Shader model 3 was ATI right or nVidia right?

O

oqvist

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Dec 24, 2001
Messages
8,936
As we all know when the launch of the NV40 and R400 there was a lot of talk about NV40:s shader model 3 support and ATI:s lack of it.

ATI pretty much said that their cards would be to big and consume to much higher as well as run hot and they wanted to implement it later. Thinking that todays video cards don´t either have the power for really running such long shaders or that it wouldn´t be needed.

nVidia of course claimed that it would be very important to have and how much difference it would make. That it was worth the 40 million transistors and lower clockspeeds etc etc.

Me though at the time was more inclined on ATI:s view of it did get a 6800 ULTRA anyway because of it´s stereo3d support.

But my experience is that shader model 3 so far has been pretty much useless so far.Can´t believe that if I can´t run todays shader model 3 enabled games like Riddick or Pacific Fighters in shader model 3 mode. How on earth would I be able in later games if my 6800 ULTRA is too slow already?

That it gives boosts in Far Cry which hardly make full use of PS 2.0 is one thing though ATI have gained almost the same from their 2.0b path.

But to me the ev benefits don´t seem to be better shader performance because from what it looks like the 6800 ULTRA can´t really handle shader length over the PS 2.0 limits very well. Am not saying ATI would either but then they don´t have support for it either ;).

Anyway the ev benefits seem to be more HDR support which is a side effect of nVidia wanting to fullfill the Shader model 3 requirements and not much more.

Myself I would have wished I would have owned a smaller less power hungry 6800 ULTRA which wouldn´t overheat as much as mine do and made the jump one generation later.

Otherwise it´s a good card but I think it would have been better without shader model 3 support.
 
oqvist said:
As we all know when the launch of the NV40 and R400 there was a lot of talk about NV40:s shader model 3 support and ATI:s lack of it.

ATI pretty much said that their cards would be to big and consume to much higher as well as run hot and they wanted to implement it later. Thinking that todays video cards don´t either have the power for really running such long shaders or that it wouldn´t be needed.

nVidia of course claimed that it would be very important to have and how much difference it would make. That it was worth the 40 million transistors and lower clockspeeds etc etc.

Me though at the time was more inclined on ATI:s view of it did get a 6800 ULTRA anyway because of it´s stereo3d support.

But my experience is that shader model 3 so far has been pretty much useless so far.Can´t believe that if I can´t run todays shader model 3 enabled games like Riddick or Pacific Fighters in shader model 3 mode. How on earth would I be able in later games if my 6800 ULTRA is too slow already?

That it gives boosts in Far Cry which hardly make full use of PS 2.0 is one thing though ATI have gained almost the same from their 2.0b path.

But to me the ev benefits don´t seem to be better shader performance because from what it looks like the 6800 ULTRA can´t really handle shader length over the PS 2.0 limits very well. Am not saying ATI would either but then they don´t have support for it either ;).

Anyway the ev benefits seem to be more HDR support which is a side effect of nVidia wanting to fullfill the Shader model 3 requirements and not much more.

Myself I would have wished I would have owned a smaller less power hungry 6800 ULTRA which wouldn´t overheat as much as mine do and made the jump one generation later.

Otherwise it´s a good card but I think it would have been better without shader model 3 support.
Click to expand...
ati is to lazy to devolope a new core so the optimize old technology,this is why they didnt move to shader3.0. but nvidia is right and 3.0 is the future because ati is moving to it. and shader3.0 doesnt take away preformence it adds to it
 
There has to be PS 3.0 hardware to exist for PS 3.0 games to be developed. All PS 3.0 games that are being made are using Nvidia hardware and optimized for Nvidia hardware. For $500 you can either get a PS 2.0B and Trueform err 3Dc hardware or FP 32, HDR and PS 3.0 hardware.

Why are you concerned about power? If you're a gamer you already should have a good powersupply. Heat isn't even an issue with my 6800 Ultra and I have mine flashed to 6800 Ultra Extreme edition.
 
