According to Microsoft, displacement mapping is based on the N-Patch approach introduced by ATI a year ago, hence, has almost nothing to do with Nvidia's RT-patches implemented in the GeForce 3 GPU. Competing products, such as Matrox Parhelia, ATI Radeon 9700 and Radeon 9500 support the displacement mapping in hardware.
Furthermore, NVIDIA does not seem to like curved surfaces very much at all: they turned off parametric surfaces support in the GeForce3 drivers due to compatibility issues a year ago, so, currently NVIDIA does not seem to support any higher order surfaces.
At this point I do not know if the displacement mapping is needed to be strictly supported by hardware in order to declare "DirectX 9.0 compatibility". If it is, NVIDIA will not be able to claim that the GeForce FX VPU is 100% DirectX 9.0 compatible. Rancho*: Always name sources please or register to let people know who you are, ok? Readers can follow a discussion about the same topic at Madonion forums. ReactorCritical on the same topic
Furthermore, NVIDIA does not seem to like curved surfaces very much at all: they turned off parametric surfaces support in the GeForce3 drivers due to compatibility issues a year ago, so, currently NVIDIA does not seem to support any higher order surfaces.
At this point I do not know if the displacement mapping is needed to be strictly supported by hardware in order to declare "DirectX 9.0 compatibility". If it is, NVIDIA will not be able to claim that the GeForce FX VPU is 100% DirectX 9.0 compatible. Rancho*: Always name sources please or register to let people know who you are, ok? Readers can follow a discussion about the same topic at Madonion forums. ReactorCritical on the same topic
