A Positive GFFX Thread

[Ilmater]

I'm the first to say that the GFFX has some major problems. However, there is one extremely positive thing that came along with this card. For a long time, I've stuck with nVidia products (don't call me a fanboy; I don't want to hear it). Their drivers are flat-out better. I remember when a couple of my friends got 8500s and their cards had a ridiculous amount of problems compared to those of us with nVidia cards. ATI did have one extremely nice quality though. With ATI cards, you could turn up the eye candy without such a large hit in performance. However, I would rather have the stability and higher frame rates (at lower quality and resolution settings) of the GF Ti4xxx line.

With the GFFX cards, nVidia has finally fixed some of these problems. No, not completely, but adequately. There is a far smaller difference between the performance hit the GFFX line takes with 4xAA turned on versus what the 9xxx line takes at comparable settings. Finally, I can get everything I want in one card: stability, performance, and quality.

So isn't there at least ONE positive point about these cards?

 

[Vegito]

i wonder why on a .13 micron for geforce fx, it's still hot and requires a second slot for cooling..

maybe thats a non-production sample that they had..

 

[BlvdKing]

Like I said in another thread, I would still rather have the NVidia card. I think that as the drivers mature, the card's flaws (especially in the IQ department) will become less pronounced. NVidia Linux support is clearly superior to ATI's, which is another selling point for me. The dustbuster is a major set back, but then again none of the FX manufacturers have to stick to the reference design. Give the FX a few driver revisions and wait for the different manufacturers to release their cards; then I think it will really shine.

 

[mjolnir2k]

*enters thread and puts on asbestos suit*

Someone please pass the popcorn....

 

[dullard]

Some positive issues:
1) NVidia actually got 0.13 micron to work. That has proven to be a tough hurdle for many companies. Their future products based on this technology will have a good basis to start on.
2) The noise is loud, but the actual cards will not run at full fan speed (it has a fan throttle) and I doubt the manufacturers will choose such a noisy fan to begin with.
3) The speed of the card was really good. Sure it wasn't a performance king, but it wasn't a parhelia either. It basically tied for 1st place and with a driver revision giving it a 20%-25% speed boost (which is typical for NVidia), it will clearly win over the 9700 pro in the vast majority of benchmarks.

Was this the king of cards that everyone will rush out to buy? No. But that doesn't mean the whole GFFX line is doomed.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: forcesho
i wonder why on a .13 micron for geforce fx, it's still hot and requires a second slot for cooling..

maybe thats a non-production sample that they had..

The .13 process is in its infancy; even Intel and AMD with their own state-of-the-art fabs ran into these "growing pains (P4 pre-Northwood and AMD pre-TbredB). I expect yields and scaling to increase significantly as the .13 fab process is improved. The core looks to be a winner, they just need to lower its power consumption and heat dissipation, and pair the monster with a 256-bit memory interface to take full advantage of DDR-II. Won't happen til NV35.

As for driver quality, how I do miss the days of downloading a single UDA and simply installing it over an old driver; or rolling back drivers without having to delete half my registry; or having to look all over the place to piece together a working set of drivers. Or having to pick and choose what to install and planning out my install order to avoid the ATI-specific bloatware (anyone other than AIW users actually use multimedia center?).

My 9700pro is running much more stably now, so I'm happy. I'm hoping 1 more driver release will fix the last few bugs. Should be plenty to hold me over until R400 and NV35 in the August/September time frame.

Chiz

 

[Ilmater]

Originally posted by: BlvdKing
The dustbuster is a major set back, but then again none of the FX manufacturers have to stick to the reference design.

Actually, while I was mad at first, I think it's clear from numerous partner announcements that none of them will stick to the reference cooler design. It might take up two slots still (is this really a deal-breaker for anyone?), but the coolers will be much quieter.