SM3.0 will infact be the future. Does that mean the current Nv40 line can run any game with SM3.0? Nope. Think of it like this ( best example I could come up with ) ATi's 9800 Pro 128Mb 256bit was a DX9.0 card that supported PS2.0. Now..look at the 9800's performance in say...Far Cry with pixel shader 2.0 effects. It's not very good to say the least. The 9800 DOES do good w/ DX8.1 games though. The 6800 GT/U does great in PS2.0 games, but I highly doubt it'll be able to run a good looking SM3.0 game @ max details. SM3.0 just isn't fully developed yet, and neither are the cards for it. Just because a card supports a feature doesn't mean it'll do great with it.
 
Yeah but you say it yourself. Shader model 3 is for the future. So if it leads to big mammooths like the 6800 ULTRA I have why do I need it? I can´t use it any way because my video card is to slow?

If Shader model 3 is the future then we don´t need it until the NV50 and R500 right when we are on 0,90 or 0,11 processes IMO.

If nVidia and ATI engineers would been lazy XGI would be running the show :). It´s pretty good to be lazy and just as fast
 
Mr Mean said:
There has to be PS 3.0 hardware to exist for PS 3.0 games to be developed. All PS 3.0 games that are being made are using Nvidia hardware and optimized for Nvidia hardware. For $500 you can either get a PS 2.0B and Trueform err 3Dc hardware or FP 32, HDR and PS 3.0 hardware.

Why are you concerned about power? If you're a gamer you already should have a good powersupply. Heat isn't even an issue with my 6800 Ultra and I have mine flashed to 6800 Ultra Extreme edition.
Click to expand...

Wow replies comes in faster then I write.

Well thing is the more power the more heat. I do have a PCP&C 510 Deluxe but it´s powering a vapochill and usb devices as well. My 6800 ULTRA start to stutter if anything over 425 really and that is when I have low ambient temps. When they go up I will have to run 400. My video card hate temps over 80 degrees.

But anyway features you don´t use is useless features to me. And really shader model 3 doesn´t bring in much new except the unlimited shader length. That Far Cry developers only had to work for 2 weeks to implement it says itself. That is also why it´s being used so much. nVidia give them money and people to do it and it don´t take much time to implement. Surely it´s nice to have 5-10 % more performance in for example Far Cry but then without shader model 3 support they may have been able to boost it even more.

Me I wouldn´t care if my 6800 ULTRA would be AGP 8X or AGP 4X if there where no performance difference. There may be for this generation though it wasn´t for the last.

Should we gamers just demand features or the most efficient running card available?
 
oqvist said:
Wow replies comes in faster then I write.

Well thing is the more power the more heat. I do have a PCP&C 510 Deluxe but it´s powering a vapochill and usb devices as well. My 6800 ULTRA start to stutter if anything over 425 really and that is when I have low ambient temps. When they go up I will have to run 400. My video card hate temps over 80 degrees.

But anyway features you don´t use is useless features to me. And really shader model 3 doesn´t bring in much new except the unlimited shader length. That Far Cry developers only had to work for 2 weeks to implement it says itself. That is also why it´s being used so much. nVidia give them money and people to do it and it don´t take much time to implement. Surely it´s nice to have 5-10 % more performance in for example Far Cry but then without shader model 3 support they may have been able to boost it even more.

Me I wouldn´t care if my 6800 ULTRA would be AGP 8X or AGP 4X if there where no performance difference. There may be for this generation though it wasn´t for the last.

Should we gamers just demand features or the most efficient running card available?
Click to expand...
You want features not stagnet hardware. I hope you haven't forgotten the mighty 3Dfx company that pioneered 3D gaming with its eventual downfall was the lack of features that gamers wanted.

If you play farcry all day then get an ATI card. Then when PS 3.0 games do come out spend another $500 again for a PS 3.0 hardware.

If your video card is fine at 425 then leave it at that. Atleast you're getting something out of it.
 
oqvist said:
Yeah but you say it yourself. Shader model 3 is for the future. So if it leads to big mammooths like the 6800 ULTRA I have why do I need it? I can´t use it any way because my video card is to slow?

If Shader model 3 is the future then we don´t need it until the NV50 and R500 right when we are on 0,90 or 0,11 processes IMO.

If nVidia and ATI engineers would been lazy XGI would be running the show :). It´s pretty good to be lazy and just as fast
Click to expand...
There HAS to be PS 3.0 HARDWARE to EXIST to make PS 3.0 GAMES.

