8800gtx preview

[josh6079]

Considering it's their first driver that could implement it you should give them a break.

I'm not going to be upset if they have to make a Chuck patch equivalent. I'll be upset if they don't allow FP16HDR+AA.

I don't really care if it's a hack or part of the drivers, just that I can get my hands on it & that it works.

Same here. I could care less about if it needs a Chuck patch of its own. That little detail will just be a humorous bonus relative to Crusaders Chuck patch bashing days. However if Nvidia doesn't off the feature all together, that's a different story.

If that means a few months of it being a hack then fine, i'll just expect the same pettiness from ATi supporters as we've seen from nVidia supporters.

Like I said, I don't mind a patch for it. Just as long as it does support it.

 

[m21s]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
Link

Someone has picked up a 8800GTX and is benching them!!

Quick results -

Fear 1600x1200 all in game setttings maxed out with soft shadows enabled.
FEAR bench one
Min: 41
Avg: 83
Max 197

Note - 100% over 40 FPS.

F.E.A.R.

All possible settings maxed. 4xAA, 16xAF, 1600x1200, everything maximum, soft shadows on.

RE: The FEAR Benchmarks posted a few pages back.

Ok if this is the case with this card....I for one am not too impressed.

This is what I get on my 7950GX2

Just ran the test settings on this game myself.
FEAR Extraction Point.

MIN: 38
AVG: 65
MAX: 177

This is with EVERYTHING MAXIMUM ALL SETTINGS ON and running at 1920x1080 resolution!
4xAA/16AF

I actually just finished playing this and beat it.


Not impressed so far.

Heres a PIC of my Test.

By the way, My tests are on Extraction Point.

 

[lopri]

How about this?

1024x768 / 4AA / 8AF / Max Everything
1600x1200 / 4AA / 8AF / Max Everything

Opteron 165 @3.0GHz / 7900 GTX SLI @700/900

 

[ronnn]

Originally posted by: lopri
How about this?

1024x768 / 4AA / 8AF / Max Everything
1600x1200 / 4AA / 8AF / Max Everything

Opteron 165 @3.0GHz / 7900 GTX SLI @700/900

Right now, even $200 cards run almost every game at nice settings. Unless of course you have a huge monitor. I would guess that new games will be much more demanding and I will need one of these beasts. Hopefully the refreshes will be a bit easier on the power. At least on idle. Is killing me that my x1900gt has actually added a noticeable bit to the power bill. Am now remembering to turn it off. The lack of icebergs off the east coast has me thinking a bit more green again. :beer:

 

[teatime0315]

Originally posted by: m21s

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
Link

Someone has picked up a 8800GTX and is benching them!!

Quick results -

Fear 1600x1200 all in game setttings maxed out with soft shadows enabled.
FEAR bench one
Min: 41
Avg: 83
Max 197

Note - 100% over 40 FPS.

F.E.A.R.

All possible settings maxed. 4xAA, 16xAF, 1600x1200, everything maximum, soft shadows on.

RE: The FEAR Benchmarks posted a few pages back.

Ok if this is the case with this card....I for one am not too impressed.

This is what I get on my 7950GX2

Just ran the test settings on this game myself.
FEAR Extraction Point.

MIN: 38
AVG: 65
MAX: 177

This is with EVERYTHING MAXIMUM ALL SETTINGS ON and running at 1920x1080 resolution!
4xAA/16AF

I actually just finished playing this and beat it.


Not impressed so far.

Heres a PIC of my Test.

By the way, My tests are on Extraction Point.

Do you have soft shadows on?

 

[m21s]

Originally posted by: teatime0315

Originally posted by: m21s

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
Link

Someone has picked up a 8800GTX and is benching them!!

Quick results -

Fear 1600x1200 all in game setttings maxed out with soft shadows enabled.
FEAR bench one
Min: 41
Avg: 83
Max 197

Note - 100% over 40 FPS.

F.E.A.R.

All possible settings maxed. 4xAA, 16xAF, 1600x1200, everything maximum, soft shadows on.

RE: The FEAR Benchmarks posted a few pages back.

Ok if this is the case with this card....I for one am not too impressed.

This is what I get on my 7950GX2

Just ran the test settings on this game myself.
FEAR Extraction Point.

MIN: 38
AVG: 65
MAX: 177

This is with EVERYTHING MAXIMUM ALL SETTINGS ON and running at 1920x1080 resolution!
4xAA/16AF

I actually just finished playing this and beat it.


Not impressed so far.

Heres a PIC of my Test.

By the way, My tests are on Extraction Point.

Do you have soft shadows on?

YES.

There is not one option turned off, or turn down from MAX.

 

[BFG10K]

But you're running it at the default driver quality level no doubt?

 

[m21s]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
But you're running it at the default driver quality level no doubt?

My drivers are set to HQ. (best quality)
First thing I do when I install new drivers, is to make sure there set to HQ. (best quality)

Edit: btw, im using 91.31 currently.

 

[BFG10K]

I don't think soft shadows and AA work properly. You might not even be getting AA at all.

 

[m21s]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
I don't think soft shadows and AA work properly. You might not even be getting AA at all.

Well to make sure I manually turned OFF Soft Shadows to make sure I was getting full 4xAA.

MIN: 40
AVG: 65
MAX:177

4xAA With soft shadows off to make sure

I'm definetly getting 4xAA with soft shadows.

Anything else?

