NV40: Surprise, disappointment, or just what you expected?

[KimB]

just before that video starts, he also sais the scene is about 1 milion polys..
in the video from the launch..
and then he continues with the source art is 2 milion worth, but half of that
is converted into normal maps and such "simulations" of geometric detail..

Um, that's 200 million polygons worth of source art. Of course, this has no bearing on performance, just the detail of the normal maps.

Dunno how current cards handle 1 milion poly scenes, but with the added
use of Shaders and HDR it sounds pretty heavy...

One quote on the demo was 3 fps, but I don't know what video card/system that would be on.

 

[radar1200gs]

ATI's main OGL issues are all driver related, and they realise that. I think that they will begin to get better within 6-18 months.

ATi has had OpenGL issues that they have been very well aware of for far longer than the 20 months of so the R3xx has lead the market.

The real question is when is ATi going to get up off of their fat asses and actually do something about it? They have already had 20 months (in which they have done remarkably little except bask in the glory of being number 1).

 

[hoom]

Well nv40 is the first launched card to run it at decent frame rates.
If r420 runs it at decent frame rates & had launched first, then he couldn't have said that.
(ok, he could but he'd be lying)

What data format does ATI use for its HDR? I'd be surprised if its less than fp16.

2 or 3 weeks is not gonna = using ps3.0

 

[jolle]

Um, that's 200 million polygons worth of source art. Of course, this has no bearing on performance, just the detail of the normal maps.

hehe, my bad..
yeah i know, but 1 million polys sounds pretty high..
any idea on what games like Farcry and UT2k4 avrage on?
I guess its less important when you use Normal maps and such things
since the Final image you get delivers much higher details anyway..

Doom3 is relativly lowpoly, but looks pretty good for that count..
its also "compressing" very high poly sourcematerial into lowpoly models
with the finer details in bumpmaps...

 

[Pete]

any idea on what games like Farcry and UT2k4 avrage on?

I think FarCry's Dev Mode shows the polys per frame. At least, I remember the PS1.x vs. PS2.x screenshot thread at NVNews that showed a bunch of data on the upper right, along with FRAPS on the upper left. I can't find the thread, though.

 

[jolle]

Good idea, I found this thread..
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24032
But its 11.000 polys, staring into a wall...
so no good, ill snoop around for something taken outside

 

[KimB]

hehe, my bad..
yeah i know, but 1 million polys sounds pretty high..
any idea on what games like Farcry and UT2k4 avrage on?

I don't know for sure, but in that video he did mention it was 10x the polycount of UT2k4.

 

[jolle]

he did? hehe my brain is.. eh... not good.. then again its 8 in the morning all
of a sudden..
Well, that would put UT2k4 at around 100.000 polys.. could estimate Farcry
at possible double that or something, since its not as bound to a "need for
speed" as a fast MP only game like UT2K4..
the few screens with devmode i found was, ofcource, all taken on walls..
this fascination with the pipes in Farcry is beyond me, compared to the
grand landscapes..

 

[glw]

ATi has had OpenGL issues that they have been very well aware of for far longer than the 20 months of so the R3xx has lead the market.

They do? Really?

You could have fooled me. I develop OpenGL software using Cg,
GLSL, VBO and many of the latest and greatest extensions.
IMHO ATI now have better drivers than Nvidia.
I now consider ATI the gold standard not Nvidia, perhaprs Forceware
60.x and the 6800 will help Nvidia to catch up.

All drivers have some bugs, but I've had more trouble with Nvidia
drivers recently than ATI.

The real question is when is ATi going to get up off of their fat asses and actually do something about it? They have already had 20 months (in which they have done remarkably little except bask in the glory of being number 1).

C A T A L Y S T You may have heard of it? ATI have been making
excellent progress fixing bugs, adding features and improving
performance. The days of Nvidia having by far the better driver
and hardware are over.

IMHO ATI and Nvidia are neck and neck now, anyone who does graphics
programming will tell you that ATI have improved their drivers a LOT
over the last few years. Any preference will come down to the performance
and features used by the individual rather than the general quality of the driver.

 

[DemoCoder]

Good Linux support would be nice tho.

 

[jolle]

About OpenGL, carmack did mention that the NV30 had problems running
the ARB2 path, ran halfspeed there.. while R3xx runs it just fine..
thus it uses the custom NV30 path, I guess that means extra work for devs..
Might not be the case for the NV40 tho, he did seem pretty happy with it..

 

[Diplo]

yeah i know, but 1 million polys sounds pretty high..
any idea on what games like Farcry and UT2k4 avrage on?

Peak number of polys I've seen in Far Cry was just under the 200,000 mark. However, that's unusual - outdoor scenes normally are around the 100K mark with indoor around the 50K mark.

