KyroII and no T&L. What does that really mean?

[PotNoodle]

?BTW, why use a MX Vs. Kyro2, when they are in different classes??

Why not? Similar sized chip, similar processes, similar configuration (two pipelines). They are only in different ?classes? because of the inclusion of 64MB of RAM (and the fact that the vendors are making a ton of money on em). The situation is different in the UK, where KYROII Vivid!XS is firmly pegged at MX prices.

?T&L not used? Near the top of the gaming charts, Nascar Racing 4 is one of those new DX8 games that use T&L, and it makes a huge difference.?

Well,
a.) I would contest that Nascor 4 is a true DX8 title ? its too new, and it uses no DX8 features. Its more likely that it was developed under DX7, but merely requires the DX8 runtime to be installed.
b.) I seem to remember a thread not so long ago with you and Bingo discussing Nacsar 4 results on a KYROII and a GF3; the KYROII wasn?t far behind the GF3 (3, not GTS or anything like that!!) so GF3?s HUGE bandwidth AND T&L didn?t really seem to make a ?huge difference? there.

?DX8 may well decide this all, as Kyro2 owners without hardware T&L keep saying how great the card will do with the next version of DX8, and T&L users know that as more DX8 games appear?

Umm, DX8 includes Vertex Shaders; which is what NVIDIA wants developers to use ? Vertex Shaders are incompatible with standard T&L, so if developers start coding real DX8 games, and make use of Vertex Shaders rather then that ?old hat? T&L pipeline then GTS owners are going to be in exactly the same situation ? back to software geometry calculation.

Citing DX8 as the be all and end all for T&L isn?t exactly wise for a GTS owner because of the inclusion of Vertex Shaders in DX8, and GF3 being the only card to support them in hardware currently ? Anand has already displayed that T&L cards use software when Vertex Shaders are in operation. Don?t worry though, Vertex Shaders run in software so you won?t need to buy another card.

?Don't forget the Microsoft and nVidia have an excellent working relationship, and sort of depend on each other for certain things?

Have you read whats been carried on many of the NVIDIA fan sites today?

http://www.nvnews.net/#993709861

?Microsoft is rumoured to have asked the vendors to sign an agreement that they'd keep shtum about DirectX9 and not get all proprietary about details.

The word is, and this is a rumour, is that NviDiA refused to sign the agreement and Microsoft "summarily excluded" them from the meeting.

Our source said: "Despite Microsoft's close involvement with NviDiA through the Xbox relationship it would appear that everything is not rosy between the two companies. I've been told that MS were none too impressed when, after they pushed for inclusion of Vertex and Pixel shaders in DX8, NviDiA turned around to MS and said they needed to license that off them. NVIDIA are currently trying to push through patents relating to Vertex Shaders."?

?All this without compromising visuals or stability. They will not just lie there and be overtaken, which is one reason why many of us nvidia owners feel as though we made the right choice, and are in great hands.?

Wow. That sounded like an amazingly over defensive statement.

 

[jbirney]

<<
When you do this make sure you use a level playing field, such as a low end CPU of around 600MHz, so that you can see what the &quot;VIDEO CARDS&quot; do, not the CPU. The whole theory of the Kyro2 is that it needs a fast CPU to handle the T&amp;L. This is so simple it is funny. With a high end CPU to do T&amp;L, you are using those extra needed CPU cycles, and apparently a lot of those CPU cycles to do your T&amp;L, which is why you need a high end CPU. On the other hand, if your video card could handle T&amp;L, then the CPU would be freed up to use all it's cycles for other things. >>



We both now that at 1600x1200x32 the game is more bandwidth limited then CPU limited. We have teasy and other people saying the K2 is running games very fast with sub 1ghz pc. The K2 dose do better with a faster CPU. But again 100+ Ghz CPU will not help when your video card is bandwitdth limited.



<<
BTW, why use a MX Vs. Kyro2, when they are in different classes? MX is bottom basement priced, while Kyro2 and GF2 GTS are midrange priced. Why not use a GF2 GTS for this comparison, as it is in the same price ballpark as the Kyro2, and is just a little cheaper than a Kyro2. (under $99 US). >>



Please once again use the same memory configurations. They are 32mb K2 starting to apear around $90.00. The 64mb GF2 still goes for about $140.00 and the 64mb K2 goes for around 105.00 on price watch. Side note the 32mb k2 are not listed so it takes lots of digging to find one. I will try to post a link..but my lunch hour is about up..dam, work gets in the way of all of our fun ;-(

Also we have been over this before. 64mb offers higer Res FSAA that a 32mb card can not deal with. And its faster when you have large texture data that overflows into main memory on a 32mb card. Again see some of the q3 demos made to stress video cards. This makes at least 2 reasons why 32mb != 64mb cards





<< Huh? When I bought my GF2, I couldn't have cared less about T&amp;L. I'm sure no one bought the card for that reason. It was simply the fastest in it's price range, with the best all around support when I bought mine. T&amp;L was a bonus that I didn't realize the benefit of until recently. >>



Great. You one of the few people that I know that did. Most others bought into the 100 TnL games promises by xmas 99 back with the first GF card came out. Not saying that you have done this, but A LOT OF nVidiots have been preaching the praises of TnL to me for almost 2 years now...and still I have not seen anything to give them credit other than a few handfull of games. TnL will make a differnce, but not yet....

