You may also want to include that MS may not want to release another major DX update until Longhorn, hence DX9 has to be fairly far reaching.
NVIDIA CineFX Architecture (NV30)
- Thread starter MrSingh
- Start date
The truth is probably much simpler, and much less conspiratorial than you imagine.
Here's what I think really happened: Because of Bill's security memo, all development at Microsoft stopped dead for the entire month of February, and half of March, too, while the engineers did a top-to-bottom security code review. (MS has a lot of code, much of it written by people who don't work there any more. All of it had to be reviewed for security holes.)
A direct consequence of that is that the DX9 schedule (and every other software schedule at MS) slipped at least six weeks.
If we assume that DX9 was originaly targeted for September, it's easy to see how a six week slip due to the security code review ended up pushing the DX9 schedule to November.
Here's what I think really happened: Because of Bill's security memo, all development at Microsoft stopped dead for the entire month of February, and half of March, too, while the engineers did a top-to-bottom security code review. (MS has a lot of code, much of it written by people who don't work there any more. All of it had to be reviewed for security holes.)
A direct consequence of that is that the DX9 schedule (and every other software schedule at MS) slipped at least six weeks.
If we assume that DX9 was originaly targeted for September, it's easy to see how a six week slip due to the security code review ended up pushing the DX9 schedule to November.
NO! NO! The only reason DX9 has slipped is because <insert name of powerful nemesis> has somehow taken control of all normal, right minded people, and is working behind the scenes with <insert governmental agency>, <insert illuminati organization>, and <insert Mesopotamian Demon> to undermine the success of <insert exalted company> through lies, misdirection, and <insert conspiratorial evil deed such as chem-trails, mind control, assasination>.
Its true! I read it on a forum on the internet.
Its true! I read it on a forum on the internet.
Excuse the multiple quotes.Doomtrooper said:
I will call you on this quote, from now on please refrain from using games in your reviews..something I followed from your old Voodooextreme articles. Your words..not mine.
The 'silly' part of this equation is another IHV besides Nvidia developed a better shader version PS 1.4, Hardware tesselelation and nobody batted a eye lash, Nvidia releases some PR about their next GPU and everyone thinks its the second coming of Christ...how hyporcrytical..very.
You are correct with one statement though...whoever scores better in 3 year old Quake 3 will win
Doontrooper, first of all, I'm no longer part of Beyond3D... so you can't "call me on this quote" because the context of my post was WRT Beyond3D. My next web-related endeavour will be about games (however).
On with your other post...
Your mention of Quake3 - I recall many people still insisting on using it in benchmarks because its engine is the basis of many other games and how well it scales with "better" video cards. Look at Medal of Honor and Jedi Knight2. Good games, no? Scales with better video cards? I don't think so. It's just an example of how I have become fed up with those folks that claim they are "in the know" about 3D graphics and the relevancy thereof when it comes to video cards and their reviews. They have no idea what making games is about.
WRT the relationship between/amongst games, 3D tech and Beyond3D. Wavey started out at Beyond3D passionate about games first and foremost (well, at least that's what he said back then). His focus has changed. Doesn't mean it's bad or good. It's got nothing to do with whether games are the primary focus of the 3D revolution as we see it. It's got to do with dealing/focussing on what Wavey thinks this site is about. Different target audience.
PC games still drive the current 3D hardware scene. Ask any IHV dev rel staff and they'll tell you that is really the case. The thing is we are beginning to see things that are much more than about gaming. Folks that makes games want to make money. Period. That doesn't mean all these IHVs shouldn't continue to innovate. The perfect scenario would be have only NVIDIA or ATI or Matrox or whoever... then EVERYONE (devs and consumers) will benefit. But that's not the case. If you ask me, I would really wish for a real monopoly... that would really make games better looking.
Quite a number of people here (which isn't, by any means, the majority) don't really care about games. Take the Super Smart folks like Kurt Akeley or David Kirk or even Gary Tarolli... they don't really care about games. They care about 3D graphics. In such instances, games and 3D graphics are worlds apart.
The point of my post, however, is simply to remind folks that this site (including its forums) is, I think, all about 3D technology. It should encompass everything about 3D technology. It doesn't (or shouldn't) matter if games aren't the focus. What matters is what Wavey wants this site to be known as... and for everyone, who hears about Beyond3D, to know Wavey's intentions.
