Tomshardware review is up and giving ATI the Crown...

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
Actually, the list is up to 12 now, and yes, it is SM3.0

Again, the difference between 'supporting' and actually using SM3.0 is a large one. The game might be 99% DX8.1/SM2.0 and have one lighting effect that uses SM3.0 on NVIDIA (but looks identical to SM2.0), and they can call it a 'SM3.0' game. Saying "X number of games are going to have SM3.0!", when we have no idea how much or how effectively it will be used in those games, is misleading at best.

Dude, anyone in the know knows ATi's drivers are not up to compatibility snuff with Nvidia's. I'm not even going to argue this one.

Uh-huh. Right. I haven't had a hitch with my 9800Pro -- in fact, the biggest problem I had was with NVIDIA's drivers from my 4600 not uninstalling themselves cleanly. Wanna explain that one?

CANADIANS!!!!!11

Whatever. I can see you haven't changed much in the last few months.

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
- ATi is canadian

"Do you want us to freeze shipments of the 9800 Pro worldwide and make you buy XGI Volaris?!"

 

[nRollo]

And now that ATi comes out with a card that requires less power, runs cooler, quieter, and is faster, you seem extremely concerned about the welfare of Americans!

Buying a Nvidia card isn't going to stop outsourcing or weaken the gap between the rich and poor. If you want to buy a Nvidia card, just do it, its obvious from your previous posts that you were going to anyway.

I've always been concerned about this.

What I'm not concerned about is "requires less power, runs cooler, quieter", to me those are piddling, inconsequential differences. I have a many fanned, full tower case with an Antec 430 True Power, so I'm set.
As far as "faster" goes, I didn't see any great differences in speed in Anand's review?

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
Again, the difference between 'supporting' and actually using SM3.0 is a large one. The game might be 99% DX8.1/SM2.0 and have one lighting effect that uses SM3.0 on NVIDIA (but looks identical to SM2.0), and they can call it a 'SM3.0' game. Saying "X number of games are going to have SM3.0!", when we have no idea how much or how effectively it will be used in those games, is misleading at best.

So when all the ATi peeps were trumpeting about PS2.0 over the last year or so, that was BS too? Just checking for consistency.

Originally posted by: Matthias99
Whatever. I can see you haven't changed much in the last few months.

Nope. Pesky Canadians.

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: Insomniak

So when all the ATi peeps were trumpeting about PS2.0 over the last year or so, that was BS too? Just checking for consistency.

Games are actually out now, that use PS 2.0. Albeit only slightly.

It is different too, as PS 2.0 looks better than PS 1.1, where as PS 3.0 does not look better than PS 3.0.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: Insomniak

So when all the ATi peeps were trumpeting about PS2.0 over the last year or so, that was BS too? Just checking for consistency.

Games are actually out now, that use PS 2.0. Albeit only slightly.

It is different too, as PS 2.0 looks better than PS 1.1, where as PS 3.0 does not look better than PS 3.0.

We dont know that though, it could be the difference between a slideshow and playable FPS for certain effects.

Where is Ben lately? I'm sure he has an opinion on this matter!

 

[HobartPaving]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: Blastman


Nonsense. 9 games will be using the DX9c runtime package and will SUPPORT SM3.0. Whether any SM3.0 features are in those games remains to be seen. NV marketing?????????

Since your the one calling BS, I would ask you to prove this.

he says it remains to be seen and you ask him to prove it. what do you want him to prove? that it remains to be seen?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: Insomniak

So when all the ATi peeps were trumpeting about PS2.0 over the last year or so, that was BS too? Just checking for consistency.

Games are actually out now, that use PS 2.0. Albeit only slightly.

It is different too, as PS 2.0 looks better than PS 1.1, where as PS 3.0 does not look better than PS 3.0.

We dont know that though, it could be the difference between a slideshow and playable FPS for certain effects.

I honestly believed last year that I'd be playing both Doom3 and HL2 by now. Not my fault that both companies were apparently lying through their teeth when they said the games were almost ready.

SM3.0 doesn't add a whole lot of new functionality over SM2.0. It makes certain things *easier to program*, and certain things *faster* (although what and by how much remains to be seen), but it doesn't make very many new effects possible that couldn't have been done before. Even displacement mapping (the much-touted 'new' feature of VS3.0) can be done in SM2.0; it's just a PITA and it's probably significantly slower.

The biggest improvement, I think, is in making shaders easier to program. But even so, developers that want to write games with shaders still *have* to write SM2.0 shaders, since for the next year at least, 90+% of the people with a DX9-compliant card are going to have a RADEON 9XXX or GeForceFX, or the low-end NV40/R420 (which probably won't be more than 10-20% faster than a 9800XT). NVIDIA might convince a few developers to toss in some legitimate SM3.0 code, but I can almost guarantee that you won't see any ground-up SM3.0 titles for quite a while -- whereas you SHOULD be seeing several titles that make extensive use of SM2.0 soon. I hope.

