What in the world is up with Nvidia?!?!

[BFG10K]

Really, why don't you explain out which PS 2.0 level shaders nV is missing that ATi is running

I dunno about the SM 2.0 but the camo effect is not rendered properly on nV cards, as has been verified by Gearbox themselves.

The R3x0 boards are complete crap for running anything resembling a medium shader load. I've been running my R9800Pro now for about eight months, and the extremely small amount of shader limited titles I've purchased(read- every one I know about) all run very poorly on my R9800Pro.

And just think about how much poorer they would run on NV3x class hardware. The difference basically consitutes a generation gap except the R3xx is the earlier generation.

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
I dunno about the SM 2.0 but the camo effect is not rendered properly on nV cards, as has been verified by Gearbox themselves.

Don't even try to go there with Ben, Last time I went so far as to make videos of it running on an xbox and he still wouldn't admit that nvidia's active cammoflauge, which looks the same as the dx7 mode even on their "dx9" cards (and their real dx9 6800s as well), was incorrect.

 

[carage]

1144 on my 5950...sigh...

 

[oldfart]

Originally posted by: TheSnowman

Originally posted by: BFG10K
I dunno about the SM 2.0 but the camo effect is not rendered properly on nV cards, as has been verified by Gearbox themselves.

Don't even try to go there with Ben, Last time I went so far as to make videos of it running on an xbox and he still wouldn't admit that nvidia's active cammoflauge, which looks the same as the dx7 mode even on their "dx9" cards (and their real dx9 6800s as well), was incorrect.

LOL, I remember that too. ATi does a MUCH better job of rendering the camo. Ben claimed that ATi wasn't rendering the weapons properly (they do) and were "cheating" by properly rendering the camo while nVidia doesn't. Can't for the life of me figure out what he was trying to prove.

 

[NotMrT]

Nvidia made a royal balls up with the FX line although thankfully they did learn from the mistake .
i would love to see the scores of a mobile fx5200 on 3dmark 05
competition to get the lowest possible 3d mark score is far more intresting to me than seeing the top score right now
Maybe i just need more sleep

 

[lowrider69]

I run Doom III, Far Cry and Halo just fine on my second PC with a 5900NU in it, all at 1024x768 with AA and AF on and the FPS are good. I wouldn't go too far over that resolution but for an older card in a older rig it's fine by me. It has an overclocked XP2600 in it that helps a bit.

My main rig is sporting a 6800GT, big difference.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: lordtyranus

I could pull this same quote from a year ago or two years ago for that matter. You and the other PR followers have been saying the same sh!t for two years now and I'll ask you the same question all of them have refused to answer- Where are all these games? Two fvcking years. It got old a long time ago, now it's pathetic.

Don't kid yourself. There were more reasons than DX9 to buy a 9xxx card over a 5xxx. Your "all cards suck at shaders" comments are rather foolish, considering the XTPE is the best we have at running them. When will cards be good enough for you to run shaders? 2008?

Remember your nV naming. The 5900XT was only 66% of the price of the R9800Pro. Besides that, I'm talking about how useless DX9 shader hardware has been despite the hype.

If 5xxx owners did not already regret their decision beforehand, they would have certainly regretted it this January when Farcry demo was released. This was 6 months before the NV40/R420.

Thats a fairly biased statement we hve there. the XT is the best we have. Last time i checked the Geforce 6800UE's shaders are more efficient. Along with there AA. Yes, ATI still wins with AF because it doesn't use up a shader unit or ALU.

-Kevin

 

[BenSkywalker]

Pete-

For a few months, yes, a 5900XT was much less than a 9800P ($185 vs. $250, IIRC--and the XT included CoD at the beginning).

Retail was $299 for a R9800Pro when the 5900XT launched(I know, that's when I bought one). Last time I was in BestBuy they had the R9800Pro for $249; that was yesterday(Hollyoke mall in MA for anyone wondering).

I was just pointing out that there are a few current games (more than Halo, FC, and TR) that show the 5900XT noticably behind the 9800P.

Absolutely, Mafia the R9800Pro obliterates the NV3X line(quite a bit more then double the FPS IIRC from the last benches I saw), nothing to do with shaders though.

LordTyranus

Don't kid yourself. There were more reasons than DX9 to buy a 9xxx card over a 5xxx. Your "all cards suck at shaders" comments are rather foolish, considering the XTPE is the best we have at running them. When will cards be good enough for you to run shaders? 2008?

And I've been running a R9800Pro for eight months now- what is your point exactly? I'm pointing out the fact that shaders have been d@mn near useless- nothing else.

