GoForce 3D 4500 @CES

[Shogmaster]

I talked briefly with an nVidia engineer @ CES about the GoForce 3D 4500. I tried my best to not sound like an idiot artist trying to talk tech. Anyways, some info:

- Ground up IP focusing on ultra low power consumption. Not old GPU design on a shrunken process (dig @ MBX maybe?). The same basic power conservation tech will be incorporated into desktop GPU lines in the future (along the lines of Cool n Quiet for A64?).

- Chip can clock dynamically as well as turn on and off transistors as needed.

- Concept to final silicon delivered in approx 2 years.

- Right now the 4500 on the Gizmondo pre-pros are running around 67Mhz, but they are expecting the final units to be around 72~75Mhz.

- Transform in hardware, but no lighting = confirmed.

- Actual hardware achieved ~900K triangles per second in rendering benchmarks. Expect much less in actual games.

- Supersampling FSAA is supported, but not enough bandwidth to do supersampling in game and maintain decent performance.

- 280KB (?) of embedded RAM for frame buffer. Can stream textures from main system RAM, but the bus is only 16bit, so not really practical.

- Expects primary application for the chip to be smart/multi-media enabled cell phones.

- Product refresh cycle tied in with cell phone cycle: i.e. Do not expect anything near desktop GPU cycle of 6~9 months. 12+ month cycles of cell phone manufacturers are to be followed by nVidia for the GoForce 3D line.

 

[kyetech]

Cool,

Thanks for the info run down. Nice to read somthing quick and simple. I havent gone out my way to know about this chip.

 

[Dave Baumann]

- Supersampling FSAA is supported, but not enough bandwidth to do supersampling in game and maintain decent performance.

Sounds like they didn't decided to go tilng then.

 

[Nappe1]

280 KB for frame buffer sounds very little.
(320x240x16bpp single buffered would mean half of that even without z-buffer...)

 

[swaaye]

Sorta disappointing really.... isn't the 4500 the top of their hill too?

 

[Shogmaster]

- Supersampling FSAA is supported, but not enough bandwidth to do supersampling in game and maintain decent performance.

Sounds like they didn't decided to go tilng then.

I didn't know anyone thought the GoForce 3D was anything but a
tranditional renderer.

280 KB for frame buffer sounds very little.
(320x240x16bpp single buffered would mean half of that even without z-buffer...)

I'm pretty sure I remember that right, although, noisy hall and all, could have misheard it. No, I'm sure he said 280.

BTW, the games and demoes for the Gizmondo and the 3D 4500 they had there sure seemed like it too. Really low res textures, and nothing running beyond 16 bit color. All choppy, all low res, all disappointing.

Sorta disappointing really.... isn't the 4500 the top of their hill too?

I asked him if there all gonna be any other variations and he said there is only gonna be just one configuartion and that's the same one that's in the Giz. No higher frame buffer version, nor higher clock version, nor higher feature version planned until the next product refresh that 1+ year away at least.

 

[Ailuros]

I didn't know anyone thought the GoForce 3D was anything but a
tranditional renderer.

"Traditional renderers" in the PC desktop market employ "tiling" for eons now. I think that's what Wavey was refering to. The real difference would be whether it's an immediate mode or deferred renderer.

Falanx' Mali100 is in any case tile based, I've just no idea if it's a pure deferred renderer or not. I could think that it actually is, since it seems to be capable of "free" single cycle 4xRGMS.

Not old GPU design on a shrunken process (dig @ MBX maybe?).

Even if it's a dig at MBX, it shouldn't be true. MBX is IMHO closer related to shelved past designs, than KYRO/Series3 (but could be wrong of course). AR10 doesn't sound to me quite frankly to adopt a lot from the "GeForce" family either, rather more from the TNT era.

Highly interesting info thanks.

 

[Shogmaster]

"Traditional renderers" in the PC desktop market employ "tiling" for eons now. I think that's what Wavey was refering to. The real difference would be whether it's an immediate mode or deferred renderer.

Aha! Thanks. See what I meant in the first post of the thread?

Even if it's a dig at MBX, it shouldn't be true. MBX is IMHO closer related to shelved past designs, than KYRO/Series3 (but could be wrong of course). AR10 doesn't sound to me quite frankly to adopt a lot from the "GeForce" family either, rather more from the TNT era.

Well, the thing is, None of the games/demoes look even half as good as TNT stuff that I remember. Seriously. I'm not trying to be cute. I think in pursuit of the ultra low power consumption, they might have aimed too low for IQ and performance.

Highly interesting info thanks.

No prob.

 

[Nappe1]

Well, the thing is, None of the games/demoes look even half as good as TNT stuff that I remember. Seriously. I'm not trying to be cute. I think in pursuit of the ultra low power consumption, they might have aimed too low for IQ and performance.

interesting. Demos that Bitboys showed in August (already) about G40 possibilities were definately in level of Voodoo 2 / TNT at very least. And if we look at the paper specs, G40, Mali100 and MBX are way beyond the nVidia's offering. G40 and Mali100 being the latest generation, MBX being previous one. (not trying to offend here. I think it's better put this way than claiming that MBX is same generation and not just as good as the others. )

thanks for the information, this is going to be interesting to see, how much nVidia has influence as a name. Their hw doesn't seem to be that great in this section.

 

[Kristof]

I'd suggest reading this article about Gizmondo and NVIDIAs 3D Hardware:

http://gear.ign.com/articles/578/578442p3.html

I'll professionally ignore Nappe1

K-

 

[Shogmaster]

I'd suggest reading this article about Gizmondo and NVIDIAs 3D Hardware:

http://gear.ign.com/articles/578/578442p3.html

I'll professionally ignore Nappe1

K-

That article is a bit too generous about the demos. Colors had bloom effects? Character models were detailed?!? Gee, that's interesting.... All I saw was badly done street lights and gun flashes with gouraud shading and characters made up of rectagular boxes for torsos. See the video for yourself for amusement.

