[elsence]

Originally Posted by Jawed

1680x1050 shouldn't be enough pixels in any game to exhaust 512MB of memory with 4xMSAA. (Well, OK, Arma 2 could, I imagine.)

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/h...ting_qualitaet

Hmm, those results are definitely very different from my long-standing understanding of RV770 performance. Dunno whether to trust them or to attribute that to driver progress for RV770 since June 2008.

It's showing 17% advantage on RV770 with 1GB versus 512MB at 1680 4xAA/16xAF. I really haven't a clue what's going on there. More pertinently, only 14% advantage for HD4870 over HD4850 really looks bad considering the extra bandwidth.

Jawed

There are games (very few for now) that will show a hit even in 1280X1024.
For example Far Cry 2.
The 1GB ver is 10%-15% faster than the 512MB ver in 1280X1024
15%-20% faster than the 512MB ver in 1680X1050
20-25% faster than the 512MB ver in 1920X1200

The above are average fps.

The real problem are the minimum fps. (the difference is way higher than in the average fps)
(the low minimum fps are making the games feel much slower than what the average fps suggest...)

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by Jawed

But can you see a difference in any games?

Well ATI's take was that you couldn't see a difference between G80 and R600. They've probably changed their minds now though and it'll be like night and day between GT200 and RV870!

[Andrew Lauritzen]

Yay for AF! I'd wager that it'll take a fairly trained eye to see any difference in games from G80 or similar, but that doesn't detract from the excitement of finally getting to this stage

[fellix]

Comparison animation with G80's 16xAF HQ pattern:

[Sound_Card]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

Well ATI's take was that you couldn't see a difference between G80 and R600. They've probably changed their minds now though and it'll be like night and day between GT200 and RV870!

That was not their take, that was the fan groups take. In seriously, I have never seen the difference. No hardware out there produces crap AF like GF7 anymore. Maybe RV870 is more angle independent then G80+?

[fellix]

Originally Posted by Sound_Card

Maybe RV870 is more angle independent then G80+?

Hell, I say it is completely angle independent!

Of course, the real world implications will be variable. Since R520 (and G80 for that matter) the IQ difference lines are diminishing, regarding AF.

[rpg.314]

Originally Posted by fellix

Hallelujah!

Can anyone explain to me what is this And why is this such a big deal

All I know about AF is that it used when you view your textures are at a very oblique angle.

[fellix]

Originally Posted by rpg.314

Can anyone explain to me what is this And why is this such a big deal

All I know about AF is that it used when you view your textures are at a very oblique angle.

Have you ever suffered from plain obvious angle-depended and undersampled AF quality? Don't tell me you missed the whole R300~G71 time line.

[Scali]

Originally Posted by fellix

Of course, the real world implications will be variable. Since R520 (and G80 for that matter) the IQ difference lines are diminishing, regarding AF.

These days they're more determined by how much the drivers are 'optimizing' the texturefiltering, rather than what the hardware is actually capable of

[SirPauly]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

Well ATI's take was that you couldn't see a difference between G80 and R600. They've probably changed their minds now though and it'll be like night and day between GT200 and RV870!

Hehe!

[wishiknew]

Is there anything about hdmi TrueHD/DTS-HD MA bitstreaming?

[rpg.314]

Originally Posted by fellix

Have you ever suffered from plain obvious angle-depended and undersampled AF quality?

I dont play games.

Don't tell me you missed the whole R300~G71 time line.

I missed every thing prior to G80.

I just wanna know what is the deal with AF, this pic/holy grail, and angle independence.
Any resources/tips/pointers welcome.

[Kaotik]

Originally Posted by fellix

Hell, I say it is completely angle independent!

Yep, looks to be on par with S3, which was the only one with completely angle independent AF before

[fellix]

Well, to be honest, NV got (near) perfect AF implementation since G80 introduction, but R800 just hammered the last nail now. Both implementations are good enough for for the time being, though, nothing revolutionary, but it's good to finally close this chapter, regarding AF quality after so many years.

p.s.: NV will probably follow suite with GT300, just not to fall behind regarding this "check-box" feature, for the PR sake.

