GeForceFX: NVIDIA goes Hollywood?

Onboard Components

The GeForceFX possesses two integrated 400 MHz 10 bit RAMDACS. Each can output a signal to a CRT at a maximum resolution of 2048x1536@85Hz. The TV-Out functionality has been included in the chip itself. Although 10 bit color support per channel has been present since the first generation of GeForce boards, only a very few lucky users will be able to profit from it, since monitors that can display more than eight bits per channel are very rare.

The new chip has also been tuned for improved image quality on analog monitors in an effort to make image quality independent of board design. This should lead to better and more consistent overall image quality than the GeForce4 Ti offered.

DirectX 9 Features, Shaders, And Cg

The concept of Cg.

The greatest strength NVIDIA sees in the GeForceFX are its pixel and vertex shaders, which go far beyond the DirectX 9 specification. So what exactly is a shader? A shader is really nothing more than a program - a modifier that calculates effects and applies textures to an object. Shaders themselves are nothing new. Aside from the editors, the routines in ray tracing software are basically a rather large collection of shaders, which are then applied through the editor.

Screenshot from the NVIDIA Toys Demo - Depth of field effect.