[MUD-Dev] Cg - Lowering the cost of 3D games?

[Rayzam]

From: <Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com>

> Nvidia have recently announced a new 3D api that they have created
> in conjunction with Microsoft, that sits on top of OpenGL and
> DirectX and seems to vastly simplify some of the difficulties
> encumbent with 3D programming.  Whilst you will still need an
> awareness of how to code 3D games, it appears you won't need to
> spend weeks creating shader effects to get high quality results.

<SNIP>

> So whats everyone thing? Personally I'm pretty excited as it
> narrows the gap between the big studios, who can afford time to
> polish their engines, and the smaller ones who without this are
> almost guaranteed to fail on the eye candy front.

I was checking out the info about it yesterday. The issue seems to
be that the past few generations of nvidia chips have really cool
and nifty features, but the only way to access them was via assembly
language. Some of them were only ever seen in the tech demos. To be
fair, the same is true of ATI. So this isn't meant just for the
little guy. This is more just a way of saying: hey, use these
features, so the graphics take a big leap forward, and thus more
people will upgrade the cards! The special features will be
available in a c-language like way. Then they give you a compiler to
compile it into assembly code. That code, you stick in your
program. At least, it'll level the playing field across all size
studios. But expect it to make a nice impact even on the big guys.

I'm all for it. Lots of features added even back in the GeForce2
that you don't see around yet.

> If I get some time over the weekend I'll have a play and see what
> its like to use.

Give an update/review of what you find out?

    rayzam
    www.travellingbard.com



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