NVIDIA GeForce3 Technology Preview

Pixel Shaders enable programmers to add a variety of shading effects right at the pixel level. Per-pixel lighting, reflections and bump mapping are some of the popular effects made possible by pixel shaders. If this feature sounds familiar to current NVIDIA fans, it is because the GeForce2 included this functionality, through the NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer (NSR).

This feature was a way for NVIDIA to provide developers with the means to add pixel effects such as lighting and bump mapping. NSR achieved this through two fixed-function pixel pipelines, which provided a functional, though somewhat limited, method of applying these pixel-shading techniques. In other words, although NSR worked, it did not quite have all the features needed for high level effects.

The NVIDIA GeForce3 improves on this first effort in several ways. The nfiniteFX Engine Pixel Shader now has the ability to handle four textures in a single pass, combined with up to eight texture operations. This should allow the GeForce3 to achieve incredible visual effects, such as reflective bump mapping, lighting/shadow effects, and realistic textures, while still maintaining a high level of performance. For example, the GeForce3 can process up to 36 parallel pixel-shading operations, as compared to only 7 for the GeForce2 GTS.

Programmability is another new feature of the nfiniteFX Engine Pixel Shader. While previous NVIDIA efforts used a fixed function design, developers can now actually program the Pixel Shaders to perform a wide variety of custom effects. The nfiniteFX Engine also works directly with the DirectX 8 API, which should translate into a much higher adoption rate.