Oblivion Press Demo 02/22/06 Chicago

[Griffith]

Where are you getting this "X360 version runs better from"? 2 sites said x360 runs better and one admitted the PC version was at a higher res anyway thus invalidating that comparison. One said the PC version runs better and looks better (IGN, arguably the most reliable of all the reviews) and another said it looked smoother from a distance.

I need only the comments of developers, the 360 is smoothy and with an IQ as like the pc version, but everything maxed, pc gamers have, depending on rig, turn down effects and setting, in order to obtain a sufficient framerate
that's all folks, this is from the developers itself.

Thats hardly solid proof that the X360 version runs better. I think people should just wait until the game launches and take a look at the benchmarks on the PC when we know what settings its running at. Im finding it highly unlikely that an X1900XTX won't be able to handle the final version at 720p with some FSAA at max details smoothly.

can you post some benchmarks of a modern game from X1900, where the card obtain a stable 30 fps (not a average 30 fps, I speak that the minimum framerate will remain above 30 fps) with HDR FP AND MSAA 4x?

please, show me why you have this doubts

 

[superguy]

I will say if they could have made a chip that had ~65% the transistors, ran 150-200mhz slower (likely taking 1/2 the wattage or so), and had similar performance they would have

As a whole Xenos is around 90% R580 transistors (337-384)

 

[pjbliverpool]

I think most would agree (except maybe Richard Huddy apparantly) that A X1900 has more raw power than both PS3 and X360.

However, the 360 can be tuned for specific hardware. So I also believe they may look and run very similar.

Im not sure about the reliability of that translation. Altavista gives us the much more believable:

"When we will be able to see one GPU for desktop confrontabile (comparable) with that one for Xbox 360?

The characteristics that render only Xbox 360 in its kind are at the same time best existing for one the consul. Today we produce a GPU (X1900) that it is theoretically more powerful than Xenos and in the games offers a confrontabile experience. I suppose that it is right to say that the X1900 is much neighbor to what Xenos for PC would be one."

He specifically says that X1900XTX is more powerful and that its offers a comparable experience in games (presumably todays games since even he hasn't played future games). Well both the GTX256 and the X1800Xt offer comparable experiences to the X1900XTX in todays games aswell. It seems to me that he's merely using the X1900 as a comparison because the X1800 is an out of date product now.

 

[Bobbler]

can you post some benchmarks of a modern game from X1900, where the card obtain a stable 30 fps (not a average 30 fps, I speak that the minimum framerate will remain above 30 fps) with HDR FP AND MSAA 4x?

please, show me why you have this doubts

I'd love you to show me an X360 game with 4x AA and 32bit HDR too (hint: FP10 isn't the same as HDR that PCs will use). What you're asking for isn't going to gain you much in the way of valid information.

 

[pjbliverpool]

can you post some benchmarks of a modern game from X1900, where the card obtain a stable 30 fps (not a average 30 fps, I speak that the minimum framerate will remain above 30 fps) with HDR FP AND MSAA 4x?

please, show me why you have this doubts

Tell you what, I'll do that when you show me evidence that the X360 is doing the same under the same graphics conditions.

Devs exagerate and they generalise, your taking there words far to much to heart. Id said Doom 3 would be the same on both Xbox and PC. Can you tell the difference? Critereon specifically said that the xbox and PC version of serious sam 2 would be identical. Do you see any parallax mapping or HDR in the xbox version?

Until someone runs the same benchmark/game at the same settings ob both Xenos and an R580 and mearures the min/avrg fps, all this speculation based on ambiguous comments from devs is pointless. I say just look at what each should theoretically be capable of and unless you can come up with some hard evidence to prove otherwise, leave it at that.

 

[Griffith]

Im not sure about the reliability of that translation. Altavista gives us the much more believable:

"When we will be able to see one GPU for desktop confrontabile (comparable) with that one for Xbox 360?

The characteristics that render only Xbox 360 in its kind are at the same time best existing for one the consul. Today we produce a GPU (X1900) that it is theoretically more powerful than Xenos and in the games offers a confrontabile experience. I suppose that it is right to say that the X1900 is much neighbor to what Xenos for PC would be one."

