NVIDIA Maxwell Speculation Thread

[Ailuros]

40 and 28nm.
Though to be fair, 28nm bickering was probably due to their reluctance to sign a long term contract with TSMC.

...and this time? (yes it's a completely honest question).

 

[DmitryKo]

http://techreport.com/news/26210/directx-12-will-also-add-new-features-for-next-gen-gpus So far, Microsoft has mentioned only two DX12 features that will need new hardware: new blend modes and something called conservative rasterization, which can apparently help with object culling and hit detection. Neither of those additions sounds hugely groundbreaking, but as Tamasi hinted, they may just be the tip of the iceberg.

But does "conservative rasterisation" really require new hardware?

From what I understand, this can be implemented at the driver level in the current architectures, since the GPU is basically a general-purpose many-cores wavefront processor where the driver handles the native code that runs on the wavefronts. You would need to alter the algorithms for rasterisation or setup, but it doesn't require new instruction for operand swizzle, more physical registers or vritual memory descriptor tables, as in other level 11_1 features. You just get slightly different pixels when you pass a hint to the driver. Am I getting it right?

 

[DSC]

New in GeForce 337.50 Beta drivers

Performance - Introduces key DirectX optimizations which result in reduced game-loading times and significant performance increases across a wide variety of games. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration. Here are some examples of measured gains versus the previous 335.23 WHQL driver:


GeForce GTX 700 Series (Single GPU):

Up to 64% in Total War: Rome II
Up to 25% in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Up to 23% in Sleeping Dogs
Up to 21% in Star Swarm
Up to 15% in Batman: Arkham Origins
Up to 10% in Metro: Last Light
Up to 8% in Hitman Absolution
Up to 7% in Sniper Elite V2
Up to 6% in Tomb Raider
Up to 6% in F1 2013

Can't wait, drivers available on Monday April 7th.

 

[swaaye]

Wow that Rome II result is something else!

 

[pjbliverpool]

Awesome! I'm playing Skyrim atm. Will definitely be giving this a good try.

 

[silent_guy]

Skyrim??! WTH. You'd think that a 3yo popular game would have been optimized like crazy by now. Related to their earlier claimed DX11 efficiency improvements?

(Where's that announcement?)

 

[DSC]

Yeah, it's related to the DX11 efficiency & performance improvements.

 

[DavidGraham]

Yeah, it's related to the DX11 efficiency & performance improvements.

Then where is the Thief numbers?

 

[DSC]

http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/74636 (File downloads does not work, no files available)

Star Swarm is there, no idea about Thief.

 

[swaaye]

Skyrim is D3D9....

 

[Wynix]

Is this image meant to be a joke?

 

[entity279]

Wow that first graph is totally unreadable. But hey my lines are higher than yours.

 

[lanek]

Skyrim??! WTH. You'd think that a 3yo popular game would have been optimized like crazy by now. Related to their earlier claimed DX11 efficiency improvements?

(Where's that announcement?)

I dont know, maybe not that much, but maybe for a part ( total rome is maybe more a bug fix under certain condition ( AA or resolution )..

lets wait tomorrow.

 

[pharma]

Additional info regarding 337.50 driver has greater gains in Multi-GPU setups:

Now this will be a DirectX optimized driver, well CPU overhead lowering driver so to say. So make no mistake and do not confuse it with the DX12 release versus low-level API access.

Nvidia listed a bunch of games in the driver release, all CPU limited titles. The driver should help out SLI users though,where CPU limitation is a more common thing...

In Multi GPU mode the performance increases as such should be more substantial. Here's an overview of what you may expect tomorrow with the driver release:

What’s New in Version 337.50

Performance
Introduces key DirectX optimizations which result in reduced game-loading times and significant performance increases across a wide variety of games. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration. Here are some examples of measured gains versus the previous 335.23 WHQL driver:

GeForce GTX 700 Series (Single GPU):

• Up to 64% in Total War: Rome II
• Up to 25% in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• Up to 23% in Sleeping Dogs
• Up to 21% in Star Swarm
• Up to 15% in Batman: Arkham Origins
• Up to 10% in Metro: Last Light
• Up to 8% in Hitman Absolution
• Up to 7% in Sniper Elite V2
• Up to 6% in Tomb Raider
• Up to 6% in F1 2013

GeForce GTX 700 Series (SLI):

• Up to 71% in Total War: Rome II
• Up to 53% in Sniper Elite V2
• Up to 45% in Aliens vs. Predator
• Up to 31% in Sleeping Dogs
• Up to 20% in CoD: Black Ops 2
• Up to 10% in Hitman Absolution
• Up to 9% in F1 2013
• Up to 7% in Far Cry 3
• Up to 6% in Metro: Last Light
• Up to 6% in Batman: Arkham Origin

Additional Details:
Installs new PhysX System Software
Installs HD Audio
Installs GeForce Experience


DriverVer:

• Driver 337.50 is
• Driver 335.23 is r334_89-21, DriverVer = 03/04/2014, 9.18.13.3523
• Driver 334.95 is r334_89-2, DriverVer = 02/13/2014, 9.18.13.3495
• Driver 334.89 is r334_00-150, DriverVer = 02/08/2014, 9.18.13.3489
• Driver 334.67 is r334_00-113, DriverVer = 01/15/2014, 9.18.13.3467
• Driver 332.21 is r331_82-6, DriverVer = 12/19/2013, 9.18.13.3221

http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/nvidia_geforce_337_50_beta_released_on_monday.html

 

[DSC]

Linux drivers 337.10 to be released tomorrow mentions GeForce 845M support. I believe it's also a Maxwell GM108 GPU.

 

[DSC]

http://videocardz.com/50183/nvidias-geforce-337-50-driver-launches-today-expect

 

[DSC]

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/nvidia-geforce-337-50-beta-performance-driver

 

[Albuquerque]

I'm hoping a reviewer with a proper understanding of the technology can do a proper OS-level inspection of where NV has made the changes. Are they sending more work to more CPU cores? Are the big improvements assuming big CPU's to help? OR is it truly an efficiency gain, and if so, why did it take this long to find that improvement?

I mean, this sort of driver revelation two years ago would've been slaughter to AMD's hopes with the 7000 series.

 

[A1xLLcqAgt0qc2RyMz0y]

Some initial testing of the 337.50 driver

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-geforce-337.50-driver-benchmarks,26473.html

 

[pharma]

Some initial SLI results:
http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/geforce_337_50_beta_sli_performance_benchmarks.html

Basically this driver is GOLDEN for high-end SLI setups like the GeForce GTX 780 Ti. And it will be exactly that card setup that media will use in their benchmarks against that 295x2. The driver really works well, and hats off to Nvidia for tackling this problem so fast.

Interestingly enough, this optimization could also really work well with some slower AMD processors versus powerful graphics cards.

[/QUOTE]

As with 337.50 Beta’s single-GPU DirectX 11 optimizations, CPU overhead reductions apply globally, benefitting the majority of DirectX 9, DirectX 10, and DirectX 11 games the instant they go on sale. Per-game optimizations will continue to be developed before and after a game’s release, but now every game can potentially see an immediate boost.

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/nvidia-geforce-337-50-beta-performance-driver