question about mega pixles vs mega texels

[ssjgokou1]

why is it that megaT are doubled for ever card (i.e. v3 @166=166mP=333mT, GF2 @400=800mP=1600mT)
????

I know why the MegaPxls can be multiplied several times, because of the channels so it can do several bits of data per clock (4 for GF2=400mhz=1600mT) but why does it multiply by two for mT's?

 

[KarlHungus]

The GeForce 2 GTS is typically clocked at 200 MHz, and has 4 pixel pipes. Each one of those pixel pipes can apply 2 textures per pass.
Thus it has a pixel fillrate of 800M (200x4), and a texel fillrate of 1600M (200x4x2).

 

[ssjgokou1]

so you are saying that all these psuedo Gpu's and Cpu's arent' actually going to ever run faster than 500mhz, all they have to do is to make the GPU do more pixels' per clock? SO is it possible to make a card have 20 pixel pipelines? As well as 10 textures per pass??? This is like all that Rambus, DDR stuff, it's not really at 800mhz, it just emulates it.

 

[KarlHungus]

I assume that graphics cards will continue to get faster, and continue to add pixel pipes for the forseeable future. The VSA-100 used in the Voodoo 4 and 5 series can scale to 32 chips working in parallel yielding a grand total of 64 pixel pipes. Unfortunately it would also cost an arm and a leg to implement, so I wouldn't count on seeing that type of performace in your computer anytime soon.

 

[AdamK47]

It's not really possible to have 10 texels per pipe. Sure it is physically possible to put it in there, but 90% of the 3D games and apps you see out there only take advatage of a dual texturing.

3dfx coined the term texel when the Voodoo 2 first came out. They were actually the first to implement a dual texture rendering pipeline for their board. Right now, 3dfx is shying away from the term texel for their VSA-100 based boards (Voodoo 4 & 5). Due to the fact that the Voodoo 5 can do 666 Mpixels, but the Mtexels are still the same (666 Mtexels). It's very stange to see nVidia surpass 3dfx and use a term 3dfx started (texel) and came out with a card capable of 1.6 Gtexels. It's sad really that most of the Voodoo 5 buyers don't even know what a texel is.

Another interesting thing though is that ATi is trying to push a 3 texel per pipe architecture for their upcoming Radeon. I doubt they will be able to push this on to developers, but hey at least the numbers will look good for marketing. It is supposed to have a 200MHz core with a dual pixel pipeline and triple textureing per pixel pipeline. Thats 400 Mpixels and 1.2 Gtexels. That is, if a game actually uses a triple texture rendering architecture. In reality, the board will only produce 800 Mtexels.

 

[Soccerman]

well if the chips were designed similar to Athlon's or Pentiums sure, we could see them hit 1 ghz, but the point here isn't marketing (ala Intel and their Willamette made for ghz). the point is POWER. adding pipes adds power, but eventually we will hit an engineering wall with the amount of pipes you can put on the chip. at that moment, you have to devise ways to increase the MHZ, kindof like what RAMBUS is doing, only RAMBUS screwed up alot of different things to make it worthwhile for us.