R300 in June!?

[Onslaught]

Well guys, I returned from Cebit yesterday (my first time there ever), and it was exiting to experience an event like that. Well let's move on to the interesting part. :D

I bumped into a representative from Club3D, and we had a brief chat about current and upcoming 3D chips. When I moved on it occurred to me, that he had revealed info, he shouldn't have revealed.
He said, that the R300 will be released in June and that it would have 8 pixel pipes. The bit about the 8 pixel pipes is an old rumour, that hasn't been confirmed by ATI if memory served me right. The part about it being released in June is the most interesting part.
Rumour has it that the Parhelia chip will also be released in June, so if Matrox does not release Parhelia, before the R300 hits shelves, they might not have the fastest chip on the market, when it hits the shelves (which they promised, that it would be).

That guy from Club3D was really friendly; maybe I should buy one of their products in the future...(I guess talking to potential customers really works :wink: ).

[Nappe1]

AFAIK, it looks like it will be all about the memory bandwidth in this Parhelia vs. R300 competition. Otherwise both chips will be pretty good choices. (except R300 is most likely to have more DX9 features than Matrox, but as usual, Matrox is suporting more things that will be implemented to games during card's life span.)

and remember that GDC isn't far away. it has been rumoured that Matrox would give some tech release just before giving a demonstration of Displacement Mapping, but no one really knows when they are going to launch parhelia based products. Again it has been rumoured that shipping would start on time of E3 and another rumour states that at E3 they will launch products and shipping would start early july...

well, we must just wait and see... :)

[Sabastian]

I've bumped into a representative from Club3D, and we had a brief chat about current and upcoming 3D chips. When I moved on it occurred to me, that he had revealed info, he shouldn't have revealed.He said, that the R300 will be released in June and that it would have 8 pixel pipes. The bit about the 8 pixel pipes is an old rumour, that hasn't been confirmed by ATI if memory served me right. The part about it being released in June is the most interesting part.

Oh how I love a juicy rumor. Particularly when it is big a gumbo as this. 8)

Thanks

Sabastian

[LeStoffer]

Hmmm, just to spice things up a bit: Someone mentioned over at www.rage3d.com that R300 has shown up in the leatest XP 6052 XP-drivers.

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=417b479f9096ebf44a4eb355ad98553b& threadid=33608841&perpage=20&pagenumber=5

I've seen this tag in the .inf file:
[ati2mtag_R300]

So it seems to be the first R300-capable drivers. However it's not referenced by the main selection area, so it's not really used.


Finally, according to theinquirer.net:

RV 300 is an exciting product. The ones who have seen the spec are "thrilled to bits" about it, and it's far nearer than most expect.

Regards. LeStoffer

[LeStoffer]

Okay, I was getting carried away. DX9 isn't even in beta program yet (I just checked DIRECTXDEV@DISCUSS.MICROSOFT.COM):


Philip Taylor <ptaylor@MICROSOFT.COM>
Subject: Re: When does the DX9 beta start? :)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

the beta hasnt started yet, so dont worry.

Well, I worry... Darn MS!

LeStoffer

[Sabastian]

Well, I worry... Darn MS!

LeStoffer

Hehe, thats ok. I love rumors so much ....I was startn to feel dirty reading this thread. 8)

Sabastian

[Humus]

Hmmm, just to spice things up a bit: Someone mentioned over at www.rage3d.com that R300 has shown up in the leatest XP 6052 XP-drivers.

I noticed references to R300 already in the 6043 driver more or less by accident, just clicked away that "show compatible hardware" when installing and saw the R300 listed :) I'm not sure if it's been there in earlier drivers.

[Rookie]

Last week I attend Nvidia GF4 China news conference,when asked on if Nvidia behind ATI to announce DX9 product,Nvidia CEO answerd like this:"Just ignore the rumor,just wait and see,Microsoft or Nvidia who
will lauch DX9 product first."Maybe He hints Nvidia license some tech to MS to be included in DX9?

Rumors,Rumors,I like rumors,I hate rumors... :wink

[sumdumyunguy]

Hmmm, just to spice things up a bit: Someone mentioned over at www.rage3d.com that R300 has shown up in the leatest XP 6052 XP-drivers.

Well over at www.rage3d.com the general concensus is that the R300 is a DX9 part. Your post above appears to directly conflict that whole premise. Very interesting. Very interesting indeed. :-?

[L233]

I really hope ATI will improve on their FSAA and anisotropic filtering implementations... as long as "Gimp FSAA" and "Cheapo Anisotropy" are on the feature list of ATI's flagship products I am not interested.

[Althornin]

Actually, L233, i hope they offer BOTH rip-mapping and "true anisotropy".
Rip-mapping is just WAY more efficient (on a Visual gain per percent framerate loss basis).
That way, for those that are satisfied by the visual quality of rip-mapping, could have it, and their speed, and others could choose to use "real" aniso instead (slower but slightly better looking).

[Gunhead]

Well, I worry... Darn MS!