 

[Nappe1]

I'd suggest reading this article about Gizmondo and NVIDIAs 3D Hardware:

http://gear.ign.com/articles/578/578442p3.html

I'll professionally ignore Nappe1

K-

not a bad decision. After all, though our opinions will most likely collide in certain topics, I still see both watching the situation at least partly from same point of view.

(fact still is that G40 goes much further in many things than MBX, but it is also newer design too. Still waiting to see what PowerVR has to offer next. I just can't believe that your R&D wouldn't being doing next generation development lately.)

 

[RandPC]

At least from the basic specifications you've listed I have a hard time believing the GoForce 3D 4500 will be able to offer much beyond Voodoo1 level visuals, hardly very 9impressive given Bitboys has already put out demos far better then that.

 

[Ailuros]

I just can't believe that your R&D wouldn't being doing next generation development lately.

Some indications in past AGM statements/results, spoke of a single highly programmable IP sollution in order to obviously get rid of the multiple IP sollutions for different tasks. Currently there's MBX, an optional VGP, multiple multimedia related IP cores etc etc.

I wouldn't expect anything higher than SM2.0-whatever quite frankly, but any kind of experiences with even more advanced shaders might help for easier integration of much lower and less demanding functionalities.

 

[SiBoy]

interesting. Demos that Bitboys showed in August (already) about G40 possibilities were definately in level of Voodoo 2 / TNT at very least. And if we look at the paper specs, G40, Mali100 and MBX are way beyond the nVidia's offering. G40 and Mali100 being the latest generation, MBX being previous one. (not trying to offend here. I think it's better put this way than claiming that MBX is same generation and not just as good as the others. )

thanks for the information, this is going to be interesting to see, how much nVidia has influence as a name. Their hw doesn't seem to be that great in this section.

Comparing on the basis of paper specs isn't that meaningful, especially with respect to IP cores. The real proof is how the core performs in a real product (i.e. what clock rate they achieve vs. the 200/400/500 MHz claimed on the IP core datasheet) with a real memory subsystem, etc. Even Nvidia claims their "engine" can go to 500 MHz, but here you see the Gizmondo device clocking it at ~75 MHz.

Most of the design wins for the IP cores will go into SoC's with a unified memory architecture. There's a big difference between performing well in this scenario versus in a stand-alone GoForce/Imageon kind of chip with a dedicated memory. Likewise for how the IP core performs on an FPGA eval board with an unrealistic memory interface. Makes for a nice demo but...

It would be interesting to see the Dell Axim versus this Gizmondo thing. At least they're real devices.

 

[Nappe1]

interesting. Demos that Bitboys showed in August (already) about G40 possibilities were definately in level of Voodoo 2 / TNT at very least. And if we look at the paper specs, G40, Mali100 and MBX are way beyond the nVidia's offering. G40 and Mali100 being the latest generation, MBX being previous one. (not trying to offend here. I think it's better put this way than claiming that MBX is same generation and not just as good as the others. )

thanks for the information, this is going to be interesting to see, how much nVidia has influence as a name. Their hw doesn't seem to be that great in this section.

Comparing on the basis of paper specs isn't that meaningful, especially with respect to IP cores. The real proof is how the core performs in a real product (i.e. what clock rate they achieve vs. the 200/400/500 MHz claimed on the IP core datasheet) with a real memory subsystem, etc. Even Nvidia claims their "engine" can go to 500 MHz, but here you see the Gizmondo device clocking it at ~75 MHz.

Most of the design wins for the IP cores will go into SoC's with a unified memory architecture. There's a big difference between performing well in this scenario versus in a stand-alone GoForce/Imageon kind of chip with a dedicated memory. Likewise for how the IP core performs on an FPGA eval board with an unrealistic memory interface. Makes for a nice demo but...

It would be interesting to see the Dell Axim versus this Gizmondo thing. At least they're real devices.

Dell Axim versus Gizmondo versus LG's 3D Phone using w2320.

It is completely true that paper specs are just paper specs. Still, paper specs are the thing which makes the company even start to thinking evaluating the core lisence. As in this market space, you really buy promises about how the core will eventually perform when embbedded in particular system. So, if your specs and core features are already lower than the others in competition, it won't be a big attraction builder. And without attraction, there's no customers, which again means no license sells.

As much as I would want to comment about Bitboys offerings being available as hw implementation, I just can't. I know there's at least few prototype phones using some of the available cores, but officially there hasn't been any comment on this either from the lisence holders nor Bitboys themselves. Based on recent things I keep hearing, I don't have any reason to believe, that we wouldn't see G3x or G40 core based device sooner or later. and when it is released, does it advertize being phone using Bitboys designed 3D core, is really different thing. (boys have a long path go thru and clean up their reputation. No matter whose fault the bad reputation eventually was.)

 

[SiBoy]

It is completely true that paper specs are just paper specs. Still, paper specs are the thing which makes the company even start to thinking evaluating the core lisence. As in this market space, you really buy promises about how the core will eventually perform when embbedded in particular system. So, if your specs and core features are already lower than the others in competition, it won't be a big attraction builder. And without attraction, there's no customers, which again means no license sells.

You have a very idealistic view of how IP licensing works

Credibility, track record and support play a much bigger role than the paper spec.

 

[Ailuros]

Credibility, track record and support play a much bigger role than the paper spec.

True; one reason why I expect NVIDIA for instance to accelerate in the "next round" considering that market.