Quote - So the programmers ARE relying more on the CPU, it seems. Why is that>

Several reasons and explanations.

1) possibility is that the graphics card is so much heavier powered for this kind of work that it is mostly waiting for datat that must be supplied by the CPU.

2. Drivers and compatibility.
   OpenGL 2.1 can do a lot in GPU hardware that previously was only possible on the CPU. Many applications, however, are written for OpenGL 1.1, which had far less capabilities - and is over 10 years old by now. So the things that OpenGL 1.1 cannot do are handled in the CPU.

The specialized OpenGL drivers and libraries for 3DS Max and Maya that come with the professional graphics cards seem to indicate that situation 2) is the case. Many calculations that were done by the CPU in the standard environment are offloaded to the GPU by those specialized libraries, and the result is a striking performance increase while manipulating 3D objects.

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