or demo available to see it in motion (since the scenes look like they're mostly static, the lighting could well just be pre-baked, and then you can even run it on DX8.1 hardware quite well, just look at HL2, which does the same)?

The screenshots look very nice, but to me, the most impressive feature is the high detail of the geometry (assuming it's dynamic again).

The last one is indeed a demo image but it does run in real time with the game physics. Thats what i gathered anyway. Its called "Home city". Wouldnt surprise me if they used it as the backround for the game options area like how they did it in HL2. Its basically all the things possible graphically in one image in motion. The other two are development screens from the actual game. They're making the game with HDR enabled on cards that can support it so its being designed with it right away and ment to run in it, not some afterthought or easter egg such as farcry. From the lead programmer:

We told the team to make the best-looking PC game ever.

Age 3 will support fixed-function cards, all the way up to the newer shader model 3.0 cards. Obviously, the better your machine, the nicer your game will look. I would easily expect that the game has enough high-end graphical features that most folks won't be able to crank it all the way up right away. The hardware still has a bit of catching up to do.

Gameplay-wise, yes, the graphics do drive the gameplay, and vice versa. We try to leverage opportunities in each all of the time. A good example would be cutting down trees. We put physics in for a bunch of things like building destructions and rag-doll effects. But one afternoon a programmer grabbed me and showed me how cool it looked when we put physics on the trees as they fell. It was a perfect extension. Throw in a tiny little camera shake as the tree hits, and the effect is great. It extends the other way, too. Since the trees are physics-enabled, an errant cannonball can hit them and knock them down. Stuff like that is just cool.

In terms of a serious differences, such as what you notice plainly with the eyes like what SM1.1 vs 2.0 did, there wont be that visual leap again until DX10 and SM4.0. Microsoft has stated this. Yes SM3.0 has new things, but its for fine details so it wont make walls and objects burst with detail anymore then 2.0. For the time being and if its able to render beautifully and severely tax hardware then its plenty.

 

[Scali]

Im stills it looks normal, now imagine it reacting, moving, swirling, with the reflections all distorting relistically.

Not possible in HL2.

Actually it is, if you ask me.
It already calcs the reflection and refraction per-pixel...
Unless they used SM3.0 to do something like verlet-integration, via render-to-texture and vertex texturing...
In which case you'd need to move some of it to the CPU.

 

[Hate_Bot]

m wondering, I know the Unreal engine will suport the PhysX PPU, wil AOE3?

 

[Scali]

They're making the game with HDR enabled on cards that can support it

Well, technically all SM2.0 cards with floating point rendertargets can do proper HDR, as long as there are no translucent objects... And when there are translucent objects, it could still be hacked reasonably easily with some multipass rendering (SM2.0 cards can't do floating point alphablending).
So I hope they include SM2.0 aswell, in the list of "cards that can support it".
Heck, you can even fake HDR quite effectively without using floating point rendertargets at all... 3DMark05 does this, for example. You can even make this work on DX7 hardware

 

[truffle00]

QFT

Wait until ATI has it. Then it will be the bestest feature evar!

Actually, you're right. Well, maybe not the "bestest" but it will be worth it then because the card will have the horsepower to do it right. I will also approve of it's use in Nvidia cards around the same time. Well, I guess 6800GT and above SLI works with it now, but I'm talking single video cards.

 

[oqvist]

You can´t show for natural reasons how good shader model 3 water can actually look. I already mentioned Pacific Fighters. It´s water looks better than any fps games water out there. and it has to render tons more of it

But from screenshots you can´t judge really you have to see it in motion.

 

[holycpu]

Either:

a/ You know Brent REALLY well
b/ You don't know him AT ALL
c/ You're just being an arse

Which is it?

d/ he knows something Brent doesn't know

 

[USMC2Hard4U]

What is the significance of these screenshots?
What game is it (assuming it's a game)?
Assuming these are SM3.0 screenshots, are there any SM2.0 screenshots available for comparison?
Is there also a video or demo available to see it in motion (since the scenes look like they're mostly static, the lighting could well just be pre-baked, and then you can even run it on DX8.1 hardware quite well, just look at HL2, which does the same)?

