Oh oh... ATI is in a little hole.
nVidia seems to have made good use of its multimillion dollar investement in securing games. Much of that money has gone into getting games to adopt Shader Model 3.0 and a list, revealed on NVNews and subsequently removed, indicated that quite a few titles will support the controversial SM 3.0.
If this extensive list of titles proves to be correct then ATIs main argument, that it is too early to adopt SM 3.0 and that SM 2.0b is good enough, will no loger be valid. This list however, also puts ATIs choice to unleash the R520 in 2005 with SM 3.0 support into perspective. The Canadians, it seems, plan to use nVidias investment to their advantage.
The plot thickens however as one title is, controversially, included in nVidia's SM 3.0 list: Half-Life 2. It could be that since Valve will release the game in late September and since 3-4 months later ATI will support SM 3.0, the companies have agreed to use it in H-L 2. If that is the case nVidia will get a good 6 month window of being the only company with boards available that fully support Half-Life 2. Unless, of course, SM 3.0 support is released as a patch only after ATI releases its R520 boards. Confused? They probably want you to be, makes choosing a card a more emotional process than it should be.
However Half-Life 2 SM 3.0 support works out, nVidia seems to have made very good use of its money and the list of games was impressive. Titles included Lord of the rings: Battle for Middle Earth, Stalker: Shadows of Chernobyl, Splinter Cell 3, Tiger Woods 2005, Vampire: Bloodlines, Madden 2005, Driver 3.0, Grafan, Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, Patched Painkiller and patched Far Cry.
If ATI makes the slightest mistake in the timing and supply of the R520, it stands to fall behind nVidia in a way which could severly damage its challenge on its rivals marketshare.
What gamers what is wider support for features, and RAW speeds, AND good drivers. So the nVidea strategy choices (to write better drivers and wider support) its better. Bu I actually own a ATI because is cheaper and easy, and because the name system is consistent. A example: GeForce4 MX is lower card than GeForce 3, so its a FRAUD from nVidia to lie and convince some people to buy a fake GeForce4.
Demon lies in details.
That's not really fraud... they make it fairly clear that its part of the GeForce4 line because it supports GeForce4 features; the most logical way to class it. :/
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It will work, but won't be as effective to play as if you had Nvidia GFX cards. Go NVIDIA!!! :D
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Thats only if nvidia doesn't release a patch. A press release from NVIDIA, says they will be releasing a patch which will fix that when HL2 is released. GO NVIDIA!!!!
and that's the end of Round 2 now please both fan boys back into your corner :p (j/k)
I guess I might as well as stick with Nvidia.... sooo GO NVIDIA!!!!!
amen to that :D GO NVIDIA!! :P
nvidia is more expensive thou :|
But ends with better results, it also depends on what game your playing and what graphics you going to be playing it at. But it also entirely stands on which cards you are comparing :D
The problem with this article is that it is really subjective and thus more of a editorial then anything else.
Nvidia their choice to include SM3.0 may seem smart, but it is nothing more then a compensation for the fact that they decided to drop DirectX support some while back. (Which has been corrected again, to my knowledge..) Another thing is, that to my knowledge, Everything SM3.0 can do, SM2.0 can also do. The only difference being that SM3.0 is far more efficient at it.
So basically: the water will look very good in HL2 for Nvidia card owners but overal performance and looks (due to using DirectX 8.1 instead of 9) will be less then the more powerful ATi cards. (ATi being more powerful in this case since they fully support DirectX.)
So, it is a nice compensation, but more something to win some more souls into buying Nvidia products then anything else.
A patch is going to be released for the hl2 DirectX problem. I put that in the report didnt i? O well but they are going to release a patch to fix that.. Guest you Suck go home :P
I ear that is easy to have both a vga and a hercules card in the same computers, has vram map in different memory areas.
My next videocard will be a trident 8190 or a TVGA8900 HNG8916CX 248LC2 or a nice hercules video card.
j/k.
GO..... whatever...
SkitZaY, Nvidia can patch whatever they want but a fact is that their cards aren't good at the hardware side of DirectX. A software patch won't improve the performance. At slightest only patch it up a little. (No pun intended.) And yes, our little guest there is odd. Quite so..