If 5xxx owners did not already regret their decision beforehand, they would have certainly regretted it this January when Farcry demo was released. This was 6 months before the NV40/R420.

I was regretting buying a R9800Pro at that point. It is far too slow to play the game decently with all shaders set to their highest settings. A whole lot of people on this board were stating how horribly the game was coded because of how it ran on R3x0 hardware when the demo first hit(same thing they were saying with Halo).

BFG-

I dunno about the SM 2.0 but the camo effect is not rendered properly on nV cards, as has been verified by Gearbox themselves.

Either board can render it either way- none of it is PS 2.0. Gearbox can say what they will on that front, check it out for yourself. Gearbox also stated that Halo was CPU limited on the R3x0/NV3X line of vid cards too

And just think about how much poorer they would run on NV3x class hardware. The difference basically consitutes a generation gap except the R3xx is the earlier generation.

A Pinto versus a Chevette. What it comes down to is having to back off the shaders because it is unplayable or having to back off the shaders because it is really unplayable. In the lifetime of your R9700Pro how many shader heavy games did you play through? I know you are way more objective then most of the other PS 2.0 flag wavers, seriously list them all off.

Blastman-

Take a look at the second set of Halo shots at oczone -- the ice gun is a PS2.0 effect and is not rendered by the 5700U.

The camo effect isn't PS 2.0, not sure where OCZone got that impression.

Snowman-

Don't even try to go there with Ben, Last time I went so far as to make videos of it running on an xbox and he still wouldn't admit that nvidia's active cammoflauge, which looks the same as the dx7 mode even on their "dx9" cards (and their real dx9 6800s as well), was incorrect.

Use 3DAnalyze and check for yourself what board are capable of doing the different camo technique.

oldfart-

LOL, I remember that too. ATi does a MUCH better job of rendering the camo. Ben claimed that ATi wasn't rendering the weapons properly (they do) and were "cheating" by properly rendering the camo while nVidia doesn't. Can't for the life of me figure out what he was trying to prove.

I went off because ATi wasn't rendering the camo like it was on the XBox- I looked into it and found that Gearbox is the one who screwed it up because all of the boards could render it any which way. The shader on the weapons was an issue with certain driver revisions.



Still waiting for the shader advocates to list off this huge list of games that has made shader performance so crucial.

 

[lordtyranus]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek

Originally posted by: lordtyranus

I could pull this same quote from a year ago or two years ago for that matter. You and the other PR followers have been saying the same sh!t for two years now and I'll ask you the same question all of them have refused to answer- Where are all these games? Two fvcking years. It got old a long time ago, now it's pathetic.

Don't kid yourself. There were more reasons than DX9 to buy a 9xxx card over a 5xxx. Your "all cards suck at shaders" comments are rather foolish, considering the XTPE is the best we have at running them. When will cards be good enough for you to run shaders? 2008?

Remember your nV naming. The 5900XT was only 66% of the price of the R9800Pro. Besides that, I'm talking about how useless DX9 shader hardware has been despite the hype.

If 5xxx owners did not already regret their decision beforehand, they would have certainly regretted it this January when Farcry demo was released. This was 6 months before the NV40/R420.

Thats a fairly biased statement we hve there. the XT is the best we have. Last time i checked the Geforce 6800UE's shaders are more efficient. Along with there AA. Yes, ATI still wins with AF because it doesn't use up a shader unit or ALU.

-Kevin

Look at all the shader heavy titles mentioned in this thread. Farcry, HL2, Halo, TRAOD, Colin Mcrae. The x800 cards run them all faster, with the exception of D3.

Still waiting for the shader advocates to list off this huge list of games that has made shader performance so crucial.

Ok, setting aside the R3xx/NV3x: You still don't think shader performance will be important in the next 2 years? According to you both the 6800s and x800s suck at shaders anyway, though one seems better than the other.

I was regretting buying a R9800Pro at that point. It is far too slow to play the game decently with all shaders set to their highest settings. A whole lot of people on this board were stating how horribly the game was coded because of how it ran on R3x0 hardware when the demo first hit(same thing they were saying with Halo).

Since when do you *have* to put all shaders on the highest settings? Either you have extremely high standards, or you are out of touch with reality.

What exactly is this test to be *good* at shaders? To run 16x12 4x/8x with maxed settings?

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

Use 3DAnalyze and check for yourself what board are capable of doing the different camo technique.

The point is that Nvidia obviously has its own path for Halo. Are you ever going to concede that point or do you just want to change the subject?

 

[Reliant1]

I was under the impression that the invisible camo is a direct X 7 effect.

