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The 6600GT supports the latest features of Microsoft's DirectX and OpenGL. The NV43 chip is based upon the same architecture as the high end 6800 Ultra. These cards are the most feature-rich video cards on the market. ATI's SM 3.0 cards are scheduled to be released later this year in the form of "R520". Pixel Shader 3.0 allows for several new features over the previous generation video cards. The NV4x series is capable of doing 65,536 pixel shader instructions in a single pass through DirectX 9.0. This limitation is of no great import as any program that needs that many instructions will not be interactive (60 fps) at least for the next good while. Many of the current games being released today support Pixel Shader 2.0 with some small support for Pixel Shader 3.0 in Far Cry the only current game with SM 3.0. PS 3.0 brings the feature set of the pixel shaders and vertex shaders very close together. It's likely that we'll see unified shaders in the next iteration of video cards supported through Longhorn, Microsoft's next operating system. Vertex Shader 3.0 brings several features above that of Vertex Shader 2.0. First is the ability to render to texture. This feature allows Displacement mapping to be done easily. Note that Displacement Mapping is not Matrox style, but a simpler form. The shader limits on the 6600GT are 65,536 instructions with loops and branches, the same as 2.0a. Geometry Instancing reuses geometry in an application or game. For example, a space game might reuse asteroids. Or leaves of grass may be reused, saving on geometry needs. ATI's X800 series of cards also supports this in a game like Far Cry.  
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