| fatslob-:O said: I don't know about that. Microsoft was generous enough to expose async compute and resource binding in DX12 which were strongly modelled after consoles despite AMD having a much smaller share in both integrated and discrete GPUs ... And let's not forget that AMD has driver extensions too so they'll finally be able to compete with NVAPI (Nvidia's driver extensions) ... |
nVidia has taken note of async compute, they were stubborn to update their GPU's to take advantage of the spec. (Like they were with Tessellation/Direct X 11/Direct X 10.1)
nVidia also petitions/works with AMD and Microsoft and even Intel when it comes to the Direct X spec, so it's not like they were ignorant of things. :P
But even when nVidia was behind technologically, nVidia still had the largest marketshare and one could say they "sabotaged" performance and features for AMD, like Asassins Creed's Direct X 10.1 path, nVidia was still stuck on Direct X 10, AMD had a performance advantage on the games release, but that was patched away.
AMD simply doesn't have the resources or connections in the industry that nVidia has nor does it have the marketing budget or marketshare, so it's driver extensions will likely never gain the same kind of industry support that AMD has, which is sad because things like TressFX is amazing.
| fatslob-:O said: Really simple, we emulate those fixed function units using shaders or what have you! TnL units are just precursors to vertex shaders so what's stopping them from been mimicked ? AMD believes (and at one point Intel did with Larrabee) the future to be software rendering where programmers can implement or choose ANY algorithms to use in a fully programmable graphics pipeline ... GPU ISA is arguably more troublesome when their known to change much more frequently than some fixed function units. Rasterizers, edge setup, blending, texture filtering, or tessellation units pale in comparison to the changes that happen with GPU ISA ... |
That is the point I was trying to make.
Backwards compatability isn't always black and white and clear cut, even in the PC space things change, but unlike consoles software isn't written as closely to the hardware, relying on all it's particular nuances, that kinda complicates backwards compatability.
In say 10 years, who is to guarentee that you could drop a PS4 disc into the PS5 and have it executed natively? This is the assumption many people assume because the PS4 is using pretty standard x86 hardware.
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