The speed increases from SM3.0 are supposed to come from more efficient code. However, basically the only thing they did (at least in the pixel shader) was to add dynamic branching (ie, true loops and jumps, not just static loops), and increase the maximum shader length (so effects that might have been done in two passes with two small shaders can now be done in one pass by a single large shader).

However, it doesn't make the actual shader code run any faster. If in PS2.0 you do some lighting effect in two passes that require 100 instructions each, and in PS3.0 you do the same effect in one pass that requires 200 instructions, you haven't saved any time. In fact, you might be better off in this case with a faster PS2.0 part rather than a slower PS2.0/3.0 part. Now, if that PS3.0 shader turns out to only require 195 or 190 or instructions -- yes, you'll see a speed increase. But that's certainly not a guarantee, and we're probably talking single-digit percentages here, not orders of magnitude.

 

[Regs]

The biggest improvement, I think, is in making shaders easier to program. But even so, developers that want to write games with shaders still *have* to write SM2.0 shaders, since for the next year at least, 90+% of the people with a DX9-compliant card are going to have a RADEON 9XXX or GeForceFX, or the low-end NV40/R420 (which probably won't be more than 10-20% faster than a 9800XT). NVIDIA might convince a few developers to toss in some legitimate SM3.0 code, but I can almost guarantee that you won't see any ground-up SM3.0 titles for quite a while -- whereas you SHOULD be seeing several titles that make extensive use of SM2.0 soon. I hope.

I'm sorry that I hate to quote that whole thing to just agree with you Matt. And to add on top of that, Ati now has extended SM 2.0 to allow new features that the original 2.0 didn't. So basically image quality comparisons should be exact this year. And furthormore lets not forget the new RV4xx core has extra registries to handle longer Pixel shading instructions. So even if SM 3.0 is introduced, it should not be a performance hit for the new ATI core considering all the revamps of it's renedering engines.


Overall performance wise, however, no. They won't be the same. Nvidia will still likely rule in games that embrace z or stencil only passes throught the pipeline or OpenGL games like D3. While ATI might get the upper hand in Pixel Shader 2 performance just by the way it handles textures and the fact the ATI GPU clock speed is faster. Hence Nvidia's texturing unit cannot operate totally independently from the first shader unit in its pipeline while the RV420 can. Just like the FX vs Rv3xx.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Regs

The biggest improvement, I think, is in making shaders easier to program. But even so, developers that want to write games with shaders still *have* to write SM2.0 shaders, since for the next year at least, 90+% of the people with a DX9-compliant card are going to have a RADEON 9XXX or GeForceFX, or the low-end NV40/R420 (which probably won't be more than 10-20% faster than a 9800XT). NVIDIA might convince a few developers to toss in some legitimate SM3.0 code, but I can almost guarantee that you won't see any ground-up SM3.0 titles for quite a while -- whereas you SHOULD be seeing several titles that make extensive use of SM2.0 soon. I hope.

I'm sorry that I hate to quote that whole thing to just agree with you Matt. And to add on top of that, Ati now has extended SM 2.0 to allow new features that the original 2.0 didn't. So basically image quality comparisons should be exact this year.


Performance wise, however, no. They won't be the same. Nvidia will still likely rule in games that embrace z or stencil only passes throught the pipeline or OpenGL games like D3. While ATI might get the upper hand in Pixel Shader 2 performance just by the way it handles textures and the fact the ATI GPU clock speed is faster. Hence Nvidia's texturing unit cannot operate totally independently from the first shader unit in its pipeline while the RV420 can. Just like the FX vs Rv3xx.

Yes; I was just talking PS2.0 versus PS3.0 there. There are other differences in the cards' architectures -- such as NV40 still being better (though by not as much of a margin as NV30 vs. R300, apparently) at stencil shadows. NVIDIA's OGL driver-level support is also generally better, although again, ATI has made great strides here as well (as can be evidenced by the fact that they are often even, or even ahead, in Call of Duty benches). Doom3 performance benchmarks should be very interesting.

 

[Regs]

Read my sig, I like to edit my messages a lot. lol.

 

[jim1976]

I said I'd buy the best performing card, that is true. Here I'm saying if the performance of the cards is comparable, I'd support an American firm before a Canadian firm with no other deciding factor. It's a radical concept. What do you do Jim? If you work for a company that produces something, and you have a foreign competitor that produces a similar good at a similar price, should I flip a coin and say, "Well tough luck for Jim, good luck Raoul. The Portuguese firm won my coin toss, and I'm all about supporting my buddies in Portugal"?

