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Cg: nVidious Plot or Graphical Revolution?
June 20th 2002, 01:55 CEST by m0nty Slipping in amongst the news of Morrowind, NWN and WarCraft 3, nVidia and Microsoft have unveiled what they claim is the strongest push yet to bring cinematic-quality real-time graphics from the movie screen to the PC. The introduction in version 9 of Microsoft's DirectX of a High-Level Shading Language (HLSL), revealed earlier in 2002 and which has just gone into beta, have been trumped by nVidia, which has announced a high-level programming language called Cg - short for "C for graphics". The common, familiar C-like syntax enables rapid development of stunning, real-time shaders and visual effects for graphics platforms, and is compatible with Microsoft's recently announced High Level Shading Language for DirectX® 9.0. With Microsoft around, you know there will always be standards issues (remember OpenGL?), and this is no different. Cg represents nVidia's latest salvo in its battle with ATI and other graphics card vendors for the hearts and minds of developers over their preferred programmable shaders and 3D APIs. The vendors have already started attacking each others' DX9 support, and Cg brings a whole new set of arguments about cross-platform implementation and proprietary technologies. Let the new standards war begin! If there is to be a war, nVidia surely have the metaphorical SoF2 briefcase camped beyond all hope of the terrorists escaping with it. In this interview with nVidia svengali David Kirk conducted by new Eurogamer offshoot Gamesindustry.biz, HLCL is even characterised as "Microsoft's own implementation of Cg", suggesting that nVidia is dictating terms to the dreaded Redmondians. Kirk fends off the inevitable question about incompatibility with non-nVidia hardware thusly: "Our compiler generates shader code and sends it to DirectX or OpenGL, and shaders are a standard, so they should run on any card that supports the shader standards, including our competitors? Besides, I think it's in our interest to make sure that Cg runs well on everything - we want people to really use this technology, and that's all about taking away their reasons not to... Making the compiler so that it didn't work well on ATI cards, for example, would be really bad for us too." Do you trust this man? Has nVidia created Cg out of the goodness of its heart, or is it really just another attack on its competitors? Does it matter, or should we just accept nVidia's dominance of the graphics card market? Will the majority of programmers choose Cg with all its supporting apps, or play it safe with the more limited HLCL? Will Cg become the new Glide - the troublesome rendering technology that was left behind when 3Dfx died? What does it mean for graphical engine makers, like id, Epic and Lithtech? What does this mean to games already in development: will they have to redo parts of their code? (Hi George B!) |
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Topic: Cg: nVidious Plot or Graphical Revolution?
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I remember when my ATI neospherical probe nicked a abstraction on the VGI double-hemispherical loop wocket. *chuckles* Everyone in the office laughed when the binary reticule splooged all over the OpenGL VC's, allowing the POSIX to jacknife and slit the secretary's skirt right up to the nape of her neck. Well, we later bolted the Cg to the CGIU, causing a swarm of ex-SGI's to execute full body cavity searches on everyone involved with the abstraction nipple. Oh man, those were the days, when those little things just made your day... "Cause you'll be LIVIN' IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER EATIN' GOVERNMENT CHEESE!"
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"I've played for about an hour. I'm bored." You've got many, many hours left of the most monotonous, tedious, redundant busy work on 323,555,67.8 warehouses that look exactly the same. All the important work - you know, the missions, the executions, the revenge motives - they ALL will be undershadowed by the busy work....looking for a tiny vent in a warehouse the size of China, or finding obscure crawlspaces to scuttle a Titanic-sized boat. Oh, you'll just have so much fun. I'd take the game back now before it's too late. "Cause you'll be LIVIN' IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER EATIN' GOVERNMENT CHEESE!"
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crash Ruining fun is my JOB. Max Diablos I'd appreciate it if you'd stop using my web browser as a toilet, thanks. I'm making a cyberdifference in an eCommunity populated with iFolk- *HURK* suicide
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On my first attempt to derail the topic... Everyone seems to mention "Oh, they don't want it to end up like glide" or "Well at least it's not glide" or something of that nature, which I really don't understand. Oh sure, closed standard, proprietary, all that jazz, but coming from the (admittedly biased) view of a former 3dfx owner, I don't care. I just knew that if a game had a glide option with it, it was like clicking a big "Run faster and look better" button, without sacrificing anything on my side. The open/general standards are out there, and by all means you should support them at the very least so everyone can play, but as a gamer I don't see why it's such a no-no to provide a faster better looking version for some cards...or at least my card. THe way it's spoken about, you'd think Glide was the pox that temporarily ruined 3d graphics and doomed gamers everywhere to a 3dfx dominated future... "I don't want to be immortal through my work, I want to be immortal through not dying." -Woddy Allen
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To show my lack of understanding... Cg = a API to do only with shaders and the like, not a entire API similar to DirectX or OpenGL? I did not change my name...morn did.
