Carmack speaks

[Jack]

Hi there

Carmack speaks (or so they say).

Hi John,

No doubt you heard about GeForce FX fiasco in Half-Life 2. In your opinion,
are these results representative for future DX9 games (including Doom III)
or is it just a special case of HL2 code preferring ATI features, as NVIDIA
suggests?

Unfortunately, it will probably be representative of most DX9 games. Doom
has a custom back end that uses the lower precisions on the GF-FX, but when
you run it with standard fragment programs just like ATI, it is a lot
slower. The precision doesn't really matter to Doom, but that won't be a
reasonable option in future games designed around DX9 level hardware as a
minimum spec.

John Carmack

Sounds like carmack but i`m not sure about the source
http://english.bonusweb.cz/interviews/carmackgfx.html

Another obvious win for ATI here.

BYE

Jack

 

[Tim Miser]

Doom 3 is OpenGL!

Maybe somebody should tell John Carmack.

-Tim

 

[Jack]

Hi Tim

It seems that Doom3 in opengl uses also DX9 for a part. I think it will look
better on ATI and run slower due to higher precision..

BYE

Jack

 

[Toby Groves]

Doom 3 is OpenGL!

Maybe somebody should tell John Carmack.

Heh, not to mention that not long ago NVidia was kicking ATI's ass in
Doom3:

http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030512/geforce_fx_5900-11.html

Whilst I don't doubt that these figures will change before the game is
released, to go from that to ATI dominating is hardly likely.

 

[Toby Groves]

Hi Tim

It seems that Doom3 in opengl uses also DX9 for a part. I think it will look
better on ATI and run slower due to higher precision..

It will use components of DX9 for such things as sound output and
controller input etc, but the rendering will all be done via OpenGL.

 

[Tim Miser]

Well sure, Doom 3 will use portions of directx such as DirectSound and
DirectInput but it doesn't use Direct3d which is what the context of the
conversation was about.

-Tim

 

[ammonton]

Well sure, Doom 3 will use portions of directx such as DirectSound and
DirectInput but it doesn't use Direct3d which is what the context of the
conversation was about.

The quoted post talks about the DX9 feature set ("DX9 level hardware"),
not Direct3D.

-a

 

[Tim Miser]

The quoted post talks about the DX9 feature set ("DX9 level hardware"),
not Direct3D.

No, the question that was asked JC was about the HL2 fiasco with the FX and
if it was representative of future DX9 games. We all know the fiasco they
are referring to is the HL2 D3D benchmarks that were recently released and
we can be pretty certain JC was not referring to DirectInput or DirectSound
but rather Direct3D.

-Tim

 

[Ben Pope]

DirectX is also a hardware specification, not only an API. The shader
code in Doom3 may require a DX9-level graphics card even though they're
implemented through OpenGl extensions rather than through Direct3D. So
the question really was, "is this indicative of future games using
DX9-level graphics hardware".

DirectX IS a set of APIs and a bunch of core software functionality.

It is NOT a hardware specification. You could implement certain DirectX
functionality in software (within the drivers would be a good place) if you
wish and if your hardware didn't directly support that finctionailty.

Ben

 

[Tim]

Pixel shaders 2.0 are part of the dx9 specifications.

So bill gates goes i want pixel shaders 2.0 at minum of 24bit for dx9
specifications

Opengl does use those pixel shaders in doom3.

Funny thing is that john carmack can make a fast path for doom3, but halflife2
team can't. As i recall 3dmark2003, aquamark also uses dx9..FX's seem to be
good.

It's seems that the drivers they used for halflife where broken.

Ben Pope wrote:

 

[Crash7]

Funny thing is that john carmack can make a fast path for doom3, but halflife2
team can't. As i recall 3dmark2003, aquamark also uses dx9..FX's seem to be
good.

Doom 3 uses DX7-8 level tech. HL2 is using DX9.
Aquamark uses DX9 very sparingly and the latest Nvidia drivers are
lowering image quality in that to achieve better framerates.
3dmark2003? You're kiddin, right?


Crash7
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