How do you know Shader model 3 is slow? You're going to judge it by one game? Or a game that has been written from the ground up and optimized with PS 3.0 hardware?
 
Mr Mean said:
There HAS to be PS 3.0 HARDWARE to EXIST to make PS 3.0 GAMES.

How do you know Shader model 3 is slow? You're going to judge it by one game? Or a game that has been written from the ground up and optimized with PS 3.0 hardware?
Click to expand...


You're nuts if you think the NV40 line can run upcoming SM3.0 games maxed out. It can barely run far cry or half life 2 max out.

NV40 = great w/ PS2.0
R420 = great w/ PS2.0

It'll be another year before SM3.0 games start rolling in, then guess what? The 6800/X800's are gonna be old news.
 
Circuitbreaker8 said:
You're nuts if you think the NV40 line can run upcoming SM3.0 games maxed out. It can barely run far cry or half life 2 max out.

NV40 = great w/ PS2.0
R420 = great w/ PS2.0

It'll be another year before SM3.0 games start rolling in, then guess what? The 6800/X800's are gonna be old news.
Click to expand...


How do you know it's not going to run good? :p I doubt a developer working with a PS 3.0 hardware say. Hey you know what? Lets code this so bad that this PS 3.0 cannot handle it. No sane developer is going to code this generation PS 3.0 hardware at an unacceptable level who wants their engine/game to sell.

The 9700 handled PS 2.0 pretty good when PS 2.0 games came out.
 
I think the lesson learned is nVidia jumped the gun a bit on SM3... they wasted resources implementing it in the 6X00 series of cards. Perhaps it will help them in the future since they have already brought a SM3 product to the market, or perhaps ATI will not have any trouble with it, and by saving money improving (alot) on previous cores, they will be able to bring something else to the table that they otherwise would not have been able to bring.
 
nweibley said:
I think the lesson learned is nVidia jumped the gun a bit on SM3... they wasted resources implementing it in the 6X00 series of cards. Perhaps it will help them in the future since they have already brought a SM3 product to the market, or perhaps ATI will not have any trouble with it, and by saving money improving (alot) on previous cores, they will be able to bring something else to the table that they otherwise would not have been able to bring.
Click to expand...

If you don't build it, they won't come.

No developer is going to code their game for DirectX 15b because it dosn't exsist yet. But they will start putting in SM3.0 code into newer games.

And SM3.0 is a good thing, and without Nivida to start the ball rolling, it would not every have been put into use.

So Nvidia did not jump the gun, they got the ball rolling. Without someone to push the technology we would still all be playing games that look like Wolfinstein3D, not HL2 and D3.

==>Lazn
 
Lazn_Work said:
If you don't build it, they won't come.
Click to expand...
Exactly.

Both nvidia and ati have been pushing new features. Some stuck and some failed. Of course SM3.0 is a good thing, just like 32-bit color, hardware T&L, PS1/2, etc.
 
I say both companies were partially right for their part of the argument. nVidia is correct that this WILL be a major improvement once others start jumping on and thast it allows for easier and faster dev of games.

However ATI was also right in saying that only a handful of games wil support SM3.0, and this is true. As of today, only 1-2 gamers use it right now and by the end of this year a max of 15 will be using it, nothing to jump for joy over.
 
nVidia did not have to "get the ball rolling". If developers want the realism that gamers demand from them to be implemented in their games, they will constantly have to keep improving their methods of rendering. Everyone knew SM3 was coming, it really still is up to the developers to implement the code... if they don't need it, they wont... and likewise, if ATI and or nVidia can render the same image without the newest of new, they will (or should) go that route.
 
nweibley said:
nVidia did not have to "get the ball rolling". If developers want the realism that gamers demand from them to be implemented in their games, they will constantly have to keep improving their methods of rendering. Everyone knew SM3 was coming, it really still is up to the developers to implement the code... if they don't need it, they wont... and likewise, if ATI and or nVidia can render the same image without the newest of new, they will (or should) go that route.
Click to expand...
How can developers work on SM3 when there is no SM3 hardware out there?

No they shouldn't just old technology route at all. They should go with new technology route :)
 
minc3d said:
I say both companies were partially right for their part of the argument. nVidia is correct that this WILL be a major improvement once others start jumping on and thast it allows for easier and faster dev of games.