He specifically says that X1900XTX is more powerful and that its offers a comparable experience in games (presumably todays games since even he hasn't played future games). Well both the GTX256 and the X1800Xt offer comparable experiences to the X1900XTX in todays games aswell. It seems to me that he's merely using the X1900 as a comparison because the X1800 is an out of date product now.

you are not sure about the reliability of that translation?
this is pretty laughable, because I'm italian, I speak italian from 30 years ago, if there're others italians, they will confirm, you seems pretty desperate trying for a unknown reason to downplay xenos

ATI says that at HD resolutions, Xenos is faster than X1800, at higher than HD resolution, X1800 is faster
this makes sense, when they came to say that in game practice experience @hd resolutions, xenos is very similar to X1900, if it's faster than x1800

I don't think that GTX offers comparable experiences as X1900, show me how it performs with hdr fp and msaa 4x, both enabled
and don't forget to show me how x1900 performs with those enabled @ 1280, please

edit: correct some typos, english is not my first language

 

[Bobbler]

As a whole Xenos is around 90% R580 transistors (337-384)

~330 include the eDram, yea -- Xenos without the eDram is ~252 (232+20m for ROPs lets say?) vs ~385 for X1900. Most of the reason for eDram is bandwidth saving for things like AA and FP10 hdr and wouldn't matter much when AA is off anyways (and at 1280x768 I doubt the the X1900XTX or whatever it is would suffer all that much anyways). Apparently AA wasn't even on in Oblivion PC version says some, so what's the point in comparing that anyways? Do we know if Oblivion for 360 is 4x or 2x aa?

Are we to believe that ~250m transistors running at 500mhz is going to be as powerful as ~380m running at 650-700mhz, especially considering they are from the same company? That makes so very little sense that I question anyones sanity who believes it, regardless of what any company muppet says.

I'm done though, you guys win! Xenos is as powerful as your dreams tell you, so is the Cell, and every other Pixie dust filled chip around!

These arguments are getting silly, but for some reason I can't help but respond (maybe I'm going crazy?).

 

[superguy]

The characteristics that render only Xbox 360 in its kind are at the same time best existing for one the consul. Today we produce a GPU (X1900) that it is theoretically more powerful than Xenos and in the games offers a confrontabile experience. I suppose that it is right to say that the X1900 is much neighbor to what Xenos for PC would be one."

Can you translate that whole part then Griffith?

And hey, once PS3 gets real games, maybe we can spend all our time in PS3 port threads debating why the PC version runs better right Griffith

 

[scooby_dooby]

Thats hardly solid proof that the X360 version runs better. I think people should just wait until the game launches and take a look at the benchmarks on the PC when we know what settings its running at. Im finding it highly unlikely that an X1900XTX won't be able to handle the final version at 720p with some FSAA at max details smoothly.

Bro, take of the blinders. I know you have a 360 so I don't what the problem is, be happy about it.

Almost every preview said the 360 was 'smoother', IGN is actually the exception, and I believe the IGN reviewer who stated that never played the 360 version. It seems, for now, that the framerate will be a little bit better on the 360 version, the majority of previews that mention framerate, have it being smoother on 360.

" the Xbox 360 framerate was much smoother than the PC version."
^ this quote from gaming trend was written by a guy who playtested for 8 hours, 4 on PC, and 4 on 360. The IGN playtest was done by 2 different guys, who then got together to compare notes.

Anyways, what's the point in arguing, one things for sure this time around the consle owners aren't getting some cheap port with crappy framerates, and at the very least will be basically as good as the top-end PC version, that's all I really care about.

 

[superguy]

~330 include the eDram, yea -- Xenos without the eDram is ~252 (232+20m for ROPs lets say?) vs ~385 for X1900. Most of the reason for eDram is bandwidth saving for things like AA and FP10 hdr and wouldn't matter much when AA is off anyways (and at 1280x768 I doubt the the X1900XTX or whatever it is would suffer all that much anyways). Apparently AA wasn't even on in Oblivion PC version says some, so what's the point in comparing that anyways? Do we know if Oblivion for 360 is 4x or 2x aa?

Are we to believe that ~250m transistors running at 500mhz is going to be as powerful as ~380m running at 650-700mhz, especially considering they are from the same company? That makes so very little sense that I question anyones sanity who believes it, regardless of what any company muppet says.

I'm done though, you guys win! Xenos is as powerful as your dreams tell you, so is the Cell, and every other Pixie dust filled chip around!

These arguments are getting silly, but for some reason I can't help but respond (maybe I'm going crazy?).

Xenos is custom though. It can save in many areas. Caches etc. Avivo as well. It also uses a lean architecture. It doesn't have what took so much room in X1800, thread dispatcher and ring bus. Those things didn't directly affect performance like logic.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Are we to believe that ~250m transistors running at 500mhz is going to be as powerful as ~380m running at 650-700mhz, especially considering they are from the same company? That makes so very little sense that I question anyones sanity who believes it, regardless of what any company muppet says.

