Whatever happened to the dawn of cinematic computing?
 

http://www.elitebastards.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2006

值得一看的文章。
該篇文章從NVIDIA發表CineFX、ATi發表9700 Pro開始，
一路描述到NVIDIA對HL2 benchmark的回應。

該篇作者的結論:

大意是雖然CineFX、以及NV3X的架構有遠大的野心，
但是NV3X的PS 2.0 performance實在是太慢了!
慢到沒有實用價值(unusable)。
以致於遊戲開發者必須改用DX8的feature。
不這樣的話，就得忍受像蝸牛般的速度(原作者如此形容:The only other choice is running at full image quality at a snail’s pace)


What does the future hold?

I think it’s now safe to say that as far as this generation of hardware goes – There is no future for cinematic rendering on nVidia’s current hardware. Regardless of what the Detonator 50 drivers can bring with the table, it has become increasingly clear that the NV3x hardware itself is an insurmountable obstacle. The features nVidia touted as being so important to their dream are too slow and unwieldy to be usable, leaving developers with little more than a DirectX 8 feature set with go-faster stripes. nVidia have to reduce precision, rewrite shaders and remove DirectX 9 code to give gamers the best experience on their hardware – The only other choice is running at full image quality at a snail’s pace, which is obviously unacceptable. The reasons for this failure to bring cinematic rendering to the masses are open to interpretation, but at the end of the day the entire promotional campaign seems to have been a triumph of marketing over what is actually achievable – The goals nVidia set for themselves were noble ones, but they also appear to have been way out of the reach of their current hardware.

Which brings us to the good news – The great thing about the video card industry is that there is always something bigger and better around the corner, and we can only hope that NV40 will be just that. nVidia have made mistakes this time around, and they need to learn from those mistakes. If they do, then we can look forward to a fantastic gaming experience in 2004. Cinematic computing is dead… Long live cinematic computing!