**Next Gen Rumors Thread**

[Fenuxx]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
R520 will not support the next DX. Nor will Nvidia. It is not a problem with Nvidia or ATI its just that microsoft hasn't even released the required spec, or any specs for that matter of this new DX.

-Kevin

Exactly. Thats the same way I feel. I don't know why people are thinking that R520 will support DX:Next (WGF1\2, Avalon, DX10, whatever) as the spec ISN'T finalized, and it won't be released for AT LEAST another year-and-a-half. To me, its just plain silly. Its like saying these cards will support OpenGL 3.0. The spec isn't finalized, though there is talk about its features, though not much.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Avalon
Keep in mind that the Unreal 3 demo was NOT a polished product. It will run much better on this gen of cards when the game is released. It would be stupid for only this next generation of video cards to have the ability to run the game at decent res/detail. You're not going to get 16x12 AA/AF in the game with a 6800U, but I'd imagine 10x7 AA/AF or 12x9(or 10, for you LCD folk) will be perfectly smooth.

Please remember it's not just about framerates and resolution . . . Unreal3 engine is a DX10 product . . . the current generation will still be a "generation behind" . . . as the r8500 is behind the current generation. Remember r520 is supposed to support DX 10 extensions.

Also, Longhorn will be out and people are expected to make this leap to better gfx.

R520 will not support the next DX. Nor will Nvidia. It is not a problem with Nvidia or ATI its just that microsoft hasn't even released the required spec, or any specs for that matter of this new DX.

-Kevin

ATI rumors say it will support DX: NEXT
ATI is "in bed" with M$ . . . they know the DX 10 spec.
:roll:

 

[Gamingphreek]

But still they cannot claim support for an unreleased product. So i see what you are saying but still MS doesn't even have the spec yet, so even if they are "in bed" with MS, they cant know anything before the designer.

If it is OK i will add that link to the top of the page, Apoppin.

-Kevin

 

[Fenuxx]

Originally posted by: apoppin
ATI rumors say it will support DX: NEXT
ATI is "in bed" with M$ . . . they know the DX 10 spec.
:roll:

The thing is, OK, ATI is "in bed" with MS, but even so, the next DX (or whatever they decide to call it) spec is NOT, repeat, IS NOT finalized. No matter how "close" ATI and MS are, if the spec isn't finalized, then it isn't finalized. ATI could have some better "ideas" than other companies, but, as NVIDIA found out with NV30, things can, and do, change.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: geforcetony

Originally posted by: apoppin
ATI rumors say it will support DX: NEXT
ATI is "in bed" with M$ . . . they know the DX 10 spec.
:roll:

The thing is, OK, ATI is "in bed" with MS, but even so, the next DX (or whatever they decide to call it) spec is NOT, repeat, IS NOT finalized. No matter how "close" ATI and MS are, if the spec isn't finalized, then it isn't finalized. ATI could have some better "ideas" than other companies, but, as NVIDIA found out with NV30, things can, and do, change.

It is very close to final.

ATI will know how to implement it in their HW including "changes". . . . much better than nVidia did with the DX8.1 pathway and nV30.
:roll:
=============================

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
But still they cannot claim support for an unreleased product. So i see what you are saying but still MS doesn't even have the spec yet, so even if they are "in bed" with MS, they cant know anything before the designer.

If it is OK i will add that link to the top of the page, Apoppin.

-Kevin

They ARE claiming suport for r520 (it IS finished, BTW) . . . MS does have the DX10 (maybe not DX10.a) spec long (long long) before "we" get it as game developers need to impliment it in upcoming games . . . .

of course you may add that link to the top of the page.

Speculation is fun . . . especially as the details get clearer.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: geforcetony
The thing is, OK, ATI is "in bed" with MS, but even so, the next DX (or whatever they decide to call it) spec is NOT, repeat, IS NOT finalized. No matter how "close" ATI and MS are, if the spec isn't finalized, then it isn't finalized. ATI could have some better "ideas" than other companies, but, as NVIDIA found out with NV30, things can, and do, change.

How do you figure? If ATI and MS are really working that closely together, all MS has to do is match DX:Next specs to the finalized R520 featureset and *Boom!*

1 instant DX:Next compatible card.

 

[Fenuxx]

Originally posted by: Creig
How do you figure? If ATI and MS are really working that closely together, all MS has to do is match DX:Next specs to the finalized R520 featureset and *Boom!*

1 instant DX:Next compatible card.