A sidenote. More and more games are becoming increasingly more dependent on the CPU for obtaining the maximum framerates. All such games definitely have better gameplay. What is the correlation here?
I can develop you new API which every manufacutrer is happy....
Nappe1's API 1.0 has two doomdrastically powerful functions: Start_API(); and Exit_API(); This greatly accelerates software developing to all existent platforms because now programmers know that the have one common API for every HW on this planet. we surely say this being 100% compliant with almost anything. Also, there's no problem at all with argueing someone supporting things that someone other does not, because NAPI 1.0 doesn't support anything unnessesary on any platform and gives the freedom to programmer implement whatever he likes. He is not dependary on any API limitations because this API does not support too complicated things... blah blah, blaa blah blah, blaa blaa blaa... <and other great marketing stuff>
don't take it too seriously... "Elämä on laiffii." -Matti Nykanen
Nappe1's API 1.0 has two doomdrastically powerful functions: Start_API(); and Exit_API(); This greatly accelerates software developing to all existent platforms because now programmers know that the have one common API for every HW on this planet. we surely say this being 100% compliant with almost anything. Also, there's no problem at all with argueing someone supporting things that someone other does not, because NAPI 1.0 doesn't support anything unnessesary on any platform and gives the freedom to programmer implement whatever he likes. He is not dependary on any API limitations because this API does not support too complicated things... blah blah, blaa blah blah, blaa blaa blaa... <and other great marketing stuff>
don't take it too seriously... "Elämä on laiffii." -Matti NykanenIt's a good point everyone reminding that this isn't just a games forum - something my own previous posts declined to consider.
So to turn this back to the nv30 technology again: does anyone think that 1024 instructions is a lot if it only has 16 textures?
Does anyone know how much data it can pass from the vertex shader through to the pixel shader?
So to turn this back to the nv30 technology again: does anyone think that 1024 instructions is a lot if it only has 16 textures?
Does anyone know how much data it can pass from the vertex shader through to the pixel shader?
I would guess games are becoming more CPU dependant because:
a. Physics engines are becoming more precise and are covering a whole scene and all the objects in the world. Most games would just use collision detection and a discrete way of measuring and plotting the result. Now we have games that contain variables for wind resistance and flow, proper particle dynamics for smoke and fog. Lots of things that weren't possible before.
b. The AI engines are becoming 'smarter' and some games seem to be using GAs to evolve better responses rather than having fixed paths. ANNs are also starting to make a show in simplistic form and that's quite an exciting thing to see. When games use GAs to produce ANNs so that distinct responses could evolve over the course of a game we'll see emergent behaviour that will seem pretty realistic appearing.
a. Physics engines are becoming more precise and are covering a whole scene and all the objects in the world. Most games would just use collision detection and a discrete way of measuring and plotting the result. Now we have games that contain variables for wind resistance and flow, proper particle dynamics for smoke and fog. Lots of things that weren't possible before.
b. The AI engines are becoming 'smarter' and some games seem to be using GAs to evolve better responses rather than having fixed paths. ANNs are also starting to make a show in simplistic form and that's quite an exciting thing to see. When games use GAs to produce ANNs so that distinct responses could evolve over the course of a game we'll see emergent behaviour that will seem pretty realistic appearing.
JF_Aidan_Pryde
Regular
Rev, can you explain this bit? I was under the impression that these games did scale with better video cards.
Quake3 uses little to no hardware geometry acceleration and hence neither do the games that are based on the Quake3 engine. If you look at some of the recent reviews here (especially the Intel P4 2.53GHz review) you'll see that with modern high powered video cards even a P4 2.53 is the limiting factor most of the time (discounting anything like AA or Aniso). Becuase nwer games such as JKII/RtCW have to look good by todays standards that mean increasing the poly levels somewhat, which also mean more stress on the CPU - if they are using more complicated/other 3rd party physicis engines then that could further increase the load.
Doomtrooper,
There are other forums on this web site dedicated to games and consoles. This particular forum is related to "3D Technology and Hardware" The people who participate in this forum are by and large, interested in 3D as a subject of interest. That's why this forum is so technically oriented, why you will find many 3D *DEVELOPERS* hiding out in this board, etc.
I am personally interested in the science of 3D and how the state of the art in acceleration of it can be advanced. Issues like geometry compression, for example, and the theoretical issues behind it (connectivity mesh techniques vs signal processing techniques) are extremely interesting and the field is rapidly advancing since the first paper was published on it a few years ago. At some point, this will go from paper science to being implemented in hardware, and that too, will be very interesting. Then at some point, at the end of the day, it will trickle down to games, but that is the end of the process.
