Unreal Engine 3 on R420 at GDC

[Bjorn]

If it was a 9800XT I'm definitely not going to get a NV40. I'll stick with my 9800 PRO

Yeah, that would make the 9800 XT, ok, let's say 5X faster then the NV40 then. Which would make the NV40 what, 2X slower then the NV30 ?

It gets better and better.

 

[991060]

I definitely asked...

That's an explaination, maybe you are right.

But if I was the PR manager from nVIDIA, I would not let Epic demo the UE3 on NV40 in the first place if there was such big differences...

I would not pay to demo my baby at 5 FPS, let alone in the same room with a card runs 5X faster. Man, I just think it's ridiculous.

 

[PatrickL]

Well with dave cryptic post, may we think that R420 will at least not need a very exotic cooling solution to work fine ?

 

[SpellSinger]

Yeah, that would make the 9800 XT, ok, let's say 5X faster then the NV40 then. Which would make the NV40 what, 2X slower then the NV30 ?

It gets better and better.

Pretty cool how you can get 5X out of one card runs choppy and the other runs smooth. You're amazing dude!!!

 

[SpellSinger]

Well with dave cryptic post, may we think that R420 will at least not need a very exotic cooling solution to work fine ?

Yep. Thanks for clearing that one up

 

[PaulS]

Yeah, that would make the 9800 XT, ok, let's say 5X faster then the NV40 then. Which would make the NV40 what, 2X slower then the NV30 ?

It gets better and better.

Pretty cool how you can get 5X out of one card runs choppy and the other runs smooth. You're amazing dude!!!

You guesstimated one was running at 5-10fps, the other at 30fps at a much higher resolution. So yeah.

 

[Evanescence]

@ SpellSinger

Excuse me, nothing against you, but I believe your information no word. Either the Epic guy has said something wrong or you have understood something wrong.

16x1 vs 12x1 by 5x faster ? ...

The details in the models was much higher and it was very smooth

All details without Shaders 3.0 ? ....

 

[PatrickL]

16x1 and 12x1 are just rumors, not facts ya know

 

[991060]

I'm thinking maybe Epic was using PS3.0 for NV40 and PS2.0(2.b?) for R420, and nVIDIA just had a bad implementation for dynamic branching.
We all know there're many methods to do dynamic branching and the performances can vary a lot.

 

[SpellSinger]

Actually I never said 30FPS. It was smoother running. Please go back and read again. No worrys mate!

 

[SpellSinger]

I'm thinking maybe Epic was using PS3.0 for NV40 and PS2.0(2.b?) for R420, and nVIDIA just had a bad implementation for dynamic branching.
We all know there're many methods to do dynamic branching and the performances can vary a lot.

Could be. Both ATI and NV will have lots of time to optimize and probably had very little time before GDC. It was cool to see both in action.

 

[vogel]

The below is not accurate.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

It looked like they were showing NV40 at 640x480 and it was very choppy with very low detail.

I was very impressed with R420 as it was obviously running with a much higher framerate and at 1024x768 or higher.

 

[SpellSinger]

What resolution was the demo running at? Thanks!

 

[SpellSinger]

And GREAT job on the engine. It rocks!!

 

[tEd]

The below is not accurate.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

It looked like they were showing NV40 at 640x480 and it was very choppy with very low detail.

I was very impressed with R420 as it was obviously running with a much higher framerate and at 1024x768 or higher.

feel free to make it accurate

 

[PaulS]

Actually I never said 30FPS. It was smoother running. Please go back and read again. No worrys mate!

Fair enough, you didn't say 30fps. You said it was running very smoothly, which - to me - indicates around 30fps. Very smooth certainly wouldn't be <25fps.

But i'll let it slide in light of the confirmation that the main part of your report was inaccurate.

 

[PatrickL]

Epic ran the demonstration on a system with a 2GHz CPU from AMD using next-generation hardware from Nvidia. Even with that powerful silicon, the demonstration struggled at times.

from http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/03/24/news_6092217.html

So it seems some others noticed it was not very smooth.

 

[SpellSinger]

Actually I never said 30FPS. It was smoother running. Please go back and read again. No worrys mate!

Fair enough, you didn't say 30fps. You said it was running very smoothly, which - to me - indicates around 30fps. Very smooth certainly wouldn't be <25fps.

But i'll let it slide in light of the confirmation that the main part of your report was inaccurate.

Sorry I wasn't aware of this standard. I'll keep it in mind the next time I post and didn't mean to cause a problem for you. I'm not so sure it was an inaccurate observation.

 

[PaulS]

Epic ran the demonstration on a system with a 2GHz CPU from AMD using next-generation hardware from Nvidia. Even with that powerful silicon, the demonstration struggled at times.

from http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/03/24/news_6092217.html

So it seems some others noticed it was not very smooth.

I can fully believe it was choppy on NV40 - what I can't believe is that ATi had a part there which was faster by several degrees throughout, even at a higher resolution and more detail. Especially since the engine is looking at these cards as the minimum spec - not something you'd expect to run it at 1024x768 "very smoothly".

 

[PatrickL]

Well i bet Daniel will tell us the resolutions? it should not be a secret as i guess a lot of guys seeing theses demos could tell us the resolutions in a heartbeat.