Post your breaking NV30 news links here!

[Ichneumon]

I'm interested about what Carmack has to say about the card.
Also, there are a few things regarding the NV30 and Doom3 that I consider to be questionable - quoting Carmack's year-old statements, supplying Anand with Doom3 performance details... I wonder if it has to do with the leak of the alpha version though.

http://www.nvidia.com/content/areyouready/twimtbp.html

Exactly... that's a very old quote. JC should put an expiration date on quotes by companies from him lol. Ether that or companies should be required to state when JC said them.

 

[demalion]

I'm interested about what Carmack has to say about the card.
Also, there are a few things regarding the NV30 and Doom3 that I consider to be questionable - quoting Carmack's year-old statements, supplying Anand with Doom3 performance details... I wonder if it has to do with the leak of the alpha version though.

http://www.nvidia.com/content/areyouready/twimtbp.html

That quote is pretty durned old. I think what is being asked for is something based on the actual card, perhaps even going into why it is more exciting than the R300 for Carmack (or why not...).

 

[µße®LørÃ￾]

Exactly... that's a very old quote. JC should put an expiration date on quotes by companies from him lol. Ether that or companies should be required to state when JC said them.

Marketing would just remove it

 

[Xmas]

The reason why I'm disappointed about the AA is that it's technically an ineffective solution. 8x may be either 2xRGMS + 4xOGSS (better) or 4xOGMS + 2xOGSS (worse) (or both). - Of course, if it turns out to be something different, I won't be so disappointed, but nothing hints in this direction -

If NVidia 8x was still faster than R300 4x, then I'd be impressed!

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

So what now? It's getting boring, where are those R350 specs???

 

[Xmas]

Oh, I'm a bit slow. But the thing is that I didn't see it mentioned in other previews, hence why I bring it up. I consider it an important thing to mention.

I agree, a confirmation of gamma-corrected AA would be nice to have!

Although the Intellisample whitepaper isn't very informative, I found this quote:

The Intellisample process also uses gamma-adjusted sampling, taking into account the dramatic physical differences between how your eyes and monitor perceive light and color, making for much smoother and more natural edge transitions.

http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=feature_intellisample

 

[BoddoZerg]

Essentially all modes of antialiasing are available at all resolutions without any performance hit. Greatly improved image quality, with no drop in frame rate!

I wonder what they mean by "essentially" and "all resolutions"?

Then again, they didnt state the game they're using. I wouldn't be surprised if NV30 could do all modes of antialiasing at all resolutions without the slightest performance hit in Quake 2. Then again, my GeForce4Ti4400 could probably do that.

 

[MrB]

Hey Dave

is the power supply connector used to power the fan only?

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Note that Carmack didn't update his .plan with the launch of the Radeon 9700/9500/9000 either...even though the 9700 was used at QuakeCon.

ATI had a couple quotes from him I think, but that's it.

I'm surprised that Carmack "approved" (if he did) of nVidia giving out Doom3 benchmarks...it's not like Carmack to do such a thing. Until the game is close to release, all he usually ever does is give vague references to relative performance.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Note that Carmack didn't update his .plan with the launch of the Radeon 9700/9500/9000 either...even though the 9700 was used at QuakeCon.

He did comment on it after E3 though IIRC, not to mention all those interviews on GameSpy.

I'm surprised that Carmack "approved" (if he did) of nVidia giving out Doom3 benchmarks...it's not like Carmack to do such a thing. Until the game is close to release, all he usually ever does is give vague references to relative performance.

That's where we have to ask ourselves, "has ATi leaked the Doom3 alpha then?"...

 

[maskrider]

I was referring purely to the mention of gamma correction in conjunction with AA and people's disappointment with the AA modes. I'm simply saying gamma corrected AA is a Good Thing and am confused as to why they are disappointed. My only guess as to a reason is the possible lack of Rotated Grid sampling, but it seems to me possible that since other previews don't mention the gamma correction that some aren't including it in their evaluation.