Well, I don't worry. Let's see DX8 take off first. The current pace is too fast already. Bitboys'll never get their feature-king ready. :lol:

(L233, BTW, of course it would be "GIMP FSAA" and "CHEAPO ANISOTROPY" if it was ATI.)

Seriously though, of course I wait eagerly for any new ATI/Matrox/Nvidia part, be it DX9 or DX X or whatever. The games'll catch up eventually, no problem.

[Randell]

In the latest PC Zone magazine in the UK, there is a Geforce 4 PR piece and interview with Perez where he apparently says nVidia will definilety be first with a DX9 part.

What 'first' this is, i.e. announcement, tech demo, launch, retail release I cant remember as I threw away the mag, but it was apparently in response to a question about whether ATI will, as rumoured, be first out with a DX9 chip.

[nAo]

It seems NV30 and R300 are both up and working fine (voices say ATI has alread R300 A1 silicon..), at least in labs.

[Tagrineth]

Quality SMOOTHVISION looks gooooood. :)

[Sabastian]

It seems NV30 and R300 are both up and working fine (voices say ATI has alread R300 A1 silicon..), at least in labs.

That sounds realistic. What I am interested in is what will the priceing be like when they both hit the street. I am extremely curious about their performance differences. Can't wait.(Then again I am sure I am not the only one waiting.)

Sabastian

[Galilee]

It's pretty impressing to make a dx9 chip before dx9 is even in beta. I didn't know ATI worked this close with MS :roll:

[Joe DeFuria]

There is a big difference between the API being available for beta testing by developers, and the API featureset being "finalized" such that chips can be produced based on that spec.

It's even quite likely, IMO, that one reason why MS is waiting to release DX9 Beta to developers is to work out any major issues that might exist between the DX9 alpha, and the first DX9 prototype chips (like the RV300 or NV30).

So in short, there shouldn't be any surprise if either ATI or nVidia (or both) have DX9 hardware in their labs, even though the API is not released to developers for beta testing.

[LeStoffer]

It's pretty impressing to make a dx9 chip before dx9 is even in beta. I didn't know ATI worked this close with MS :roll:

The fact that DX9 still isn't quite ready for beta (and thereby a feature freeze) might be very interesting: What if different players like ATI, nVidia or Matrox is still trying to put new implementations in?

I got a nasty feeling that ATI and nVidia (and maybe Matrox) might again been doing something like the Pixel Shader (PS 1.1 -> PS 1.4 in DX8.1) for DX9. If things were nice and simple the darn DX9 should be in beta now, but MS could well be trying hard to blend the different implementations into one DX9.

Regards, LeStoffer

[Galilee]

But a dx9 card coming out in june? Is that realistic? Is dx9 finished by then?

[Sabastian]

Yeah I don't see nvidia wanting to get another bloody nose(Or would that be a runny nose?. :wink: ) like they did with DX 8.1. I would expect that they would be keen on having the hardware for DX 9 pretty quick. But I do think that ATi is likely to have the hardware first, who knows. Wait and see.

Sabastian

[Joe DeFuria]

I personally don't think we'll see DX9 parts on the shelf by June, I'm guessing "fall". But I do believe the DX9 part designs of nVidia and ATI are already finalized, and that there exists the first silicon back from the fabs. (At least from one, if not both ATI and nVidia.)

I'm bettting that we'll have DX9 hardware "announcements" in late summer (August / September), with parts shipping around Oct / Nov timeframe.

What if different players like ATI, nVidia or Matrox is still trying to put new implementations in?

I don't think that's likely. IMO, what's more likely to be going on is something like this:

* Microsoft has an "alpha" DX9. This is supposed to interact in a certain way with the first DX9 chips. (Either ATI, nVidia, or both).

* Based on early tests with the early alpha silicon, things aren't working exactly as expected. (Perhaps not anyone's "fault", it's just that co-developing software and hardware is and extremely difficult and inexact science.) I doubt that MS would release an API for beta testing until they at least had some alpha / beta hardware to test it on first.

*The API has to be tweaked so that when it gets into developers hands, it correctly represents what the first DX9 hardware willl do. The last thing MS wants, is to release a beta API, have developers play with and use it, and then when they get real DX9 hardware, the results are not what they expected.

[psurge]

Can anyone say whether displacement mapping is going to be in DX9 (in some form) for sure? I bet displacement mapping/varying HOS implementations are causing a lot of issues...

Regards,
Serge

[Dave Baumann]

http://www.theinquirer.net/20030217.htm

Rather unbelievably, Eva Glass' friend tells us that Microsoft will skip DirectX 9.0, expected by us all, and plump for DirectX 9.1 instead.

9.1, which, as someone has already pointed out, is was DX10's starting point!

[Doomtrooper]

But a dx9 card coming out in june? Is that realistic? Is dx9 finished by then?

Realistically look at the Geforce 3, its was a Dx 8 part yet was more than likely in fab 6 months prior to the final release of DX8. If chip manufacturers were waiting for the final release of the API to design their GPU's then we wouldn't see them fpr approx 1 year after the API was released. Usually a GPU is a 365+ day project and not something that is slapped together 2 months prior to the API release.