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I've always wondered this since I played Guild Wars. My dad has my old computer with dual Geforce 400 MX, which unfortunately has no Shader support. However, I used to play Guild Wars on it, and Guild Wars requires a Shader compatible GFX card. So why is it that Guild Wars seems to be the only Shader Required game that you can play without having a card that has no Shader support? The only difference I found is that playing it without Shading, it becomes somewhat pixelated around smoke/fire/hazy effects. I know you can get a cheap shader supported GFX card, but my dad doesn't really need it (he only does email). I'm only over visiting like once a month tops, but I've just always wondered why. If all that happens is objects become pixelated where a shader is needed, and there is none, then why do companies require a shader at all. It would be better for them to allow no shader cards to play, wouldn't it mean bigger base of players? So what if the graphics aren't all superb (like on my new computer <3 my dual 295s :3), you'd still be able to play the game at least.
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A GeForce 2 400MX is 9 years old. I think its unreasonable for a company to support cards from today to 9 years ago. I think the acceptable minimum is 4 years old. When designing a game, making your lowest common denominator too low will mean you are either doing too much work or you are sacraficing on graphics. The reason for shader support is simple. Before Shaders, all effects had to be derived from hardware. This makes some things difficult. With shaders you can use the shader language to define effects. It is also a more effecient method for calculation. |
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