The NEXT LAST R600 Rumours & Speculation Thread

Why not? The current performance issues can be due to a lot of things. I'm not sure how 3dmark's vertex test sheds any light on the situation at all.

 

Well I was just thinking that as they are unified architectures and running in fixed mode in DX9 with no load balancing, so maybe R600 has a larger junk of it's shader units assigned for vertex shading than G80 when doing DX9. So in that case things might be very different with DX10 and load balancing.
But if not, well...

 

Unified hardware doesn't run in fixed mode in DX9. That myth was dispelled months ago Nothing about DX9 forces the hardware to assign fixed ratios of pixel and vertex shaders.

 

LOL, havn't been following that carefully.

Edit:

So it does very well in vertex and possibly geometry shading but just sucks at pixel shading then?

 

So... yeah.

 

Lol, no we have no evidence that it sucks in pixel shading.

 

So this could just be a register pressure issue? Hmmmm reminds of a certain ill-fated architecture.....

 

Err shouldnt that be dynamically loaded?

 

You are late, it's allready over and done with.

 

Just a few things I noted that bug me from the VR-Zone piece.

When they tested Anistropic Filtering, for some reason they decided to also enable "best" AA modes. Problem is, that 16x CFAA uses a wide tent that blurs the image. Thus, they aren't really judging Anistropic Filtering at all, but are judging something totally different.

So at this point I still haven't a clue how R600's AF compares to G80's AF. Grrrr. Hopefully reviews on Monday will do a better job.

Likewise, it sounds like 12x CFAA (8x + Narrow Tent) and 24x CFAA (8x + Edge Detect) are enabled in 8.38. For someone like me, and I'd assume most others on this board, those have the greatest potential of bringing improved AA quality to the table.

24x CFAA sounds the most intriguing. What exactly does ATI mean by edge detect. I can't imagine they mean something as simple as polygon edges, as that would just how current AA is done on both vendors cards, right?

So does this mean it actually has an algorythm that analyzes a texture or entire image and find instances where there are lines/edges and only applies a tent filter to those case. And otherwise doesn't apply narrow or wide tent to the rest of the image/textures?

So in effect it would be trying to anti-alias anything that appears to be a line or an edge on the screen even if it isn't an actual edge of an object. While leaving everything else as it is. If so, this sounds very intriguing. However, I shudder to think of the performance impact something like this would have.

Regards,
SB

 

Maybe the AA is angle-dependent? Aliasing is particularly noticeable on nearly-horizontal or nearly-vertical lines, and much less noticeable at 45 degrees. So perhaps if a polygon edge is close to vertical or horizontal it turns up the AA, and then turns it back down for diagonal lines?

 

theinq has just posted the nvidia document comparing G80 to R600

Link

 

He didn't say anything about performance. Only stability. Two different things.

 

Be interesting to see the AMD rebuttal that was sent out a few days ago.

 

Part three

http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1335&Itemid=1

 

Honestly though, that article Nvidia is sending out isn't nearly as brutal as they've done in the past.

 

Nvidia's FUD presentation revealed
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39578



ups.. I am to late, but the post by Techno+ was not good visible.

 

Interesting and quite honest to. The only bizzare thing was the Inq writers comments!

 

So far:

Nvidia has better AF
Nvidia has better AA (sharper picture > less edges). Ati blurring the pic doesn't make it better IQ for me.
The 8800GTX remains untouched
The 8800GTS will trade back n' forth with the x2900xt
All hope lies on Drivers from Ati.

From what I've seen so far, I'd rate this product a 6/10. Late, worse IQ and does not clearly beat the competitor at the same price point, let alone their flagship card.

Before I get called a nvidia fanboy, my video card purchases since I got into the enthusiast PC hobby include: x800xtpe, x1800xtx, x1900xtx (currently).

If there were a lots of DX10 games coming out in the new few months, I'd say that'd be a wildcard but by the time DX10 games do become the norm, these cards will be atlest 1-2 generations behind.

 

I think their test in SupCom is incorrect because you are CPU limited in that game IF you have significant number of units and what is even more important SLI doesnt work in SC Link: http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=620&p=7