How will NVidia counter the release of HD5xxx?

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

What am I missing here? I thought by buying a nVidia card (and one of the best) you get a lot of visual extras and the card takes care of the math doing it? Then why does the fps tank? 285 is quite a capable card, no?

Looks like strange marketing to me; "Buy a PhysX card with lots of visual extras in games and get your fps halved at the same time". With fps nearly halfed, why couldn't these extras be run on the CPU and an AMD GPU instead?
Please explain as I feel very confused at the moment.

With DX10.1 wasn't the games (like Assassins Creed before a patch took it away) both looking better AND running faster?

Because the extra features of Physx still needs to run on your graphics card, reducing the amount of horsepower available for things like more frames.

It's all very well some people claiming "you don't need more than 60 fps because that's what the game is locked to", but you won't ever get to 60 fps if your card tanks because it can't do the physics calculations and the graphics calculations at the same time. So you need more horsepower in the form of a faster card.

This is where the current "Physx > All" marketing push from Nvidia falls down - they don't have cards fast enough to actually use Physx and keep a reasonable speed up, as shown by their one big Physx title, "Batman Arkham Asylum". Maybe in the next generation of Nvidia cards in the middle of next year.

With DX10.1 wasn't the games (like Assassins Creed before a patch took it away) both looking better AND running faster?

That allowed the devs to render more efficiently, thus your card was doing less work and so had more free processing time, allowing other effects, increased framerate or higher resolution. This is one of the advantages of the newer versions of DX10/11 and a matching graphics card.

 

[Ailuros]

Proves the point I made earlier though... Even current cards can get 60+ fps at very high resolutions.
The game is capped at 60 fps anyway, so what point is there in a faster AMD card?
It may be faster than the GTX285, but the GTX285 can already do 60+ fps at 2560 res with 8xMSAA and 16xAF. Where do you go from there?

I'd have to play the game first to reach a fair verdict, but with framerate cutting in half with physics at high it sounds more like a case to me where someone has simply overdone it with physics effects just that the last semi-blind bozo can notice a difference. If that should be the case it's a partial waste of resources which any developer could have invested elsewhere.

 

[Sxotty]

*note to self,
dont tell jokes to chrisray....

That is what emoticons are for And no I didn't think it was a joke either. It came off more as flamebait to me as well.

 

[Scali]

This is where the current "Physx > All" marketing push from Nvidia falls down - they don't have cards fast enough to actually use Physx and keep a reasonable speed up, as shown by their one big Physx title, "Batman Arkham Asylum". Maybe in the next generation of Nvidia cards in the middle of next year.

Firstly, 2560x1600 resolution is way higher than what most people use for gaming. Secondly, 8xMSAA is way higher than what most people use.
Thirdly, even at these extreme settings it still gives you an average of well over 30 fps, which qualifies as 'reaonable speed'.

Playing at more reasonable settings like 1920x1080 and with 4xMSAA, I'm sure the cards still manage to get 60+ fps. 'Not fast enough' is just pure rubbish.

Besides, when nVidia does release faster cards (which they inevitably will at some point), at least with PhysX you can put that extra horsepower to use, where otherwise your card will just be spinning its wheels at 60+ fps, but no additional effects.

 

[Sxotty]

The next person to use "you" or "your" in a post on this thread (after this one, of course) in the next ~24 hours gets a free one week vacation. This isn't RPSC. Members will discuss the issues relevant to the thread, not each other. Or else.

The next smart-aleck oneliner in the next ~24 hours gets a discount --just a one day vacation.

Why the "~"? Because if it is 24 hours and two minutes or something of that carefully not exactly announced duration, no forum-lawyering will avail in defense, s'welp me!

Ugh so now one must write everything in passive voice and use poor sentence structure .

 

[XMAN26]

They are working with what they've got, but it's never been the case before that they've had so little to work with.

Unfortunately whenever Nvidia is in that position, they tend to throw out what little honesty they have and seem to be happy to say whatever they need to say, even if it's lies and nonsense. It's one of the reasons I boycott their products. As a consumer I just don't trust them. I feel like I'm being treated like an idiot when I see things like that "Physx > All" PR statment, so I don't want to give them my money.

And if you think AMD/ATI doesn't do the same exact thing, well I'll leave it up to everyone to make that conclusion. Granted it may not be to the same scale, but they do do it. Maybe you should try ignoring/avoid reading anything Nvidia PR related then you wouldn't have to worry about it. I tend to ignore both sides PR garbage production centers and simply look for the "Proof in the pudding" articles for performance. It works out so much better that way.

 

[trinibwoy]

Firstly, 2560x1600 resolution is way higher than what most people use for gaming. Secondly, 8xMSAA is way higher than what most people use.
Thirdly, even at these extreme settings it still gives you an average of well over 30 fps, which qualifies as 'reaonable speed'.

No, no Scali. You don't get it. PhysX is now worthless unless you can run it at settings that 3% of the gaming population uses.

Besides, when nVidia does release faster cards (which they inevitably will at some point), at least with PhysX you can put that extra horsepower to use, where otherwise your card will just be spinning its wheels at 60+ fps, but no additional effects.

Yep, pretty much. But PhysX only has so much steam until DX11 games hit. And that is completely up to how the initial batch uses those DX11 effects. If it's another CoH Nvidia has nothing to worry about. But if AMD gets its own Batman before Nvidia gets its act together they'll have a hard time spinning.

