6800U + 512 MB of GDDR3 = larger use of 3D Textures ?

[Panajev2001a]

Do you think that having that much VRAM available to the GPU will encourage more developers to use 3D Textures in their games ?


Even thinking about having only 128 MB dedicated to store the 3D Textures out of the total of 512 MB ( I understand that they want better AA and they want to buffer more and more geometry in the VRAM to increase performance ) this means that we can still store quite a bit of stuff.

DirectX 8.0 VTC claims about 1:4 up to 1:8 of compression ratio for 3D Textures.

Let's go for 1:6 as a hopefully happy medium.

This means that a 256x256x256 texture at 32 bits would only take around 10.6 MB and we could store up to ~12 of them.

A 512x512x512 texture at 32 bits would take 85.3 MB and it could fit.

Could you dedicate like 256 MB of your 512 MB to 3D Textures then you would have space for three 512x512x512 textures or twenty-four 256x256x256 textures.

24 textures with each texture being 256x256x256 does not sound so bad.

 

[PatrickL]

Did i miss an announce with 6800U + 512 mo or are you messing with the ATI leaked slides ?

 

[PaulS]

Did i miss an announce with 6800U + 512 mo or are you messing with the ATI leaked slides ?

It was mentioned at one of the launch events, and in one of the reviews. Someone else can no doubt dig up a link.

 

[Evildeus]

Like this one?

When we consider that the density of GDDR-3 RAM is greater than the chips used on the NV35 boards and see that all 8 chips required for the 256MB are on the front of the board and none on the underside we can clearly see the board design has paved the way for 512MB variants for the future.

http://www.beyond3d.com/previews/nvidia/nv40/index.php?p=3

 

[Panajev2001a]

In the broadcast from the nVIDIA conference, they announced that they will come out with a 512 MB NV40 based card.

 

[Evildeus]

It should also help for high resolution plus AA enable (4/6 or 8*AA)

 

[Panajev2001a]

Well, 1600x1200 with 8xAA and 32 bps for both front and back buffers would only take ~118 MB of RAM and full-screen 24 bits Z-buffer and 8 bits Stencil-buffer would together only take ~15 MB of RAM.

The total goes about 132 MB of VRAM.

This would leave the GPU with 380 MB of VRAM left and this is not a small amount.

 

[nobie]

I think if and when 3d textures are used, they will be more like 16 cubed rather than 512 cubed. Most of the really cool uses for 3d textures don't need very high resolution.

 

[Sxotty]

I cannot beleive how much ram is going to be on video cards soon. I remember back in the day upgrading my system memory from 32MB to 128 and thinking I had the uber ram not to mention all the 8mb video cards...

 

[Tahir2]

I think 3D Textures is still a full generational leap away before being used extensively in hardware.

Edit: and software.

 

[Panajev2001a]

I think 3D Textures is still a full generational leap away before being used extensively in hardware.

Edit: and software.

Is the reason behind your statement related to performance concerns ?

 

[PatrickL]

When i read Dave preview, still having slides in mind, i thought it was a hint for fall refresh

 

[Tahir2]

That is not the main reason. 3D Textures in games will take longer to take off than other features like PS2.0/3.0 due to market penetration of cards that can handle it.

There is likely to be very few cards sold that have 512MB RAM and support 3D Textures to warrant a developer 'turning on' this feature in their games.

About performance itself... I have no idea but I expect performance in games (where other effects and general utilisation of the hardware will be running alongside the 3D Textures) to be rather crappy. I am just taking an educated guess here however.

It is the old chicken and egg story but in this case the current cards are not capable of laying an egg and no one wants eggs for breakfast in any case (i.e. not important).

All IMHO by the way - I would love to be proven wrong

 

[Megadrive1988]

Did i miss an announce with 6800U + 512 mo or are you messing with the ATI leaked slides ?

one of the main Nvidia guys launching the 6800 said there would be a 512 MB card in the summer.

 

[Malfunction]

Ummm... why don't you just watch the video for yourself? :?

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11608

Then go from there. It's a great video too of the whole 6800U launch event.

 

[Ostsol]

What do you guys think 3D textures will mostly be used for? Due to their size, I can't imagine that they'll see much use as colourmaps (unless they're procedurally generated). . .

 

[PatrickL]

The video of the launch can't help people like me who can barely read english but are totally lost with spoken english

 

[nobie]

The most obvious use is for rendering volumetric objects. You could have a 3d texture of an apple, cut away a slice and see the inside. Carmack has suggested they could be used as lightmaps for things like muzzle flashes. They can be useful in shaders as 3d lookup tables, Humus has made some demos using 3d textures.

edit: oops you're talking about likely uses, I would say a 3d lookup table is the most likely use in a game

 

[Reilly311]

can anyone estimate how much that 512 6800 will cost?

 

[Bad_Boy]

i posted this over at the hard forums...so ill just quote myself from there.

alright first i would like to say that the 6800 ultra is way more than i expected and for some reason i think we still havent seen its maximum power due to fresh drivers and early revisions of the card have only been benched.

so at the end of this month the 6800 ultra and non ultra will be out.
then the x800 se, pro, and xt.
then the 6800 ultra 512mb.

i was wondering what kind of benefits will this bring us? i mean alot of games might not be 256 filling yet but there has to be a reason why nvidia is even thinking about making a 512 version.

some games are known to fill up 128 rather easy and then store textures and space on the hard drive to save space for video ram. so say we have enough space for all space to be filled on video ram from a game...wouldnt it improve performance?

im thinking the 512 has to be a big overkill or just a look for the future of the 6 series cards. a while ago when 64mb + 128mb ram cards were the thrill, we thought 256mb cards were a overkill. now they actually help alot of games. we might not see the 512 diffrence in the next 3 months, but in 6-12 months later? if i spend alot of money for a video card i definately want it to last long with alot of features that wont just expire in the next 4-6 months.

call me a dumbass for even thinking about the 512mb cards but im just trying to make an investment last long.

i think im just going to wait until the x800XT (maybe 512mb also?) and the 6800 ultra 512mb is out, to make my final judgement off benchmarks and gaming news (to see if they will even hit 512mb yet) before i buy a card this year.

8)