Actually, they're "extensive" review was one of the reasons I posted. They don't have Doom3 benchmarks, they only test 2 resolutions per game, and no anisotropic filtering test either.
Finally, their UT2003 scores are suspect, they disagree with every other site I've read(and are extremely low). They don't state which driver version they are using, not do they explain the specific parameters for most of their benchmarks, making it impossible to reproduce their results.
I don't know about you, but I don't call that extensive.
8 bit z buffer? You are kidding right? An 8 bit z buffer would let you have only 256 unique depth values - think of designing a 3d game level on a piece of 256x256 graph paper, where you can only connect the dots. In fact, that's more precision than you would get with 8 bits.
Z buffers are AT LEAST 16 bit on ALL modern hardware. Consumer cards usually offer 24 bit, and sometimes 32 bit z buffers as well.
People call games "DX9 games" because the various DirectX revisions give a rough dilineation of the different generations of graphics hardware. Roughly, they are:
DirectX 6: Software Transform and lighting. Most games from this category use lightmaps for lighting, rather than goraud(per vertex) shading.
DirectX 7: Hardware T&L. All those new T&L enabled games you heard about belong here. The opengl equivalent is calling glTranslate, glRotate, etc do to transformations, and using glLight to do lighting
DirectX 8: Vertex and Pixel Shaders. Let's you program the vertex transform and lighting part, and to a lesser extent, the pixel processing part, of the graphics pipeline. Corresponds to the OpenGL extensions NV_VERTEX_PROGRAM, NV_TEXTURE_SHADER, and NV_REGISTER_COMBINERS(for nvidia, similar extensions for ATI)
DirectX 9: Highly programmable Vertex and Pixel Shaders. The old pixel shader model let you do something like 8 operations max, while the new model greatly extends this number. OpenGL extensions are ARB_VERTEX_PROGRAM and ARB_FRAGMENT_PROGRAM.
This is really only a brief overview, there are many, many more OpenGL extensions(which you can see here, some of which have no DirectX counterparts. It's easier to tell non-graphics programmers "It's a DX9 game" than "Oh, it uses OpenGL 1.4, ARB_VERTEX_PROGRAM, ARB_TEXTURE_PROGRAM, etc", especially since DirectX is a well-known name. People generally aren't as aware of the various revisions of OpenGL(which are mainly exposed through extensions).
Doom 3 uses OpenGL for its graphics. In fact, the basic tech required is really DirectX 8 level(bump mapping and stencil buffer), but it looks better on DirectX 9 hardware(due to the higher programmability). It likely uses other Direct X APIs for sound, networking, etc on Windows.
Anandtech and Tom's Hardware are more reputable sites than the story poster mentioned. They also perform more comprehensive benchmarks, including Doom 3 and Unreal 2, at multiple resolutions, with and without anisotropic filtering. The other reviews just seem shallow by comparison.
I was actually sort of surprised to see 3dlabs take the lead on the 2.0 project, especially given that they don't have any programmable hardware. It has given me faith in that company again.
OpenGL 2.0 looks great. Even DX8 isn't truly hardware independent(one pixel shader revision per product!). Dunno how it will look compared to DX9, but it's nice to see something after such a long period when the only innovations in GL were developer proprietary extensions. Nice to play with, not so nice to create a finished product with.
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Actually, they're "extensive" review was one of the reasons I posted. They don't have Doom3 benchmarks, they only test 2 resolutions per game, and no anisotropic filtering test either. Finally, their UT2003 scores are suspect, they disagree with every other site I've read(and are extremely low). They don't state which driver version they are using, not do they explain the specific parameters for most of their benchmarks, making it impossible to reproduce their results. I don't know about you, but I don't call that extensive.
8 bit z buffer? You are kidding right? An 8 bit z buffer would let you have only 256 unique depth values - think of designing a 3d game level on a piece of 256x256 graph paper, where you can only connect the dots. In fact, that's more precision than you would get with 8 bits. Z buffers are AT LEAST 16 bit on ALL modern hardware. Consumer cards usually offer 24 bit, and sometimes 32 bit z buffers as well.
People call games "DX9 games" because the various DirectX revisions give a rough dilineation of the different generations of graphics hardware. Roughly, they are:
DirectX 6: Software Transform and lighting. Most games from this category use lightmaps for lighting, rather than goraud(per vertex) shading.
DirectX 7: Hardware T&L. All those new T&L enabled games you heard about belong here. The opengl equivalent is calling glTranslate, glRotate, etc do to transformations, and using glLight to do lighting
DirectX 8: Vertex and Pixel Shaders. Let's you program the vertex transform and lighting part, and to a lesser extent, the pixel processing part, of the graphics pipeline. Corresponds to the OpenGL extensions NV_VERTEX_PROGRAM, NV_TEXTURE_SHADER, and NV_REGISTER_COMBINERS(for nvidia, similar extensions for ATI)
DirectX 9: Highly programmable Vertex and Pixel Shaders. The old pixel shader model let you do something like 8 operations max, while the new model greatly extends this number. OpenGL extensions are ARB_VERTEX_PROGRAM and ARB_FRAGMENT_PROGRAM.
This is really only a brief overview, there are many, many more OpenGL extensions(which you can see here, some of which have no DirectX counterparts. It's easier to tell non-graphics programmers "It's a DX9 game" than "Oh, it uses OpenGL 1.4, ARB_VERTEX_PROGRAM, ARB_TEXTURE_PROGRAM, etc", especially since DirectX is a well-known name. People generally aren't as aware of the various revisions of OpenGL(which are mainly exposed through extensions).
Doom 3 uses OpenGL for its graphics. In fact, the basic tech required is really DirectX 8 level(bump mapping and stencil buffer), but it looks better on DirectX 9 hardware(due to the higher programmability). It likely uses other Direct X APIs for sound, networking, etc on Windows.
Anandtech and Tom's Hardware are more reputable sites than the story poster mentioned. They also perform more comprehensive benchmarks, including Doom 3 and Unreal 2, at multiple resolutions, with and without anisotropic filtering. The other reviews just seem shallow by comparison.
People are really paranoid.
I was actually sort of surprised to see 3dlabs take the lead on the 2.0 project, especially given that they don't have any programmable hardware. It has given me faith in that company again. OpenGL 2.0 looks great. Even DX8 isn't truly hardware independent(one pixel shader revision per product!). Dunno how it will look compared to DX9, but it's nice to see something after such a long period when the only innovations in GL were developer proprietary extensions. Nice to play with, not so nice to create a finished product with.