Ian McNaughton goes out against The Way it's Meant to be Played

[DilTech]

Wow, you really remember your history wrong.

The nVidia cards (FX 5xxx series) were automatically put on the DX8.1 path instead of the "proper" "ati" shader path as you put it, or rather the DX9.0 shader path, because performance on the DX9.0 shader path was HORRIBLE on the nVidia cards.

So, yes, abit of image quality(dx8.1 vs dx9.0) on the fx 5xxx series was sacrificed, but for good reason.

Actually Vienna... The HL2 path for ATi cards ran at a different precision than the HL2 path on NVidia cards.

You see, it's a little known fact, but during the finalization for the specifications of DX9 NVidia was fighting for FP-32 to be the standard while ATi was fighting for FP-24. FP-32 required 33% more power than FP-24 but didn't bring enough to the table when combined with the rest of the specifications for microsoft to go for it, and as such microsoft took FP-24. That was the first hue strike against the FX series, naturally using 33% more horse power to do the same effects.

Switching the FX series to the ATi code path took it out of FP-32 mode and put it in to FP-16 which made it run DX9 100% fine in HL2, as no effect in HL2 required more than FP-16. It was pointed out to valve on countless occasions before release, and again after release... They never did nothing.

Same thing you're all complaining about now.

I'm not disputing that fact.
The fact is AA is has been common for years & if now it has become a problem & needed paying for its implantation then the developers have taken a leap backwards & another thorn in the side for PC gaming over consoles, like the PC needs any help with gamers going in that direction.

Well, about that whole AA thing...

Most UE3 titles have problems with AA. I've been playing back through Gears of War PC on my 4850, and turning on DX10 + AA results in the frame-rate dipping down to less than 20 fps, sometimes even further. Playing with my old 8800GTX it stayed above 50, always. 1920x1080p.....Well, 1920x1080p on the NVidia, ati still hasn't fixed their HDTV support, and it's been YEARS, it reverts back to 1080i in quite a few games.

Basically, I'm just saying, until we know all the facts here it's just random flaming and speculation. It may truly have issues in certain parts of the game on ATi hardware.