[Jawed]

Does D3D11 mandate this quality of filtering?

Jawed

[Silent_Buddha]

Meh, the new AF while technically a nice achievement won't mean anything for me in games. Couldn't tell the difference between R600 and G80 and I certainly won't be able to tell the difference between G80 and Rv870. :P

Regards,
SB

[Scali]

Originally Posted by Jawed

Does D3D11 mandate this quality of filtering?

Jawed

As far as I know, D3D11 doesn't have any more strict requirements than D3D10 did.

[fellix]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

Couldn't tell the difference between R600 and G80 and I certainly won't be able to tell the difference between G80 and Rv870.

Not without 400% zoom-in, of course.

[Arnold Beckenbauer]

Originally Posted by wishiknew

Is there anything about hdmi TrueHD/DTS-HD MA bitstreaming?

Isn't it a question of the right driver? I'm not sure, but you can get bitstreaming today if you rip your movie and play it with MPC HC (not sure, how ArcSoft TMT can handle this).

[AnarchX]

Originally Posted by fellix

Well, to be honest, NV got (near) perfect AF implementation since G80 introduction, but R800 just hammered the last nail now.

There is no information about quality concerning flickering, which was the problem of filtering on Radeons since R600 even AI was turned off.

[fellix]

That should be evaluated additionally within the game titles. Let's hope the AI set won't be so aggressive this time.

[ChrisRay]

The angle dependency is much less of an issue ((And has been since the X1900XT/G80)) than the inclusion of mipmap and LoD filters. That need to just go away. I' wouldnt shed a tear to see the "Trilinear Optimisation" mode go away. And just force HQ all the time. The performance you get from using is not even worth having it the control panel these days.

[Jawed]

Originally Posted by neliz

Please do, I want to hear Jawed drop from his comfortable horse-hair filled, silver lined, desk chair!

I "upgraded" from the bamboo cane chair I was using to a wooden, uncushioned, dining chair. The only seating related hair round here is hair shirt. Nice headphones, a nice 22" CRT monitor, my clacky IBM keyboard and classic Explorer 3 mouse are ample compensation though

Jawed

[air_ii]

Originally Posted by no-X

I admit, that I'm definetely not a financial expert, but tell me please, why Jen Hsun explained part of their loss by a huge stock of unsold GT200/65nm GPUs, if their costs aren't accounted?

I don't know, to be honest. Could be overheads, which normally are covered by the contribution margin you realise when you sell your stock.

[Jawed]

Originally Posted by elsence

There are games (very few for now) that will show a hit even in 1280X1024.
For example Far Cry 2.
The 1GB ver is 10%-15% faster than the 512MB ver in 1280X1024
15%-20% faster than the 512MB ver in 1680X1050
20-25% faster than the 512MB ver in 1920X1200

The above are average fps.

The real problem are the minimum fps. (the difference is way higher than in the average fps)
(the low minimum fps are making the games feel much slower than what the average fps suggest...)

Clearly I'm out of touch. Bit embarrassing really. I was actually planning on buying the 2GB HD5870 (even though I hate the cooler, damn it's yucky and despite the fact the performance is worryingly low), but that's because I always buy "excess" memory.

The thing that gets me about the performance of HD5870 is that it appears AMD is basically saying "that's it, we're bandwidth limited and GDDR5 won't go much, if any, faster".

This is a dangerous point because I strongly believe Larrabee is considerably more bandwidth efficient. So, either R900 is a total rethink in the Larrabee direction or AMD's fucked in 18 months. I don't care how big Larrabee is (whatever version it'll be on), I want twice HD5870 performance by the end of 2010. The dumb forward-rendering GPUs are on their last gasp if memory bandwidth is going nowhere.

Of course if AMD can make a non-AFR multi-chip card that doesn't use 2x the memory for 1x the effective memory, then I'm willing to be a bit more patient and optimistic.

Jawed