Some Questions For You Guys

[MFZ]

Quick background:

There's a guy on the [H] forums that claims the x800 line will be defunct in 1 yr from now and credits himself as a programmer for a game company (I won't name it here since he says he wants to keep it private). I'm not a programmer by any stretch so I'd just like some info. on what he did comment on, I'll gladly link him back to this thread:

Ok you asked for it, ATi x800 series, is only one thing about speed, but they don't have true speed only for old tech games can they keep up with anything.

Tell me how many passes does it take to do HDR? How passes does it take to do a proper glow effect with shaders? How many passes does it take to do vertex blending with combination of displacments? tell me what is the difference from sm 3.0 and ps 2.0b with all these effects. What is the difference between Far Cry's water and water used NvSDK 7.0 and 8.0, why can't ATi's card render the nvsdk water at reasonable frame rates?

 

[Razor1]

hmm well he does have a point most of those effects require many passes which Nvidia's 3.0 paths will be more effecient at cutting down passes during rendering. Being in the grave a bit too strong. ATI's cards won't be able to do them efficiently as Nvidia's. If games do start using shader model 3.0 yes ATI x800's will have problems.

 

[MFZ]

hmm well he does have a point most of those effects require many passes which Nvidia's 3.0 paths will be more effecient at cutting down passes during rendering. Being in the grave a bit too strong. ATI's cards won't be able to do them efficiently as Nvidia's. If games do start using shader model 3.0 yes ATI x800's will have problems.

Are there any games coming out within the next year that will heavily use SM 3.0 and introduce such problems? Also, how much slower are we talking about here? He specifically states that SM 3.0 games will work fine on the 6800 line at full speed w/out AA/AF where x800 cards will drop into the teens.

 

[Razor1]

Yes there are a handful of games coming out, I can't remember of the top of my head, but quite a few. Most of these games will have good performance on the x800s though just won't use the same shaders that will require sm 3.0.

 

[MFZ]

Yes there are a handful of games coming out, I can't remember of the top of my head, but quite a few. Most of these games will have good performance on the x800s though just won't use the same shaders that will require sm 3.0.

Thanks for the reply. Will the use of diff. shaders lead to reduced IQ/speed in any significant way (e.g. fps in the teens on an x800 vs good performance with no loss of IQ on a 6800)? More specifically, any game you can think of within the next year that will cause this?

 

[Razor1]

Your welcome.

Sorry have no idea, one thing that ATI cards will have hard time doing is HDR, high dynamic range, it really needs sm 3.0 functionality. and that will improve IQ for Nvidia cards. If they start using texture fetching within vertex shaders like what was stated in the quote you first posted for water, that too will help IQ for Nvidia cards.

 

[gkar1]

Your welcome.

...one thing that ATI cards will have hard time doing is HDR, high dynamic range, it really needs sm 3.0 functionality...

Please back that up with facts.

 

[Razor1]

Your welcome.

...one thing that ATI cards will have hard time doing is HDR, high dynamic range, it really needs sm 3.0 functionality...

Please back that up with facts.

Well the passes required to do HDR I don't know exactly but there are quite a few. This is where SM 3.0 will help. Half Life 2 for example won't have HDR until its SM 3.0 patch is released. As with Far Cry.

 

[tEd]

fuinny thing though HDR dx9 samples work just fine on r300+.

 

[Razor1]

They work but only on simple objects try that in a full scene that is a different story.

HDR was first previewed on the r300 if I'm not mistaken. Then the fx line with little dinosour from NVIDIA's demos.

 

[gkar1]

Your welcome.

...one thing that ATI cards will have hard time doing is HDR, high dynamic range, it really needs sm 3.0 functionality...

Please back that up with facts.

Well the passes required to do HDR I don't know exactly but there are quite a few. This is where SM 3.0 will help. Half Life 2 for example won't have HDR until its SM 3.0 patch is released. As with Far Cry.

You obviously dont know what you are talking about

 

[Razor1]

Your welcome.

...one thing that ATI cards will have hard time doing is HDR, high dynamic range, it really needs sm 3.0 functionality...

Please back that up with facts.

Well the passes required to do HDR I don't know exactly but there are quite a few. This is where SM 3.0 will help. Half Life 2 for example won't have HDR until its SM 3.0 patch is released. As with Far Cry.

You obviously dont know what you are talking about

Excuse me?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...de/advancedtopics/HDRLighting/HDRLighting.asp

Please take a look at this.

It takes 3 passes if I'm not mistaken it really needs sm 3.0 to do it in a game. Unless you only have 50,000 polygons on the screen I'm guessing most engines do around 150,000 polygons on average per scene.

