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TransGaming Releases Fast Software 3D Rendering
gavriels writes "TransGaming has just released SwiftShader, an ultra-fast software-only 3D renderer that supports Vertex and Pixel Shaders. SwiftShader dynamically compiles the geometry and rasterization pipelines to produce code that exactly matches the graphics features a game or application is using. Demo download and tech details can be found on their website."
Ad-posts such as this one, wouldn't be as offensive if they would just come out and say that they're an ad-post. I.e., instead of "on their website", say "on our website". And make some sort of comment that, yes, the poster does have a vested interest in the content of the post.
I realize that I'm just a humble AC, but let me say this: I'm not certain I understand the point here. Casual gamers are exactly that, casual. They're more interested in online play like Java Applets or MIDP Applications for phones than they are in Gee Whiz Bang games that they must install to their computers. So from that perspective, I really don't understand what market TransGaming plans to attack with this new software.
Even if we assume that casual gamers are looking to install games onto their computers, it's hard to say that such gamers wouldn't have at least a basic 3D card to play games on. Even the Intel Integrated Graphics (about as bad as you can get) has decent 3D support. Are the Gee Whiz features of DX9 really all that important to these players?
With no free licensing for personal and/or academic use available, I don't see that happening. Furthermore, it's only supported on Win 98 and up and Linux. One of the principal strengths of OpenGL is that it works on all Windows flavors, Linux, Unix, Solaris, Mac, ... -- Paul
OpenSource.MathCancer.org: open source comp bio
I'm sure that creating this engine was an interesting challenge .. but .. why? 2D only graphics cards don't really exist anymore. It doesn't exist for non-PC platforms so it doesn't really aid portability (though they say in the FAQs it could if someone wrote a "SwiftASM" thing for the target CPU) either.
Is it just a fun toy? Or have I missed something?
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Sure, it *may* be faster than other software rendering solutions, but it still only approaches (that's such a broad term) the performance of low-end cards: "can rival the performance of low end hardware 3D graphics solutions in some cases." Sounds pretty iffy to me. It'll be good in some cases; however, as it is, I doubt it will replace dedicated hardware cards for many people (it's not like low-end cards are very expensive. You can find decent (albeit older) graphics cards for under $20.
I'm not saying this technology isn't useful, it just has limited application in its current state.
This looks like it is meant to compete with Pixomatic from RAD Game Tools. ( http://www.radgametools.com/default.htm ) Perhaps it's cheaper or faster, but pixomatic is not overly pricy and I trust Mike Abrash *now at RAD) has a little bit of experience writing fast renderers :)
-- Too lazy to get a lower UID.
A: Admins don't care about Aero Glass, the Windows 2000 UI will do just fine for Vista installs.
B: This is only usefull for runing Aero Glass if the only thing you are running is Aero Glass. Real work will have to take a back seat while this is grinding through the glorious shading of your progress bar.
C: This totally misses the point of what Aero is for. Getting the UI grunt work off of the CPU and onto the video card.
This is a neat trick, and possibly usefull for some very specific purposes such as foolproof DX9.0 rendering in Linux reguardless of the state of device drivers. Hardware review sites could get some milage out of this. Especially when they need to know what a game/benchmark is doing in certain situations and image quality comparisons.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
The intiative over the past several years has been to get graphics off the CPU, so this seems a little backwards to me.
They started this back in 1995, before 3D hardware became commonplace. And they've just now finished it.
I remember the old newsgroup posts where people were using MMX and writing '5 cycle per pixel' texture mappers and such.
What you're suggesting is that Microsoft might license tech from a company whose main product is a re-implemenation of the Microsoft Windows SDK for *NIX. If this happens, I'll either eat my hat or die of laughter. Oh the irony.