Whatever :roll: . I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: geforcetony
The thing is, OK, ATI is "in bed" with MS, but even so, the next DX (or whatever they decide to call it) spec is NOT, repeat, IS NOT finalized. No matter how "close" ATI and MS are, if the spec isn't finalized, then it isn't finalized. ATI could have some better "ideas" than other companies, but, as NVIDIA found out with NV30, things can, and do, change.

How do you figure? If ATI and MS are really working that closely together, all MS has to do is match DX:Next specs to the finalized R520 featureset and *Boom!*

1 instant DX:Next compatible card.

figure what?

M$ and ati ARE working on the x-boxNext together . . . . ATI is making the GPU for it. . . . they better be on the "same page".
:roll:

 

[apoppin]

In case you missed it

PRIOR TO ITS LAUNCH, expected in June, we have a few additional details about ATI's flagship R520 chip.

It turns out that R520 won't just have Shader Model 3.0 it will eventually have support for upcoming Longhorn WGF 1.0 specification. WGF does not stand for Which Graphic Freak, it's an abbreviation of Windows Graphic Foundation. This is what Microsoft has decided to call Direct3D in the future.

WGF 1.0 is actually Direct3D 9.0+ or just beyond the DirectX 9.0c specification. It's also called DX 9.L where L possibly stands for Longhorn.

We are not sure which kind of Shader support you need to be WGF 1.0 compliant, but we are quite sure that we are talking about Shader Model 3.0, as it's time for ATI to go down that road.

We also know that this chip is built on a 90 nanometre process and that even the R530 and RV515 will be based on the same marchitecture.

R520 is expected to perform twice as fast as the X800 generation, will have digital HDTV support, and will come in 256MB and 512MB variants.

I guess that WGF 1.0 support comes for all the developers who want to play with it prior to the launch of Longhorn, but be aware there is also a WGF 2.0 spec that is also known as DirectX 10 or DirectX Next, so that is going to be the real stuff.

Hardware supporting this feature comes in a year's time, in 2006, sometime before the Microsoft Longhorn launch. It might be called R620 but it's still too early to talk about that.

So TECHNICALLY ati's r520 won't have [final] support for Dx"10" but it WILL have support for the NEXT dx9 spec.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

as usual kevin never disappoints...good work man keep it up!

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
as usual kevin never fails to disapoint...good work man keep it up!

never fails to DISappoint?
:shocked:
(sure keep it up)


:roll:

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: AlexR
Also I dont really think such cards are needed. What games would need them?

This question is asked on the cusp of every new gen of cards. Thank you for keeping it consistent.

Go out and buy a 9800XT and run a current brand new high end fps game at max settings max res.
The card will be brought to its knees. Apply this pattern to infinity.

 

[hans030390]

Just to let you know UE3 is running in DX9c with Sm3.0 not DX10

and from what i have heard, because the 6xxx cards have SM3.0, they will support WGF 1.0 (dx10?) but not WGF 2.0 from what i have heard.
Thats a rumor though

I think that if the UE3 engine is coded, programmed, and what nots, buy the time games are released based on it, a 6600gt will be able to run it at...oh, AT LEAST 8x6 with some good eye candy enabled (some SM3.0 i) with at least 30fps. Believe me, there are WONDERS you can do with some coding

for example...Gran Turismo 4 for ps2...look at that! it looks amazing on its own...but what else, it runs at 60fps!!! wow! what else? it supports 1080i!!!! you know what else? it runs 1080i at 60fps!!!! WHAT??? ON A PS2???? (and yes it does run it that well, it is in every review)

Just an example of what you can really do with "outdated" hardware. If they said UE3 would run easily on a 6600gt, they will probably do some heavy programming and coding to do it, and i bet they will. Then again, Epic is signed with Nvidia...soooo...yeah....expect it to run better on nvidia cards...

Sad to think that all of these wonderful computer parts are all ...well...things....and will not last forever...lol and yet we still act like they will. kinda...who cares!

sorry, random though...oh man, i can't wait to play next gen games with next gen cards

 

[Wall7486]

Am I seeing things, or are the rumors saying Nforce 5 is out by april? Nforce 4 just sort of settle down, you got to be kidding me about Nforce 5 coming out next month.

