CPU ceiling for gaming ?

[imported_Soldier]

Do you folks think we have hit a ceiling on how fast CPU's will be able to render physics/effects for games? I'm asking because it looks to me like we might have seen the fastest frame rates we are going to see for a long time at this point due to thermal issues keeping CPU's from scaling higher. That leads me to believe we might have actualy peaked somewhat with game design. I understand a lot of the rendering/physics is being offloaded onto the GPU these days, but I also know game designers are adding more and more bling to thier work (like HDR effects) and I dont see the gains in GPU's scaling with gaming demands for bling. For example the latest X850 is only slightly faster than the X800XT-PE and also the X850 seems to have limited ability to overclock. This brings me right back to the CPU being important for physics in games, since the GPU's dont seem to have enough firepower for ever increasing effects. With a 6800 GT overclocked to Ultra speeds I still get slow downs in some new games at high resolutions.

So do you guys think we might be flattening out on game design as far as graphic innovations/improvements (bling) or do you think multi core CPU's will resolve these issues? Do you think we might be forced into multi GPU's soon? I still would like to see Shrek or Finding Nemo quality graphics in games....

 

[BobDaMenkey]

We haven't flatened out. We've just hit a pause in the upgrade cycle. It happens every now and then. Programmers will make a new huge game that makes all the current systems choke. Hardware makers will start to make more powerful components to make the games run smoothly, then more programmers will make more games of the same quality until someone else makes one that will make the newest generation choke again.

We've hit a bit of a choke at the moment. We'll figure out a way out of it in some time.

 

[imported_Kensai]

Actually, Doom 3 at ultra settings with all the goodies cranked to the max will make about every system choke.

 

[Lonyo]

Since we will have dual CPU's and dual graphics cards, no, we haven't hit any ceilings, in fact, we're doubling their height.