Vertex Engine

The vertex shader units also conform to Microsoft's DirectX 9.0c specification, meaning Vertex Shader 3.0.

The vertex engine has seen a great range of improvements and extensions compared to the NV35 / 38. NV40 possesses 6 vertex units which follow a MIMD (multiple input, multiple data) design. NVIDIA also sets a new record with a triangle transform rate of 600 million polys/second (Radeon 9800XT = 412, FX 5950 = 356).

Vertex shader programs can theoretically be of infinite length in VS 3.0. Thanks to the extension of the dynamic flow control (more looping / branching options and new subroutine functions), shader code can now be written much more efficiently and offers new options for effects.

Again, here's summary of features:

• Full Support for Shader Model 3.0
• 216 (65,535) length vertex programs
• Vertex processing w/texture - displacement mapping
• Dynamic flow control - Branching, Call & Return, Subroutines
• Geometry Instancing (vertex stream divider)