NV30 Update
- Thread starter CMKRNL
- Start date
Time to market pressures. Over the past few years NV haven't really had any, so they can afford to spend a little longer in house on software development. This time they do have those pressures.
I'm querying that one right now!
Joe DeFuria
Legend
That's what I'm saying: In five months, R300 will likely be less buggy than the NV30 at that time, and that's to be more or less expected.
I am NOT saying that NV30 will be more buggy at its release than R-300 is right now. One would expect a similar amount of "bugginess." (Maybe a bit more, a bit less, etc.)
That's my point. GeForce3 was released about 6 months before Radeon 8500. At the time of 8500's release, GeForce3 drivers were less buggy and more performance tuned than 8500's drivers. But at the time of GeForce3's release, the driver quality level was similar to 8500's at the time of it's own release.
So I suspect in 5-6 months time, ATI and nVidia camps will be switching roles again...ATI camp yelling about how "buggy" nVidia's drivers are, and how their dev team took a nose dive, and the nVidia camp will be saying "but ATI's drivers had more time to mature, of course nVidia's drivers are more buggy...just wait a few months...."
I don't know where this roadmap come from ( http://www.hwzone.it/html/zoom.php?id=3556&tabella=news&i=0) but if it's true it's not good at all for nVidia
Joe DeFuria
Legend
That's a good question, and one I have spoken about on this board previously. (I'll see if I can dig up my post...)
EDIT - Found it: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewt...storder=asc&highlight=leaked&start=49
But in short: in any review, I would use TWO sets of drivers (assuming they are different.)
1) The set that is officially supported by the board manufacturer.
2) The latest beta drivers available to the public either directly from the board manufacturer, or from the chip vendor.
Number 1 is the most important, but unfortunately gets the least attention. Presumably, these drivers should support the complete functionality of the board, including TV-OUT, etc.
It would also be interesting, though not necessary. to see any "leaked" (non publically available) drivers, if there is some claim of major marked performance increase, bug fix, or new feature implementation. However, using "leaked" drivers is not something I would use for overall testing and comparison: just brief and specific tests to validate any claims.
So in the case of these Dets, I would use them in a review (since they are publically available)...along with the official drivers from the board vendor.
Joe DeFuria said:
Maybe, but I can't seriously remember NVIDIA having any big problems with their drivers at any time. I've had a GF1-DDR, GF2-PRO, GF3, GF3-Ti200 and now Ti4200. Have used every Detonator since 5.** I think, long time ago
Sure the performance were not "there" when GF3 was released, but it worked fine.
Doomtrooper
Veteran
Bjorn said:
"I think that you are assuming that nvidia using their NV30 architecture can do this."(You should quote me in the full context, it just makes more sense. Thanks.) By suggesting that 110 million transistor count is possible at the .15micron process is available to all regardless of the chip design. In other words I gathered from your post that you were inferring that nvidia could do the nv30 at the .15micron process.
Bjorn said:
Now correct me here if I am wrong but you seem to imply that nvidia would be capable using their technology to build a 110 million transistor chip at the .15um process but without any sort of reference to say "look nvidia can do it as well" you are assuming IMHO. If I am reading this wrong then I apologize.
It really won't matter if the design carried less transistors all that matters is that its faster then the Radeon 9700 with stable drivers. The possibility of it having more or less transistors is a moot point really. re. Parhelia..
Doomtrooper said:
Sure there have been some game-specific problems but I have not experienced them myself. Most of those game-fixes is "Install the latest patch", or something similar. I always use the latest driver and the latest patch. Can't remember trying to run a game, and it doesnt work.
It is also pretty funny to read the "big" list of games they have fixes for. 29 games, most of them pretty old and not much played.
Joe DeFuria
Legend
Bjorn isn't assuming or inferring anything! You're reading too much into what he's saying.
If anything, he's exactly highlighting how ATI can be doing something that nvidia essentially claimed wasn't really possible. (Though basically, they have already). It's just that if NV30 comes in with LESS transistors than R-300, that's all the more ironic.
Joe DeFuria
Legend
And what exactly is the difference between that and just about every other new card release? There are always some game specific, reproducible problems, always some people "who have zero problems," usually some hardware conflicts / issues that need to be addressed (with either new video drivers or chipset drivers), and sometimes new features that need tweaking, enabling.
Doomtrooper
Veteran
Galilee said:
Does that make the problems with those games go away, or driver issues....as if they didn't exist during those cards era..bahhh.
It is also not supported anymore and is being hosted from Tweak3D vs. its own domain..www.geforcefaq.com
Which was a hot spot for my company when troublshooting issues with the AMD 750 chipset.
Well its no surprise really, ATi big breadwinner at the time they went into high-end 3dgpu's was in the laptop segment, a segment that requires efficency.
Nvidia's started out on the highend and worked their way into the mobile sector. In that sector Nvidia's mobile parts have been noticeably more consumptive and inefficent than ATi's parts.
So its no surprise to me that ATi was able to squeeze out this 8 pipeline beast on .15 while Nvidia had to resort to .13 to do the same.
ATi has more experience with efficent designs than Nvidia does.
Two reasons
1) No central major fan site for nV. Yea you have nVnews/3dgpu but you also have a ton of other smaller fan sites where as rage3d tends to drawn in the majority of ATI owners
2) most games now are being developed on nV hardware so bugs usally get worked out first before game/demo is out.
jb said:
The Linux forum has become our most active forum and is filled with all sorts of problems. But that's to be expected since NVIDIA links to the forum from their Linux drivers page.
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=14