This is why Valve only showed scenes with low polygon count to show of the engine's HDR.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Quick background:

There's a guy on the [H] forums that claims the x800 line will be defunct in 1 yr from now and credits himself as a programmer for a game company (I won't name it here since he says he wants to keep it private). I'm not a programmer by any stretch so I'd just like some info. on what he did comment on, I'll gladly link him back to this thread:

Don't you think NV40 will also be "defunct" a year from now? It will be superceded in the same way as R420. Difference is that ATI will have sold a lot of R420's, where Nvidia even now is still struggling to ship numbers of any NV40-based card.

Saying a graphics card will be defunct a year from now is like saying that there will be a new top end card a year from now. Duh!

As for NV40 vs R420 perfromance. In the life of both cards, NV40 will have some nice SM3.0 tricks *if* programmers use them, but as has been shown recently, R420 also has some tricks of it's own and runs at faster clocks speeds. R420's extra speed seems to have no problems making up more than NV40 gains with SM3.0 (and there's precious little of that around over the next year).

 

[MFZ]

I agree with you but the person at [H] thinks otherwise and states it as fact.

Quick background:

There's a guy on the [H] forums that claims the x800 line will be defunct in 1 yr from now and credits himself as a programmer for a game company (I won't name it here since he says he wants to keep it private). I'm not a programmer by any stretch so I'd just like some info. on what he did comment on, I'll gladly link him back to this thread:

Don't you think NV40 will also be "defunct" a year from now? It will be superceded in the same way as R420. Difference is that ATI will have sold a lot of R420's, where Nvidia even now is still struggling to ship numbers of any NV40-based card.

Saying a graphics card will be defunct a year from now is like saying that there will be a new top end card a year from now. Duh!

As for NV40 vs R420 perfromance. In the life of both cards, NV40 will have some nice SM3.0 tricks *if* programmers use them, but as has been shown recently, R420 also has some tricks of it's own and runs at faster clocks speeds. R420's extra speed seems to have no problems making up more than NV40 gains with SM3.0 (and there's precious little of that around over the next year).

 

[digitalwanderer]

I agree with you but the person at [H] thinks otherwise and states it as fact.

Lots of people at [H] do that.

 

[muted]

what about rthdribl

isn't that an indication it can do hdr? the x800 is beating the 6800 ....

 

[gkar1]

Your welcome.

...one thing that ATI cards will have hard time doing is HDR, high dynamic range, it really needs sm 3.0 functionality...

Please back that up with facts.

Well the passes required to do HDR I don't know exactly but there are quite a few. This is where SM 3.0 will help. Half Life 2 for example won't have HDR until its SM 3.0 patch is released. As with Far Cry.

You obviously dont know what you are talking about

Excuse me?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...de/advancedtopics/HDRLighting/HDRLighting.asp

Please take a look at this.

It takes 3 passes if I'm not mistaken it really needs sm 3.0 to do it in a game. Unless you only have 50,000 polygons on the screen I'm guessing most engines do around 150,000 polygons on average per scene.

This is why Valve only showed scenes with low polygon count to show of the engine's HDR.

So you mean to tell me that the Devebec HDR demos from ATI and RTHDRIBL and HDR HL2 previews weve seen on R300+ cards were faked? I really don't know where you are pulling the notion that PS3.0 is required for HDR lighting.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I agree with you but the person at [H] thinks otherwise and states it as fact.

Well I can "believe" that the moon is made of green cheese and state *that* as a fact - doesn't mean I'm right though. 8)

 

[Razor1]

Your welcome.

...one thing that ATI cards will have hard time doing is HDR, high dynamic range, it really needs sm 3.0 functionality...

Please back that up with facts.

Well the passes required to do HDR I don't know exactly but there are quite a few. This is where SM 3.0 will help. Half Life 2 for example won't have HDR until its SM 3.0 patch is released. As with Far Cry.

You obviously dont know what you are talking about

Excuse me?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...de/advancedtopics/HDRLighting/HDRLighting.asp

Please take a look at this.

It takes 3 passes if I'm not mistaken it really needs sm 3.0 to do it in a game. Unless you only have 50,000 polygons on the screen I'm guessing most engines do around 150,000 polygons on average per scene.

This is why Valve only showed scenes with low polygon count to show of the engine's HDR.

So you mean to tell me that the Devebec HDR demos from ATI and RTHDRIBL and HDR HL2 previews weve seen on R300+ cards were faked? I really don't know where you are pulling the notion that PS3.0 is required for HDR lighting.

The answer to those where in my responses depending on scene complexity HDR has different performance effects ergo more polys in a scene more it hurts cards without sm 3.0 support because calculated 3 times the amount of polys over cards that support SM 3.0.

 

[Cryect]

what about rthdribl

isn't that an indication it can do hdr? the x800 is beating the 6800 ....

No, its not. Its an example of the x800 beating 6800 in HDR using SM2.0 not using SM3.0 and FP Blending.

No one is really doubting the x800 can do HDR, but people are doubting it can do it so the effect looks impressive enough to warrant lower poly count and resolution.