X-bit labs reports that NVIDIA new SDK 10 which was released just last week includes CG profiles as Fragment50, Vertex50, Geometry50 which means it supports architecture micro-code profiles for Pixel Shaders 5.0, Vertex Shaders 5.0 and Geometry Shaders 5.0. The inclusion of the architecture micro-code inside a compiler indicates that NVIDIA foresees the arrival of Shader Model 5.0-capable hardware soon enough to enable game developers to compile their titles for it.

While hardly anybody knows what shader model 5.0 actually is and how much is it different from the shader model 4.0, the inclusion of the architecture micro-code inside a compiler indicates that Nvidia foresees the arrival of shader model 5.0-capable hardware soon enough to enable game developers to compile their titles for it. On the other hand, it is logical that Nvidia is working on next-generation graphics technologies and chips, such as G81, G90 and so on.

It looks like that the G90 will come quickly so it seems NVIDIA is gearing up for that and it should support SM 5.0 and DX 10.1. NVIDIA has revealed in their CUDA release note that there will be a new NVIDIA GPU by late 2007 that supports double precision arithmetic so that could be G90. In other news, VR-Zone reports that NVIDIA is preparing for G90 and even G100 and we could probably see them within a year. According to the article, G90 is an improvement on the current G80 architecture and there won't be any major changes. G100 will be a total new GPU architecture. There isn't too much information on G90 and G100 right now but we could see them by Q1 2008. G100 will match up against AMD R700.