SH5 Updates from the SUBSIM meeting next week

[TheDarkWraith]

Originally Posted by Fluffysheap

Actually, render buffer is a quite small portion of the total video memory nowadays. Texture and model data use much more memory, and these are required for model detail. The lowest sensible resolution at this point is 1280x1024, which (including 32-bit color, z-buffer, and double buffer) is only 15MB of memory.

I'm no expert in Direct X but I have played around with it. You are forgetting about the stencil buffer and maybe the developers of the game are rendering to more than one back buffer. There could be other buffers also. What about shaders? They take up video memory. But your point is correct, these buffers and shaders use a very small portion of the available video card memory.

Also in the video card discussion you need to account for what shader version it supports amid other things, Specifically what are it's capabilities? How many lights can it handle at one time? Whether this is GPU dependant or not I don't know. I just grab a Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.DeviceCaps structure and query what the end user's video card has or doesn't have to know what my applications and games can do based on the user's system.