Inquirer spreading R420 info

[Seiko]

No offense here but your viewpoint is extremely childish. Do cars get twice as fast every year? Of course not. Do people feel cheated because cars are not getting twice as fast every year? Of course not.
-FUDie

Fudie, I don't mind exchanging viewpoints and dicussions but please lets keep these replies civil? "Lines, like no offence, but you're being extremely childish' really don't belong in a forum of this calibre.

It started to worry me when both IHVs apparently had talks and agreed to slow the refesh cycles. Hmmm, very convenient.

What talks were these? You mean some rumored ones? Give me a break.
-FUDie

Again, it may have been a rumour but I had thought the likes of Dave had made comments on it? Apologies if that's wrong Dave. Irrespective of the rumour, cycles have slowed down.

ATI then shove the 8500 into the bottom section as opposed to a true DX9 card and the R3x series is tweaked over 18 months.

Buy what card works for you. Does it matter if it's DX8 or DX9? Not really. If the card meets your needs, who cares?
-FUDie

As a developer and gamer alike I'd like DX9 core parts on every level as soon as possible. Again, as a company it's not as easy as cost and margins kick in but from my blinked world, I'd like those margins to be trimmed at times and thus the gamer/development community to benifit as a whole.

Timelines like these are really going to hurt IMHO unless you can deliver a massive increase across all areas of the 3D cards arena, IQ, features and speed. As we've seen NV40 only delivers on two of the three and I suspect ATI will only deliver on one of the three. It's then a pain to see just how quickly Nvidia can react to bring out a proper refresh part when the chips are down. Just look at the 5700, much better than the 5600, is it a coincidence that Nvidia needed a competing midrange card, but hey, what happened to the idea of an 18 month cycle. If it suits them and the blasted shareholders a new card comes screaming down the line

Again, your view is very childish. First, the 5700 is the same as the 5600 just on a new process. Changing processes is relatively easy (i.e. doesn't require 18 months or more to do). Complete design of a new chip takes far longer (that's the 18+ months people are referring to).
-FUDie

From my reading the 5700 is a little more than a simple respin on a new process. With the additional units the 5700 caught up with the 9600Pro and makes quite a good contender for the mid range section. (Well I suppose that needs to be taken with a pinch of salt if shaders are to be mentioned). Is it a brand new core? In all honesty I wouldn't say it is but it certainly was more than a Mhz increase and marketing spin.

I know real world economics can't/don't work like this and I'm being extemely one sided and unrealistic to expect a flashy new core every 6-12 months but currently I do think the IHVs (ATI especially) are too concerned with their shareholders than thier consumers and have decided for themselves the pace we all should have to move at.

Since you obviously have no clue about what it takes to design and build a chip, why don't you just assume that ATI and NVIDIA are doing the best they can?
-FUDie

I'd first define just how much it takes to know as to whether or not someone has a "clue". The industry can be discussed on many different levels. Some expect, some not. Irrespective of that level I'd expect people on this forum to discuss (if they feel like) on a courteous and helpful manner.
As for ATi and Nvidia are doing the best they can I think you're being far too naive if you think ATI and Nvidia are doing the best they can equally for ALL from ALL perspectives. ATI and Nvidia are doing the best they can from their perspective and that includes making money above all else!

 

[Seiko]

Seiko, what good would DX9 do you in a 9200-level card, besides looking good on paper?

There's no need for name-calling. You're not respecting anyone by calling them a "pompous twit." And you're not respecting reality when someone can buy a "low-end" DX9 card in a $100 128MB 9600. I'm sorry, but if you're expecting decent speed in new games out of a $50 card, you're mistaken. Besides, anyone who can spend $50 on a video card can save up a few more months and pick up a $100 9600, or can cut out the middle-man and buy a used 4200 for less.

Pete, yes you're right I was ticked off yesterday having read at least 5 smartass one liners in various posts simply trying to belittle others opinions. I wouldn't mind if those replies where informative in anyway but dismissive one lines by those who are hardly industy experts ticks me off. Of course you'd think I'd be big enough to look the other way.

