Shadow Volumes Using a Stencil Buffer Patented

[Dia Kharrat]

Just in case some people don't see the main page, there's a very interesting news item on the main page:

http://www.devmaster.net/

This is a disturbing step in the process of issuing software patents.

[davepermen]

hehe, as disturbing as Valve officially stating that both gfFX and nVidia are crap? :D

i like that. the "big asses" in gamedev get some battering on their asses.. fun:D

[Dia Kharrat]

Where did Valve mention that? (just curious)

[davepermen]

uhm..

www.anandtech.com
www.tomshardware.com
www.rage3d.net
www.hardocp.org
www.beyond3d.net (forums)

and tons more.. on about every hardware testing site there are huge discussions now going on.

[davepermen]

www.opengl.org, too.. everywhere..:D

[baldurk]

RE: the patent
Filed: October 13, 1999

Breaking news guys!

RE: nVidia vs. ATi

I'm not going to take a side. Some of you probably know who I prefer anyway, but I think that Valve's benchmark showing that ATi's card is 3x faster than nVidia's smells bad.

[anubis]

either way, i had it with nvidia... cheating in a benchmark is so low that everybody who bought a card from nvidia at that particular time should get a full refund because he was led to believe that the card he bought was miles better than it actually is.
allthough i also don't belive that the gfFX5900 cards are actually that bad. other benchmark results don't quite show the same results. also in the particular test the 9600 surpasses the fx5900 which is hard to believe given the fact the 9600 is actually even slower than the 9500, according to benchmark results. i'm seriously thinking about getting a 9800 ( i have a 5900 right now ) mostly because i can sell my 5900 at almost the price i bought it to a friend and buy a 9800 pro for 260$ here ( given the low dollar this is really cheap... below 250€ ). before i decide this i will wait and see both cards in action in more new games...

[anubis]

btw, reading tomshardware.com... even they said that the benchmark seems unfair...
also i find it doubtful that the 9800 - hl2 bundling has no influence in this. of course valve sais that the benchmarks made them go to ati but i wouldn't be surprised if it was the other way round.

[donBerto]

yeah - I'm a am was a huge NVIDIA fan until the benchmark test fraud. the last nvidia card i bought was a geforce ti 4200 and the latest video card I bought was an ati radeon 9600 pro all-in-wonder [for my bro] I'm just so disappointed a respected company would go that low AND TO THINK I WANTED TO COOP/INTERN WITH THEM!?!

:no:

[Noor]

yeah - I'm a am was a huge NVIDIA fan until the benchmark test fraud. the last nvidia card i bought was a geforce ti 4200 and the latest video card I bought was an ati radeon 9600 pro all-in-wonder [for my bro] I'm just so disappointed a respected company would go that low AND TO THINK I WANTED TO COOP/INTERN WITH THEM!?!

hehe, same feeling!!!

[baldurk]

AFAIK, ATi did exactly the same thing earlier, so I call it quits.

Besides, this recent benchmark HL2 brought out seems to be the same thing in reverse. The benchmark cheating against nVidia.

[Snape]

Besides, this recent benchmark HL2 brought out seems to be the same thing in reverse. The benchmark cheating against nVidia.
I do not think so, I think they are fair. Valve even developed a own path for GeForce-Cards (only 16 bit precision for GeForceFX Cards and ps 1.4 instead of 2.0).