Would this just shift the argument to whether something is "acceptably fast"?
I think even if a card can achieve a feature even with slow performance, my brain likes to check the imaginary box of that feature being supported.
But it just seems that the term "hardware support" is like a term of art, and means something special. I'd still like to retain both characteristics - 1) whether the feature is supported, and 2) whether it's supported via hardware support.
The "acceptably fast" part would just get absorbed under your typical benchmarking stuff, so it just doesn't seem to be needed as a criteria to evaluate whether a feature is supported in hardware.
Agreed, I think hardware support is one check box, and "support" generally is another check box. And I agree the debate would move to "Acceptably fast" which is the actual conclusion that the engineers are considering when they choose which design strategy to follow when they originally create the hardware. (Acceptably fast meaning whether that feature then bottlenecks total performance or if another bottleneck kicks in before it/at the same time as it). I completely agree with you.
I'm basically saying we should debate based on reality, not on fantastical definitions of "support" which change and don't apply equally depending on whether its their favorite company or not.
"acceptably fast" analysis already occurs in most benchmark reviews indirectly when they evaluate whether a card is for example ROP bound at a particular resolution, or whether a certain VRAM capacity is acceptable for a certain resolution. Whether a software emulated feature is fast enough could easily slot in with these other factors competent reviewers are already evaluating. This is basically what is being benchmarked in the AOTS benchmark right now in all of these "Does Maxwell2 support Async" threads
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