> Would it be possible to use the GPU as well as the CPU to render?  This
> could speed up render times so much and would allow a somewhat crappy
> machine to generate some pretty spiffy results.

Whilst I agree with what others have written here, it seems nobody has 
thought about the fact that by the time POV4 is released 3D cards will have 
progressed several generations.

IMO we shouldn't totally rule out using the GPU to help with high-quality 
renderings just because of some limitation that might not even be there in 5 
years time.  You only have to have a look at the feature-list of the 
different shader versions over the last 5 years to see the way it's going 
(btw loops are fine in both vertex and pixel shaders now, and there is no 
limit on the number of instructions like there used to be).

Also look at nVidia's Gelato, they use the 3D card to help with rendering, 
so it can't be all bad.  Maybe there is some technical paper somewhere about 
what Gelato does that would give some ideas for POV4?

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