ATI NEXT GENERATION R520: "I can see games next year that will easily overflow 256 MB frame buffer with all the details turned up."

It’s obvious that the next generation of graphic chips e.g. R520 will support 512 MB of memory. Is it necessary to have this amount available?

Yes. The resource requirements of games are increasing rapidly. Making a new, unique and awesome looking game these days involves creation of giga-bytes of art work for models and textures. Techniques like normal map based lighting and bump-mapping techniques have become common place in cutting edge games like Doom 3, Far Cry and Half Life 2. These normal maps are typical high resolution and do chew up a lot of memory. Techniques such as 3Dc help alleviate the problem but I can see games next year that will easily overflow 256 MB frame buffer with all the details turned up.

It’s obvious as well that the next ATI generation (R520) will support the shader model 3.0. What are the benefits of the shader model 3.0?

A well implemented and efficient shader model 3.0 offers some performance optimization opportunities for the ISV (Independent Software Vendor). The most significant feature for shader model 3.0 is branching – which is the ability to skip executing a bunch of instructions conditionally. Now, this is only going to benefit performance if the cost of branching is lower than the amount of work you are skipping.