I don't know about reference, but Morrowind had pixel shaded water when using a Geforce 3 and higher cards. It looked amazing at the time, it still looks great!

F2bnp wrote:

I don't know about reference, but Morrowind had pixel shaded water when using a Geforce 3 and higher cards. It looked amazing at the time, it still looks great!

Yeah, the water in Morrowind (may 2002) is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about shaders 😉

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GoldDragon/ … 8DirectX_8.0.29

sliderider wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GoldDragon/ … 8DirectX_8.0.29

Thanks, but: "Games such as Half-Life 2 that only need pixel shader 1.1 as an optional feature will NOT be listed here. Users of graphics cards such as GeForce 4 MX will therefore not be able to run Silent Hill 3, but will run Half-Life 2 without problems."

I am looking for a list of games using shaders, but not requiring them - so that if your card implements shaders, the effects are better etc.

I think Mafia is one, A quick google search couldnt bring an answer.

Comanche 4 is definitely one, does pixel shading way back in Dec 2001.

Halo, Unreal 2, Nascar 2003, idtech4 games, NeverWinter Nights, Independance War 2
it would take a long time to get a complete list

Sacrifice (I think)

Chaniyth wrote:

Sacrifice (I think)

Sacriface made use of T&L, it was released, when GeForce 1 was nVidia's best GPU, long before pixel/vertex shaders.

There was also the NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer in the GeForce 2 (Pixel Shader like functionality), but I don't know of any games which used it.

And if you really into early programmability (on consumer hardware), you should check register combiners and older OpenGL extensions. History of Programmability is a good article.

Doom3 uses NV1x register combiner (shading rasterizer) features. They specifically wrote a rendering path for GF4MX.

The original Radeon has similar hardware but wasn't popular enough to warrant attention. Plus I doubt the OpenGL drivers were good enough.

GL1zdA wrote:

And if you really into early programmability (on consumer hardware), you should check register combiners and older OpenGL extensions. History of Programmability is a good article.

Thanks for this nice article / Dzieki 😉

giants citizen kabuto had a patch for the geforce 3

swaaye wrote:

Doom3 uses NV1x register combiner (shading rasterizer) features. They specifically wrote a rendering path for GF4MX.

The original Radeon has similar hardware but wasn't popular enough to warrant attention. Plus I doubt the OpenGL drivers were good enough.

That's what happens when there is so much old tech floating around that you just CAN'T ignore it. It ends up holding game development back because if you don't support it, your game won't sell. DX7 development would have ended much sooner if it weren't for nVidia selling so many 4MX cards.

NV17 was released in 2001 so really it was only about 3 years old (it is more advanced than NV15). How do you feel about DX9c being prevalent in 2012? 😉

swaaye wrote:

NV17 was released in 2001 so really it was only about 3 years old (it is more advanced than NV15). How do you feel about DX9c being prevalent in 2012? 😉

DX9 is still being supported because that's what the XBox 360 and PS3 support. The XBox uses a Radeon X1900 variant and the PS3 uses a GeForce 7 variant. We need new consoles, not gimmicky full body controllers extending the life of the current generation. We should have had new consoles in 2010-2011.

There doesn't seem to be a good practical reason for them to replace the consoles more rapidly. I don't think PC gaming has much flag bearer influence over gaming anymore. They don't make much money on the hardware so it's all about software sales and that means don't upgrade the hardware until it will bring huge new value and get the kiddies clamoring.

I think video games are becoming similar to other media formats. Look at it like VHS/DVD/Bluray format updates and such. Milk the current format as much as possible, and then introduce a major upgrade and sell everything again (get ready for remakes of Halo maybe?)

sliderider wrote:

swaaye wrote:

NV17 was released in 2001 so really it was only about 3 years old (it is more advanced than NV15). How do you feel about DX9c being prevalent in 2012? 😉

DX9 is still being supported because that's what the XBox 360 and PS3 support. The XBox uses a Radeon X1900 variant and the PS3 uses a GeForce 7 variant. We need new consoles, not gimmicky full body controllers extending the life of the current generation. We should have had new consoles in 2010-2011.

Why? It's all about the games, new technologies are nice, but hey you gotta pay for them and they're not necessarilly much more than eye candy.

I think another reason for DirectX 9 still being prevalent is the fact there's still such a large Windows XP user base.

F2bnp wrote:

sliderider wrote:

swaaye wrote:

NV17 was released in 2001 so really it was only about 3 years old (it is more advanced than NV15). How do you feel about DX9c being prevalent in 2012? 😉

DX9 is still being supported because that's what the XBox 360 and PS3 support. The XBox uses a Radeon X1900 variant and the PS3 uses a GeForce 7 variant. We need new consoles, not gimmicky full body controllers extending the life of the current generation. We should have had new consoles in 2010-2011.

Why? It's all about the games, new technologies are nice, but hey you gotta pay for them and they're not necessarilly much more than eye candy.

Because some people also game on PC's and PC games aren't going to improve until game developers can develop for the newest standards that have developed over the last 6+ years since XBox 360 was released and drop support for older hardware. Development time and money is being wasted by developing DX 9 versions of games when those resources could be used making the games better using the latest technologies. As it stands now, games are developed for the lowest common denominator, which is the consoles, and then ported to PC with all the limitations of the consoles. They can't develop a game that is purely DX11 because it can't run on the consoles. They can't develop a game that requires a faster processor or more RAM than what the consoles have, because then it won't run on the consoles. There's been more than enough time for replacement consoles to be designed, so where are they?

I read an article in Game Informer recently that said that in spite of the fact that the Kinect was the fastest selling consumer appliance in history for the first 3 months it was on the market, sales have died out since then and the games that have been released so far haven't been driving new sales of Kinects beyond the early adoption period. The same for the PS3 Move. There aren't any MUST HAVE games for either device. Most of the games are similar to the shovelware we see on store shelves for the Wii. Motion controllers and full body control is going to be a passing fad. Most gamers still prefer the traditional game controller and the slow sales of motion control games for PS3 and 360 combined with the huge slowdown in sales that Nintendo experienced with the Wii right after the shortage ended prove it.