What Cards are capable of this?

Could somebody give me an update on which cards are able to handle the shader thing? I currently have a geforce2go which is T&L capable but i suspect that this isn´t enough...

Would be very grateful to get saome info on this before i start coding something that i really can´t get working on my current config.

For pixel shaders,
Geforce3, radeon 8500 and up, since they are using programable shaders.
(I dont think the Gf4 mx cards have shaders)
For vertex shaders,
This can be emulated by the Cpu fast enough that it will work with even old cards (voodoo3 ect)


Zmatrix

i have radeon 9600 pro and its good, but i recognize that most of the nveffectsbrowser demos dont work, so maybe those are better...

well if i am sure that's like work:

has pixel shader 1.1
1.4 -> it's directx 8.1
2.0 -> it's directx 9 (have to be geforce fx, i don't know which ati card support this)

the Geforce TI (4xxx) works too but until 1.4

Not to start a holy war but the new ATI cards (9x00) appear to support shaders better then the GeForce cards.

I'm just going from my limited reading in the "Shader X" book (and some bias chats with an ATI rep ). So I may be totally wrong.

Cool. Thanks. That means i can fire away at vertex shading at least. (Or maybe i should say Dammit! now i have to start doing this too...;).

And here´s a really stupid follow up question: is the same type of effects possible with vertex shaders as with pixel shaders?
What i will be going for is reflection mapping, waterripples and such...

(I have actually tried to read the stuff at the shaderlink but right now its so far over my head i do need a telescope to grasp the concept.)

Doug: From what i heard its actually Amiga that handles shading best...;)

That is about the truth - the problem comes in when attempting to use the "nVidia" shaders with ATI cards.

A lot of the ones in the library which nVidia provides will have problems with ATI video cards. However, if you learn what is actually going on and write the shaders with what is needed - you will find that the majority of them will run best on ATI cards (one of the reasons nVidia cards perform so piss poor with HL2). There are a number of tweaks which are included in the ones provided by nVidia to make them run on their cards which mess it up for cards which actually have full support for the new shaders.

BTW - I do highly recomend ShaderX - very good book for anyone who is planning on using shaders extensively - and chances are really good you will be able to snag one from a discount book store now. Or check the Wordware website - as they often have package deals on books and ShaderX is a very popular title for the package deals.

I have a laptop with ATI M6 which supports Vertex Shaders but not Pixel Shaders. I could be thinking about getting a new Toshiba laptop with ATI M9...

Are VS in software mode now supported by A6 ? I remember that it didn't run on my GF2MX with the first beta.

well, my problem on this is that the effectbrowser doesn't even show the script at all cause the effect could not be initialized

well it shouldnt be confusing, But Ati seems to have broken what seemed to be thier entire card naming Scheme.
Radeon 7000 series were fully dx 7 complient. 8500 was dx 8.1 complient.
But the radeon 9000 isnt dx 9 complient...its not even as fast as a 8500 le.
The 8500 has now been renamed the 9100-9200 series. (squeeze a few more sales i guess)
the 9600,9700 and 9800 can all do dx9 pixel shaders(I think,someone Correct If im wrong)....and at the moment faster than the fx series.
Hopefully Nvidia will fix thier driver problems soon.
Technicaly the 5900 ultra "spec wise" should best the 9800 quite well...but Nvidia seem to have lost thier driver edge these days.

Ive never had any complaints yet about my 8500 pro 128 meg.
its still kicking along quite well.
now the 7200 in my other computer..is starting to really chug along..lol


Zmatrix

Quote:

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...And here´s a really stupid follow up question: is the same type of effects possible with vertex shaders as with pixel shaders?
...

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Not a stupid question at all, I only wish I had an easy answer for it.

I don't know how much you know about the D3D graphic pipeline but, assuming you have a basic understanding, Vertex Shaders replace the Transformation & Lighting stage allowing you to move and light verticies in your own way. The Pixel Shader replaces the Multitexturing stage, allowing you to mess with the individual pixels that are displayed. So I guess the short answer would be no.

Vertex Shading can be done in software or hardware. Pixel Shaders are hardware only (which is why some cards support Vertex and not Pixel Shading).


That is the "high level" answer. If anybody has a better one I'd love to hear it (I'm still very new to this ).