ATI 9200 and Tiger - Again... sorry!

[agentdavo]

So, Tiger needs rev2.0/3.0 shaders? Ok so basically a dx9 class card.

The 9200 has rev1.4 shaders (dx8.1). Why not write backward compatible shader programs for rev1.4 too? Game developers sure do.....

Are Apples shader programs really that long so not to fit in shader 1.4? Can they not achieve similar results with smaller shader programs for less complex Tiger tasks?

What gives?

Tell me if i'm talking rubbish!

 

[gekko513]

I really doubt that the length of the programs is the only difference between shader model 1.4 and 2.0. It's more probable that there are more features in v2.0.

Tiger will run on a 9200 but like the game developers do, they turn off the features that are not supported on that card. This just means that some of the fanciest transitions and effects in Tiger will not be quite as fancy on a 9200.

At least that's how I understand it.

 

[agentdavo]

A good example of the performance raising capabilities of Shader 2.0 is the Wolfman Demonstration GPU. Using of Shader 1.4 rendering, the fur on the Wolfman character took eight passes. Using Shader 2.0 , the GPU is able to render the Wolfman's fur in one single pass. The result is a huge performance gain without sacrificing image quality.

I guess something like that is why CoreVideo wont be fully supported then....