 

[gururu]

Originally posted by: Reliant1
I was under the impression that the invisible camo is a direct X 7 effect.

yea isn't camo supposed to make you invisible too?

 

[kylebisme]

The invisible camo in the Nvidia path is a dx7 effect. With a Radeon you get the refractive camo like on the xbox as long as you run with at least ps1.1.

 

[Blastman]

I don?t have Halo -- I assumed from what I?ve read the effects were PS2.0.

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

Still waiting for the shader advocates to list off this huge list of games that has made shader performance so crucial.

I?m not going to go around checking games for pixel and vertex shader usage just to prove my point -- but lots of games are out there that use shaders besides the usual ones already mentioned. As an example, one of my favorite online MP games Delta Force - BHD uses lots of shaders. This game came out ~ Feb 2003, the demo was out in Oct 2002 -- getting close to 2 years old ?

nvidia - DF-BHD

We used pixel shaders extensively throughout the game. In the weapons, we used pixel shaders to produce bump mapping with a specularity surface effect. The process not only enables us to create realistically modeled weapon, but it also enhances the realism by allowing light to reflect off the weapon in a natural way. The player's character and his teammates have high-resolution faces rendered via pixel shaders, which enables the production of extremely high detail with per-pixel lighting and specularity. We also generate realistic lighting effects through pixel shaders, with lit areas of terrain (such as around fires and other point light sources) being bump mapped.
Pixel shaders also gave us some flexibility to enhance elements that would have been more difficult or even impossible to render with earlier 3-D technology. For instance, the water in DF-BHD is rendered with complex reflections as a result of using pixel shaders and dynamic normal mapping. It also helped us create what we think is the best night-vision effect of any game yet, with pixel shaders used to render luminance bleeding, persistence and chroma effects.
The vertex shaders are used for setting up most of the pixel shader effects and in rendering the soft-skinned character models.

Here are some de DF-BHD benches ?(ignore the AA/AF benches as the NV FX cards are NOT comparable anymore - and 128MB cards choke at higher resolutions with AA/AF) The 9700pro easily outpaces a 5950U. The sequel to this game -- Joint Operations is already out. So Novalogic is on their second generation of games using shaders already.

 

[LocutusX]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Retail was $299 for a R9800Pro when the 5900XT launched(I know, that's when I bought one). Last time I was in BestBuy they had the R9800Pro for $249; that was yesterday(Hollyoke mall in MA for anyone wondering).

USD$249 ? what a waste. that's the current street price of the 9800pro in canada, in canadian dollars.

i'm pretty sure the R9800Pro is at the $200 price-point in the states, "street price"...

 

[BFG10K]

Either board can render it either way- none of it is PS 2.0.

Yes rather than a board limitation it seems to be Gearbox at fault. However the point is that nVidia isn't running the same path that ATi is.

What it comes down to is having to back off the shaders because it is unplayable or having to back off the shaders because it is really unplayable.

I wouldn't back off the shaders, I'd back off the resolution and R3xx hardware can usually run SM 2.0 games at several resolution notches above NV3x or it has the option of running at the same resolution and getting up to double the performance.

In the lifetime of your R9700Pro how many shader heavy games did you play through?

Light: JK2, JA, STVEF, EF2, COD, UT2003. UT2004.
Medium/Heavy: DFBHD, Far Cry, NOLF2, Painkiller, Doom 3, DEIW, Unreal 2.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Snowman-

The point is that Nvidia obviously has its own path for Halo. Are you ever going to concede that point or do you just want to change the subject?

Gearbox made different rendering paths for each board- all of the boards run the paths equally well and all of them perform almost exactly the same no matter which camo setting you use.

The invisible camo in the Nvidia path is a dx7 effect. With a Radeon you get the refractive camo like on the xbox as long as you run with at least ps1.1.

The Radeon path is much easier to spot then the XBox path.

Blastman-

I?m not going to go around checking games for pixel and vertex shader usage just to prove my point -- but lots of games are out there that use shaders besides the usual ones already mentioned. As an example, one of my favorite online MP games Delta Force - BHD uses lots of shaders. This game came out ~ Feb 2003, the demo was out in Oct 2002 -- getting close to 2 years old ?

I've hear the 'lots of shaders' so many times about titles that have less then half a dozen, including in this thread, that it certainly isn't effective. You could argue the point that Evolva has extremely high 'shader' useage because it is covered with Dot3(which is a shader function).

Here are some de DF-BHD benches ?(ignore the AA/AF benches as the NV FX cards are NOT comparable anymore - and 128MB cards choke at higher resolutions with AA/AF) The 9700pro easily outpaces a 5950U.