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Couldn't give a fuck. Yet I'm the potty mouth. M...kay. Job, titles, and honours, mean nothing to me. That's bloody obvious. For the record, I make no claims of expertise in any field, and fully bow to folks like bago on this topic, but I don't believe I'm even remotely off base on any of this. As I have said, oh, at least twice now, I'll wait for the devs to decide how good it is. Or useful. I just know what it ain't. He's said nothing of value so far, is talking out of his a$$ You seem flustered. , and can't even manage to be half polite. Sorry, did I hurt a feeling? You dish out a days worth of crap, where only you get to define the actual terms, meanings, and innuendos, constantly retreating behind, "no, you have to take that word to mean this, and you get on me because I'm not into showing off my vocab skills? Should we draw pistols at 20 paces, Sirrah? Sorry, my family was the one that turned and shot after we heard "2". All I've done this week is push around a different perspective on the game industry and offer first impressions of Cg, and all I get back is a display of frustration from an ego-driven potty mouth. Now that is truly amusing. Oh poor you. Booooo fucking hooooo. Your 'different' perspective was truly different, and mostly tossed out by everyone as beyond left field. And your impressions were fairly off base regarding CG, and YOUR the one that got huffy when I pointed out that those impressions were in fact wrong. Polite? Read the site url, bubba, and point out to me the hearts and flowers. Oh wait, I really really don't want the post regarding polite society and the fall of man, and how we really need to redefine 'society' to mean artisan, but no one really will because they don't really understand society beyond some misunderstanding as to what entertainment is. Something. Anyway, skip that last part. He doesn't know the first thing about me or what I do so I'll let all the other comments slide. Since I never made a claim to who you are or what you do, much less ever gave an impression that I, you know, gave a shit, well, bully for you. Interesting how you craft a veiled implication that I did otherwise...must be that whole being polite thing. Allows you to be really insulting while looking oh so pretty and pristine. Never did master that. I'd rather just say get bent and move on with my life. I'm here to be informed, educated, and entertained. Rude a$$holes I can live without. Then let me at least inform you and educate you. You are in the supremely wrong forum for avoiding rude 'a$$holes', Mr I'll Spell the Word Fuck, but Prove My Higher Oh So More Polite Standing By Attempting To Hide the Word AssHole with Dollar Signs. Twice. As I've yet to see you make any attempt to actually learn anything, I doubt you'll do well in this class. But hey, you go ahead and sit back on the whole Polite thing. It serves you oh so well. I believe I can fly......urk.
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so I screwed up one quote tag...sue me. I believe I can fly......urk.
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If I had a dog, his name would be Mr.Woofles, and I'd cut down on dog food costs by getting a job in the city morgue. I'm making a cyberdifference in an eCommunity populated with iFolk- *HURK* suicide
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Well... isn't that a interesting big of knowledge... Though, in morgue, no one cares if you are dressed spiffy like. I did not change my name...morn did.
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But what kind of special tricks would Mr. Woofles do? There are some dogs that wink, you know. You should do, what should be done, by you.
-Ancient Japanese Proverb |
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Mr.Woofles' special trick would be disposing of unwanted children. I'm making a cyberdifference in an eCommunity populated with iFolk- *HURK* suicide
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The open/general standards are out there, and by all means you should support them at the very least so everyone can play, but as a gamer I don't see why it's such a no-no to provide a faster better looking version for some cards...or at least my card. The problem wasn't that is was a faster better looking api/choice for some cards, it was the fact it was the faster better choice for those cards simply because the support for every thing else was so poor (how long did it take for 3dfx to get it through their thick heads that miniGL wasn't a good idea again). If 3dfx had desent d3d/ogl support glide wouldn't have been a faster or better looking option. |
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Bailey: Ruining fun is my JOB. well, duh, yeah... but couldn't you have waited until a little later? then again, seein as what the reply was... perhaps you pushed it in the right direction. never mind. good job, guv'nah. Whoops, sorry, was my common sense showing again? -HoseWater
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#54 by LPMiller I haven't been off base about anything. As I said earlier I gave my first impression of Cg, and put forward an opinion about the game industry. No more, no less. Both were intended to be positive contributions to discussion. If people agree or disagree, understand or don't understand, it's an issue for them. On the issue of game redefinition I haven't seen any comment that showed that people understood it as I do, neither did I see any substantial positive or negative comments, or comments that illuminated my understanding. But, I saw a lot of taking and little giving. Sure, scrutiny is to be expected if you're putting something forward like this. But, it makes for boring conversation. Critical comment of a positive or negative kind is always welcome as long as you back it up. Hysterical hissy fits of a personal nature are not. Whatever I write someone somewhere is going to like or dislike the presentation, or agree or disagree with the substantive points, or complain it's too short or too long. So, I write what I write. Nothing you say is going to change that. No helter skelter. No over the rainbow bad trip apocalypse. Just us and this moment now. This is how it ends.