However ATI was also right in saying that only a handful of games wil support SM3.0, and this is true. As of today, only 1-2 gamers use it right now and by the end of this year a max of 15 will be using it, nothing to jump for joy over.
Click to expand...
ATI doesn't have hardware with SM 3.0 support. They will do ANYTHING in their power to disprove it till they have their SM 3.0 product. Once they have SM 3.0 they will say it's the greatest thing since slice bread. It's all marketing, imagine the X800 owner who had his card for under 8 months and there is ATI harping PS 3.0 :p It will kill ATI sales if they admit SM 3 is important.
 
Mr Mean said:
How can developers work on SM3 when there is no SM3 hardware out there?

No they shouldn't just old technology route at all. They should go with new technology route :)
Click to expand...


You're missing the point. Just because NV introduced SM3.0 w/ the NV40 doesn't mean the NV40 is going to be able to utilize it to the fullest.
 
Circuitbreaker8 said:
SM3.0 will infact be the future. Does that mean the current Nv40 line can run any game with SM3.0? Nope. Think of it like this ( best example I could come up with ) ATi's 9800 Pro 128Mb 256bit was a DX9.0 card that supported PS2.0. Now..look at the 9800's performance in say...Far Cry with pixel shader 2.0 effects. It's not very good to say the least. The 9800 DOES do good w/ DX8.1 games though. The 6800 GT/U does great in PS2.0 games, but I highly doubt it'll be able to run a good looking SM3.0 game @ max details. SM3.0 just isn't fully developed yet, and neither are the cards for it. Just because a card supports a feature doesn't mean it'll do great with it.
Click to expand...

I disagree with the comment about hte 9800 pro. I think the 9800 pro does an excellent job with the pixel shaders. I think it's more about bandwidth and raw power though. When you start adding AA/AF effects the x800/6800's tend to smash the previous generation cards. Farcry isn't a great example either because that game really puts a load on the 6800 and x800 series too. The 9800 though, can run full detail from what i've seen, on Farcy, and almost every game just fine.
 
bboynitrous said:
I disagree with the comment about hte 9800 pro. I think the 9800 pro does an excellent job with the pixel shaders. I think it's more about bandwidth and raw power though. When you start adding AA/AF effects the x800/6800's tend to smash the previous generation cards. Farcry isn't a great example either because that game really puts a load on the 6800 and x800 series too. The 9800 though, can run full detail from what i've seen, on Farcy, and almost every game just fine.
Click to expand...

You beat me too it. I'm like...are you crazy? The 9800pros handled farcry with excellence.

SM3 is about efficiency and performance. Doesn't add any new image quality. Think of the 9700s. They were SM2 ready and they performed ok for the games just dabbing in SM2. But when full blown games like Farcry came out, they took a step back. Not badly, but they were "showing age" and I use that loosely.

I'm sorry but the thread starter just made a point I never even thought off. You have a handful of games that are pushing SM2/3 with chronicles of riddick and Pacific fighters and it's not giving it a boost over it's direct competition (x800 series) and the image quality is the same.......Big deal.
 
You can't wait for the games to start releasing with Smart Shader 3.0 before you start supporting it because the games have to be built around the hardware before they are ever released. nVidia was smart to get started now.

If nVidia jumped the gun on Smart Shader 3.0 then AMD sure the hell jumped the gun on 64-bit extensions because there were Smart Shader 3.0 enabled games just a few months after the release of the NV40's and here we are almost 2 years down the road after the release of the 64-bit K8 Athlon64/Opteron cores and we still dont have a 64-bit OS, 64-bit drivers or 64-bit applications to make use of it.
 
burningrave101 said:
You can't wait for the games to start releasing with Smart Shader 3.0 before you start supporting it because the games have to be built around the hardware before they are ever released. nVidia was smart to get started now.
Click to expand...

not really true

a developer can code in SM 3.0 with HLSL

you just can't test it with hardware acceleration

but there is nothing stopping a developer from coding it, or creating an engine supporting it


i think what you mean to say is that games with SM 3.0 support won't be released until there is hardware out there that can render it and the masses have it

why ship a game that supports something that can't be rendered, it doesn't make sense to waste time and money coding for something that no one has

therefore chicken and the egg, the hardware has to come out first, before game developers ship games with the feature support


ATI was first with a DX9 card, that helped push DX9 PS/VS 2.0

NV was first with a SM 3.0 card, that will help push games with DX9 PS/VS 3.0 support


regardless of who gets the hardware out there first it has to happen before we see games supporting the features
 
Netrat33 said:
You beat me too it. I'm like...are you crazy? The 9800pros handled farcry with excellence.

