- DirectX 9.0c
- Pixel Shader 3.0
- Vertex Shader 3.0
- HDR
- Intellisample 4.0
- Transparency Multisample and Supersample Antialiasing
- 64-bit texture filtering and blending
- 128-bit floating point precision
- 302 million transistors
- 24 pixel pipelines
- 16 ROPs
- 8 vertex shader pipelines
- .11um micron process at TSMC
- OpenGL 2.0 support
NVIDIA was the first video chip manufacturer to market a "Shader Model 3.0" video card, with the 6800 Ultra. The 6800 Ultra and its derivatives (6800GT 6800, 6800LE, 6600GT, 6600, 6200, 6200 with Turbo Cache) all support Pixel and Vertex Shader 3.0 standards. Microsoft introduced PS3.0 and VS 3.0 in 2002 with the introduction of the DirectX 9.0 API. Key features of PS 3.0 include dynamic branching and looping of pixel shader programs, unlimited instruction length, shader antialiasing, multiple render targets and more.
Key features of VS 3.0 include unlimited shader length (65,535 limitation by DX9.0c), dynamic branching, vertex texturing, and geometry instancing. Vertex Texturing allows effects like displacement mapping to be used in games. Geometry instancing allows for the trivial reuse of geometry. For instance, a field of asteroids in a space game might use geometry instancing. Displacement mapping adds geometry to an object or character in a game instead of adding a bump map.
One of the best features of the new cards (7800GTX and 7800GT) is Transparency Antialiasing. Thin objects in a game like a chain-link fence or trees and vegetation often have the edges of lines inside the texture. Normal antialiasing doesn't cure this as the area inside the chain link fence isn't antialiased. With TAA, antialiasing is applied to the texture. The 7800GTX has two modes of TAA, MSTAA and SSTAA (Transparency adaptive Multisample Antialiasing) (SuperSample Transparency Antialiasing).
