Open Source 3D Games

[Jack]

--- Jason Clinton wrote:

> On Tuesday 09 August 2005 13:30, Jack wrote:
> ... if games need to stop supporting such big
> and
> > powerful cards as Radeon 8500s and 9700s then you
> > might want to take a look at what is wrong with
> the
> > game software and not the hardware or OSS drivers.
> > Sloppy coding is after all sloppy coding. GIGO.
> But
> 
> It's not a matter of sloppy code but merely advances
> in hardware capabilities. 
> The newer video cards feature pixel and vertex
> shaders and hardware transform 
> and lighting -- all of the capabilities make for
> more realistic scenes; 
> ...
> 
> Anyone doing any serious gaming or 3D modeling and
> design in Linux is using 
> NVidia's high-end consumer cards or their Quatro
> workstation cards (very 
> expensive).
> 
As I said, if games require video cards with vertex
shading then you, you might have an overcoded game.
(aka sloppy) How realistic does a scene need to be
before it doesn't make a difference any more. We are
talking about games here not holodecks, right? If and
when they come out with a holodeck game, then yes by
all means throw in the vertex shading. However I
suspect the vertex shading is being done by firmware
and not hardware, and hence the difference in
performance between Windows and Linux. Were it truly
hardware then simply probing the card would locate the
commands necessary to call the vertex shading and
hence fully support that feature. I could be wrong, I
have been known to be wrong before, but I don't think
I am now. Not every serious designer is using those
high-end cards. Note, however, that getting an $800
professional card for 3D CADD is only worthwhile if
you're doing some really intense stuff professionally
and can afford to pay it off with profits. For the
serious home robotics/rocketeer/modelist/small-shop an
ATi 8700 will be quite sufficient. I do however
recommend a gig of RAM with that. And if you happen to
have a dual processor all the better, but a decent
modern desktop and an ATi 8700 work quite well. Even
with that dual processor and an $800 professional
video card you'll still be waiting for the design to
render. My reasoning is you can easily and cheaply
upgrade RAM more than you can a video card with the
money you save on the video card you can upgrade the
CPU and memory and wind up I think better off.

IMNSHO,
Brian J.D.


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