 

[vash]

The GFFX was made to grow a long ways. By the time the .13 micron is showing its age, Nvidia will be moving onto .09 and have some more of these kinds of growing pains. ATI's cards are good and are using an older technology to deliver stellar performance, but look at the GFFX -- 128 memory bus vs. a 256-bit memory bus on the ATI. The Nvidia and ATI part bench quite close to each other, even though the Nvidia part is half of the ATI part. When push to comes to shove and a newer GFFX is born, with a 256bit memory bus, the ATI will definitely be left in the dust.

For my home needs, I will no longer purchase an ATI card. I have a Radeon 8500, with 128 megs of ram and have had one continuing gaming experience that I cannot fix, no matter what. While playing CS, I get noticeable FPS drops to the 50s-60s, even without smoke. On the same system, with a TI500, the same FPS drop does not happen at all. I've tried to take out npatch, using older and latest drivers -- none of these change the performance drop in CS. Sure, CS is old, but its what I play, so if I see a FPS drop, it bugs me and I want it fixed. This card can certainly run the game at a high framerate, but when I see 50s and 60fps drop (down from 99 on the Nvidia cards), I am not pleased.

vash

 

[LikeLinus]

vash then you have another problem with yours software/system. I run an (3)8500 in different systems and never move from 100FPS (unless there are a ton of smokes thrown). I wouldn't blame ATI for your problems when you don't even know whats causing them. It could be a driver/software conflict of some nature.

 

[mchammer187]

Originally posted by: LikeLinus
vash then you have another problem with yours software/system. I run an (3)8500 in different systems and never move from 100FPS (unless there are a ton of smokes thrown). I wouldn't blame ATI for your problems when you don't even know whats causing them. It could be a driver/software conflict of some nature.

i concur

i had a radeon 800 retail since last year and never ecountered the frame rate drops you mention

i just recently sold it for a 9700 non pro because i have been very satisfied with ATI

 

[Agent004]

Well, it managed to keep me awake to do my reports and a good reminder for me remember shutting down the pc for night time.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Some people just don't give up! The FX is DOA, especially with R350 arriving in the next month or so.

R350 will debut at 10-25% faster I'm guessing as a .15mu solution clocked at 400Mhz/800Mhz with NO dustbuster! I guess a die shrink of .02mu and an increase of 100Mhz and both core and memory clocks means you need some massive, loud cooling mechanism. Makes no sense!

 

[mjolnir2k]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Some people just don't give up! The FX is DOA, especially with R350 arriving in the next month or so.

Above disregards the power of marketing!

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: vash
The GFFX was made to grow a long ways. By the time the .13 micron is showing its age, Nvidia will be moving onto .09 and have some more of these kinds of growing pains. ATI's cards are good and are using an older technology to deliver stellar performance, but look at the GFFX -- 128 memory bus vs. a 256-bit memory bus on the ATI. The Nvidia and ATI part bench quite close to each other, even though the Nvidia part is half of the ATI part. When push to comes to shove and a newer GFFX is born, with a 256bit memory bus, the ATI will definitely be left in the dust.

For my home needs, I will no longer purchase an ATI card. I have a Radeon 8500, with 128 megs of ram and have had one continuing gaming experience that I cannot fix, no matter what. While playing CS, I get noticeable FPS drops to the 50s-60s, even without smoke. On the same system, with a TI500, the same FPS drop does not happen at all. I've tried to take out npatch, using older and latest drivers -- none of these change the performance drop in CS. Sure, CS is old, but its what I play, so if I see a FPS drop, it bugs me and I want it fixed. This card can certainly run the game at a high framerate, but when I see 50s and 60fps drop (down from 99 on the Nvidia cards), I am not pleased.

vash

Are you totally forgetting the fact that ATi will release a totally new, .13mu core in R400 later this year? In the dust? You SO wish!

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Ilmater
I'm the first to say that the GFFX has some major problems. However, there is one extremely positive thing that came along with this card. For a long time, I've stuck with nVidia products (don't call me a fanboy; I don't want to hear it). Their drivers are flat-out better. I remember when a couple of my friends got 8500s and their cards had a ridiculous amount of problems compared to those of us with nVidia cards. ATI did have one extremely nice quality though. With ATI cards, you could turn up the eye candy without such a large hit in performance. However, I would rather have the stability and higher frame rates (at lower quality and resolution settings) of the GF Ti4xxx line.

