Hints from Nvidia?

[ricleo2]

As a member of Nvidia's SLI club, I received a personal email from an Nvidia rep. He wanted me to check out a link to a Crysis trailer. I emailed him back stating I have been waiting for the next high end/enthusiast GPU from Nvidia so I can completely upgrade my system to play Crysis. When will the next card be out that will beat the 8800Ultra? He emailed me back promptly:

"Hey Richard?
You could get 3-way SLI or wait a couple of months
But I cant comment on unannounced products (wink?wink?)"

This email exchange has me convinced me of a slight conspiracy of Crysis developers and GPU manufacturers. I believe, since Crysis needs high end equipment to play decently, the game has been a marketing ploy to buy or upgrade graphic cards or even other hardware. Has Crysis been deliberately designed with an inefficient game engine? Maybe or not. The way Nvidia has marketed and squeezed their latest GPU's has been brilliant. Now I don?t think there is anything wrong with it, just fascinating.
What do y?all think, am I paranoid or just observant?

 

[lambchops511]

actually . you would be surprised . all game engines are pretty inefficient............

 

[ricleo2]

Originally posted by: aznium
actually . you would be surprised . all game engines are pretty inefficient............

When I think of efficient game engines, Doom3 and the newer Painkiller, Overdose come to mind.

 

[Butterbean]

Lol - just as ATI is about to release new cards the 8800GT creates a huge buzz and demand but (surprise) there is no stock (and just before Christmas). Now the more expensive 8800GTS's (G92) are showing up instead (and at least one version I know of with free copy of Crysis). I think Nvidia just cultivated a market like bacteria in a Petri dish. No doubt EA/Crysis and Nvidia people go on retreats with each other. For its own part though a look into gaming "ego" shows the need for a challenge and a way to attack and bench it. Who wants to make a fun game you can play now when you could make some tangled thing a whole industry congeals on as a benchmark/carrot on stick.

 

[Hauk]

While his email response to you could mean many things, there's nothing there that would indicate a handshake partnership.

I do however, believe there is. There has to be. Their compainies survive (and thrive) off of revenue and profits. There is no way the tops of the big software publishers don't mingle with the tops from the harware side.

 

[BFG10K]

We already know a new high-end is coming; the problem is it appears to be SLI based so I'll likely be staying away from it.

When I think of efficient game engines, Doom3

I agree completely and in fact most people didn't realize how good it was, myself included when I first played it.

It wasn't until after I had finished playing it and started playing other games that I realized how primitive their lighting & shadowing were compared to Doom 3's.

Doom 3 gave us a unified lighting system in 2004. Most game's today don't even have a unified lighting system.

 

[ricleo2]

Originally posted by: SteelSix
"While his email response to you could mean many things, there's nothing there that would indicate a handshake partnership."



The unsolicited, initial email from Nvidia, linking a Crysis trailer tells me their is a partnership. In my brain anyway.

 

[ricleo2]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
"We already know a new high-end is coming; the problem is it appears to be SLI based so I'll likely be staying away from it."

Hey, BFG10K, could be more specific about what you mean by SLI based? Thanks.

 

[terentenet]

Originally posted by: ricleo2

Originally posted by: BFG10K
"We already know a new high-end is coming; the problem is it appears to be SLI based so I'll likely be staying away from it."

Hey, BFG10K, could be more specific about what you mean by SLI based? Thanks.

2 GPU's on the same board; like 7950GX2 used to be. I sure hope they will have a new high end and I really hope it will be a single GPU solution.

 

[ricleo2]

"2 GPU's on the same board; like 7950GX2 used to be. I sure hope they will have a new high end and I really hope it will be a single GPU solution."

Oh damn. I was hoping for new GPU technology. I might not upgrade after all.

 

[BFG10K]

2 GPU's on the same board; like 7950GX2 used to be. I sure hope they will have a new high end and I really hope it will be a single GPU solution.

I agree completely, or at least release more than one card so that their second best card is significantly faster than the Ultra.

Honestly, if they can slap a pair of cards together then it shouldn't be too hard to come up a 8800 Ultra killer with a single card configuration using 65 nm

Put 160 SPs on it, bring the rest of the clocks to that of the 8800 GTS 512 and you have a card that should be much faster than the 8800 Ultra.

 

[JAG87]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

2 GPU's on the same board; like 7950GX2 used to be. I sure hope they will have a new high end and I really hope it will be a single GPU solution.

I agree completely, or at least release more than one card so that their second best card is significantly faster than the Ultra.

Honestly, if they can slap a pair of cards together then it shouldn't be too hard to come up a 8800 Ultra killer with a single card configuration using 65 nm

Put 160 SPs on a 512bit bus addressing 1024MB of memory, bring the rest of the clocks to that of the 8800 GTS 512 and you have a card that should be much faster than the 8800 Ultra.

fixed

 

[taltamir]

conspiracy is a group of people who are conspiring... conspiring is the act of working together towards a goal, usually in secretly, sometimes in an illigal manner...

So in fact all companies conspire ALL THE TIME... You might have conspired sometimes yourself... I know I have been a part of conspiracies before...

Conspiracies have a negative rep from insane nut cases making rediculous conspiracy theories... but real conspiracies are a fact of life...