Anyway, Doomtrooper, apologies for the reponse, under a normal day I wouldn't have replied like that.

As for my expectations, yes I know I'm asking a lot infact I'd even go so far as to say I'm being unrealistic at this current moment in time. I appreciate the hardware vendors are finding it difficult but have we really come that far in the 5 years or so I've been following this industry?
It's probably just my lack of patience more than anything else but the sooner the base line platform shifts to DX9 the sooner we can expect to see the next level of programs and applications.

 

[UPO]

Now, I could see the f-buffer allowing unlimited texture instructions and 512 instructions, but I really don't see it offering 32 registers.

Not a problem - R3x0 already has 32 registers

 

[Doomtrooper]

Anyway, Doomtrooper, apologies for the reponse, under a normal day I wouldn't have replied like that.

No apology needed, you should look at the IBM/NV40 rumour thread though
Hey I want DX9 here through all price points, but there is too many Intel Extreme Graphics users out there that are happy with what they have

 

[KimB]

Now, I could see the f-buffer allowing unlimited texture instructions and 512 instructions, but I really don't see it offering 32 registers.

Not a problem - R3x0 already has 32 registers

Nope. Only 12. Just checked the caps on my Radeon 9700 Pro.

 

[GameCat]

ATIs implementation of ARB_fragment_program claims to support 32 native temporaries, which is about as close as you can get to registers in terms of OpenGL concepts. I don't really understand why they would do this if they didn't actually support 32 temporaries.

 

[Stryyder]

Now, I could see the f-buffer allowing unlimited texture instructions and 512 instructions, but I really don't see it offering 32 registers.

Not a problem - R3x0 already has 32 registers

Nope. Only 12. Just checked the caps on my Radeon 9700 Pro.

You can tell by physically looking at the boards???

 

[UPO]

Now, I could see the f-buffer allowing unlimited texture instructions and 512 instructions, but I really don't see it offering 32 registers.

Not a problem - R3x0 already has 32 registers

Nope. Only 12. Just checked the caps on my Radeon 9700 Pro.

Ati exposed 12 registers out of 32 avaliable. I remember sireric talking about it

 

[KimB]

You can tell by physically looking at the boards???

Not capacitors

DX9 capabilities, called "CAPS"

 

[KimB]

Ati exposed 12 registers out of 32 avaliable. I remember sireric talking about it

If 32 were actually available, they'd be exposed by now.

 

[Ichneumon]

Ati exposed 12 registers out of 32 avaliable. I remember sireric talking about it

If 32 were actually available, they'd be exposed by now.

They would would they....

 

[Stryyder]

Look here according to Xbit 9800 has

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/s3-deltachrome_3.html


Registers

Vertex

16 input registers,
16 temporary registers,
256 constant floating-point registers,
256 constant integer registers,
256 Boolean registers,
1 address register,
1 loops counter register,

8 output registers for texture coordinates,
1 fog color output register,
1 vertex position output register,
1 pixel size output register,
2 output registers for diffuse/mirror color component

Pixel

2 color registers,
32 constant registers,
8 texture coordinates registers,
16 TMU identification registers,
12 temporary registers,

4 resulting color registers,
1 resulting Z regist
Data representation formats


32bit floating-point

 

[AlphaWolf]

Ati exposed 12 registers out of 32 avaliable. I remember sireric talking about it

If 32 were actually available, they'd be exposed by now.

2) The R300 has 32 temporary registers in the vertex and pixel shaders (64 "total"). We currently "reveal" 12 in the pixel shader (not sure about vertex shader), following DX9 recommendations. We will raise that as caps bits allow or DX9 specs change.

 

[UPO]

Ati exposed 12 registers out of 32 avaliable. I remember sireric talking about it

If 32 were actually available, they'd be exposed by now.