With the GFFX cards, nVidia has finally fixed some of these problems. No, not completely, but adequately. There is a far smaller difference between the performance hit the GFFX line takes with 4xAA turned on versus what the 9xxx line takes at comparable settings. Finally, I can get everything I want in one card: stability, performance, and quality.

So isn't there at least ONE positive point about these cards?

So your first long-winded post acknowledges that the FX DustBuster has "major problems" - your words.

THEN you say there is "one extremely positive thing that came along with this card": "Their drivers are flat-out better."

Then "what"? ATI? (flamebait)
or earlier GF cards? (nonsense . . . the "detonators" have generally been excellent until nVidia started releasing Beta 40s.)

or is the "one" positive thing the "improvement" in AA and aniso (that the 9700 excelled in all along)?

Please clarify. (Or or you asking for "one" positive thing about the FX? . . . honestly I can't think of any).

EDIT: I can think of PLENTY of positive things about FUTURE NV30 variants . . . but not the current card other than it is a new core for nVidia . . .

 

[bluemax]

Originally posted by: vash
The GFFX was made to grow a long ways. By the time the .13 micron is showing its age, Nvidia will be moving onto .09 and have some more of these kinds of growing pains. ATI's cards are good and are using an older technology to deliver stellar performance, but look at the GFFX -- 128 memory bus vs. a 256-bit memory bus on the ATI. The Nvidia and ATI part bench quite close to each other, even though the Nvidia part is half of the ATI part. When push to comes to shove and a newer GFFX is born, with a 256bit memory bus, the ATI will definitely be left in the dust.vash

Well, do remember that while the FX is doing quite well with its 128-bit bus, it's also clocked almost twice as high. Most chips will be more like "TI4200"s that never make it to those sky-high clocks and will be outperformed by the 9700. I'm not saying they're bad cards - heck sometimes I almost believe the driver hype, though I've owned both with little difficulties with either brand. I'd buy one if it were cheap.
But if even the current R300 core, or the revamped R350 with its smaller scale can up the clock-speed to match the NV30 Ultra's clock, there will be no contest as to sheer speed/power. nVidia **needs** to move to a 256-bit path to compete in 6 months - no cheat 6-month-refresh this time. They NEED it to stay competitive, let alone take back the crown.

Competition is good, eh? Keeps each other from resting on their laurels, ala 3dfx.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Ilmater
I'm the first to say that the GFFX has some major problems. However, there is one extremely positive thing that came along with this card. For a long time, I've stuck with nVidia products (don't call me a fanboy; I don't want to hear it). Their drivers are flat-out better. I remember when a couple of my friends got 8500s and their cards had a ridiculous amount of problems compared to those of us with nVidia cards. ATI did have one extremely nice quality though. With ATI cards, you could turn up the eye candy without such a large hit in performance. However, I would rather have the stability and higher frame rates (at lower quality and resolution settings) of the GF Ti4xxx line.

With the GFFX cards, nVidia has finally fixed some of these problems. No, not completely, but adequately. There is a far smaller difference between the performance hit the GFFX line takes with 4xAA turned on versus what the 9xxx line takes at comparable settings. Finally, I can get everything I want in one card: stability, performance, and quality.

So isn't there at least ONE positive point about these cards?

So your first long-winded post acknowledges that the FX DustBuster has "major problems" - your words.

THEN you say there is "one extremely positive thing that came along with this card": "Their drivers are flat-out better."

Then "what"? ATI? (flamebait)
or earlier GF cards? (nonsense . . . the "detonators" have generally been excellent until nVidia started releasing Beta 40s.)

or is the "one" positive thing the "improvement" in AA and aniso (that the 9700 excelled in all along)?

Please clarify. (Or or you asking for "one" positive thing about the FX? . . . honestly I can't think of any).