 

[Pressure]

"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

 

[neliz]

We will get die shots of GT300.. but no one will tell if it works or not.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Granted it may not be to the same scale, but they do do it.

That's kind of where the point lies. Would you have someone pick the flowers, or plough up the meadow and build a swamp?

 

[Scali]

Yep, pretty much. But PhysX only has so much steam until DX11 games hit. And that is completely up to how the initial batch uses those DX11 effects. If it's another CoH Nvidia has nothing to worry about. But if AMD gets its own Batman before Nvidia gets its act together they'll have a hard time spinning.

I suppose the irony is that the new features in DX11 mainly allow you to render existing stuff faster, rather than doing new things to put that horsepower to work.
What will they do? Tessellate the heck out of everything on screen?

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Firstly, 2560x1600 resolution is way higher than what most people use for gaming. Secondly, 8xMSAA is way higher than what most people use.
Thirdly, even at these extreme settings it still gives you an average of well over 30 fps, which qualifies as 'reaonable speed'.

Playing at more reasonable settings like 1920x1080 and with 4xMSAA, I'm sure the cards still manage to get 60+ fps. 'Not fast enough' is just pure rubbish.

I thought we weren't allowed to decide what is "reasonable" for other people? Otherwise why not set the barrier even lower for convenience of the argument?

Certainly, given Nvidia's recent promotion of 120hz monitors, it might be considered that 60 fps is not fast enough by Nvidia themselves. Or is that Nvidia's marketing clashing depending what they are trying to sell at any given moment?

Besides, when nVidia does release faster cards (which they inevitably will at some point), at least with PhysX you can put that extra horsepower to use, where otherwise your card will just be spinning its wheels at 60+ fps, but no additional effects.

So you're saying we have to wait for Nvidia's next cards to be able to use Physx? I'll try to remember that if I'm playing DX11 Aliens Vs Predator this Christmas while spinning wheels and without Physx.

 

[XMAN26]

That's kind of where the point lies. Would you have someone pick the flowers, or plough up the meadow and build a swamp?

I'd rather they did niether and simply let their products speak forthemselves. But neither company can do this as both have mega-ego driven CEOs and other peeps in places that wont allow that to happen. Which is why I try to avoid the PR crap and look strickly for the performance numbers. Reviews hit, I always skip to the numbers, features and hand fed PR crap about the cards I ignore,show me the numbers.

 

[trinibwoy]

Tessellate the heck out of everything on screen?

They would have to in order to demonstrate any visual improvement. All the other stuff is doable in DX10, just less efficiently.

So you're saying we have to wait for Nvidia's next cards to be able to use Physx? I'll try to remember that if I'm playing DX11 Aliens Vs Predator this Christmas while spinning wheels and without Physx.

Lol, have you even seen Aliens vs Predator in action? How do you know you'll even want to play it? And PhysX is extremely playable in Batman today, the FUD is unnecessary.

 

[Scali]

I thought we weren't allowed to decide what is "reasonable" for other people? Otherwise why not set the barrier even lower for convenience of the argument?

I wasn't the one who brought up the argument of 'reasonable speed' in the first place.

So you're saying we have to wait for Nvidia's next cards to be able to use Physx? I'll try to remember that if I'm playing DX11 Aliens Vs Predator this Christmas while spinning wheels and without Physx.

No, I'm saying that current cards can run PhysX just fine on most configurations. In fact, it's not just me saying that, it seems that pretty much all reviewers so far agree that PhysX works fine, and adds value, even on current hardware.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Lol, have you even seen Aliens vs Predator in action? How do you know you'll even want to play it?

I've seen the movies! It's Aliens, versus, you know, Predators!

Apparently, we decided upstream that Youtube is all you need to promote stuff nowadays: "Look, bits of fluttering paper and flags! Must.. .kill... framerate!"

 

[flynn]

“Christmas by itself is not going be the defining reason to buy a new GPU. It will be one of the reasons. This is why Microsoft is in work with the industry to allow more freedom and more creativity in how you build holidays, which is always good, and the new features at Christmas are going to allow people to do that. But that no longer is the only reason, we believe, consumers would want to invest in Christmas,” explains Mr. Hara.

Is this meant to be some sort of joke? Is NV that desperate that they come up with this kind of BS?

 

[Ailuros]

They would have to in order to demonstrate any visual improvement. All the other stuff is doable in DX10, just less efficiently.

I don't think they'll overdo it as much as one would expect. If one ends up with a shitload of tiny triangles in a scene I'm not so sure one would want to use MSAA over that either. By the way "one" is the new hip word that replaces the forbidden one

 

[Scali]

They would have to in order to demonstrate any visual improvement. All the other stuff is doable in DX10, just less efficiently.

Yea, that's the point.
DX10 may be less efficient, but even current cards can run 60+ fps with maxed out settings in the latest games. So it's 'efficient enough'.
I think we're past the point of being able to milk the shaders for more per-pixel detail, more polygons and all. We already have per-pixel lighting, shadowing, realtime reflections, refractions, ambient occlusion and all that.
You could try to add more eyecandy and more detail, but are people even going to notice? With Crysis DX9 vs DX10 people mostly noticed the drop in framerate, the visual differences weren't apparent to most people until you took screenshots and compared side-by-side. I take that as a clear sign that the road of more visual detail is a dead end at this point.

 

[neliz]

But PhysX is doing just that right, more visual detail. It has no effect on gameplay and certainly, hanging a few banners around so certainly, a simpler version of the details added could've been done on CPU without halving the framerate.