Thoughts
Knowing more about 3DMark05 than I did at the time of the first article has definitely helped write about it this time. Learning how DSTs are actually accelerated by certain hardware uncovered some of the mystery behind just saying "they're accelerated and things go faster when you turn them on", as I did in the first part. As long as it's cheap in the silicon to do it, and as long as shadow mapping as used by 3DMark05 is used in a variety of games titles, I'd like to see it implemented in hardware from a certain IHV.
Given that 3DMark05 is a benchmark where, ideally, repeatable, equivalent workloads should be performed providing cards are of equal capability, it's a shame to see DST acceleration make it into 3DMark05 as a default choice until such time as it's the case that the feature ships with a majority of hardware. PCF even more so, for visual output reasons too. Their inclusion in the default benchmark of the free download version of 05 means that non-equivalent work is being done when you're comparing cards where one or more of them don't have accelerated DST capability.
That poses a problem in choosing whether to turn it off each time it's run on NVIDIA or upcoming S3 hardware. Do we leave those features on so readers using the default test can compare to our figures, or do we turn them off and disclaim our choice each time? I'd love to see as much full disclosure from either FM or NVIDIA on what PC games we can see in the near future that use the same rendering techniques, to see if their claims are validated. Provided the feature is then implemented in those stated games robustly, so as to avoid a Far Cry-like issue with it, and the games list is of a certain profile and numerous enough that the feature will get good exposure in titles that'll likely sell well (and thus our readers will likely be playing), then the argument for leaving it enabled is strong.
Can we get a list of those games or engines you believe will make good use of the hardware features provided?
So we'll be using it here, just turning off DSTs where applicable while also running it with them enabled, painting both pictures. There's the option to do that, so why not make use of it? That list would still be nice though.
