chavvdarrr said:
question:
Why FM decided that no current generation card will be able to make 25 fps !? [...] personally i'd prefer NOT to be hit so hard in face "upgrade, upgrade, UPGRADE, UPGRADE"
I think previous 3DMs debuted similarly, with high-end cards scoring around 5k, but I wonder if this "low" performance is a clue as to how long until we can expect a DX10 3DM?
I wish Nick would have completely clarified FM's decision to exclude NV scores when AA is applied. Graphix and Mariner made the best posts most succinctly, so I'll just (re-)repeat for emphasis:
GraphiX said:
3DM06 AA Test:
X850 does run SM2.0 tests with AA -> SM2.0 score counting (because it cannot run SM3.0/HDR tests)
7800 does run SM2.0 Tests with AA -> No score counting (because it cannot run SM3.0/HDR tests)
1800 XT does run SM2.0 Tests with AA -> SM3.0 score counting (because it can run all tests)
Mariner said:
It strikes me that Futuremark's design decisions, however honestly conceived, penalise ATI's current high-end chip for not supporting Fetch4. On the other hand, the R5X0 series of chips are able to support AA + HDR, something no NVidia chip is able to do, yet these NVidia chips are not penalised in the same way.
We know that chips which don't support the required depth textures for the PS2.0 shadowing are forced into a relatively expensive shader workaround which is fine by me as Futuremark have decided 24-bit accuracy is required. On the other hand, if this is acceptable, why aren't chips which are not able to support AA + HDR also forced into a shader workaround?
[...]
This being the case, surely it would have been logical for Futuremark to include a shader workaround for SM3.0 cards unable to support AA + HDR which generates the AA in-engine - the technique recommended by NVidia's Chief Scientist?
Richteralan said:
Ok about CPU score. I understand CPU testing is essential. But I don't understand why CPU scores can influence the final 3DMark score in such a degree.
Can a dual-core CPU gives you better shader performance?
Can a dual-core CPU gives you HDR+AA?
Can a dual-core CPU gives you SM3.0?
While dual-core CPU IS influential in real game situations, but it won't be much influential as GPU does.
So just imagine one with fast CPU+6600GT get a 3DM06 scores higher than one with slower CPU+6800GT, I really can't and won't find a game is CPU limited in this way, now plus future.
I dunno, a slow CPU can probably hamper gameplay as much as a slow GPU. I'm of the opinion that framerate comes first, everything else second. One could argue whether DC will show as much of an improvement as SC, of course, but I think 360 and PS3 should make exploiting DC quite common--and possibly similar to fancy effects, if the majority of the PC market is SC and so the second core is just used for neat tricks like more boxes or boulders.
I'd like to see more testing done on Q4, considering how much of an improvement it sees with DCs. Specifically, we'd want to test without AA and preferably at 12x10, to more closely mimic 3DM's vision of future games.
As for the arguments over uniquely accelerated features, I think they should be held in check until we see
more benches using 3DM06's thoughtfully-included switches to disable "hardware" shadow mapping and FP filtering.
Hanner's limited (NV-only) testing does seem to suggest that ATI wasn't too silly to skip "fixed" FP16 filtering (Nick wasn't kidding when he said their SW fallback was "highly efficient"), though I'd like to see SS compares to examine IQ differences, if any. OTOH, NV's huge hits w/o HSM (25% on a 6800GT, 17% on a 7800GT) beg the question why FM couldn't have implemented a SW-based HDR AA workaround and considered it an equivalent situation?
Ah, FM says, but AA isn't part of their standard suite, just an option. Well, is HDR isn't part of SM3's standard suite? HSM? FP filtering? If the answer is that 3DM isn't a D3D test, but a gamer's test, then surely gamers use AA as (much as) they would fancy shadows, as an IQ enhancer?
I'm cool with most of the test. I think it's eminently fair to take advantage of HW features, as surely game devs would do the same. Only the (GF 6's and 7's lack of) AA score reporting puzzles me. Though we can calculate it by hand, we shouldn't have to, and forcing us to do so only diminishes the holistic "3DMarks" relevance.