 

[loosbrew]

<< Remember this doesn't mean you can't just use the Windows 2000 drivers for the Voodoo cards anyways. I am sure the drivers which were included in previous XP releases were not that much different. >>


I habe to disagree with this statement. win2k drivers for my voodoo banshee card sucked bigtime. hardly any game support but i think that was more win2k's fault rather than the reference drivers. but...WInxp beta build 2462 had my card in heaven. it even listed my card as the proper manufacterer as opposed to just a voodoo banshee, it said diamond monster fusion. I was able to play B&amp;W all of a sudden, and AM Alice, whihc i couldnt play in win2k due to ogl limitations. the reference drivers for winxp are much better for my older vid card than win2k's ever were. but again, win2k has limited game compatibilties, compared to win98 or xp. i still cant play B&amp;W with my KyroII but every other has no problem in win2k AS. Serious Sam gets about 110 fps. cant complain about that!

loosbrew

 

[PotNoodle]

&quot;i still cant play B&amp;W with my KyroII&quot;

Really?? Runs fine on mine - whats happening with yours?

 

[powervr2]

that is strange I can play with B&amp;W booth in win98 and win2k...

 

[Ironduke]

You have to give it to ROBTV he is fightin hard is that boy!

 

[dfloyd]

<&quot;Pit a Geforce 2 MX card against Kyro II in a T&amp;L enabled game. Run them at 1600 x 1200. Who wins? I think the answer is obvious.&quot;>> Not at all. The MX would win in low to mid range systems, and the Kyro2 should win in high end systems.&quot;

Because the Geforce II MX has more Theortical Bandwidth than the Kyro II and T&amp;L, not to mention the it is closer in price to a Kyro II than all other Geforce cards. And no a low end CPU is unrealistic. Testing should be done on even cpus of 1ghz+ (The average CPU purchase is at least 1ghz at this date and time) And if the MX's T&amp;L performs slower then it proves my point. You want to use an unrealistic benchmark to show that the Kyro II may have been slower on CPUs that are more than a year old. So you are not wanting to even the playfield but rather level it towards the MX.

&quot;BTW, why use a MX Vs. Kyro2, when they are in different classes? MX is bottom basement priced, while Kyro2 and GF2 GTS are midrange priced. Why not use a GF2 GTS for this comparison, as it is in the same price ballpark as the Kyro2, and is just a little cheaper than a Kyro2. (under $99 US).&quot;

You are correct, they are in a differet class in performance but not in a different class in any other area. Kyro II is not midranged but budget ranged. $105 is very cheap for a decent card. Especially one that was not released very long ago.

&quot;Huh? When I bought my GF2, I couldn't have cared less about T&amp;L. I'm sure no one bought the card for that reason. It was simply the fastest in it's price range, with the best all around support when I bought mine. T&amp;L was a bonus that I didn't realize the benefit of until recently.&quot;

You may not of cared less but what good did having T&amp;L on board do you? Future Implementation. I personally read all they hype about 100 games by xmas 99 and so did many many many other people who purchased Geforce based cards. They thought they would be getting something special for their EXTRA cash.

&quot;T&amp;L not used? Near the top of the gaming charts, Nascar Racing 4&quot;

Ok you named ONE GAME!!! I personally could care less about Nascar 4 so I have not taken the time to see it. But from what others are saying its not much more impressive on a card that has T&amp;L than it is on one that dont. And think about that a second. How many T&amp;L cards are out there and you only named ONE GAME!


&quot;1 last little point about driver updates. The Radeon and V5 were faster then GF2 GTS cards. Then nVidia released the Detonator 3 drivers and changed all that by becoming the fastest. Do you think they are done? Hardly. Proof of this is the latest 12.90 DX8 drivers, which gave me a good 10%-15% performace increase over the 12.60 drivers, which gave me an increase over the previous ones, and so on. All this without compromising visuals or stability. They will not just lie there and be overtaken, which is one reason why many of us nvidia owners feel as though we made the right choice, and are in great hands.&quot;

The Radeon is still faster than the Geforce in many areas. Honestly driver boosts usually happen towards the start to mid life of a video card. As the drivers mature there is less and less performance that can be pulled out of the hat. So in this instance the Kyro II will probably increase more so over the next few months than the Geforce.


Bottom line is I am not saying you made a wrong choice. Rather T&amp;L up till now has proved mostly just a nice feature that you paid extra for that doesnt really do much of anything. Dont believe me? Reread this thread.