The screenshots look very nice, but to me, the most impressive feature is the high detail of the geometry (assuming it's dynamic again).

The significace of these screen shots is... look what video games look like now ! OMG... when I started playing video games 18 years ago....

http://www.progressiveboink.com/jon/images/retro/mario1.jp

 

[Jerunk]

Far Cry and Painkille with a patch. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and coming out this week Battlefield 2. There are a few others but those are the ones that stand out.

Battlefield 2 isn't due out for 1-2 more months..

 

[{NG}Fidel]

I love mario....

 

[PRIME1]

Battlefield 2 isn't due out for 1-2 more months..

My bad Outpost.com had it on sale and not listed as a pre-order. It looks like June 21st.

It does not matter for me, because I'm a cheap bastard and I won't buy it till they knock off at least $15.

 

[Scali]

The significace of these screen shots is... look what video games look like now ! OMG... when I started playing video games 18 years ago....

I dunno... There's something very charming about cartoon-like characters, happy colours, and just a lot of arcade action
I mean... one of my favourite all-time games is Track 'n' Field, on the C64, from 1984... it makes Mario look very pretty, but damn is it a lot of fun to play

These days games seem to be all about realistic graphics and physics and such... and while I do enjoy that too (I loved HL2), I still love to play those old games, and I find it a bit sad that these types of games aren't made anymore... It looks like all new games are just either FPS shooters, RTS, or RPG. And RTS and RPG are genres that I don't care about at all, so that leaves me with only FPS, basically.
Oh, and another of my favourites... Need For Speed... that's been ruined too now with those two 'ricer' games... That Underground crap is NOT what it's about. That's the sort of stuff you expect on your PlayStation or something... I want to drive supercars, and I want to drive them on proper racetracks, not on a dragstrip!

 

[Brent_Justice]

Oh, and another of my favourites... Need For Speed... that's been ruined too now with those two 'ricer' games... That Underground crap is NOT what it's about. That's the sort of stuff you expect on your PlayStation or something... I want to drive supercars, and I want to drive them on proper racetracks, not on a dragstrip!

I completely agree with you about the NFS series. I've got every game in the series, and my all time favorite from the series is Need For Speed 2. It wasn't 3D accelerated (actually I think NFS 2 SE was with Glide), but the gameplay was incredibly fun in it. I miss that.

And I remember playing Need For Speed 3 in split screen mode with my step-brother, either him or I would be the cop and the other would be the one trying to get away. Ahhhh, memories.

They need to bring that kind of fun back into the game.

I'm hoping the next one is different.

 

[Scali]

I completely agree with you about the NFS series. I've got every game in the series, and my all time favorite from the series is Need For Speed 2. It wasn't 3D accelerated (actually I think NFS 2 SE was with Glide), but the gameplay was incredibly fun in it. I miss that.

The original is still my favourite...
It was almost exactly like the original Test Drive (even nearly all the same cars, only newer versions), but just with far better technology, making the driving experience much more realistic, but still every bit as fun and challenging.
I loved Test Drive 1 and 2 aswell... 3 was a bit less, partly because its speed depended on your computer. On a 386-16 it was pretty much ideal... Ran fine on the lowest detail, which meant no trees and stuff to crash into, meaning you could cut corners like crazy
But after I got a new computer, I could no longer play it.
I never really played NFS2 either, but that's because my PC was a bit too slow at the time (a P133, no 3d card). I played it later, on my new PC, but I guess it didn't really have the same impact anymore.

NFS3 and 4 were okay aswell, especially the PSX versions... but they were much easier to play than the original... especially on PC... Once you memorized the tracks, you could drive pretty much error-free laps with little effort, so there was no challenge left.

Luckily they returned that challenge with Porsche 2000 and Hot Pursuit 2... Those are my favourites from the series, along with the original. Sadly I cannot play the original anymore on my new PC.
I guess that's the fun factor for me... The game just exciting and challenging enough that it's almost impossible to drive the perfect lap, and you'll continue playing it for months, trying to shave the last few tenths of a second off your lap times.