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Deus Ex 2 is finally gonna bring in two things that I've always wanted to see/experience in a game... shadows that are cast real-time and realistically, and bodies limping over rails/downstairs when shot dead. Sweet. Would that game benefit from the use of Cg? |
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Just for the record, the reason I referenced Glide was only to the extent that it was a proprietary technology that ended up dying along with its maker's existence, not the actual technical similarities. Sure, nVidia looks unassailable now, but there was a time when 3dfx looked unassailable too. |
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Oh, and while we're talking about arguments over Cg, here's what a guy from Codeplay said about Cg on the Register, and what a letter writer said in response. Oh, and slashdot have not one but two threads on Cg, the first of which also talks about Glide a lot. |
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Can't we talk about something else? Kittens for example. Maybe the trolls will stop rattling their cages so much then. AND MAYBE PEOPLE WOULD STOP FEEDING THEM! *zing* "Craiky!" - Australian mating call
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You can't say *zing* about your own posts, fuckwit. Someone else has to *zing* for you. Fucking dutch. crash never mind. good job, guv'nah. And as long as ye keep lifting 'andkerchiefs for me, I'll 'ave a ha'penny and two scones for ye come thurs'dy. Blimey, wot. I'm making a cyberdifference in an eCommunity populated with iFolk- *HURK* suicide
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Bailey (#67): You can't say *zing* about your own posts, fuckwit. Someone else has to *zing* for you. Fucking dutch. *zing* |
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I think an awful lot of the Cg backlash might in fact be to NVIDIA's rather grandious marketing claims that Cg is an all-new whizbang revolutionary graphics technology from the future. People see that and 1) worry that nvidia is trying to take over the world or 2) worry that nvidia is trying to muscle into their space (as the codeplay people obviously do). The guy who replied to the Codeplay employee is pretty spot on. Most of Codeplay's arguments boil down to the fact that Cg sucks because it wouldn't work well under the PS2's VUs. Um, who cares? Nvidia never claimed it was the one true vector processing solution for all platforms including consoles that are, by most developer's opinions, oddly designed (I'm speaking of the PS2 here). A lot of his arguments boil down to the fact that Cg doesn't have any concept of ints, just floats. Well, uh, all PC-level (and the XBOX of course) GPUs are basically domain specific parellelized FPU processors. They do a much better job of handling floats than ints for virtually everything. And using floats for indexing allows one to do things like smooth interpolation without a lot of trouble. Codeplay guy bags Nvidia for not being forward looking enough to include full control logic (which is not ready for prime time on any available PC GPUs..and as he mentioned NVIDIA did 'reserve' the words for these operations so we can expect to see them in the future) and then he bags them for being forward looking enough to do away with ints, which really have no place in the future of graphics.. Hell even color indexing is moving to floats in the very near future... Lets all step into the glorious new 21st century!! Smashing!
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i liek milk. |
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and, yes. This is proof that my sleeping pill is not working |
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Max conveniently declined to speak to either of my posts discussing his sweeping redefinition of genres twice in the original thread, two topics down. Discussion tip #1: Don't just skip over posts that you can't rebutt - It makes you look doubly stupid. Oh, but he does have time for skirmish mode, though. Pffft. Build a man a fire and you'll keep him warm for the rest of the night. Light a man on fire and you'll keep him warm for the rest of his life.
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#67 by Bailey You can't say *zing* about your own posts, fuckwit. Someone else has to *zing* for you. Fucking dutch. Just watch me Baileyboy. "Craiky!" - Australian mating call
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Geez MCorleone, even when he does respond, he doesn't respond. He doesn't rebutt; he re words. Gabe called it when he said it's just performance art posting. Yawn. I think I'll ask Warren if I can borrow a cup of What? I believe I can fly......urk.
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He's just misunderstood and too intellectual for the rest of us. Cue the NIN Build a man a fire and you'll keep him warm for the rest of the night. Light a man on fire and you'll keep him warm for the rest of his life.
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Now mom's gonna start stamping on the kitchen floor telling you to turn that crap down. Ashiran Just watch me Baileyboy. Will do, pony-boy. I'm making a cyberdifference in an eCommunity populated with iFolk- *HURK* suicide
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LPMiller I think I'll ask Warren if I can borrow a cup of What? Feel free, I brought enough for everyone. "It's pretty common for pussies, dumbasses, and their families to blame their problems on vague influences like the media and society. The truth is, fuck you."