The beginning of the process, is dicussed right here, on this wonderful message board that you can find no where else that I know. A meeting of the minds of 3D heads...
There are other forums on this web site dedicated to games and consoles. This particular forum is related to "3D Technology and Hardware" The people who participate in this forum are by and large, interested in 3D as a subject of interest. That's why this forum is so technically oriented, why you will find many 3D *DEVELOPERS* hiding out in this board, etc.
I am personally interested in the science of 3D and how the state of the art in acceleration of it can be advanced. Issues like geometry compression, for example, and the theoretical issues behind it (connectivity mesh techniques vs signal processing techniques) are extremely interesting and the field is rapidly advancing since the first paper was published on it a few years ago. At some point, this will go from paper science to being implemented in hardware, and that too, will be very interesting. Then at some point, at the end of the day, it will trickle down to games, but that is the end of the process.
The beginning of the process, is dicussed right here, on this wonderful message board that you can find no where else that I know. A meeting of the minds of 3D heads...
Looks like they're all trying to get in on the Cinema act now:
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1747
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1747
Finally, I am sick of this R300 vs NV30 issue. If everyone takes off the rose colored glasses for a moment and simply compared the R300 and NV30 to the GF4/8500, you will see that both of these chips are amazing improvements on what was available just 1 year ago. There is a much bigger leap between DX8 and DX9 hardware than there was between DX7 and DX8.
Both of these cards are going to do well in the marketplace and there is simply no need to worry about one card completely dominating and beating the other. They will most likely have slightly differing feature sets and performance profiles. Maybe one will have slightly better IQ and another slightly better performance, etc.
But we when we are discussing *incredible improvements* over our existing cards so slight differences in IQ or performance are just so much nitpicking.
Both of these cards are going to do well in the marketplace and there is simply no need to worry about one card completely dominating and beating the other. They will most likely have slightly differing feature sets and performance profiles. Maybe one will have slightly better IQ and another slightly better performance, etc.
But we when we are discussing *incredible improvements* over our existing cards so slight differences in IQ or performance are just so much nitpicking.
Reverend said:
You prefer I'd just let the thread degenerate into yet another ATi vs. Nvidia mess?
In all seriousness, if anyone feels that I've been overly zealous in how I moderate these boards, please PM or email me.
DemoCoder said:
Democoder
I am primarilly interrested in 3D technology and hardware for consumer level and specially for games. If gaming is not part of this forum why people did not tell me that about that 2 years ago?
I really get disturbed when someone say NV30 is better than R300 without real fact, data and context (gaming, workstations, renderfarm, etc).
I think we have to discuss things without passion, civilized maner and with CONTEXT.
Well, the only data that we have so far is in regards to its programmability and manufacturing process.
As far as the programmability, it's obviously better. How much better is up to game developers.
As far as the manufacturing process, this means that it shouldn't be hard for nVidia to produce a part that is better than the R300 in every other way.
Whether or not they do is the real question.
i.e. what we have here is Probably better in every way, definitely better in features. (which also means we should all be disappointed if they fail to do this...the most likely thing for nVidia to fail to exceed the R300 in is FSAA image quality).
As far as the programmability, it's obviously better. How much better is up to game developers.
As far as the manufacturing process, this means that it shouldn't be hard for nVidia to produce a part that is better than the R300 in every other way.
Whether or not they do is the real question.
i.e. what we have here is Probably better in every way, definitely better in features. (which also means we should all be disappointed if they fail to do this...the most likely thing for nVidia to fail to exceed the R300 in is FSAA image quality).
Joe DeFuria
Legend
I disagree. It will be very hard. Not that it can't be done, but very hard, given the transistor bugets.
Based on public info, NV30 only has about 10 million more transistors than the R-300. (about 120 mil, vs. 110 mil).
In other words, these companies were working with very similar transistor budgets, so it WOULD be very surprising, IMO, if either part was "better in every way" than the other.
What would NOT be hard, is for the NV30 part to be a bit cheaper and less power hungry, and perhaps higher clocked.
On the other side, it would not be hard for ATI to get their part out first....it's all in the trade-offs....
Similar threads
- Deleted member 2197
- Tools and Software