For example screenshots (with polycounts), see http://www.diplo.nildram.co.uk/farcry/

 

[jolle]

ahh, tnx for clearing that up..
well then its a rough 5x rise in pure polygoncount.. compared to a good
looking conteporary game..
also added to that alot more detail with textures and texture effects i spose..
Which is nice..

 

[Diplo]

BTW, here's what Lee Perry (lead level designer at Epic Games) had to say about the UnrealEngine 3 demo on the UT2004 forum :

Haha, my company-unofficial-disclaimered assumption is that most people who would watch this and not understand the normal map process by now, probably has enough casual-mom-gamer factor that they're not going to be disappointed by not actually seeing "3 million poly" models. Odds are they're not tech savvy enough to spot the difference at that point. Most gamers or people that demo is aimed at understand what he's saying about the source art being millions of polys, but not the render mesh.

In another post he added:

Games are hacks. Everything you see on screen is a hack. The best AI in the world is still a script running (at least for now). It's rediculous to claim something is essentially "cheating at hacking". You're not even really looking at polygons, you're looking at pixels, and a 100 million polygon scene would provide substantially more data per pixel than the resolution of the screen you're drawing.

So, if I have a 100 million poly scene and look at the problem of "How can I draw this scene in realtime?", it's completely absurd to think "well, hmmm, can't use LOD or culling, that would be cheating".

If you're uncomfortable with the feeling that you're not actually seeing 100 million individual polys, go outside and actually play softball, the resolution in incredible.

 

[Daliden]

Doesnt seem like ATI will support 3.0, i guess its best to keep a open mind
about it cause they might just want people to belive it so they can jump out
and yell "suprise".. but it seems very unlikly in any case..

Now, im not very knowledgable with this stuff, so anything i say is just
speculations and mostly unbased, just thoughts, which should be kept in mind.
But If we look at this Farcry "PS3.0 mod" as they called it, its basicly updated
content..
NV40 can prolly render the same thing in PS3.0 as with PS2.0 there, but slightly faster in PS3.0.. producing the same visuals...

Which means inturn that R420, can produce the same image, and if it turns
out faster then NV40 it could negate what ever speed NV40 gains on its
PS3.0 mode...

People, get your terminology straight. It's Shader Model 3.0 which incorporates Pixel Shader 3.0 and Vertex Shader 3.0. If the current rumours are correct, R420 will fully support VS 3.0, but not all features of Pixel Shader 3.0 (branching).

The FarCry mod, for example, is not a PS 3.0 mod, it is a SM 3.0 mod, which makes a world of difference, because they seem to be mostly adding stuff like displacement mapping etc. that is done in VS 3.0.

 

[jolle]

yeah, my bad there...
Good thing i included a *disclaimer* in the post about how Im mainly
guessing aye..

Dunno about displacement mapping, altho they say "a sort of displacement
mapping that is view dependant".. it sounds, and looks, alot like normal
mapping to me..

it seems to be new content aimed at the peformance level of the new cards
which might not be really slower when using PS2.0..
the key things they showed at NV40 launch was the specular highlighted
gravel on the beach, the volumetric shadows from the trees with soft
edge, and this "view dependant form of Dispmap" as they call it..
If someone want to take a crack at the advantages PS3.0 would have over
PS2.0 in such things, I might aswell not...
It does seem more targeted at the raw peformance of R420 and NV40 tho.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

OH, ATI are big supporters of the OpenGL2.0 movement. In fact, I'd imagine that the sooner the move to a real, new, OpenGL2.0 core happens the more pleased they will be.

Yep

Weren't ATI also the first to announce that their R3xx generation cards were OGL 2.0 compliant?? Or was it OGL 1.5??

Anyways . . 300FPS with everything on isn't anything to shy away from either.

Of course the hardware sites always make it out to be about speed .. and forget about quality.

US

 

[jolle]

there are alot of reviewers that put quality under the magnifying glass..
and by that i mean basing the call on blowups from screenshots..

It is easier to illustrate the difference i guess, and i spose you have to
nominate a winner, but if there was only a notable difference during a
2x zoom in, it wouldnt really bother me..

And, in times like these I will prolly have to include a disclaimer:
With above said im not implying anything about ATI VS NVidia
quality in any comparison, I would like to leave opionons like that for
people to draw themselves, and i wish both the best of luck in the
upcoming showdown, and so on and so forth..
If you find it offensive that i use your favorite brand in the same
sentance as its competitor, im sorry for the inconveniance, no harm intended
There, not a fan boy, no hidden agendas, im just saying..

 

[Dave Baumann]

The real question is when is ATi going to get up off of their fat asses and actually do something about it? They have already had 20 months (in which they have done remarkably little except bask in the glory of being number 1).

You know, most people would have realised what that post was in relation to, but evidently not you.

Code doesn't happen overnight you know.

 

[radar1200gs]

For some companies it doesn't...