For me, I am disappointed because its lack of rotated grid sampling with programmable sampling pattern, I consider gamma corrected AA a baseline for high end cards after ATI's introduction of 9700 PRO.

Even with ATI's 6x RGMS, there are still ugly texture crawling in some scenes of NOLF2, I would like to have 4x or more RGSS back.

If NVIDIA can provide much better (at least equal in speed) or equal (and much faster) than ATI's AA when the time NV30 is out, NVIDIA will certainly have my money. If not so, it will be another wait and see for me (like the Parhelia).

 

[Humus]

FFS people, stop posting ... I can't keep up reading this thread

 

[MikeC]

The GeForce FX's occlusion culling algorithm has the capability to cull objects with a depth complexity of 1. - nV news

Explain. I'm serious, Is that cull objects to a depth complexity of one? Because if an object has a DC = 1, How can you cull an obect if it's the only thing there? This wording is confusing me.

I was under the impression that individual objects in a scene could be associated with a depth complexity value, which is based on the order they are rendered.

For example if object A is occluded by object B, which is occluded by object C, the depth complexity of the scene would be 3. What I was visualizing in the preview is that the parts of A being occluded by B and C would be culled.

In this case, I had associated object A with a depth complexity of 1, B with 2, and C with 3.

Maybe I'm the one who's confused here, but I took the words verbatim from a conference call with NVIDIA. Maybe I should just say "enhancements to the occlusion culling algorithm" and leave it at that.

 

[mr]

Does anybody know if the 8x AA Mode(s) are availaible on 128MB cards or only on cards equipped with 256MB because of memory footprint size ? Or is it limited to lower resolutions (like 1024x768) if running out of vmem?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Does anybody know if the 8x AA Mode(s) are availaible on 128MB cards or only on cards equipped with 256MB because of memory footprint size ?

Good question...I'd also like to know if Anand will have "max quality" benchmarks putting NV30 8X AA against R-300's 6X in a performance comparison.

And now that Geforce has some "adaptive" mode for Aniso...how will Anand banchmark that?

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Ohh, and just a last thing for me:

What is that UT2k3 'Ultra High Super NV30 olny' quality setting?
Or has that already been cleared? I forgot what happend'...

 

[Dave Baumann]

Hey Dave

is the power supply connector used to power the fan only?

Given that during the launch they stated that ".13um allows lower power, but they turned it on it head and used more power to drive clockspeeds up" I'd say the power connector on the board is used to directly power the chip.

They do have some power regulation hardware / software though which means that it will draw less current and drop the fan speed at low stress situations.

That's where we have to ask ourselves, "has ATi leaked the Doom3 alpha then?"...

AFAIK, yes, albeit carelessly rather then intentionally.

 

[Sabastian]

I gotta ask this one..... How fast would the GeforceFX be if it only ran at 325Mhz core clock with DDRI memory? That would tell you a few things I believe.

 

[MikeC]

Although the Intellisample whitepaper isn't very informative, I found this quote:

The Intellisample process also uses gamma-adjusted sampling, taking into account the dramatic physical differences between how your eyes and monitor perceive light and color, making for much smoother and more natural edge transitions.

http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=feature_intellisample

AFAIK, the information in the whitepaper is what most previews were based on The whitepaper didn't mention "gamma-adjusted sampling" under the section on antialiasing. There is a section in the white paper on "Dynamic Gamma Correction", but it doesn't sound like a feature unique to AA.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=feature_intellisample

ACK! Let's see nVidia live up to this claim (emphasis added by me):

What's more, the GeForce FX's innovative new architecture includes an advanced and completely transparent form of lossless depth Z-buffer and color compression technology. The result? Essentially all modes of antialiasing are available at all resolutions without any performance hit. Greatly improved image quality, with no drop in frame rate!

I guess the validity of that statement will depend on what the nVidia definition of "essentially all" means...