Wasn't he saying that at higher resolutions the 1900 would stomp Xenos? It's only at 720p resolutions that they have roughly the same performance.

^ That's what he's saying, I never said i believed it, just clarifying...

 

[Griffith]

Can you translate that whole part then Griffith?

And hey, once PS3 gets real games, maybe we can spend all our time in PS3 port threads debating why the PC version runs better right Griffith

ok literally:

Ad oggi produciamo una GPU (X1900) che è teoricamente più potente di Xenos e nei giochi offre un'esperienza confrontabile. Suppongo che sia giusto dire che la X1900 è molto vicina a quello che sarebbe uno Xenos per PC.

At today we produce a gpu (X1900) that in theory is powerful than xenos but in games (this means in 'practice', opposite than 'in theory') offers comparable experience, I suppose It's right to say that the x1900 is near as being an "Xenos" for PC


it's interesting to see that someone think that eDRAM is not part of the gpu

rops(edram) and shaders zone are separate only to have good yields, in future, when the 0.9 process will improve, the gpu will return in unic chip solution, as it would be

 

[Shifty Geezer]

no, it can't be that same LCD set is used to show 1600x1200 to pc then badly downscale to show 360 version

have you never seen the quality of a LCD monitor that downscale?

You mean upscale. Showing a lower res image than the display's native res by stretching it. I've seen that look really bad on fixed res panels, but also look pretty good on fixed res TVs. You can't assume that showing a 1600x1200 (or something) monitor won't be used for XB360 because of assumptions to picture quality.

maybe he is talking of the pro's of pc version, even the stones knows that with pc games you can upset the resolution, if your gpu can do this, of course

What does this mean? That the PC version was running at higher then 1280x720 but showing at 1280x720 because that's all the monitor can display? If the monitor is 1280x720, that's the output of the PC game. That or less. I'venever heard of a game where you can set the screen res higher than the monitor! If the game is running at higher resolution for the PC version than the XB360 version, that contradicts the idea that they're both running on the fixed res 720p monitor.

Given Lysander's info that I missed first time, it would seem though that this idea of the PC having higher res is mindless journalism, misusing a term and I'm happy to accept that both were running at 720p.

 

[scificube]

Wasn't he saying that at higher resolutions the 1900 would stomp Xenos? It's only at 720p resolutions that they have roughly the same performance.

^ That's what he's saying, I never said i believed it, just clarifying...

Where did this come from?

Didn't Micheal Douglass (I think that's his name) say the same thing with respect to comparing Xenos and the X1800XT...now it's the X1900...next it'll be...

This is another PR statement.

 

[nintenho]

So........how's life?

 

[pegisys]

Where did this come from?

Didn't Micheal Douglass (I think that's his name) say the same thing with respect to comparing Xenos and the X1800XT...now it's the X1900...next it'll be...

This is another PR statement.

I remember that but I think he was talking about filllrate then, it was something like xenos couldn't keep up with x1800xt at a higher res then 1280X720 or something to that effect

besides it could be other things at play beside the graphics that is making the framerate lower, we still don't know if the cpu EE intel or just a regular 3.4Ghz, or if the game even takes advantage of dual core cpus on the PC

and I would have rather seen the test run on an FX-60 or anything else AMD for that matter

 

[scooby_dooby]

Didn't Micheal Douglass (I think that's his name) say the same thing with respect to comparing Xenos and the X1800XT....

lol, I know, i was thinking the same thing,

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

Xenos is custom though. It can save in many areas. Caches etc. Avivo as well. It also uses a lean architecture. It doesn't have what took so much room in X1800, thread dispatcher and ring bus. Those things didn't directly affect performance like logic.

Er, just what are you calling the thread dispatcher? You do realize that the R520 and Xenos both dedicate a similar number of transistors to the thousands of registers used to keep threads "in flight" right? So unless you have some inside info on the rest of the threading logic,...

 

[superguy]

Er, just what are you calling the thread dispatcher? You do realize that the R520 and Xenos both dedicate a similar number of transistors to the thousands of registers used to keep threads "in flight" right? So unless you have some inside info on the rest of the threading logic,...

The big block called thread dispatcher in R520 diagrams from ATI, that is not present in similar diagrams of R420?


http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/r520/images/disp.jpg

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/r420_x800/diagram/overviews.jpg

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

Are you seriously trying to tell me that because R420 doesn't have a thread dispatcher, that.... wait, I think I've lost my marbles.

(unless you're seriously responding to "what are you calling the thread dispatcher," instead of why you think Xenos doesn't have threading logic, in which case my marbles have been obliterated)