Yeah, well, see if ATI was asked to do this.

[VIAN]

Look Here

 

[Le Québécois]

Nvidia = US
ATI = Canada

Nothing wrong with that.
It has nothing to do with who has the best hardware.

 

[BenSkywalker]

It has nothing to do with who has the best hardware.

In the pro market nV outclasses ATi rather easily. It may be because nV is US based, but the high end Quadros outclass the high end Fire boards in pretty much every way(including price )

 

[DeRailur]

Wait isnt NVIDIA all on the DOD's nutz tho? If I remember right, they were contracted to do a little game for them..... America's Army right? I might also add that when that game came out i couldn't run it on a Geforce2 gts, the bastards!

 

[Matthias99]

The DoD developed America's Army with some smaller game company as a contractor. NVIDIA doesn't make video games.

 

[DeRailur]

You may be right, but I somehow remember NVIDIA being involved with the process. Also they offered downloads of the game from their site. I don't think they would have done that without being involved with it somehow.

 

[Genx87]

What what would AA have to do with this?

Answer: nothing.

If they are really using nvidia hardware to model the surface of Mars then they probably picked Nvidia hardware because it can run long shaders and uses IEEE FP32 precision. I would imagine in a scientific arenea like this they want as high a detail as possible.

 

[Matthias99]

From NVIDIA's website:

A quote from the head of development on the game from the Army:

Dr. Capps: From day one, we?ve been targeting the GeForce2 line of graphics processors with our content. We have a few of the latest GF3/GF4 cards here for compatibility testing, but generally, our team develops on a mix of 32MB and 64MB GeForce2 cards. Given our aggressive schedule, we decided to forego some of the latest, advanced technology (bump mapping, pixel shading, etc.) and focus entirely on optimizing our experience for DirectX 8 and the GeForce2.

I also found a press release:

"NVIDIA Enlists In America's Army"

Sound more like an early version of the "TWIMTBP" program than anything else. They also helped distribute it. However, they were not particularly involved in the production, just in optimizing the engine for their hardware.

 

[DeRailur]

Originally posted by: Genx87
What what would AA have to do with this?

Answer: nothing.

I like how you asked a question and then answered yourself. It gave me the impression that you are a very witty person who screams expertise on this subject. Plllllllllft!

Anyways, I know that government contracts are almost always given to the lowest bidder.

So I imagine that the only thing that can be gleaned from all of this is?

Answer: ATI just cost too darn much for NASA.

wow I kind of liked that, I feel special now.

 

[Lonyo]

nVidia whoops ATi in the rendering market. I doubt anyone who wants performance would go with ATi. You pick the best tool for the job, which is what it seems like NASA have done.
(I own a 9800, not an nVidia fanboi - just telling the truth as I have seen it from reviews)

 

[sandorski]

I thought there was something crappy about those Mars shots. Now I know why!

 

[Shinei]

I bet nVidia optimized their drivers to get better framerates for the Mars demos.

 

[DeRailur]

Do you think that just maybe, NASA thought that they could attract any intelligent life in that part of the solar system with the sound of a NVIDIA cooling solution? Scoff you may, but think about the 5600....... There could be more to this than there appears,

 

[Pete]

The FX series does FP32, yes, but I'm not sure it's totally IEEE comformant. Can anyone verify this?

 

[ramulack]

Originally posted by: Shinei
I bet nVidia optimized their drivers to get better framerates for the Mars demos.

ROFL

 

[Zen0ps]

I don't think Canada is allowed to make certain parts for NASA. Heck I'm pretty sure you won't find too much Taiwanese or Chinese manufactured goods on the space shuttle either. But most people know, a good percentage of Taiwanese chips and tech are of extremely high quality. I'm willing to bet that Taiwanese companies are now glad that they did not have their names associated with the shuttles (which are failing at far too often a rate IMO)

The only thing the Canada put on the Space shuttle was the robotic arm.

Individual card wise, a NV usually outclasses an ATi when it comes to workstation CAD/CAM. But Nvidia has never been shown to work in a large scale multiprocessor/multiGPU config.

In a production visualization system the ATi is far superior. http://news.com.com/2100-1010-1025324.html

Now I don't know of anyone who has actually spent the 300 grand to see how much faster or better the ATi solution is, even compared to the "old" SGI.

 

[BenSkywalker]

But Nvidia has never been shown to work in a large scale multiprocessor/multiGPU config.

The SGI VPro part that they mention the ATi chip replacing was one based on the NV1X core.

 

[Keysplayr]

You are all just too funny.. :moon:

 

[Zen0ps]

I'm not sure what SGI used to use for their old cores... But I think it was Floatingpoint 4-4-4-4 RGBA (proprietary)

 

[Regs]

Sarcasm noted. In that case:

NASA was convinced by Futuremark.

 

[Genx87]

Specs on QuadroFX

 

[BenSkywalker]

I'm not sure what SGI used to use for their old cores... But I think it was Floatingpoint 4-4-4-4 RGBA (proprietary)

They have used many different cores for the GPUs, but the VPro was based on the NV1X core. Their high precission rendering was done on the MIPS processors that they made(prior to spinning MIPS off, now they buy the chips), not on the vid card. They outputted to a 64bit color format, but the internal precission for their shaders has been FP32 that is handled on processors, not vid cards. The new system they were discussing in the link you posted supports up to 300 MIPS chips, those aren't there because the vid card is going to be handling the whole workload

 

[DeRailur]

Hmmm, the roaver seems to have crashed? Wonder if it was some 'optimized' drivers????

 

[VIAN]

LOL.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

It has nothing to do with who has the best hardware.

In the pro market nV outclasses ATi rather easily. It may be because nV is US based, but the high end Quadros outclass the high end Fire boards in pretty much every way(including price )

too true.