But HLSL and Cg aren't platforms. They're languages. The only platforms (shader-wise) are DirectX and OpenGL -- HLSL only works on DirectX, which doesn't matter because so does Gamestudio; Cg works on both. One written shader will run on everything.
Basically shaders are nothing like that, a couple of vertex and pixel operations and I dont see why a node based shader should have such a big performance difference. If that would be true, no professional engine would use it. UDK / Unreal as an example is very fast that way. So actually, without any testings I would not claim something like that.
You should learn how to write shaders, then. Because I
can make the claims I've made. The performance difference isn't big at all, depending on how you're willing to limit yourself (as I'll explain at the end of the post).
There is for sure a difference, but I would not overestimate it hat much. I read such arguments often. C4 programmers as an example defend their C++ language at all costs. They always tell it is the best, fastest and whatever. But in reality I saw games programmed in Java as an example running big FPS worlds with huge terrains and interiors (Chrome as an example). Often people are too much focused on their tools instead on the final product that could be done with other tools as well.
We've had FPS games since the early 90s. The graphics stuff is still done on hardware in OpenGL, so such an example says nothing about whether or not Java can replace C++ for game development, and as soon as the Java programmers try to push boundaries they'll find themselves going back to C++. It's a completely different scenario. Besides, what's that about people being too focused on the tools rather than the final product? The final product, whatever it is, can be achieved
with Gamestudio -- Isn't the whole point of this discussion was whether or not Gamestudio is visually behind?
In terms of performance between node-based shaders and written shaders -- there'll probably be no difference between the
exact same shader, but node based shaders are restrictive, and I don't care about built in effects at all. The only claims I made to a
big performance difference was that KarBOOM would perform poorly if I tried to achieve the same thing with node editors and "industry standard" effects. And it is true:
How many games feature particle shadows? How many node editors will let you do that? Most shadow-mapping systems will use multiple views and depth-maps -- mine uses one view and a standard RGBA bmap that the particles also get rendered into for almost no extra cost. The whole playable field is one quad with a very unusual multi-texturing shader. The mix-map (or whatever one calls it) is generated by a series of post-processing effects based on the level data. The explosions are each a single sprite with a very fast shader generating the effect procedurally -- normals, internal lighting, sun-light, density, etc.
Jibb
