I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
~ Stephen Jay Gould
fhertlein Skirmisher
posted 05-31-05 10:30 AM
EDT (US)
2 / 7
Pixel Shader v.2 versus v.3, which is what AOE3 will have enabled.
Leaving technical jargon aside pixel shader 3 adds an extra layer of detail over Version 2.1 Up till now its only been available as a patch for Far Cry, so the graphics will be eye-watering . You'd need deep pockets to get the feature tho. As far as I know its only available on the top of the range nvidia geforce 6 series (6200,6600,6800).Next-gen radeons will support it though. Both of which I don't currently have "The NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series of GPUs provides a groundbreaking feature set for computing, including full support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 for unparalleled gaming effects. Delivering a revolutionary superscalar architecture, and an advanced on-chip video processor, the GeForce 6 Series of GPUs powers the ultimate PC experiences. Providing unparalleled visual quality and realism, the GeForce 6 Series delivers graphics to drench your senses."
Dungeon Siege 2 Beta 1 has the option to choose between shader 2.1 and shader 3.0. So far i havent seen a difference in graphics, except for the water that looks better. Pixel shader 3.0 also slows down the game ALOT.
There really isn't enough difference to bother. Take it as a bonus, not a required feature.
Spacemonk Skirmisher
posted 06-03-05 08:59 AM
EDT (US)
7 / 7
The only real difference is that there are more complicated shader programs available, because shader 3.0 has no real limit in program length, but that's just for the programmers, you won't see that much of it on screen. The thing you will see is that shader 3.0 has the option to actually change the geometry of objects through some sort of bumpmapping. Normally bumpmapping is normally used to give things more depth because you can let it generate correct shadows so it will look like things come out or fall in to the surface. Bwaah too hard to explain for me, anyway there's said that there isn't much difference between 2.1 and 3.0 in visuals. Also 3.0 is slower then 2.1 and most of the time not worth it on the current graphics cards. But it should be a lot better on the new ones comming later this year iirc
"Give me Age of Empires, sir, and you may keep your Warcraft."