Rumor of possible yield problems with the G71

[xtknight]

Interesting: http://www.behardware.com/articles/599-...800-gtx-512-mb-the-new-king-of-3d.html

ATI has support for FP16 HDR+AA it seems so what's the argument? (Running Far Cry on R520 with HDR/AA proves this.)

 

[Stoneburner]

Rollo, your attempts at making comparisons is falling a bit flat. If a 7800Gtx 512 outperformed any equivalent ATI card, then maybe features v. speed could be argued, and from my recollection that was the debate back in the nv40 v r420 days. IF g71 outperforms r520 (as it probably will) but can't do hdR+aa, then maybe you can drag up some hypocrites.

Getting back to the actual topic, a 32 pipe 750 nvidia card based on current architecture would be insane ... but it's also probably not easy. Maximum Pc mentioned a rumor that it may just be a "dual core" gpu. Whatever it is, it is plausible there are yield problems.

 

[RobertR1]

Originally posted by: xtknight
Interesting: http://www.behardware.com/articles/599-...800-gtx-512-mb-the-new-king-of-3d.html

ATI has support for FP16 HDR+AA it seems so what's the argument? (Running Far Cry on R520 with HDR/AA proves this.)

It's BS as usual around here. SC:CT could easily do FP16 HDR+AA on ati X1K cards if the game developers were to released a patch for it (similar to FarCry/Serious Sam 2 patch) but certain users are trying to make it seems that it's a card limitation that is forcing the X1k cards to use a lower precision HDR than nvidia cards.

 

[Munky]

FP16 is just one of many HDR pixel formats. FX16 and FX10 ar 2 others I can think of right now. It's up to the developer to chose which format to use, and in the end if the resulting image is the same, there's no reason to go with a bigger format. There may be different performance penalties for each format, but AFAIK the r5xx gpu's can peform MSAA on all of the supported pixel formats. SS2 and Farcry use FP16, and it works with MSAA.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: munky

Originally posted by: Matt2
doesnt the Doom 3 engine make extensive use of stencil shadows?

Yes, it does. What about stencil shadows?

Its one reason why NV cards perform better than ATi cards in doom3 engine based games. (Or another reason why NV performs alot better in PF and chronicle of riddick)

Prey and QW ET are doom3engine based game.

Maybe i should replace rollo for mod with pete for mod.. 🙂

 

[Pete]

Originally posted by: Matt2
doesnt the Doom 3 engine make extensive use of stencil shadows?

Ayup. But not soft-edged stencil shadows, AFAIK, which is what Rollo and I are discussing (if that's why you mentioned D3).

Actually, I've read that future games will move away from stencil shadows, but I'm not clear on that. Some 3DM06 articles probably discuss future shadowing techniques.

xtk, well, review sites have the patch that lets the RX1-series use AA with HDR, but I don't think it's been officially released to the public yet. But if the contention is that ATI can't AA FP16 buffers, well, several sites seem to have shown otherwise.

 

[acole1]

Eh, don't listen to Rollo... we all know he is the nVidia fanboi of nVidia fanboi's. Even if ATi preformed 2x as well as nVidia, had higher quality, and lower price, Rollo would still be out there yelping away defending nVidia... probably with the recurring theme of "back in my day." Give it a rest old timer 😉

 

[nts]

Originally posted by: Pete
Actually, I've read that future games will move away from stencil shadows, but I'm not clear on that. Some 3DM06 articles probably discuss future shadowing techniques.

Yup, everything is moving toward a texture based shadowing approach (Like shadow mapping).

 

[Pete]

Originally posted by: Rollo
So GStanfor is right, and ATIs "HDR" + AA is another hacky workaround like they did getting "HDR" for SC:CT?!?!?

No, no. R5x0 can apply hardware MSAA to FP buffers, which is what ATI means when they say they have HDR+AA (see Far Cry and Serious Sam 2 for FP16+AA). But apparently SC:CT's "HDR" uses FX16 buffers, and AoE3 uses FX10.

SC:CT is a spcl case, in that it offers "HDR" to SM2 cards (I think it's been rumored that ATI wrote the SM2 path). As such, SM2 HDR uses FX16 since the SM2-only X-series don't do FP blending and so can't use FP16 as an HDR format (well, not without a severe performance penalty). Apparently the X1-series--which CAN do FP blending and so CAN use FP16 for HDR (and AA it)--just uses the X-series' path in SC:CT. I'm not sure why it doesn't use FP16, like NV40 and G70. It's possible SC:CT's HDR isn't a generic SM3 path but is NV-specific, or it's possible ATI's performance with or handling of FP16 HDR requires some tweaks (remember Far Cry was patched to let HDR work with R520). In either case, ATI or Ubi will have to pony up $ to add that path. They may just let it be and code the next SC game with R5x0 in mind.

Maybe ATI should change all their ads to "MDR+AA", and I wonder if nVidia cards could do similar tricks if they opted to lower precision as well?

I've heard that FX10 is ATI-exclusive so far (Xenos and R5x0). Dunno if NV can support it. Like I said, it's mainly to reduce bandwidth pressure, and I don't think we've seen IQ differences b/w NV's and ATI's AoE3 HDR modes. We'll have to wait for that before we call FX10 MDR--it really might depend on how the dev uses it. But it's probably a safe label, considering SC:CT's FX16 "HDR" doesn't look as dynamic as its FP16 implementation.

I guess nts needs to delete that line about "partial precision" in his signature, or else he's mocking his own card. 🙁

Not because of this, no. He's talking about partial-precision calculations ("fixed" hardware precision), and we're talking about the precision of various buffers (flexible memory storage formats): two separate things to mock. 😛

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: acole1
Eh, don't listen to Rollo... we all know he is the nVidia fanboi of nVidia fanboi's. Even if ATi preformed 2x as well as nVidia, had higher quality, and lower price, Rollo would still be out there yelping away defending nVidia... probably with the recurring theme of "back in my day." Give it a rest old timer 😉

ATI doesn't have to perform twice as fast as nVidia, I acknowledge they have the best single card in the $500 price point now.

I'm in the process of installing a X1800XL in my son's computer tonight- I can't hate'm that much!

 

[Philippine Mango]

I can't fathom why there are so many damned threads like this.....(Yes, I know I'm thread crapping but this is seriously ridiculous)... Post some news, talk about it and leave it at that, you guys need to stop turning every video card release/specification update into a flame war.. Sure I like ATi and my current rig has a 9800pro in it but I'm not going to tie my self to some train tracks and get ran over because ATi is loosing at the performance war, and I'm not going to go out and start pillaging because ATi is winning at the performance war, etc...:roll: You guys just need to chill the hell out...