Chaos Theory DX9 Graphics Explained

[CR6 0]

Soft Shadows, HDR Rendering, Parallax Mapping and more in SC3

"Huh?" is what most regular gamers would say in response to the title of this post, but these features in SC3: Chaos Theory have 3D graphics enthusiasts absolutely drooling! Beyond3D has an excellent article explains these graphical goodies in SC3. Check out the end of the article for a timedemo benchmark too! (Note that Shader Model 3 is currently only available in Nvidia GeForce 6xxx series cards.)

http://www.beyond3d.com/misc/benchguide/index.php?p=sc3

[WhiteKnight77 1]

Too cool. I guess those who bought the latest gen ATi cards are gonna be wishing they had gone the nVidia route. I wonder how many other games use the SH3 specs too that are out or on the way out.

[Dick Splash 23]

Too cool. I guess those who bought the latest gen ATi cards are gonna be wishing they had gone the nVidia route.

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That link was too wordy for me .

Does it mean that you'll only get the best out of the game if you have a high end nVidia? I'm still leaning towards ATi.

DS

[WhiteKnight77 1]

There are no ATi cards taht support shader model 3.0 at this time.

[CR6 0]

Too cool. I guess those who bought the latest gen ATi cards are gonna be wishing they had gone the nVidia route.

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That link was too wordy for me .

Does it mean that you'll only get the best out of the game if you have a high end nVidia? I'm still leaning towards ATi.

DS

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Don't worry DS, Beyond3D is a highly technical site ... I mainly look at the nice pictures anyway

Here's a close-up of the soft shadows comparison I did for a news post at SC Retreat:

http://forums.3dretreat.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5782

Nvidia's big selling points vs. ATI with their 6xxx series of cards are SLI and Shader Model 3 support. But the majority of gamers will not take advantage of these 2 features in the near future because 1) can't afford buying 2 identical cards; 2) very few games using Shader Model 3.0

ATI's cards do run certain games better - HL2 for example, so it really depends on the games you play.

No matter what company's card you own, all PC games these days are pretty much guaranteed to run on Radeon and GeForce series cards, so even if Radeons don't do SM 3.0, games will fall back to DirectX 8.1's Shader Model 1.1 or DX9's Shader Model 2.0.

There are very few games with SM3 support these days anyway (Far Cry and SC3 are the only two I can think of) but you will see more and more when Xbox 360 and PS3 games start getting ported over.

[Dick Splash 23]

There are very few games with SM3 support these days anyway (Far Cry and SC3 are the only two I can think of) but you will see more and more when Xbox 360 and PS3 games start getting ported over.

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It's interesting you mention Far Cry because I saw a 'big two' comparison last summer and Ati was the way to go. The water looked a lot clearer etc. Have nVidia done something new?

DS

[Suli 0]

"There are no ATi cards taht support shader model 3.0 at this time. "

true, but the only SM 3.0 feature was the HDI. It disapoints me owning this game and an x800 that they chose to do this only for the Nvidia cards.

when i had the choice between nvidia and ATI, the positives really wieghed heavy on the ATI x800. Since its a laptop i had to take the extra overhead of the hardware sm 3.0 into account, with most games not even fully supporting sm2.x.

in the long run the nvidia is a better choice for games aimed at realease in roughly 3 years ( long past the life of the x800, and just in time to buy a new laptop. )

but that all is really pointless to say i guess.

im just very disapointed with this not showing up on ATI hardware, since it is perfectly capable of all but the HDR, and it can be "faked" very well on the X800.

"Have nVidia done something new?"

nah the x800 performs better on sm less than 3.0 since there is no native hardware support for 3.0. for current games nvidias hardware overhead cost them performance , but in the end it looks like a decent move.

Edited April 27, 2005 by Suli

[CR6 0]

There are very few games with SM3 support these days anyway (Far Cry and SC3 are the only two I can think of) but you will see more and more when Xbox 360 and PS3 games start getting ported over.

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It's interesting you mention Far Cry because I saw a 'big two' comparison last summer and Ati was the way to go. The water looked a lot clearer etc. Have nVidia done something new?

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Actually, since a year ago, it was Crytek (Far Cry's developer) that released something new (likely with significant technical help from Nvidia themselves). What happened was Crytek released the Far Cry v1.3 patch which added Shader Model 3 support to the game. Here's an article that concludes SM3 didn't make much difference in image quality between ATI and NV cards running Far Cry:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Njc4

Conclusion

At this point personally I am more excited about High Dynamic Range lighting than I am about Shader Model 3.0 in FarCry. This HDR feature is something to get excited about. It can simply make for a much more immersive and realistic gaming experience if used properly. There are some performance hurdles for HDR to make it though as it is very demanding on today’s latest and greatest hardware.

As for Shader Model 3.0 in FarCry, we experienced just what we thought we would. SM3.0 image quality matches that of Shader Model 2.0 and affords us some performance gains. There are some bugs to be worked out with NVIDIA’s drivers currently, but we are confident those issues will be addressed.

[Dick Splash 23]

At this point personally I am more excited about High Dynamic Range lighting than I am about Shader Model 3.0 in FarCry. This HDR feature is something to get excited about. It can simply make for a much more immersive and realistic gaming experience if used properly.

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Good find CR6. Is ATi capable of HDR lighting?

DS

[Suli 0]

"Is ATi capable of HDR lighting?"

not hardware supported. it can be done in other ways though on the ATI cards.

you can download the Crytek demo "the project" from ATI to see an example of the HDR effect on an ATI card.

Edited April 28, 2005 by Suli

[en4rcment 0]

Here's the link for the streaming movie by ATI/Crytek : THE PROJECT

Looked amazing on my ATI 9600XT. I wonder how much different it would look on an X800 XT...