In reply to #19

http://www.amdmb.com/article-display.php?ArticleID=257

check that out....

an article on the new nvidia drivers and how they don't do much :\

That article means absoluetly nothing. Did you even read the thing before you posted the link. Here is a quote from the article

"Now, while I don’t have a copy of the new beta Half Life 2 to benchmark using these new 51.75 drivers, it is these drivers that will give the NVIDIA graphics cards the much needed push in performance in DX9 games, including HL2. While we currently don't have good ways of testing DirectX 9, I decided it would be good to see how the new drivers affect current games running the DX8 API.."

Pay attention to the last sentence "We don't have a good way of testing DirectX9" that is key.

Also: " decided it would be good to see how the new drivers affect current games running the DX8 API.."

So your article doesnt even touch the issue of the new Det 50 drivers improving DIRECTX 9 performance. This article says that the beta driver does not improve DX 8 games, I never remember hearing that the Det 50 drivers were supposed to do?

WTF are you thinking?

This comment was edited on Sep 17, 21:49.

You guys are weird. Swearing off buying something good because a previous product was inferior. You guys do remember the suck that was the Riva 128, right? And the Voodoo Rush? We'd all be holding onto our stock boards and waiting for Bitboys' card if we refused to buy a company's product because they made a stinker in the past.

3dfx died because they decided to make thier own cards and not supply chips to third parties.that left all the companies that made 3dfx chip cards looking for another source[nvidia].poor company leadership decisions and not being able to get thier cards to market killed 3dfx.

No. That is not why 3dfx died. 3dfx did this just fine with their early Voodoo cards, and extremely successfully with the V3. What happened to 3dfx was a monster called the TnT2 Ultra, and its much bigger, asskicking brother called the GeForce 256.

It never was a contest, and it was a fucking demolition when comparing the V5 to the GF.

Thats why 3dfx died.

Man, why did ATI go and dig such a hole for itself for me. Back in the 90's their drivers were such crap that I vowed to never buy their product again -- not just your casual vow, mind you. It involved candles, pentagrams, ground up ATI cards, the works...

Man.. so true, so true. And yet, how can any serious gamer not be considering ATI at this point? I have a ti4006, but I'm already planning on buying the ATI/HL2 bundle when I see it.

ATI won.

Again.

Moving along,
Ray

---------------------------------------------------------
It is never wrong to care for somebody.
http://users.ign.com/collection/RayMarden
I am not actually a wookiee; I just play one in Star Wars Galaxies

Sure, you can praise nVidia for trying to raise the bar in doing FP32. But then you have to wonder why they put in FP16. Especially since they write their drivers to operate in FP16 and not FP32.

Right, I know what both cards support, that little babbling was just wondering how it would turn out if both cards could run at FP32 or FP24.

Well, at least we know Nvidia takes these criticisms to heart, so this most likely will not be a problem in their next core. Now hopefully that core will be out next spring, which is when I plan on upgrading. I really don't want to have to buy ATI.

"I'll add this, has anyone thought that maybe the FX line's poor performance in default DX9 is because it runs FP32 by default (instead of FP24 on the Radeons)? So it could be Nvidia's attempt at pushing higher detail turning around to bite them in the ass. I wonder how the cards would match up against each other if the FX ran FP24, or the Radeons ran FP32."

nVidia can do FP16, and FP32. ATi can only do FP24, the minimum spec for DX9. Sure, you can praise nVidia for trying to raise the bar in doing FP32. But then you have to wonder why they put in FP16. Especially since they write their drivers to operate in FP16 and not FP32.

poor company leadership decisions and not being able to get thier cards to market killed 3dfx.

Sounds like the same will happen to Nvidia.

"3dfx decdied that, instead of creating a whole new chipset, they would use 4 of their old chips and let them run in sync. They lose, Nvidia takes what it wants (part of the AA tech if I understand correctly) Nvidia buys them up."

3dfx died because they decided to make thier own cards and not supply chips to third parties.that left all the companies that made 3dfx chip cards looking for another source[nvidia].poor company leadership decisions and not being able to get thier cards to market killed 3dfx.

im a gonna stick wit ma S3 virge for Doom3.

Man, why did ATI go and dig such a hole for itself for me. Back in the 90's their drivers were such crap that I vowed to never buy their product again -- not just your casual vow, mind you. It involved candles, pentagrams, ground up ATI cards, the works...

c'mon NVDA throw us a bone!

" I wonder how the cards would match up against each other if the FX ran FP24, or the Radeons ran FP32."

hard to say as radeons cant do fp32 and the fx can't do fp24 either. i think it is more interesting seeing how while the radeons do run in fp24, the fx cards have to scale back to fp16 and even fx12 just to be remotely competitive. another interesting piece of trivia is the fact that sofar it seems that the 5900ultra running fp32 is about equal to the 9600pro running fp24, yet costs over twice as much.

Well I sum it up like this. Some hardware developers make mistakes when creating their equipment. 3dfx decdied that, instead of creating a whole new chipset, they would use 4 of their old chips and let them run in sync. They lose, Nvidia takes what it wants (part of the AA tech if I understand correctly) Nvidia buys them up.

Now, Nvidia makes the mistake of making their cards not perform at the DX9 standard of 24 bit across the board performance-- instead giving their card different levels of precision, probably because using their lower (8 bit) is the only way they could keep the speed of ATI in pure DX9 games.

However, it seems its all but 24 bit out there, and since ATIs architecture does it better, it will run faster. The Nvidia cards can do it as well, but since they are built for pure 24 bit sampling, it will be slower.

Now thats how I take it. But even if I have the terminology wrong, precision is what its all about, and ATI's is handling it better then Nvidia for the newest technology, DirectX 9.

doesn't Carmack program in openGL rather than DirectX? I thought he was against Microsoft engineering for specific graphical platforms.

Hmmm, Mask, which of those games benched is DX9? What is X2? I know UT isn't DX9.

-Tony!!!;)

Well, if that wasn't a warning shot across the bow of ATI owners, I don't know what is..."

Damn it, I meant to say nVidia, not ATI...And the damn edit button doesn't work! Now whose losing their marbles?!? Argh! The hell with it, they both suck, I'm getting a Matrox...


=-Rigs-=

All Day Repeat: Eminem - Lose Yourself
"Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted - one moment - Would you capture it or just let it slip?"

an article on the new nvidia drivers and how they don't do much

On the contrary, look at the PS2.0 shader performance in the 3DMark03 bench. 25% increase in performance there, which is where it's going to matter.

I'll add this, has anyone thought that maybe the FX line's poor performance in default DX9 is because it runs FP32 by default (instead of FP24 on the Radeons)? So it could be Nvidia's attempt at pushing higher detail turning around to bite them in the ass. I wonder how the cards would match up against each other if the FX ran FP24, or the Radeons ran FP32.
This comment was edited on Sep 17, 20:06.

The drivers are optimized for few selected games...

sure Ted, that is what he has to say about games like doom3. but he is also saying that, unlike doom3, dx9 level games will have to look uglier and/or run slower on an fx.

http://www.amdmb.com/article-display.php?ArticleID=257

check that out....

an article on the new nvidia drivers and how they don't do much :\