I found it: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2148&start=3

 

[GameCat]

If it only has twelve registers, how can it handle 32 in OpenGL? Seems kind of strange to me. Besides, if they only had 12 registers, it would be perfectly legal to only expose 12 native temporaries in OpenGL, but they expose 32

 

[Johnny Rotten]

Ati exposed 12 registers out of 32 avaliable. I remember sireric talking about it

If 32 were actually available, they'd be exposed by now.

They would would they....

Can you explain why 20 registers would still not be exposed by ATI 18 months after the fact if they WERE available for developer use?

 

[FUDie]

Seiko, what good would DX9 do you in a 9200-level card, besides looking good on paper?

There's no need for name-calling. You're not respecting anyone by calling them a "pompous twit." And you're not respecting reality when someone can buy a "low-end" DX9 card in a $100 128MB 9600. I'm sorry, but if you're expecting decent speed in new games out of a $50 card, you're mistaken. Besides, anyone who can spend $50 on a video card can save up a few more months and pick up a $100 9600, or can cut out the middle-man and buy a used 4200 for less.

Pete, yes you're right I was ticked off yesterday having read at least 5 smartass one liners in various posts simply trying to belittle others opinions. I wouldn't mind if those replies where informative in anyway but dismissive one lines by those who are hardly industy experts ticks me off. Of course you'd think I'd be big enough to look the other way.

Funny thing is, you don't really know who is an "industry expert" and who is not, do you? Maybe some people who are "really-in-the-know" were replying. :shrug:

-FUDie

 

[Doomtrooper]

If 32 were actually available, they'd be exposed by now.

Wrong again, where is the Gong.

 

[FUDie]

One more comment.

As for my expectations, yes I know I'm asking a lot infact I'd even go so far as to say I'm being unrealistic at this current moment in time. I appreciate the hardware vendors are finding it difficult but have we really come that far in the 5 years or so I've been following this industry?
It's probably just my lack of patience more than anything else but the sooner the base line platform shifts to DX9 the sooner we can expect to see the next level of programs and applications.

Let's look at history a little. The TNT was released in 1998 if memory serves. The peak fillrate of the TNT was 160 million pixels per second. These pixels were of DX6 caliber (i.e. limited texture blending modes.) Now it's 2004 and the NV40 is here. The peak fillrate of the NV40 is 6400 million (colored) pixels per second. These pixels can be shaded with PS 3.0 programs in full 32-bit floating point. So we've come 35x in raw performance in 6 years and have much more flexibility to boot. Now can you can see why I called your viewpoints "childish"? Other vendors have had similar leaps in performance and quality (anyone recall the performance of ATI chips in the 1998 timeframe?).

Go ahead and whine about how "companies don't care about consumers and things haven't advanced fast enough", it's amusing. Maybe you should complain about how games aren't taking enough advantage of these new features. UT2004, for example, is still largely a DX7 game.

-FUDie

 

[karlotta]

One more comment.

As for my expectations, yes I know I'm asking a lot infact I'd even go so far as to say I'm being unrealistic at this current moment in time. I appreciate the hardware vendors are finding it difficult but have we really come that far in the 5 years or so I've been following this industry?
It's probably just my lack of patience more than anything else but the sooner the base line platform shifts to DX9 the sooner we can expect to see the next level of programs and applications.

Let's look at history a little. The TNT was released in 1998 if memory serves. The peak fillrate of the TNT was 160 million pixels per second. These pixels were of DX6 caliber (i.e. limited texture blending modes.) Now it's 2004 and the NV40 is here. The peak fillrate of the NV40 is 6400 million (colored) pixels per second. These pixels can be shaded with PS 3.0 programs in full 32-bit floating point. So we've come 35x in raw performance in 6 years and have much more flexibility to boot. Now can you can see why I called your viewpoints "childish"? Other vendors have had similar leaps in performance and quality (anyone recall the performance of ATI chips in the 1998 timeframe?).

Go ahead and whine about how "companies don't care about consumers and things haven't advanced fast enough", it's amusing. Maybe you should complain about how games aren't taking enough advantage of these new features. UT2004, for example, is still largely a DX7 game.

-FUDie