G80 not SM4 Compliant?

[obeseotron]

There's a story up at the Inquirer that says the G80 will not fully support SM4, but will by DX10. Is that even possible? I thought to be DX10 a chip had to support the entire DX10 feature-set. It goes on to say it will be released in September if it goes smoothly and a few months later if it doesn't. As always the Inq gets a lot wrong, but even if it is, can a GPU support DX10 without SM4?

 

[crazydingo]

The people who pimped SM3 are going to have a field day ..

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: obeseotron
There's a story up at the Inquirer that says the G80 will not fully support SM4, but will by DX10. Is that even possible? I thought to be DX10 a chip had to support the entire DX10 feature-set. It goes on to say it will be released in September if it goes smoothly and a few months later if it doesn't. As always the Inq gets a lot wrong, but even if it is, can a GPU support DX10 without SM4?

From what we have heard previously, they will not be using unified shaders on G80, and will require some arbitration logic to get around this. As long as the card can process all the API calls made by the Direct X 10 API, it's DirectX 10 compliant.

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: crazydingo
The people who pimped SM3 are going to have a field day ..

Ah, yes I can see it already... "You want SM4 because it will be used a lot in future games, so get a future-proof card. A gf 8600gt!"

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: munky

Originally posted by: crazydingo
The people who pimped SM3 are going to have a field day ..

Ah, yes I can see it already... "You want SM4 because it will be used a lot in future games, so get a future-proof card. A gf 8600gt!"

im sorry but i think of hans030390 whenever sm3 comes to mind. i remember back in the day he used to promote it so much that i literally "lmao" whenever i read a post of his about it. hans im sorry i dont mean to offend you...lol.

8 series will prolly have partial SM4 im sure. at least it has directx10 for vista...i hope the cards wont use those extra psus just for the video card.

 

[obeseotron]

I understood that they were maintaining seperate shaders at the hardware level while still being able to process DX10's unified software shaders, but wouldn't not being SM4 compliant mean that it couldn't do all DX10 effects, regardless of how they choose to implement the hardware?

 

[Fadey]

If G80 isnt full SM4.0 it will make me feel alot better about buying my 7950

 

[CKXP]

so many rumors, so many conflicting articles/reports about the G80(unified shaders/no unified shaders, low K 90nm core/new 80nm core, sm 4.0/ no sm 4.0...and the list goes on...this card is wrapped in mystery, that's the only certain thing about the G80 and i'm sure that's how NV prefers it.

 

[the Chase]

Originally posted by: secretanchitman

Originally posted by: munky

Originally posted by: crazydingo
The people who pimped SM3 are going to have a field day ..

Ah, yes I can see it already... "You want SM4 because it will be used a lot in future games, so get a future-proof card. A gf 8600gt!"

im sorry but i think of hans030390 whenever sm3 comes to mind. i remember back in the day he used to promote it so much that i literally "lmao" whenever i read a post of his about it. hans im sorry i dont mean to offend you...lol.

8 series will prolly have partial SM4 im sure. at least it has directx10 for vista...i hope the cards wont use those extra psus just for the video card.

Hee- you're not the only one who had him come to mind....First thought that popped into mind when I read crazydingo's post...what's hans030390 take on this?

 

[ronnn]

Originally posted by: crazydingo
The people who pimped SM3 are going to have a field day ..

:laugh:

 

[Nelsieus]

Most games out today don't even take use of SM3 to it's full advantage, so I'm not really worried, either way.

Though I vote "possible Inq BS." It's Fuad's way of guessing every possibility, then in the end finding the one that happened to be true, and saying "See, we were right!"

 

[Ackmed]

Just rumor for now. I wont be putting any stock into this.

 

[shabby]

With the g80 being over 500mil transistors and nvidias most complex design evar, i seriously doubt it wont have sm4.

 

[TheRyuu]

This is the same as sayint the 7900 series will have 32 pixel pipelines. It could be real, but it could also be bs?

