Will software rasterizers ever pass hardware?

Zarmax · 2003-09-30T11:53:04

I was pondering this question the other day and wanted to ask the experts out there. Given the speed of the current and future crop of intel/amd processors and speed of memmory access, do you ever see a time when it will be just as fast to go back to doing pure software rasterizers than to rely on differing 3d hardware standards? Granted, the 3d hardware boards will increase in power along with the main CPUs, offer concurrent processing and are becoming more compatible over time. But, given the existing compatibility issues between different 3d boards, a software rasterizer could eliminate those incompatibilities and reduce the overall costs of having to buy both a fast MB/CPU and 3d board. Hence, your application could be available to a larger audience. Just wait for Walmart computers with the 10Ghz 64bit CPU with 4Gigs of memory, which will probably be the standard in 3-5 years. I'm also thinking of the flexibility that a software rasterizer would give since it would be totally programmable. Things like modifying your vertices per frame would not take the big hit it does now, BSPs might make a comeback, blending lots of textures, occlusion testing, etc. What I would really like to see is the elimination of the whole Vid/Main memory thing and go with a unified memory model, but hey, I don't design the stuff. Just curious... [edited by - Zarmax on September 23, 2003 5:02:20 PM]

Graphics and GPU Programming Programming

Started by Zarmax September 23, 2003 04:01 PM

31 comments, last by Zarmax 20 years, 6 months ago

davepermen

1,047

September 29, 2003 04:19 AM

yeah, the saarcor is part of the openrt page actually.. www.openrt.de

they have tons of papers on how to do raytracing in hw, in software, on todays hw even, and a lot on how to implement fast global illumination in it. they present the first near-realtime full global illumination solution ever. and that directly for billion-triangle scenes:D

raytracers will change the world.. the question is when.. but what we can see from now yet is amazing. i can still not see any good way to do full gi on rastericer hw. without any precalculation.

If that''s not the help you''re after then you''re going to have to explain the problem better than what you have. - joanusdmentia

davepermen.net

If that's not the help you're after then you're going to have to explain the problem better than what you have. - joanusdmentia

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Prefect

373

September 30, 2003 10:52 AM

quote:
hm.. what are the caps in dx or the extension string in gl then for? definitely NOT for queriyng support for certain extensions, not? what the **** are you talking?!?? this is so ridiculous.

One word (well, abbreviation) for you: HLSL

cu,
Prefect

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davepermen

1,047

September 30, 2003 11:53 AM

one word for you then: profiles.

.. bah .. extensions exist EVERYWHERE, just the interface gets different.

If that''s not the help you''re after then you''re going to have to explain the problem better than what you have. - joanusdmentia

davepermen.net

If that's not the help you're after then you're going to have to explain the problem better than what you have. - joanusdmentia

My Page davepermen.net | My Music on Bandcamp and on Soundcloud

Will software rasterizers ever pass hardware?

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Will software rasterizers ever pass hardware?

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