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ATi have a distinct edge when it comes to designing their unified shader silicon in that they've already done it once for the X-Box360, though the 360's lack of geometry shader capability mean it's not a true DX10 part, and true DX10 will be the only kind of DX10 you'll get. Gone is partial precision, gone is "caps bits" which allowed a game or application to poll the graphics card for information on its capabilities, gone are any of the inconsistencies of previous DX incarnations. Either the hardware supports DX10 in its entirety or it's mot a DX10 part at all, it's that simple. That's not to say ATi, or anyone else in fact, can't include capabilities above an beyond what's called for by DX10, in fact ATi admitted to having done just that, it simply means that they won't be accessible from within DX10 and will need to be coded for individually by games developers, perhaps then eventually being absorbed into the next release.