EDIT: I can think of PLENTY of positive things about FUTURE NV30 variants . . . but not the current card other than it is a new core for nVidia . . .

Of course, I could be WRONG: GeForceFX Reborn: (from HardOCP:

H]ardNews 5th Edition Tuesday February 04, 2003
Posted by Steve 11:00 AM (CST)

GeForceFX Reborn:
I know what you are thinking, "Already?" We were lucky enough to put our hands on a revamped GeForceFX 5800 Ultra on Monday and I can say that NVIDIA has moved their GFFX flagship in the right direction.




While physically identical in the picture above, except for the coloration of the ducting system, these are two very different GFFX Ultra cards. This new GFFX cooling system does not run in 2D operation, making it quieter than any other 3D cards in this current generation while not being used in a gaming capacity. When the GFFX Ultra is utilized in a 3D application, the fan system spins up and is still about as loud as it was before. NVIDIA reports it to be around 5dBa quieter than the models we saw Web reviews based on last week.

I gamed for around five hours on Monday with the card installed in my own case and I left the side cover off. The case sits at my feet. I found game play in UT2K3, MOHAA, Wolfenstein, and NFSHP2 to be very playable at 12x10 with 4XAA and 8XAF turned on. BF1942 was acting up on my card but after talking to NVIDIA, I am not sure if it is a driver glitch on their end of a system glitch on my end. Still, it is said to be working great at the NVIDIA labs in Austin, TX. I tend to game with the sound turned on, so I did not find the cooling system on the GFFX Ultra to be an issue at all, but we can all argue about that later.

Now that the noise is gone in 2D, and if it ends up on the shelves this way, there are going to be a lot more folks buying the GFFX Ultra and keeping it. Still, if you are used to a very quiet computing environment, the GFFX is most likely not for you.... but then again those games listed above probably are not either.

:Q

EDIT: See, I found ONE positive thing to say about the FX DustBuster.

 

[vash]

Are you totally forgetting the fact that ATi will release a totally new, .13mu core in R400 later this year? In the dust? You SO wish!

No, I'm not forgetting that ATI will release a newer R400 by the end of the year. Look at the leap from .15 to .13! Nvidia is getting burned by going there first, but this initial investment will allow them to scale this faster. Sure, ATI will go to .13 this year about 9 months after Nvidia, learn 9 months worth of mistakes, but they will be behind Nvidia when it comes to the technology itself.

ATI is in the driver's seat for now, but Nvidia hasn't fallen behind any of their competitors for very long. Look at the battle between Intel and AMD when Intel went to the Northwood core. Sure AMD's equal part of Mhz was faster than Intel, but Intel could ramp faster than AMD could in a much shorter timeframe because of this larger, faster, initial investment. Everyone wanted AMD to come up quickly with new parts, but that didn't happen for many months.

The battle is on ATIs side for now, but the war is long from over. I still won't buy another ATI card until they fix the problems with Half-Life.

vash

 

[apoppin]

What problems with Half-Life?

I have run Half-Life nicely with 1) Rage Fury 32; 2) Radeon 64 DDR and 3) Radeon 8500. NO issues.

 

[vash]

Originally posted by: LikeLinus
vash then you have another problem with yours software/system. I run an (3)8500 in different systems and never move from 100FPS (unless there are a ton of smokes thrown). I wouldn't blame ATI for your problems when you don't even know whats causing them. It could be a driver/software conflict of some nature.

The FPS drops on my box, has been seen on plenty of other users on the rage3d.com forums. I've built plenty of boxes, configured them plenty, installed, uninstalled and reinstalled drivers, patches and Windows versions -- nothing has fixed it. The only fix comes in the form of removing the ATI part and putting in the Nvidia part.

Point me to the "silver" bullet of the fix and I'll gladly try it like the others I have used so far (disabling AA, AF npatch, subdivisions, etc). I'm not saying HL and its associated mods don't work, I'm just saying there are times when the FPS drops to half of my refresh rate far more often than the TI500 ever did. Other games do not exhibit this problem, only Half-Life.

vash

 

[Tripitz]

Yes, Nvidia drivers have been a lot better in the past and continue to be so, but once one is over 100fps, who really cares? I'd rather have more eye candy on the screen at a reasonable rate than higher fps that I can't really use (or see).