 

[BFG10K]

Well to make sure I manually turned OFF Soft Shadows to make sure I was getting full 4xAA.

But your scores didn't change when you disabled soft shadows which kind of proves my point.

They should change as soft shadows have a massive performance hit.

 

[Lord Banshee]

so you get 40/65/177 without soft shadows and 38/65/177 with soft shadows??

I am pretty sure that isn't possible.

*edit* BFG got there first

 

[m21s]

I dont know what to say?

Those are the numbers.

What else can I do to check?

 

[Sc4freak]

Post a screenshot of the game, we'll be able to tell you if AA and soft shadows are on.

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Well to make sure I manually turned OFF Soft Shadows to make sure I was getting full 4xAA.

But your scores didn't change when you disabled soft shadows which kind of proves my point.

They should change as soft shadows have a massive performance hit.

There must be a software bug with soft shadows and AA like you elduded BFG.

Although I have to say my results are very similar to m21s. At 1680x1050, 4x/16x AA/HQAF, everything maxed i averaged 57 fps without soft shadows and 55fps with soft shadows.

Either way, somehow I was expecting a little more than 70fps from G80. I would have been more impressed if it were at 1920x1200.

Hopefully the INQ was right by saying that G80 is already CPU bound.

 

[BFG10K]

I dont know what to say?

It's obvious that soft shadows are not working in tandem with 4xAA.

 

[m21s]

So if I turn off AA and leave soft shadows on what kinda numbers should I see?


Well here's what we got now.

No AA W/Soft shadows on


MIN: 40
AVG: 60
MAX: 150

And I know AA is working because on my 37" screen at 1920x1080 I can tell a world of difference when its on and off!

When its on 4xaa it looks perfect, when its off it looks like a jagg fest


Also Matt2 seems to be getting similar results and he's on ATI hardware.

Is this a game problem then?

 

[josh6079]

When I had my 7800GT in a couple months ago, I noticed that when I had SS already on and when I added 4xAA on top of everything else, the game would keep the 4xAA but turn the SS off. However, and here's the kicker, the SS still said it was on. I can tell the difference between FEAR's regular shadows and SS's and I remember double checking everything over and over again until I realized that it just left the setting for SS to "On" when indeed it wasn't.

When I did finally get the SS's to work with 4xAA as well, the shadows looked funky and performance was crawling.

I'm guessing when you apply 4xAA and SS's, it automatically keeps the 4xAA applied, turns off the SS's, but still displays the SS's setting as being, "On". At least, that's what happened to me using your same drivers, 91.31.

 

[m21s]

But turning off AA and enabling SS should fix that correct? Meaning the numbers should reflect?

I tried and my FPS seem to be the same.

 

[josh6079]

Leaving AA off and turning SS's on will do just that: give No AA but SS's.

Having SS's on and turning 4xAA on may override one of the features; in my case it was turning on 4xAA but disabling SS's while still showing that SS's was on.

 

[Gstanfor]

Originally posted by: thilan29

Originally posted by: josh6079
So nVidia doesn't "Officially" support HDR+AA then if it has to use what staunch nV supporters like Crusader claimed was a "hack"?

Who knows if that's the case but I'd love to see "certain" people's reaction if it isn't supported officially.

We don't know for certain just yet what is and isn't included in G80. People who have the card are using very beta drivers with it.

In any case, I'd strongly advise reading what David Kirk had to say about HDR + AA.

It would be expensive for us to try and do it in hardware, and it wouldn't really make sense - it doesn't make sense, going into the future, for us to keep applying AA at the hardware level. What will happen is that as games are created for HDR, AA will be done in-engine according to the specification of the developer.

I'd suggest that Oblivion, being TWIMTBP and all will have a patch released that officially enables HDR+AA on G80 - whether or not the patch enables HDR+AA on R5xx is another sotry altogether...

 

[m21s]

Okay.

4xAA + SS does indeed work 100%!

The pics are dark but that was the spot i was standing to get a good shadow of my body.

First Pic.

4xAA With Soft Shadows On
4xAA With Soft Shadows On
FPS: 48

NO AA With Soft Shadows On
No AA With Soft Shadows On
FPS: 64

And I can DEFINETLY tell that the soft shadows are still on while AA is being aplied.

So there is a hit, that test sequence just doesnt do the best job I guess.

 

[Cookie Monster]

So thats 48 vs 70.

 

[m21s]

Yes.

I'm not saying there isnt a hit in performace here.

Just going by those 8800 numbers, there doesnt seem to be that big of a jump right now from my 7950GX2 (At least in FEAR)

Can't wait to see how other games prove.

 

[josh6079]

I'd suggest that Oblivion, being TWIMTBP and all will have a patch released that officially enables HDR+AA on G80 - whether or not the patch enables HDR+AA on R5xx is another sotry altogether...

Beth. doesn't need to release a patch in order to officially allow HDR+AA on R5xx. A user can install Oblivion and install the 6.10 Cataylst drivers and recieve HDR+AA without ever leaving the WHQL certification.

In any case, I understand the beta drivers, but for this launch less than 4 days away, an informed computer enthusiast who has already benched the card without HDR+AA, and your link discussing nVidia's reservation in implementing such a feature on the hardware level all give a sense of last-second doubt. Many times nVidia's beta drivers have only been lacking WHQL certification and the driver itself it next to unchanged.

I sure hope they do use it as well as make some AF improvements. The "Application Controlled" AF setting in that guy's FEAR benchmarks has me concerned also.