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See, the correct example would be a third party bestowing a zing on someone else' post: Such as Bailey's in 76. Build a man a fire and you'll keep him warm for the rest of the night. Light a man on fire and you'll keep him warm for the rest of his life.
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How about self-What?ing? Can I What? my own posts? Smashing!
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What? |
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#77 Awesome! Thanks, Warren. What? "Conductor Fist says the next stop is your face! Choo! Choo!"
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Nutty: No. You should do, what should be done, by you.
-Ancient Japanese Proverb |
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Why? as in, "Why God, why?" Build a man a fire and you'll keep him warm for the rest of the night. Light a man on fire and you'll keep him warm for the rest of his life.
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Why? Because the gun I've been working on that shoots people over the internet isn't finished yet. I'm making a cyberdifference in an eCommunity populated with iFolk- *HURK* suicide
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Yes. Both. The latter. Both. No. Not much. Nothing. Bailey: Beep beep, motherfucker.
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On the issue of game redefinition I haven't seen any comment that showed that people understood it as I do Finally something we can all agree on: nobody understands what the fuck you're talking about. We just differ on whose fault that is. |
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What exactly are games, anyway? Could someone give me a definition? Crash? Max? Smashing!
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games are entertainment that's designed to be fun, and sell well enough to adequately reward those that developed it so they can make more fun stuff. in my opinion. but then, i'm not a pseudo-intellectual that views games as some kind of higher power or subtle and powerful expressive medium for human understanding. i just think they should be fun to play. Whoops, sorry, was my common sense showing again? -HoseWater
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Back alley crack sex. Current market value of the Max Payne IP according to a comparison of the market capitalization of Take Two pre- and post- sale: approx. -$259,000,000.
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I found it interesting that the author of the Register story slams Cg throughout the article. It isn't until the end however, that we find that Codeplay is engaged in very similar work to what nVidia is trying to accomplish with Cg. Hmm.... Looking back at the byline, we notice that said author happens to be the founder of Codeplay. What's this? A competitor! Maybe we should take his comments with a large grain of salt. Alles in Butter, liebe Mutter!
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You should, without a doubt, take his comments with a large grain of salt. Not only is he a competitor, but anyone suggesting a fullscale C/C++ compiler for GPUs is off his rocker. In 4-5 years this may very likely not be the case, but some of us live in the now, where GPUs are great but the G still stands for Geometry, not General-purpose. The current market value of Matthew's sig: priceless. Smashing!
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Take something from the Register with a grain of salt? That's new... Build a man a fire and you'll keep him warm for the rest of the night. Light a man on fire and you'll keep him warm for the rest of his life.
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So, a buddy has read in the SF Chronicle (I can't find it anywhere else right now) that Circuit City is phasing out VHS movie sales. They'll still sell VCRs and blank videotapes, but movie sales will be strictly DVD format. |
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hooray for DVD!!!!! Does anyone still buy pre-recorded VHS tapes? I'd guess the sales numbers aren't that great except for kid movies like Harry Potter and Disney stuff. I have no facts to back it up but just a hunch that people who like movies enough that they'd buy them rather than rent them (with the kid exception mentioned since kids tend to watch the same dumb movies over and over because they are retarded), would own a DVD player and prefer to purchase the movie on DVD. Smashing!
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I pretty much stopped buying VHS about a year before I got my first DVD player, because I knew that it would be a waste of money and space, as I've been steadily converting everything on VHS I own to DVD. |
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Max conveniently declined to speak to either of my posts discussing his sweeping redefinition of genres twice in the original thread, I can't even remember the posts you're refering to. Geez MCorleone, even when he does respond, he doesn't respond. He doesn't rebutt; he re words. Why don't you ask yourself why I do that. I'm starting at the top and working down. If people are resistant, don't contribute, or can't explain why they think redefining "games" is wrong, don't expect me to peddle very hard. What exactly are games, anyway? Could someone give me a definition? Many things. That's the problem. They're self-contained worlds running to a defined set of rules and objectives. They can be used for learning, entertainment, or reflection, like any other medium. The difference is they're interactive. Unfortunately the perception of games is that while they might have something to offer at an intellectual and creative level they rarely step beyond immediate gratification. No helter skelter. No over the rainbow bad trip apocalypse. Just us and this moment now. This is how it ends.
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I pretty much stopped buying VHS about a year before I got my first DVD player, because I knew that it would be a waste of money and space, as I've been steadily converting everything on VHS I own to DVD. I can't wait to see what the format will be in 2-3 years that I'll do the same thing with my dvd's. |
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Well, the big difference for me is, while something may replace DVD as the hot format, my DVD's aren't getting noticeably degraded every time I watch them, I can pause without damaging them, etc. It's a lot more stable in the medium-to-long-ish term than VHS, assuming a geeky level of re-watching. |
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