R420 Hints from people under NDA!

[Snarfy]

Theres an interesting thread on the rage3d forums, where a couple of the moderators (Gi Bro and Kombatant) have been hinting at the performance of the r420

clicky to the thread:
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33753558

I also condensed the conversation so you could see the good stuff, note that gi bro and kombatant are mods at rage3d, a gfx card forum

Heres the convo:

----------------------------
Gi Bro: Fair enough, but, im have a hunch that people would want to grab an ATi card when all flavours are ready. Also, i too think its silly to go out and buy something asap. Best to wait a little bit before one goes out and buys. ITs good to see all the reviews and such so that you can get a better understanding on whats going on. The last thing you wanna do is to grab something and then realize that its not as good as the other choice at hand

Kombatant: Listen to this man... he knows his stuff

Brick_Top: Yeah…common sense

Kombatant: Nope, it's not called that way. It's called knowing what ATI's upcoming babies can do. It's also called having signed an NDA so we can't reveal more.

tEd: No offense but isn't that called FUD?

Kombatant: Nope, because after seeing the NV40 there's absolutely no fear, uncertainty or doubt

tEd: Fair enough

T-Spoon: I hate when people go flaunting there NDA’s. It makes me even more anxious to find out what the r420 actually is…

Brick_Top: I thought people wasn't supposed to say that they are under an NDA. Or maybe that's just in some cases

Kombatant: Of course you can say you are under an NDA, you always can. What you can't say is what the NDA covers

Kombatant: A Non-Disclosure Agreement means that you are forbidden to disclose certain sensitive information. Not the fact that you have signed such a paper - you don't disclose any sensitive info by saying that you are forbidden to disclose sensitive info

---------------------------------------------

makes me all the more impatient to see the r420...

 

[DW Fan!!!!!]

I wish I was under NDA then I wouldent be so confused by all the differing statements. :?

Would this moderator have actually seen the card in action.

 

[Snarfy]

they may be testing the r420 or got to see it in action at some point

 

[VtC]

Would this moderator have actually seen the card in action.

Given Kombatant's statement:

Nope, because after seeing the NV40 there's absolutely no fear, uncertainty or doubt

I'd say yes. He did everything but come out and say "The ATI board I saw is as fast or faster than the NV40". Kombatant shoots straight. I think his statements can be trusted, even if they have to be somewhat obfuscated.

Maybe "limited" would be a better word than "obfuscated".

 

[Druga Runda]

yes ATI expectations really shoot sky high, but at the moment I think they will make the cut ...

 

[DW Fan!!!!!]

I can think of one great advantage of ATI besting Nvidia, it could force Nvidia to use its financial clout to drive a price war against ATI and that would be great for consumers.

 

[Stryyder]

I can think of one great advantage of ATI besting Nvidia, it could force Nvidia to use its financial clout to drive a price war against ATI and that would be great for consumers.

One can only hope.

 

[jb]

Its kind of hard to "trust" people from fan sites that are under NDA. We all heard how the NV30 was gonna to crush the R300 from those under NDAs back then I am not saying that these people are wrong..just its something to think about and have some reasonable doubt...

 

[Snarfy]

seems that pc perspective has retracted those screenshots that were supposedly comparing ps2.0 to 3.0

Update: We are looking into some questions posed to us about these screenshots in this thread of our forums; most notably: what setting are the "before" images using on FarCry.

Update2: While we still try to get ahold of this mod, below is the official statement from NVIDIA on these screenshots. The first screenshots are NOT using PS2.0, but PS1.x instead.

 

[tEd]

WTF

deja vu

 

[McDusty]

"Update2: While we still try to get ahold of this mod, below is the official statement from NVIDIA on these screenshots. The first screenshots are NOT using PS2.0, but PS1.x instead."

- well, we all knew that anyway. Although Nvidia may never have stated they were ps 2.0, it certainly was misleading.

 

[DW Fan!!!!!]

Oh they did, check the photos of the them from the bittech article while they were blown up on screen, its written underneath PS2.0.

 

[Guden Oden]

Even on my GF3, the water I've seen so far has all been transparent, not that blue splotch depicted in the image above.

Anyway, I wonder if R420 and derivates will have anything like Nvidia's programmable video processor; if not, NV may well have an edge there no matter what the performance. Some may think NV4x are fast enough and that shaders 3.0 + programmable video accelerator throughout the entire product line tips the balance in favor for NV...

I would think shaders 3.0 support will come much quicker than shaders 2.0 did, so a Geforce 6xxx card will probably not be nearly as poor a choice as the 5xxx series was, no matter what ATi comes up with.

Choices, choices...

 

[Stryyder]

Oh they did, check the photos of the them from the bittech article while they were blown up on screen, its written underneath PS2.0.

One born every minute.

 

[DW Fan!!!!!]

Oh they did, check the photos of the them from the bittech article while they were blown up on screen, its written underneath PS2.0.

One born every minute.

I dont understand what you mean by that, I had already argued the differences elsewhere and was already aware they were not PS2.0, I was answering dusty who thought they hadent said they were PS2.0.

:? :? :? :? :?

 

[Druga Runda]

The best part would be if this was a DX7 harware level image

 

[tEd]

The best part would be if this was a DX7 harware level image

If i wouldn't know better i would say it's a voodoo tech demo

 

[McDusty]

Oh they did, check the photos of the them from the bittech article while they were blown up on screen, its written underneath PS2.0.

I thought they'd simply said something like this "look at ps 3.0, doesn't it look better than older cards". But I just looked at Bittech and your right!

Well, thats very naughty of Nvidia, very naughty indeed.

 

[Bad_Boy]

if you watch the full 150mb video of the presentation, you see no watermark of FarCry PS2.0 on the screen like at bit-tek. so i dunno.

 

[davepermen]

the far cry speaker never stated anything about "this is only possible on ps3.0".. instead, he always stated "we're exploring the ps2.0 capabilities now".

and indeed, what he has shown is doable on every ps2.0 hw. some things shown by humus, some by some siggraph demos. far cry runs that way on every dx9 card. the other was definitely a non-dx9 rendering. lowest quality settings, or what ever, dunno. or they simply removed ALL shaders out of the game-dir, and that was the result