Dont know what to call this exactly.. but i belive its proof that nvidia is a compainy that will do anything in its marketing PR to get ahead.
SM3.0 isnt going to be all that its cracked up to be at all, and ATI is just proveing it. the only advantage AT this current point is DOOM3, and a nice price point for the 6800GT which can overclock nicely. while ati has everything else. Nvidia encouraged Crytek to use partial precision in the shaders wherever possible. This means that many of the shaders will run in 16-bit precision, not the 32-bit precision (a requirement of SM3.0) that they are touting to the press. Ironically, while promoting the 32-bit precision of SM3.0 as a "must have", Nvidia is asking developers to use less precision than was available in SM1.0 - that is, all the way back in DirectX8! Even more ironically, ATI hardware will run most of the FarCry shaders more accurately (ATI hardware runs all shaders in 24-bit precision). Microsoft, the owner of DirectX, defines 24-bit and greater as "full precision" and 16-bit as "partial precision", Nvidia has claimed that ATI paid Crytek to delay the patch and include ATI features (the figure mentioned was $500k!).
farcry recap from driverheaven
SM3.0 isnt going to be all that its cracked up to be at all, and ATI is just proveing it. the only advantage AT this current point is DOOM3, and a nice price point for the 6800GT which can overclock nicely. while ati has everything else. Nvidia encouraged Crytek to use partial precision in the shaders wherever possible. This means that many of the shaders will run in 16-bit precision, not the 32-bit precision (a requirement of SM3.0) that they are touting to the press. Ironically, while promoting the 32-bit precision of SM3.0 as a "must have", Nvidia is asking developers to use less precision than was available in SM1.0 - that is, all the way back in DirectX8! Even more ironically, ATI hardware will run most of the FarCry shaders more accurately (ATI hardware runs all shaders in 24-bit precision). Microsoft, the owner of DirectX, defines 24-bit and greater as "full precision" and 16-bit as "partial precision", Nvidia has claimed that ATI paid Crytek to delay the patch and include ATI features (the figure mentioned was $500k!).
farcry recap from driverheaven