 

[Fenuxx]

Originally posted by: Wall7486
Am I seeing things, or are the rumors saying Nforce 5 is out by april? Nforce 4 just sort of settle down, you got to be kidding me about Nforce 5 coming out next month.

Wrong thread dood. Thats a discussion for the motherboards forums. Not video.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
as usual kevin never fails to disapoint...good work man keep it up!

never fails to DISappoint?
:shocked:
(sure keep it up)


:roll:

seriously wtf am i smoking.....gonna have to stop

scrub out fails and add an S to the end of disapoint

ill edit that im such a tard

oh n get rid of the to too

sorry kevin

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: hans030390
Just to let you know UE3 is running in DX9c with Sm3.0 not DX10

and from what i have heard, because the 6xxx cards have SM3.0, they will support WGF 1.0 (dx10?) but not WGF 2.0 from what i have heard.
Thats a rumor though

I think that if the UE3 engine is coded, programmed, and what nots, buy the time games are released based on it, a 6600gt will be able to run it at...oh, AT LEAST 8x6 with some good eye candy enabled (some SM3.0 i) with at least 30fps. Believe me, there are WONDERS you can do with some coding

for example...Gran Turismo 4 for ps2...look at that! it looks amazing on its own...but what else, it runs at 60fps!!! wow! what else? it supports 1080i!!!! you know what else? it runs 1080i at 60fps!!!! WHAT??? ON A PS2???? (and yes it does run it that well, it is in every review)

Just an example of what you can really do with "outdated" hardware. If they said UE3 would run easily on a 6600gt, they will probably do some heavy programming and coding to do it, and i bet they will. Then again, Epic is signed with Nvidia...soooo...yeah....expect it to run better on nvidia cards...

Sad to think that all of these wonderful computer parts are all ...well...things....and will not last forever...lol and yet we still act like they will. kinda...who cares!

sorry, random though...oh man, i can't wait to play next gen games with next gen cards

theres a difference between a PS2 and a PC. for the ps2 the developers can put all their time into coding specifically for that piece of hardware. its a console, everyone with a PS2 has the same thing

in a the pc world, we have Ati , nvidia, AMD, Intel, etc etc its a lot harder to code specific game paths for each graphics card, cpu, chipset combo because theres literally 100's of different combos

there are also lots of games with the TWIWMTBP moniker on them, and not suprisingly Ati actually play some of them games better. UT2004 is a good example. plays smoother at high res on my mates x800xt PE

im sure it will run decently, would be stupid for them to kinda exclude all but the enthusiasts, since computer enthusiasts dont make up a massive chunk of the market

 

[Gamingphreek]

Am I seeing things, or are the rumors saying Nforce 5 is out by april? Nforce 4 just sort of settle down, you got to be kidding me about Nforce 5 coming out next month.

No that is fine. Nforce 5 is just what we are calling. We aren't sure of the real name yet, however, while Nforce 4 is AMD based "Nforce 5" is Intel based.

sorry kevin

Lol its all good, i understood what you meant to say and appreciate the compliment.

As for the UE3. We are still speculating about this, hence the reason it is in the Rumors thread. While there are a lot of comments on how it should run fine some are true.

A certain level of optimization and coding will always make the game run better. However, running it on a 6600GT on decent detail will probably not be a reality. Remember this is 2 generations out (That would be back in Geforce 4 for us right now) additionally a 6800U is only pulling around 30fps at lowest detail. I would definitely think that it will be able to run it at medium to low settings but the 6600's and the X700's etc probably wont be able to run it to well.

Thanks for all the compliments and input!!

-Kevin

 

[imported_X]

I heard that Nvidia decided to change the name from Nforce 5 to something like Nforce 4-Intel to avoid confusion.

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: hans030390
Just to let you know UE3 is running in DX9c with Sm3.0 not DX10

and from what i have heard, because the 6xxx cards have SM3.0, they will support WGF 1.0 (dx10?) but not WGF 2.0 from what i have heard.
Thats a rumor though

I think that if the UE3 engine is coded, programmed, and what nots, buy the time games are released based on it, a 6600gt will be able to run it at...oh, AT LEAST 8x6 with some good eye candy enabled (some SM3.0 i) with at least 30fps. Believe me, there are WONDERS you can do with some coding

for example...Gran Turismo 4 for ps2...look at that! it looks amazing on its own...but what else, it runs at 60fps!!! wow! what else? it supports 1080i!!!! you know what else? it runs 1080i at 60fps!!!! WHAT??? ON A PS2???? (and yes it does run it that well, it is in every review)

Just an example of what you can really do with "outdated" hardware. If they said UE3 would run easily on a 6600gt, they will probably do some heavy programming and coding to do it, and i bet they will. Then again, Epic is signed with Nvidia...soooo...yeah....expect it to run better on nvidia cards...