I won't even comment on your macroeconomic theory or the economic crimes that your country has commited the last decades all over the world. (eg Asian Crisis).
We'll be getting into political fields and quite frankly I don't want to, because if I start mentioning them, then my friend I'll be pissed off one more time.
Go ahead and take what it pleases you, it's your right after all, I'm sorry if I quoted you.
Just don't tell me about supporting the USA economy and BS like these.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: jim1976

I said I'd buy the best performing card, that is true. Here I'm saying if the performance of the cards is comparable, I'd support an American firm before a Canadian firm with no other deciding factor. It's a radical concept. What do you do Jim? If you work for a company that produces something, and you have a foreign competitor that produces a similar good at a similar price, should I flip a coin and say, "Well tough luck for Jim, good luck Raoul. The Portuguese firm won my coin toss, and I'm all about supporting my buddies in Portugal"?

I won't even comment on your macroeconomic theory or the economic crimes that your country has commited the last decades all over the world. (eg Asian Crisis).
We'll be getting into political fields and quite frankly I don't want to, because if I start mentioning them, then my friend I'll be pissed off one more time.
Go ahead and take what it pleases you, it's your right after all, I'm sorry if I quoted you.
Just don't tell me about supporting the USA economy and BS like these.

Hmmm.
Well, one of my degrees is a BS-Business, and I took economics courses, so please feel free to comment on my macroeconomic theory. If it's flawed, perhaps your comments will refresh my memory.

I don't see how suggesting patronizing your own countries businesses if they offer comparable goods at comparable prices is revolutionary or disagreeable?

I would guess that Americans are far and away the largest consumers of high end video cards due to the numbers of relatively prosperous people here. I'd think Americans buying them from an American firm could have a substantial effect on the firm's success with these products. I wonder if ATI would even bother to make a "X800 Platinum XT" were it not for American consumers.

As for your allegations of "economic crimes", if they weren't committed by nVidia, I don't see how they're relevant here?

 

[Regs]

Maybe we should increase import tax on Canadian goods Rollo. But you have a good point about how we should buy more domestic parts to support our industries. It's fundamentally correct, yet there are other issues at hand as we all know with corporate America. But to be honest I don't even know what is or what isn't made in America. Hell, just last week I found out that Honda's are assembled in America by American workers. Yet some people don't want a Honda just because of the brand name.

Let us be the consumer and not the politician.

 

[chsh1ca]

Originally posted by: Rollo
If you want people to spell your name right, make it something that resembles a word. It's not worth my time to look up your jumble of letters and numbers to be sure it's "spelled" right.

You're telling me you lack the capability of reading and storing those 7 characters in your brain temporarily somewhere? Wow. Call me Chris then, since my name appears at the bottom of EVERY POST.

It's not irrelevant. We need to support our own industries, or we won't have a middle class in this country anymore.

That's already happening in certain areas, as I mentioned and you conveniently ignored, evidently for the purpose of having an excuse to diatribe something that's already been covered. REGARDLESS of whom you support. Did you miss that?

Your attitude sickens me. This affects everyone. When it's your Dad, your brother, or maybe even you who can't find work to support their family because everyone thought just like wise chsh1ca and bought from foreign firms, maybe you'll see my point.

So you're saying you're anti-american then? I mean, America is a free country, and you willingly give money to people who take that money and spend large parts of it elsewhere on a daily basis. I'm not the one NOT supporting my country Rollo, it sounds more to me like you're pissed at how much you are already sending out of your country. It IS irrelevant because neither your thoughts on the matter nor mine have any bearing on other people. If a concept like globalization sickens you, I suggest you open your eyes and see what is actually going on in America.

When you've seen a few of your friends get laid off because their jobs were outsourced and they sit for a year or two because jobs aren't plentiful anymore, maybe you'll see it.

Nice try Rollo, but I have already seen it happen. To direct family. Somehow either of my parents getting laid off and having their job outsourced to another country is supposed to make me angry? Cope. Most businesses are trying to cut costs by outsourcing or expanding in other countries. It is equally a fact of life today as supporting various other oil-producing nations by driving your gasoline-powered car.

I would guess that Americans are far and away the largest consumers of high end video cards due to the numbers of relatively prosperous people here. I'd think Americans buying them from an American firm could have a substantial effect on the firm's success with these products. I wonder if ATI would even bother to make a "X800 Platinum XT" were it not for American consumers.

I'd say it's more likely Asians that are the largest consumers of high end video cards, but not by a huge margin. Why not write NVidia and ATI and ask them?

Originally posted by: Matthias99Yes; I was just talking PS2.0 versus PS3.0 there. There are other differences in the cards' architectures -- such as NV40 still being better (though by not as much of a margin as NV30 vs. R300, apparently) at stencil shadows. NVIDIA's OGL driver-level support is also generally better, although again, ATI has made great strides here as well (as can be evidenced by the fact that they are often even, or even ahead, in Call of Duty benches). Doom3 performance benchmarks should be very interesting.