For example, the ford pinto conspiracy was very real, it was the first case of punitive damages... It was a conspiracy by the higher ups in ford to make more money by intentionally selling unsafe cars because they calculated the compensation to the families of the dead to be lower then the total saved costs...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto

A more traditional conspiracy was the ram cartel.... Which is currently under investigation for doing it AGAIN.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing

To date, five manufacturers have pleaded guilty to their involvement in an international price-fixing conspiracy including Hynix, Infineon, Micron Technology, Samsung, and Elpida

After being caught, rather then fight it in court, they admitted to having engaged in price fixing and agreed to pay the fines... They admitted to have agreed to work together towards a common goal, in a secret manner, doing illigal stuff... they went beyond the simple definition of conspiracy and included both the optional definitions...

But when AMD bought ATI they had first conspired together to do so... they even met the optional "in secrecy" part for the first part of their discussions together... only notifying the public when it was all decided.

 

[Munky]

I completely disagree with whoever claims Crysis is inefficient. Do you realize that the game draws over 1 million polygons per frame in some outdoor areas? That's the equivalent of 3dmark05. And I'm sure the shader programs are no less complex than those in 3dmark05. The developers definitely put effort into making it efficient, with techniques like distance LOD and updating water reflections every 3 frames. The problem is not that the game is inefficient, but the fact that the fastest video card right now is still a 1 year old 8800gtx (or ultra).

 

[Slugbait]

Personally, I always felt the Unreal engines seemed most efficient when compared to other current competing engines. Tho I admit, the Doom3 engine was very nice.

But I digress...nVidia has taken their sweet-ass time to come out with their latest "king of the hill", with special thanks to ATI, and later, AMD. They know that only hardcores who shelled out hundreds for the GTX are suddenly going to bolt to the latest AMD card, with the sneaking suspicion (fully justified) that another leap-frog is just a few more months away.

He may be teasing you. But I think an ultra-fast PureVideo2 card is about to be unveiled.

 

[ricleo2]

Originally posted by: Slugbait
He may be teasing you. But I think an ultra-fast PureVideo2 card is about to be unveiled.

What exactly is a PureVideo2 card?

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: ricleo2
This email exchange has me convinced me of a slight conspiracy of Crysis developers and GPU manufacturers. I believe, since Crysis needs high end equipment to play decently, the game has been a marketing ploy to buy or upgrade graphic cards or even other hardware.

Wow, and all I got from it was that NVIDIA is planning to release a new high-end GPU in a couple months, since 8800GT was not a replacement for 8800GTX's and Ultra's position as NVIDIA's flagship products, and those are getting a bit long in the tooth for that role.

But yeah, it is suspicious for a company who is in the business of releasing new high-end products every so often to actually release a new high-end product every so often.

Having to bump the detail and resolution down one notch from the highest on a new cutting-edge game to keep frame rates playable is unprecedented. :roll:

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: ricleo2
The way Nvidia has marketed and squeezed their latest GPU's has been brilliant.

This is probably true, but it relies on us being the willing saps hanging on their every word (let alone product).

GT-512, then the more expensive GTS-512. Bait & switch?

 

[KingstonU]

Originally posted by: ricleo2
Has Crysis been deliberately designed with an inefficient game engine?

Anandtech and other review sites all highly praised Crysis for scaling very well to be playable even on lower end systems.

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: ricleo2
"2 GPU's on the same board; like 7950GX2 used to be. I sure hope they will have a new high end and I really hope it will be a single GPU solution."

Oh damn. I was hoping for new GPU technology. I might not upgrade after all.

The GX2 is not two GPU's on the same board. Its basically two cards, attached. One GPU per board.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: ricleo2

Originally posted by: Slugbait
He may be teasing you. But I think an ultra-fast PureVideo2 card is about to be unveiled.

What exactly is a PureVideo2 card?

From Wikipedia:

PureVideo 2 adds a bitstream processor (BSP) and enhanced video processor (VP2) to completely offload AACS-decryption and H.264-decoding

Up until a couple of months ago, the fastest PureVideo 2 card was the 8600GTS. Currently, the fastest PureVideo 2 card is the 8800GT...still a bit slow by last year's standards.

 

[firewolfsm]

Either that or the developers are retards. But the engine is less efficient than it should be. If we turn the settings down to FarCry-ish graphics, it still runs slow on my computer, which really shouldn't happen.

 

[Hauk]

Originally posted by: tcsenter
But yeah, it is suspicious for a company who is in the business of releasing new high-end products every so often to actually release a new high-end product every so often.

:laugh: :thumbsup:

 

[Skott]

I'm thinking 3 way SLI is not going to be all that popular. SLI setups arent that much more powerful than one good highend card as it is. Maybe 25% on average performance increase? And thats not with all games or resolutions. Ontop of that regular SLI is prohibitively expensive and return value isnt there for most users. Get regular SLI perfected first then work on 3 way SLI I say. And the part about waiting a couple months is just his hinting at a new high end GTX/Ultra killer card most likely. Just my two cents worth.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: KingstonU
Anandtech and other review sites all highly praised Crysis for scaling very well to be playable even on lower end systems.

My single core A64 4000 and 7600GT played the Crysis just fine, with all Medium in-game settings.

Originally posted by: Slugbait
Currently, the fastest PureVideo 2 card is the 8800GT

Actually, it's the 512MB 8800GTS, assuming you meant "fastest for gaming".

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
If we turn the settings down to FarCry-ish graphics, it still runs slow on my computer, which really shouldn't happen.

That's what happens when you use a FarCry-era video card, with a late 2007-era game.