Unreal Engine 3 on R420 at GDC

[Bjorn]

The below is not accurate.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

It looked like they were showing NV40 at 640x480 and it was very choppy with very low detail.

I was very impressed with R420 as it was obviously running with a much higher framerate and at 1024x768 or higher.

Why am i not surprised ?

 

[Kombatant]

chopiness smells like immature drivers more than crappy card...

 

[SpellSinger]

I could be wrong but it did look pretty good on the ATI card. I'm probably not going to get either of the cards anyway. I'll probably buy whatevers best next fall.

 

[vogel]

1024x768

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

What resolution was the demo running at? Thanks!

 

[991060]

1024x768

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

What resolution was the demo running at? Thanks!

Let me ask another question. Feel free to reject me if you think I'm too aggresive

Were the two systems running with the same content? i.e, not one with real-time rendering and the other with pre-rendered stuff?

 

[PaulS]

The more pertinent question here is whether the two systems were that far apart in terms of performance.

 

[kemosabe]

If that's the only part of SpellSinger's claim that Daniel is prepared to refute, then it would seem that the only inaccuracy is in a detail. I doubt we will hear confirmation of anything beyond that.

 

[vb]

Couple more things I notice...

The NVidia system was heavily branded by NV, even painted green. The ATI system was a crappy AMD show system that was being used on many GDC booths. Not sure if this is important but thought that if NV had to provide a complete system they must have clocked the sh&& out of whatever they gave Epic.

I would say The crappy AMD system was a dual opteron 64 bit/winXP 64 and nvidia's was still 32 bits, sent by nv and EPIC didn't want to mess with cooling and/or PSU unit and left it as is, so that shouldn't tell us much. early versions of any engines are very CPU and memory intensive, and Tim has always stressed out how much importance puts on 64 bit computing.

Edit: even a single CPU would do if the OS was right and running on >4Gigs. choppiness is most of the times hard disk access.

 

[T2k]

Edit: even a single CPU would do if the OS was right and running on >4Gigs. choppiness is most of the times hard disk access.

This is simply not true: even if you have only 1 gigs memory like me I can't tell any game which chopping on my machine because of HD-access (I have Maxtor 15K SCSI hooked on a 29160)...

Choppiness is typically CPU-bonded symptom...

 

[Hellbinder]

If it was a 9800XT I'm definitely not going to get a NV40. I'll stick with my 9800 PRO

Yeah, that would make the 9800 XT, ok, let's say 5X faster then the NV40 then. Which would make the NV40 what, 2X slower then the NV30 ?

It gets better and better.

Ok stop and put some thought into it.

We are talking about a Next Gen engine. Not the Current Unreal engine. Your logic does not carry at all.

It could simply be a case of Drivers on the Nv40.

 

[McDusty]

One would imagine that the folks and Nvidia and Epic talk to each other.

Surely if Nvidia was going to provide a system to Epic, they would ask what the best config would be to acheive max performance with the engine in its current state. AMD or Intel? Required RAM? preferred OS? etc.

 

[Hellbinder]

Well Daniel then What is accurate? It either was faster on the R420 with higher resolution clearly noticable by the viewer or not.

Personally I am guessing that its a case of Pure FP32 simply being slower on the Nv40 hardware than the game running at FP24 on the ATi hardware.

 

[vb]

This is simply not true: even if you have only 1 gigs memory like me I can't tell any game which chopping on my machine because of HD-access (I have Maxtor 15K SCSI hooked on a 29160)...

Choppiness is typically CPU-bonded symptom...

1 This is an early alpha due 2006
2 My point was that it may not be GPU caused. Thank you for confirmation.

 

[vb]

ooops...

Double post

 

[mreman4k]

1024x768

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

What resolution was the demo running at? Thanks!

OT: Hey, you're in Raleigh too..

 

[T2k]

2 My point was that it may not be GPU caused. Thank you for confirmation.

 

[Evildeus]

The below is not accurate.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

It looked like they were showing NV40 at 640x480 and it was very choppy with very low detail.

I was very impressed with R420 as it was obviously running with a much higher framerate and at 1024x768 or higher.

So the other things are true? :?

 

[Natoma]

The below is not accurate.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

It looked like they were showing NV40 at 640x480 and it was very choppy with very low detail.

I was very impressed with R420 as it was obviously running with a much higher framerate and at 1024x768 or higher.

So the other things are true? :?

Appears that way. He said the demo was running at 1024x768, not 640x480. That leads me to believe the rest is accurate. Unless, of course, he decides to clear it up.

 

[Evildeus]

Good, Ati owning Nv once more

 

[T2k]

Good, Ati owning Nv once more

Yeah, same feeling here...