SM3 is about efficiency and performance. Doesn't add any new image quality. Think of the 9700s. They were SM2 ready and they performed ok for the games just dabbing in SM2. But when full blown games like Farcry came out, they took a step back. Not badly, but they were "showing age" and I use that loosely.

I'm sorry but the thread starter just made a point I never even thought off. You have a handful of games that are pushing SM2/3 with chronicles of riddick and Pacific fighters and it's not giving it a boost over it's direct competition (x800 series) and the image quality is the same.......Big deal.
Click to expand...

Looks like a good image quality increase to me...
Farcry without SM 3:
http://hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTA5ODgwOTkwNERKN2E2QlpNZmRfMV8xX2wuanBn
With SM 3:
http://hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTA5ODgwOTkwNERKN2E2QlpNZmRfMV8yX2wuanBn
 
robberbaron said:
Looks like a good image quality increase to me...
Farcry without SM 3:
http://hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTA5ODgwOTkwNERKN2E2QlpNZmRfMV8xX2wuanBn
With SM 3:
http://hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTA5ODgwOTkwNERKN2E2QlpNZmRfMV8yX2wuanBn
Click to expand...
ROFL
NVIDIA Provided Screenshots
Click to expand...
Ya, we can trust nvidia to the show the diffs.
Weren't those proved to be SM1?
I suggest you read this http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=Njc4LDI=
Read it, the difference is not from the SM version, but the patch version.

In the first comparison screenshot above, there is no difference at all between Patch 1.1 and 1.3. In the second comparison screenshot we can see the lighting difference between Patch 1.1 and 1.3, which we also observed on the Radeon X800XT. In the third comparison screenshot we find that Patch 1.3 does improve shader quality here. The floor lights reflection and ceiling reflection are rendered smooth with no blocking or banding. In the fourth screenshot we see another example of the difference in lighting with Patch 1.3, which is the same thing we saw with the Radeon X800XT. Finally in the last screenshot comparison you can see there is a large performance increase and some slight improvements in image quality with Patch 1.3 due to the lighting shaders being rendered better than with Patch 1.1.
Click to expand...
 
Brent_Justice said:
not really true

a developer can code in SM 3.0 with HLSL

you just can't test it with hardware acceleration

but there is nothing stopping a developer from coding it, or creating an engine supporting it


i think what you mean to say is that games with SM 3.0 support won't be released until there is hardware out there that can render it and the masses have it

why ship a game that supports something that can't be rendered, it doesn't make sense to waste time and money coding for something that no one has

therefore chicken and the egg, the hardware has to come out first, before game developers ship games with the feature support


ATI was first with a DX9 card, that helped push DX9 PS/VS 2.0

NV was first with a SM 3.0 card, that will help push games with DX9 PS/VS 3.0 support


regardless of who gets the hardware out there first it has to happen before we see games supporting the features
Click to expand...

to add to that what I'm really curious to see is who is going to be the first with SM 4.0 support

THAT is a big leap ahead of DX9

unified vertex and pixel shader programs
 
robberbaron said:
I see, I thought the whole point of 1.3 was for SM 3 and bugfixes.
Click to expand...


Yeap. And fix a problem with Ati cards in general (1.2 hosed a lot of people's game)
SM3 helped farcry play faster on 6800 series cards.
 
robberbaron said:
I see, I thought the whole point of 1.3 was for SM 3 and bugfixes.
Click to expand...

Yes, Patch 1.3 has SM 3.0. It does not however give you the quality as seen in those shots provided by NVIDIA, which we proved.

Those shots from NVIDIA show Parallax Mapping, which is not in FarCry, even with patch 1.3.
 