I'm looking forward to the benchmarks from both Doom3 and Half-life 2.

 

[Regs]

Um boy. There's a lot of subjective matter here. This argument could lead on forever.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: Regs
Um boy. There's a lot of subjective matter here. This argument could lead on forever.

Whoa dude. I think you just figured out the internet! You really should report this to major new publications.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

I honestly believed last year that I'd be playing both Doom3 and HL2 by now. Not my fault that both companies were apparently lying through their teeth when they said the games were almost ready.

OT: ID entertainment has never officially said any release date, or even an approximate one. They have always had a "when its ready" attitude for release dates.

 

[Deeko]

Originally posted by: Regs
Um boy. There's a lot of subjective matter here. This argument could lead on forever.

Haha...welcome to the video forum...you should have been here during the Voodoo5 vs GTS wars...now THAT was good times.

 

[chsh1ca]

Oh no, you should have seen usenet in the early days. I still have my blackened cancer-causing asbestos suit in my closet. *THAT* was some arguing.

 

[nRollo]

chsh1ca:
Oh my. I just looked at your profile and saw you live in Canada. I guess ranting and raving at you about buying American to save the American middle class won't get me far.
I apologize for my mistake.

I realize people need to cope with shifts in the economic environment they live in, but it's easier said than done changing a skilled discipline you work in. The training can be costly, and take years.
It could also be said that the situation many find themselves in (replaced by people in countries with lower standards of living/wages) has been created by the prosperity they created through their efforts in the first place. (e.g. General Motors wouldn't have gotten big enough to build plants in other countries where labor is cheaper if they hadn't been made successful by the efforts of people here. )
I'm just trying to say that if a company headquartered in your country manages to make a comparable good for a comparable price, they deserve your business.

Regs:

Maybe we should increase import tax on Canadian goods Rollo.

I don't know if tarriffs are the answer as they give American industry an unfair advantage, although I suppose it could be argued that the lower standard of living/wages in some countries gives them an unfair advantage.

 

[jim1976]

Hmmm.
Well, one of my degrees is a BS-Business, and I took economics courses, so please feel free to comment on my macroeconomic theory. If it's flawed, perhaps your comments will refresh my memory.

I don't see how suggesting patronizing your own countries businesses if they offer comparable goods at comparable prices is revolutionary or disagreeable?

I would guess that Americans are far and away the largest consumers of high end video cards due to the numbers of relatively prosperous people here. I'd think Americans buying them from an American firm could have a substantial effect on the firm's success with these products. I wonder if ATI would even bother to make a "X800 Platinum XT" were it not for American consumers.

As for your allegations of "economic crimes", if they weren't committed by nVidia, I don't see how they're relevant here?

Well mine is Economics but this is not the subject, and I wouldn't like to discuss it any further.
One final comment and I'm done with this. There's a considerable market share of technological sector that leaves outside the US borders. I'm sure you're aware of that. My idea or "allegation" as you refer to it, is that if we(the foreigners) take into consideration what US economy has done to many nations across the world,we shouldn't even bother with Nvidia and US products in general. But neither this is the case here, nor I would like to think of myself as not being an openminded person, who eventually just cares for the best product out there.
I found peculiar and hypocritical the fact that you cared for these issues now, that's all. And I wouldn't even bother to ask you if that would have been your comments in case NVIDIA had smashed the competition this time.

 

[ChkSix]

2: nVidia is a publicly traded company here, their success earns American stock holders money, and is a piece of the overall tech market picture..
.

Rollo,

Umm, so is ATi, which is also a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ market, symbol is ATYT I believe. Sorry, I do work on Wall Street and even ATi earns American share holders money.

I'm not for either new card this early on, however I did want to clarify on the trading aspect of both.

 

[ZombieJesus]

Say you have a high quality 350 powersupply one hard drive and optical drive, you have no floppy and no fans at all. Everything is passivley cooled. All the components are in a custom case u built designed for passive convection cooling. Could you passively cool a nvidia 6800U, 6800GT, or will i be looking at ati solutions?

 

[ronnn]

I agree with Rollo (a first maybe). Buying from your local ecconomy makes total sense. Us Canadians make sure that everything made in Canada is marked that way clearly, as it totally influences buying decisions. But like most Canadians I will stray from this if it starts to cost me real money or performance. NAFTA has been very hard on Canada with frequent trade disputes and upcoming big fights over resources like water and oil. Probably because the same minds behind NAFTA are very quick to move base for lower wages and relaxed environmental standards. ATI cards do not have a made in Canada sticker, as most jobs are elsewhere. Still the brains behind the performance leader are Canadian (sort of), so I guess we can at least get some nationalistic pride out of this. I also agree that 6 months done the road the NV40 could easily be the performance leader (and not have buggy drivers) -but it will also likely be somewhat cheaper by that time also.