Did you mean to link another page? The 5950 is outrunning the 9800XT at the highest settings in that game by ~10%, I'm a bit confused as to why you would use that as an example.

BFG-

Yes rather than a board limitation it seems to be Gearbox at fault. However the point is that nVidia isn't running the same path that ATi is.

Has nigh no difference on the benches in terms of the camo path.

I wouldn't back off the shaders, I'd back off the resolution and R3xx hardware can usually run SM 2.0 games at several resolution notches above NV3x or it has the option of running at the same resolution and getting up to double the performance.

Interior levels in FC that means 640x480- and the FPS still fall well under reasonable levels on my R9800Pro.

Light: JK2, JA, STVEF, EF2, COD, UT2003. UT2004.
Medium/Heavy: DFBHD, Far Cry, NOLF2, Painkiller, Doom 3, DEIW, Unreal 2.

With the exception of D3 I would class them all as extremely to very light(FC being the only 'very light'). 99% of the pixels on screen in most of those titles most of the time aren't touched by pixel shaders(excluding FC and obviously D3).

 

[lordtyranus]

Interior levels in FC that means 640x480- and the FPS still fall well under reasonable levels on my R9800Pro.

Complete BS given the benchmarks on the web.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Complete BS given the benchmarks on the web.

Why not link some of these benchmarks showing incredible framerates on interior levels in FarCry.

I don't consider 46FPS average anything to write home about. And that is far from worse case scenario(that's also only 1024x768 no AA/AF- add AA and AF and the average framerate drops below 30). You can see some benches like over at FS where they are pushing tripple digit averages of course- but that is on exterior levels and that is average, not minimum. Now, why don't you dig up some of these benches to back yourself up.

 

[LocutusX]

46fps? That's the 9800 non-Pro. Who actually has that card?

The regular 9800 Pro is 52fps... but many on this forum have been busy flashing their R360-chipped 98Pro's with 9800XT BIOSes. Or at the very least, overclocking them to 9800XT levels.

Wouldn't be surprised if a 128MB Rad98Pro @ 98XT Bios has FC performance roughly equal to the GF6800NU. As long as AA and AF are turned off, yes.

 

[BenSkywalker]

46fps? That's the 9800 non-Pro. Who actually has that card?

You are correct, I should look more carefully. It is in fact 52FPS average in the bench they are using, still below a decent playable threshold(and certainly not worst case).

Or at the very least, overclocking them to 9800XT levels.

Can't get 5MHZ OC out of my BBA R9800Pro before it starts to artifact(major heat issues, stock HS/F untouched). I know a lot of people have had better luck with the better made parts though.

 

[Gamingphreek]

How can you mention TROAD as a shader title? That is one of the worst games ever coded.... and extremely innefficient. Barely runs and has Pi$$ poor graphics.

-Kevin

 

[reever]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
How can you mention TROAD as a shader title? That is one of the worst games ever coded.... and extremely innefficient. Barely runs and has Pi$$ poor graphics.

-Kevin

thats besides the point

 

[Gamingphreek]

No it isn't... no one plays it and it isn't playable. Its HORRIBLE in every way shape and form. ATI users dont get any more wow factor from it then Nvidia users do.

-Kevin

 

[Blastman]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker ?Did you mean to link another page? The 5950 is outrunning the 9800XT at the highest settings in that game by ~10%, I'm a bit confused as to why you would use that as an example.

DF-BHD -- 16x12 -- no -AA/AF

9700pro ?76.96
5950U ? 67.72

And the 9700pro is doing Trilinear compared to the Brilinear of the FX.

As I already pointed out, the 4AA/AF benches are not comparable with the lousy 4AA the FX card is doing, besides it?s Brilinear and new aggressive filtering ?

http://www.hothardware.com/vie...ge=4&articleid=435

We only took two screen shots with the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra because the maximum anisotropic filtering setting available was only "8X". The "No Aniso" shot looks much like the 6800 Ultra's and the Radeon 9800 XT's, except that it is slightly sharper. The difference between the 8X anisotropic settings with the 5950 Ultra and the other cards is like night and day, however. The pillar and sprouts along the ground get cleaned up quite a bit with 8X aniso enabled, but the ground and mountain hardly change at all. We think this is an issue with the 5950 Ultra and the new Forceware 60 drivers though,


http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...erstrike-source_4.html

The same cannot be said about the GeForce FX product: it uses extremely aggressive texture filtering optimizations and works in DirectX 8.1 mode producing less-detailed or even noisy images.