Firingsquad heeft een artikeltje geschreven over de ontwikkelingen die we in de toekomst op het gebied van 3D accelerators mogen verwachten. Eén van die nieuwe ontwikkelingen is geometry acceleration, een feature die aanwezig zal zijn in o.a. de nVidia NV10, S3 GX4 en 3dfx Voodoo4:
Long-since applied to professional workstation graphics accelerators, moving transformation and lighting operations onto dedicated circuitry can free the CPU from any 3D chores, and potentially provide an insane boost in speed.One big effect of geometry acceleration is the difference (or lack of difference) on lower-end PCs. Potentially, if you've got a P2-266 and a P3-500 side by side, the graphics portion of games such as Quake 2 and Unreal will run at near exactly the same speeds on each of the systems. Unreal might lag slightly due to more sophisticated AI, but you'll no longer need to worry about upgrading the CPU to get more FPS. Yep, this is probably Intel's nightmare as the CPU becomes a non-factor in the specifics of 3D performance.
Of course, tomorrow's games are going to use all of those unclaimed MIPS for more realistic physics engines, non-graphical entities, AI, and the like. The CPU is too great a resource to waste, and you'll see some amazing things as it's unshackled from the weight of 3D processing.
hehe