Unreal Tech Update: D3D verbeteringen

Tim Sweeney heeft op de Unreal Tech Page wat spul gepost over verbeteringen in de D3D code van Unreal:

Since Riva TNT users are reporting that Direct3D is more than 30% faster than OpenGL on their cards, I've been spending some more time improving the D3D code, adding better support for video mode switching, and optimizing the texture management code a bit more.

Another motivation for the Direct3D improvements is the Matrox G400. I just received one, and it's an awesome video card--fast fill rate, great graphics quality, and decent texture management performance. The G400 has a great Direct3D driver, but their OpenGL is hideously bad.

One interesting new feature I managed to implement in Direct3D is recursive, fractal detail textures. With this feature enabled in Direct3D, you never see any individual texels, no matter how close you get to a surface. It's a really interesting contrast to the blurry bilinear filtering you see near surfaces in most games. Considering how fast current 3D hardware has become, there's no reason for games to reveal any individual texels anywhere.

-Tim

Dat is trouwens wel interessant: hoe snel is de G400 onder Unreal (in vergelijking met een TNT2)? Ik heb nog nergens benchmarks gezien.