Sad to think that all of these wonderful computer parts are all ...well...things....and will not last forever...lol and yet we still act like they will. kinda...who cares!

sorry, random though...oh man, i can't wait to play next gen games with next gen cards

While i agree that GT4 for ps2 is one amazing feat of coding, you can't extrapolate that into PC games. The ps2 is first of all a completely radical design from a developers point, because instead of offering you all the convienience of a single powerful gpu, it has multiple processor units, and instead of having a large amount of vram, it offers insane amounts of bandwidth and only 4mb of vram. So, the ps2 can offer powerful performance, but only if you code it right, and take advantage of it's parallel processing design.

Also, a game on a ps2 has pretty much full exclusive use of the hardware, there's no need to deal with Windoze, drivers, and background processes. And the PC developer has to desing a game that will run on various hardware, so he can't just optimize it for one platform. All this makes it a lot less likely that we will see any amazing coding give new life to a video card.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: munky

Originally posted by: hans030390
Just to let you know UE3 is running in DX9c with Sm3.0 not DX10

and from what i have heard, because the 6xxx cards have SM3.0, they will support WGF 1.0 (dx10?) but not WGF 2.0 from what i have heard.
Thats a rumor though

I think that if the UE3 engine is coded, programmed, and what nots, buy the time games are released based on it, a 6600gt will be able to run it at...oh, AT LEAST 8x6 with some good eye candy enabled (some SM3.0 i) with at least 30fps. Believe me, there are WONDERS you can do with some coding

for example...Gran Turismo 4 for ps2...look at that! it looks amazing on its own...but what else, it runs at 60fps!!! wow! what else? it supports 1080i!!!! you know what else? it runs 1080i at 60fps!!!! WHAT??? ON A PS2???? (and yes it does run it that well, it is in every review)

Just an example of what you can really do with "outdated" hardware. If they said UE3 would run easily on a 6600gt, they will probably do some heavy programming and coding to do it, and i bet they will. Then again, Epic is signed with Nvidia...soooo...yeah....expect it to run better on nvidia cards...

Sad to think that all of these wonderful computer parts are all ...well...things....and will not last forever...lol and yet we still act like they will. kinda...who cares!

sorry, random though...oh man, i can't wait to play next gen games with next gen cards

While i agree that GT4 for ps2 is one amazing feat of coding, you can't extrapolate that into PC games. The ps2 is first of all a completely radical design from a developers point, because instead of offering you all the convienience of a single powerful gpu, it has multiple processor units, and instead of having a large amount of vram, it offers insane amounts of bandwidth and only 4mb of vram. So, the ps2 can offer powerful performance, but only if you code it right, and take advantage of it's parallel processing design.

Also, a game on a ps2 has pretty much full exclusive use of the hardware, there's no need to deal with Windoze, drivers, and background processes. And the PC developer has to desing a game that will run on various hardware, so he can't just optimize it for one platform. All this makes it a lot less likely that we will see any amazing coding give new life to a video card.

yeah i thought it was typo when i read 4mb of vram on a 2560bit bus....yes 2560bit hope thats correct ive read it a few times regarding the ps2 spec. thats a hell of alot of bandwidth.

the ps2 architecture actually needs to be crammed to the hilt with data for it to work at its best, probably why the ps2 can play GT4 flawlessly and be brought to its knees by lesser games because they are not filling those pipelines!

 

[ohnnyj]

Aren't they coding in Assembly or a close derivative thereof as well? This makes development much more difficult but reduces the bloat of higher level languages.

 

[xtknight]

well anything that can be coded in C++ can be coded in assembly in a more optimized way. so technically the unreal engine could be coded in assembly, but it would be freaking hard.

 

[xtknight]

oops sorry. misinformation. i posted on the r481 not the r520 lol.

 

[Malladine]

Originally posted by: AlexR
Also I dont really think such cards are needed. What games would need them?

ya! and and who could ever need more than 64k of memory??