In any event, the GF FX is a bad approach. Pretty soon they are going to have to start making a more efficient rendering system and gpu than just upping speed, etc. Ati's performance clearly shows that it can be done. (lets also not forget the Kyro cards) Expecting users to put a vacuum cleaner cooler in their systems right now is ridiculous.

 

[Ilmater]

Originally posted by: apoppin
So your first long-winded post acknowledges that the FX DustBuster has "major problems" - your words.

THEN you say there is "one extremely positive thing that came along with this card": "Their drivers are flat-out better."

Then "what"? ATI? (flamebait)
or earlier GF cards? (nonsense . . . the "detonators" have generally been excellent until nVidia started releasing Beta 40s.)

or is the "one" positive thing the "improvement" in AA and aniso (that the 9700 excelled in all along)?

Please clarify. (Or or you asking for "one" positive thing about the FX? . . . honestly I can't think of any).

EDIT: I can think of PLENTY of positive things about FUTURE NV30 variants . . . but not the current card other than it is a new core for nVidia . . .

Sorry, I'll be more specific. nVidia's drivers have always been superior, and its frame rates at lower resolutions/quality settings have also been better (recently). The positive point that I want to point out is the improvement in AA and Aniso. Yes, the 9700 excelled in it all along, and indeed ATI has excelled in this respect for quite some time, but finally nVidia has caught up with ATI in this respect.

As I said before, I don't care about not having eye candy when I'm struggling for 60fps in a game, but when I'm gettin 100fps or more, then I want to be able to turn some of those things on and not lose a ridiculous amount of fps.

You needn't remind me of what I said earlier, but if the GFFX can use a quiet cooler (which apparently it can), get good frame rates in high quality scenarios, and maintain great drivers, then they may actually sell some cards.

More important, though, are the implications for the future. Now that nVidia has figured out how to enable these options without losing fps, their subsequent cards might be able to do this as well. This bodes well for nVidia in the future when it releases something that actually cleanly beats anything else on the market. And before you complain about that last sentence, the GF4 line did it to ATI's 8xxx line and ATI's 9xxx line did it to nVidia's GF4 line, so it's clearly not a stretch to assume that nVidia might very well do it again.

 

[Slogun]

Point me to the "silver" bullet of the fix and I'll gladly try it like the others I have used so far (disabling AA, AF npatch, subdivisions, etc). I'm not saying HL and its associated mods don't work, I'm just saying there are times when the FPS drops to half of my refresh rate far more often than the TI500 ever did. Other games do not exhibit this problem, only Half-Life.vash

Just let it be known that Vash is no CS/HL noob. He is an authority on this game as well as on running CS/HL game servers.
If he says that his ATI 8500 has problems with HL/CS, you can bet that he has tried more troubleshooting strategies than many people here have experience with.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Slogun

Point me to the "silver" bullet of the fix and I'll gladly try it like the others I have used so far (disabling AA, AF npatch, subdivisions, etc). I'm not saying HL and its associated mods don't work, I'm just saying there are times when the FPS drops to half of my refresh rate far more often than the TI500 ever did. Other games do not exhibit this problem, only Half-Life.vash

Just let it be known that Vash is no CS/HL noob. He is an authority on this game as well as on running CS/HL game servers.
If he says that his ATI 8500 has problems with HL/CS, you can bet that he has tried more troubleshooting strategies than many people here have experience with.

I am not denying that he has an "issue". I just haven't run across any slowdowns in HL or its mods and this is the first time that I heard of it.

And I "agree" the NV30 has real "potential" . . . there isn't much positive I like about it in its present "form".

 

[BD231]

Ok well obviously the 8500 is not the card to be talking about right now is it Ilmater, get yourself a 9700Pro and see if you still have driver issues.