Only the future will tell. And when that time comes, I will buy whatever is the better of the two (ATI or Nvidia).

 

[schtuga]

Back in march Faud said the G80 missed it's first tapeout.
Today he says the first one is coming up.
It keeps the forums busy but it does get tiresome after a while.

 

[potato28]

I vote for possible Inq BS.

 

[akugami]

Even if true, what does it matter? I mean, even if Vista gets widespread support and sells zillions of copies, it will still take time before developers really dig into and fully utilize the new features properly. It'll be years before SM4 matters. Most current games will be developed for DX9 and use SM3.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Apparently faud doesnt know that you DONT have to have unified architecture to fully support S.M 4.0.

 

[obeseotron]

SM4 will probably be a moot point for a while, but it doesn't mean it will be irrelevant for the entire life of the card. When I bought this 6800GT SM3 was a joke, but now two years later every new game seems to have SM3 only features. If you keep the card for two years, I'm sure there will be stuff to take advantage of SM4 in 2008.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Ive heard that the G80 part will be approx half a billion transistors. Also lots of rumours being "dual core" GPU although GPUs are already dual/quad etc core.

Not only that but the architectural change will be huge.

 

[josh6079]

Why does anyone read the Inq? They always come up with BS.

 

[Sable]

Originally posted by: josh6079
Why does anyone read the Inq? They always come up with BS.

It's interesting to read as long as you take everything with a pinch of salt.

Those 2 latest articles on G80 and R600 basically rehashed all the rumours that have been spread about for months.

 

[jim1976]

Originally posted by: obeseotron
I understood that they were maintaining seperate shaders at the hardware level while still being able to process DX10's unified software shaders, but wouldn't not being SM4 compliant mean that it couldn't do all DX10 effects, regardless of how they choose to implement the hardware?

If someone could answer this question then there would be no need for this thread...
I stated some months before that G80 will have geometry+vertex shaders unified and pixel shaders separate. Now whether this can be a problem in SM4.0 compliance is a story that remains to be seen... If this holds some truth in it then only a GPGPU(general purpose gpu) is what is considered a SM4.0 full compliant card.
And I have a feeling we will see 2 or 3 versions of D3D10 as was the case with D3D9

 

[Sonikku]

Originally posted by: obeseotron
SM4 will probably be a moot point for a while, but it doesn't mean it will be irrelevant for the entire life of the card. When I bought this 6800GT SM3 was a joke, but now two years later every new game seems to have SM3 only features. If you keep the card for two years, I'm sure there will be stuff to take advantage of SM4 in 2008.

Just how many people on the video board, reading these topics, are going to keep a video card for 2 years? Sheesh, the performance of the amazing 7800GTX 9 months ago has lost over half it's original $600 value compared to what you can now get in the form of a $230 X1800XT. And even if they did, just how well is a two year old card going to perform with Shader 4 activated? This is a big fat marketing joke. A 6600GT had Shader 3. It doesn't mean it's going to be seeing much use with Shader 3 use, less you want a nice shader intensive clip show.

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: Sonikku

Originally posted by: obeseotron
SM4 will probably be a moot point for a while, but it doesn't mean it will be irrelevant for the entire life of the card. When I bought this 6800GT SM3 was a joke, but now two years later every new game seems to have SM3 only features. If you keep the card for two years, I'm sure there will be stuff to take advantage of SM4 in 2008.

Just how many people on the video board, reading these topics, are going to keep a video card for 2 years? Sheesh, the performance of the amazing 7800GTX 9 months ago has lost over half it's original $600 value compared to what you can now get in the form of a $230 X1800XT. And even if they did, just how well is a two year old card going to perform with Shader 4 activated? This is a big fat marketing joke. A 6600GT had Shader 3. It doesn't mean it's going to be seeing much use with Shader 3 use, less you want a nice shader intensive clip show.

I had a $60 budget card (MX420) for two and a half years.