Brent_Justice said:
not really true

a developer can code in SM 3.0 with HLSL

you just can't test it with hardware acceleration

but there is nothing stopping a developer from coding it, or creating an engine supporting it


i think what you mean to say is that games with SM 3.0 support won't be released until there is hardware out there that can render it and the masses have it

why ship a game that supports something that can't be rendered, it doesn't make sense to waste time and money coding for something that no one has

therefore chicken and the egg, the hardware has to come out first, before game developers ship games with the feature support


ATI was first with a DX9 card, that helped push DX9 PS/VS 2.0

NV was first with a SM 3.0 card, that will help push games with DX9 PS/VS 3.0 support


regardless of who gets the hardware out there first it has to happen before we see games supporting the features
Click to expand...

But huge debate that always goes on is will it be the "death bell" for ati cards because they support it which is no. It's not a big deal as in the leap of SM4 like you posted later. But some people think it's going to be the cat's meow.
 
Funny in all the recent Reviews I see the X800s beating the 6800s in performance. On this site too. Too add my two cents every year or so companies take the plunge with new things (SM3.0 and 3Dc) and you have to hope for the best. SM3.0 will be the next thing but dont expect to run it on last years hardware.
 
SM 3.0 IMO is really just a stop gap to SM 4.0

DX9 supported PS/VS 3.0 since its debut, there has just not been any hardware support for it till now.

But it'll have to hold us over till SM 4.0 which will come in Longhorn, which won't be till the end of 2006, so we got a couple years, and SM 3.0 will be the best you can get till then.
 
Circuitbreaker8 said:
SM3.0 will infact be the future. Does that mean the current Nv40 line can run any game with SM3.0? Nope. Think of it like this ( best example I could come up with ) ATi's 9800 Pro 128Mb 256bit was a DX9.0 card that supported PS2.0. Now..look at the 9800's performance in say...Far Cry with pixel shader 2.0 effects. It's not very good to say the least. The 9800 DOES do good w/ DX8.1 games though. The 6800 GT/U does great in PS2.0 games, but I highly doubt it'll be able to run a good looking SM3.0 game @ max details. SM3.0 just isn't fully developed yet, and neither are the cards for it. Just because a card supports a feature doesn't mean it'll do great with it.
Click to expand...

It will in SLI................ :cool:
 
gsboriqua said:
Yea on a couple games and some benchmarks
Click to expand...

Given Nvidia's financial strength and the timing of the sm3 games as well as their substantial current investment in SLI , it is my humble opionion that it will be more than just a couple of games.

PS , ATI does not thinks so either otherwise they would not be buying into sli like they are about to do
 
nweibley said:
I think the lesson learned is nVidia jumped the gun a bit on SM3... they wasted resources implementing it in the 6X00 series of cards. Perhaps it will help them in the future since they have already brought a SM3 product to the market, or perhaps ATI will not have any trouble with it, and by saving money improving (alot) on previous cores, they will be able to bring something else to the table that they otherwise would not have been able to bring.
Click to expand...


Whether or not you think SM3 is right for this time period, you can't say nvidia didn't do well including SM3 in their cards, at least from a marketing standpoint. They sold many, many cards because they were "future-proof" compared to the X800, which was just "an overclocked 9700." Those of you who bought a 6800, would you have made the same choice if you the 6800 was a little faster but had no SM 3?
So, from nvidia's perspective, the feature has been a complete success. It has sold a boatload of cards for them, and taken attention away from some of the 6800 series shortcomings.
 
jacuzz1 said:
Given Nvidia's financial strength and the timing of the sm3 games as well as their substantial current investment in SLI , it is my humble opionion that it will be more than just a couple of games.

PS , ATI does not thinks so either otherwise they would not be buying into sli like they are about to do
Click to expand...


That was in reference to its current state. Also ATi's GPUs can work in tandum with each other and already have a multi GPU solution. Although an assumption, I believe ATi's consumer solution will probably be more transparent that Nvidia's current use of SLI.
 
robberbaron said:
I see, I thought the whole point of 1.3 was for SM 3 and bugfixes.
Click to expand...
it did fix some bugs, apparently the lighting was bugged, since they changed it it 1.3
Bottem line is that SM2B can do almost anything SM3 can do.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top