NVIDIA's Pixel & Vertex Shading Language

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday June 13, 2002 @06:26AM from the i-want-my-graphics-3d dept.

Barkhausen Criterion writes "NVIDIA have announced a high-level Pixel and Vertex Shading language developed in conjunction with Microsoft. According to this initial look, the "Cg Compiler" compiles high level Pixel and Vertex Shader language into low-level DirectX and OpenGL code. While the press releases are going amok, CG Channel (Computer Graphics Channel) has the most comprehensive look at the technology. The article writes, "Putting on my speculative hat, the motivation is to drive hardware sales by increasing the prevalence of Pixel and Vertex Shader-enabled applications and gaming titles. This would be accomplished by creating a forward-compatible tool for developers to fully utilize the advanced features of current GPUs, and future GPUs/VPUs." "

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Re:Hype or innovation? by friedmud · 2002-06-13 07:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

"If it means you don't have to waste your time writing *two* shaders (one for DX, and other for OpenGL) then that is a GOOD THING."

Even better then that! It means you don't have to waste your time writing *4* shaders:

Nvidia/DirectX
Nvidia/OpenGL
ATI/DirectX
ATI/ OpenGL

That is of course, pending a compiler for ATI cards - but I don't think it will be long... Unless ATI holds out for OpenGL2 - but in between now and when OGL2 comes out there is a lot of time to lose maket share to Nvidia because people are writing all of their shaders in Cg - and ATI is getting left out in the rain....

So I would expect ATI to jump on this bandwagon - and quick!

Derek