Only if the application uses more than 256MB of data would 512MB be of help. It doesn't really matter much what the shader and fillrate power of the card are (though those things do help it to run at higher resolutions with higher degrees of FSAA, which can require more memory...but the problem is that today you can run at the highest of resolutions available with FSAA without issue with 256MB, for the most part).The Baron said:
Anand has the details about r520,rv530,rv515
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Jawed
Legend
What you're referring to, I believe, is the hierarchical-Z buffer. On R420 and NV40 it's optimised for upto 2MP screen resolutions.geo said:
G70 is optimised for upto 3MP (or is it 4MP?) resolutions.
512MB helps HL-2:
http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/sapphire/512/index.php?p=12
even at only 1600x1200 6xAA.
What's interesting about R520 is that 8xAA could well take less RAM than 6xAA on older cards:
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=562592&postcount=1425
Though I should caution that I haven't got a conclusive description of the memory footprint of either R420 AA or R520 AA.
Jawed
From what I understand, this was because the NV4x did the FSAA sample averaging at scanout. This requires the front buffer to be of the same size as the back buffer, which means a lot more framebuffer memory storage space. The main benefit is that there is no buffer copying required at swap.trinibwoy said:
So, as the resolution climbed, one of two things happened:
1. The card ran out of texture memory, forcing more memory to be stored in system RAM, lowering the framerate earlier than with ATI hardware.
2. The card would start to do the downsampling at buffer swap, to reduce the memory footprint of the framebuffer. This would disable the above optimization and thus decrease the framerate.
Jawed
Legend
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21639John Reynolds said:
But, in general, R420 does seem better than NV40 at resolutions greater than 1600x1200. It's just that G70 is in a different league.
Jawed
Jawed said:
And if it does, is one allowed to hope there might be a 12xAA as well (3 loops of 4, mebbe?)?
And just for the record, I really haven't heard nor seen even the merest whisper or hint on what they've done in this area that I would call even semi-reliable.
I know that with R300/R420 the die used for the on-chip Heir-Z, su the quantity of space it had directly scales with the number of quads. This may be the same with NV4x, so with the extra two quads on G70 there is even more on-chip space for ZCULL.
Jawed said:
That's what I was angling at, that the R420 outperforms NV40 at high resolutions. Obviously no one's expecting a X800/850 to outperform a G70-based board at high resolutions.
I'm definitely hoping for something really new, AA-wise, from R520. NVIDIA has never been much of a leader when it comes to good, across-the-board anti-aliasing.
Good performance at high reslolutions tends to be a tradition with Ati and I think companies like to try and keep their traditions alive if possible.
I have to confess that I am not one of these people who has to have high AA in games, I find I only notice it when stopping and staring which I don't often do. When it comes to comparing Ati to nvidia you have to look at web sites with their 400% mag pictures, the mere fact that they often blow up edges to this level I think tells you something. The only AA I have been impressed with is the nvidia AA for chainlink fences etc which makes a nice obvious improvement. I must say I cannot stick crap AF though, the more of that the better.
Personally I think it's time we turned away from more and more AA and instead insisted upon more special effects. I'd rather have HDR ( done properly ) with no AA than no HDR with loads of AA. Far Cry's HDR was not perfect but you could see the potential, say for a mutant to be hiding in a darker part of the room while being hidden by a shaft of light ( as a made up example) . This far better for game play than some nice smooth edges IMO.
We're all different though on what we want though
I have to confess that I am not one of these people who has to have high AA in games, I find I only notice it when stopping and staring which I don't often do. When it comes to comparing Ati to nvidia you have to look at web sites with their 400% mag pictures, the mere fact that they often blow up edges to this level I think tells you something. The only AA I have been impressed with is the nvidia AA for chainlink fences etc which makes a nice obvious improvement. I must say I cannot stick crap AF though, the more of that the better.
Personally I think it's time we turned away from more and more AA and instead insisted upon more special effects. I'd rather have HDR ( done properly ) with no AA than no HDR with loads of AA. Far Cry's HDR was not perfect but you could see the potential, say for a mutant to be hiding in a darker part of the room while being hidden by a shaft of light ( as a made up example) . This far better for game play than some nice smooth edges IMO.
We're all different though on what we want though
Cartoon Corpse
Veteran
WRONG! (lol)
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dizietsma said:
What you're suggesting is largely up to developers. I'm not disagreeing with you, though after the past five years I'm not about to step back from good AA in the games I play.
I seriously enjoy my AA and even more so my AF. To me, AF is one of the single greatest image quality improvments possible, the massive IQ I notice going to 8xAF or higher is very impressive to me, and I do love it. AA also is great when playing lots of online games with lots of jaggies when scoping (CS:S when awping for example).
AVIVO is going to ROCK for me. Not only will I be buying one of these cards (mid range X1600 most likely) for my HTPC system, but also maybe a high end one or two for my LAN and main rigs. Plus, this may finally give me an easy solution on doing HTPC systems (actually my current biggest market) for my small shop. The general public here is really starting to love the added features of having an HTPC.
AVIVO is going to ROCK for me. Not only will I be buying one of these cards (mid range X1600 most likely) for my HTPC system, but also maybe a high end one or two for my LAN and main rigs. Plus, this may finally give me an easy solution on doing HTPC systems (actually my current biggest market) for my small shop. The general public here is really starting to love the added features of having an HTPC.
Personally, I think Sony's VAIO (vie-oh) is the catchiest acronym. But AVIVO is probably pronounced ah-vee-vo, while VIIV is vie-v. AFAIK.dizietsma said:
This is an eye-opener, considering ATI's hit 500MHz with quite a few previous cores.ATI said:
Actually, studies show that too much choice intimidates consumers. The IHV's naming schemes don't help in the confusion department, either. The "help!" threads in other video forums is evidence of both.Aivansama said:
What's the British euphemism for "incorrigible tease?"Rys said:Which means the last remaining secret looks destined to stay that way until launch
Great, now I get to speculate whether that means the drivers aren't quite ready yet, or R520 has other, more attention-grabbing features.Dave Baumann said:
Rys, those are the same coolers found on X800s and X850s, no? Reviews said neither was especially quiet, IIRC. I hope they made 'em quieter, to match the GTX's. That single-slot cooler's tiny fan:heatsink area doesn't inspire confidence, though.
Hellbinder
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More attention grabbing features <---------------------
Jawed said:
Thanks Jawed. I can see at 1600x1200x6x16 512MB helps drastically. But I think 1600x1200x4x8 which has identical scores is good enough for me and I'd rather go for higher FPS than higher IQ at that point.
I just agree with Anand when he says that developers aren't going to push the textures higher to need 512MB for a long time. So if you dont want 1600x1200x6x16 is 512MB really going to help you between now and until the end of 2006?
The reason why I'm asking is it looks like the 7800GTX is going to come out ahead of the 1800XL. The only thing the ati part has going for it is the extra 512MB. I am trying to weight the value of the additional 256MB.
Jawed said:
For HL2 and all the multitude of alpha test textures I'd rather enable on a R520 whatever adaptive AA they have in store (with 4x sparsed) than "just" 6x or 8x plain MSAA. What good does it do me if I have a great antialiased poly edges/intersections and a large proportion of alpha test textures just flickers along in HL2?
geo said:
No you are not, or else you wouldn't have asked.
I hope yields are astronaumical (spelling?), because then my plan will come into fruition.
(ie: purchasing one (assuming it's better than a 7800)).Honestly though, I'm not to thrilled about AVIVO. It's just not doing it for me. I'm more interested in those features built into the motherboard, so you don't have to worry about upgrading your graphics cards and those side effects.
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