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More on the GeForce 3
Tom has extensive poop on the GeForce 3. Some history, and a ton of why this card may or may not be worth the $600 price tag. Lots of stuff on the Vertex Shaders (which look to be a truly amazing idea). Very worth a read if you're interested in state-of-the-art 3D, or just wanna sneak
preview at what next year's FPS will be doing.
I don't care what the context is, I'm always a little apprehensive about clicking on a link labeled as 'extensive poop'.
So it`s ok to be aware of market tactics principles and to approve or disapprove, but to actually NOT buy a graphics card which is superior to others because it makes the other businesses go slower ?
That`s definately NOT the right angle. In fact, if nVidia gets to sell this card as hot as the previous 2 versions, it can set (and raise) the standard in 3d lighting again, and frankly that`s what I want. Ofcourse monopolistic situations like e.g. Soundblaster are absolutely bad to competition (and quality) in the market, but that`s because a Soundblaster (could als have used Windows here) is a good product, just not top of the line. That doesn`t mean there are no other soundcards out there which are actually better, only that you`ll have to pay more for those and go out and look for them.
I support ATI and to a lesser extend, Matrox, because they are the only rivals left in the field. But If I had to buy a card today, it wouldn`t be either of those 2, because I simply want a 'standard' compliant full fledged and top of the line game experience, not the feeling that I did something good for market competition. In the end I might financially regret that choice, but if nVidia creates the best cards at the end of the day, I`m only happy to spend some cash on them. If someone else can do the same or top them AND has less expensive cards, obviously that`s a thing to consider. But today I cheer for nVidia, as I have more pro than con.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
I find it a little worrying that so much of the work that has gone into the GeForce3 has been implementing unprecedented new features such as these vertex shaders, rather than improving more general stuff such as fillrate or transformation and lighting. This leads me to believe that Nvidia's goal with this chipset is not to improve the 3D gaming experience of their customers, but rather to lure developers into using these (admittedly excellent) new features.
How is this a bad thing, I hear you ask? Well, it looks to me like an "embrace & extend" tactic. If the developers use vertex shaders to make their games look cooler, then other 3D chipmakers have to either scramble to provide the same features, or all the cool new games will run like ass on anything non-Nvidia. Only Nvidia can get away with a tactic like this because of their present dominance of the market. Witness ATI's Radeon - they added some very innovative features (like all the z-buffer accelerating) tricks but they were all dedicated to improving performance with current software. They couldn't introduce radical new features because nobody would use them, supported as they were only by a minority chipmaker.
If you don't want to see the 3D industry completely monopolised by a single player, avoid the GeForce3, and avoid any games written to depend on its features. Support chipmakers that are seeking to make everything run better, like ATI and PowerVR.
Another massive, expensive upgrade, that all the latest games will require you to use (after all, they won't run on old cards 'cause they can't be programmed)...
Screw it. I'm not paying more than two hundred for a video card. Anyone who'd shell out six hundred for one of these is insane. You can get another box for that much, pre-rebate.
I think the biggest problem is driver obsolesence. I have an "ancient" ATI Rage 128 video card (an AIW to be precise) and ATI has never delivered more than a "beta" set of drivers and applications (TV, etc) for the AIW128 cards under Windows 2000. I'm doubting there will EVER be another set of drivers or tuner software for this card from ATI.
The video card people seem to have like three people that write drivers, and they're always busy writing drivers for the "current" crop of cards, until the cards actually are available, at which point they switch to writing drivers for the "next" slate of cards and the "old" cards simply do not get new or improved drivers written for them. A new OS often means getting stuck with the OEM drivers provided in the OS.
I'm perfectly happy with my ATI-128 performance in the games I've played it with. I've toyed with hunting down a $120 GEForce2 card, but for the reasons you stated I'm missing the why part other than getting drivers more modern and optimized drivers than I'll ever see for my existing card.
Some people use all the neato features of a card like this to get faster OpenGL performance out of Lightwave or Maya or some such.
It is great that we can use it for games too, but that isn't the point for many. I am sure there will be an even more expensive version of this in Nvidia's Quadro line, it'll have greater throughput and more processing power...so it'll get bought. It'll make DOOM 3 scream, but that isn't why you buy it.
Unless you are a, "soul of independent means."
Don't post innacurate information
If you do, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
I think one of the coolest things about the GF3 is the ability to get a pixel write count back for a polygon. i.e. you draw a polygon and it tells you how many pixels were "written" to the frame buffer due to alpha and z-buffer test.
And since you can turn off color and z writes, you can test visibility with no changes to the frame buffer. This is perfect for a portal game where you can cull entire rooms if they are not visible because of things you traditionally couldn't compute. If there is a big fireball in front of your face, or a character/pillar is blocking the view. If you have a few monsters that require a significant amount of time to draw, then you can test to see if they are visible first by rendering a coverage polygon first.
You can use this to test the visibility of lens flares so they fade smoothly in and out as they go behind other objects.
You can also use this in game logic in combination with a shadow map to tell how much "in the shadows" characters are. This can make the AI more realistic.
Getting back pixel write counts from the hardware has a very long latency, so it can't be preformed super frequently - but it's a lot faster than trying to read and process the z-buffer yourself.
And for those of you not wanting to spend $600 for a GF3, just wait for the Xbox - it's including almost exactly the same hardware for half the price.
-- Virtual Windows Project
http://www.bluesnews.com/plans/1/
Carmack has quite a bit to say on the subject as this .plan update is rather long (a little too long for a /. comment I think).
mr.nobody
--Don't you wanna go where nobody knows your name?
In case anyone wants a quick link to the other big reviews...i dia_geforce3_preview/
t ech/i
Sharky Extreme: http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/articles/nv
AnandTech: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1426
HardOCP: http://www.hardocp.com/articles/nvidia_stuff/gf3_
-pepermil