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nVidia NV3x Sneak Peek
zoobaby writes "Here is a sneak peak at nVidia's upcoming line of cards. No hard specs, but some nice notes on changes from current NV2x to NV3x, also some very nice screenshots to show off what it will be capable of." In related news, Tim_F noticed that memory manufacturer Crucial is entering the video card business with their first card based on the ATI Radeon 8500le.
Most of us aren't Slashdot admins, after all.
I know, I know. You all can't wait to get your hands on the only component that really pushes computer hardware. However, I feel I have to remind you that these are only technical demos, and don't show, among other things, the true performance of the card. What's the point of being able to render objects with that level of realism if you're only pulling 1/2 frame a second to pull it off?
Did anyone else's brain want to instinctively drink that cup of coffee on the 3rd page?
,
faeryman
I would be rather surprised if those screenshots represented actual, realtime-rendered scenes.
They look like they have been lifted directly off the ExLuna BMRT (kudos to Larry Gritz for a great renderer) gallery page.
It may be that these are NV30 realtime scenes, with the BMRT Renderman shaders used in the BMRT renders ported to Cg, but it is also possible they are simply the BMRT-rendered examples, given to show what is possible using a shader-based rendering architecture.
Anybody have any more info on whether these examples are actual realtime DirectX/OpenGL scenes?
-Pete
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Thank you for posting a useful response instead of an asinine flame. I appreciate the link.
Every halfway decent raytracing package can produce images of the same consummate quality (using only the cpu) at, say, one frame per minute. nVidia has yet to produce some proof that their new chip can even do that.
Remember, all the renderings are with almost 100% certainty taken from a static model, i.e. no animation, no being busy with matrix translation. Now, what's the likelyhood that NV3x can actually render 25 of those in one second? Comparing 99's sneak peak screenshots with today's (or yesteryear's) games: Very Low.
Hopefully, nVidia will provide a video clip of their creation in action sometime soon.
Imagine the Creator as a stand up commedian - and at once the world becomes explicable. -Mencken
Yes, the screen shots are gorgeous, but it's all just eye candy.
Once we have hardware that can render realistic scenes and humans in real time, there's going to be a sudden realization that for all this prettiness, there's nothing behind it.
imho, it's time we started really looking at interactive and reactive programming. Yes, AI research is a step in the right direction, also realtime english parsing stuff, but we need systems that can at least pretend to comprehend and react to realtime and infinitely variable human input.
Imagine kings quest, with those graphics, and when you type something in it will understand it no matter what it says (short of l33t sp34k) and the game will react accordingly.
Graphics are pretty, but with nothing behind it the graphics are just empty shells.
"You worthless post!"
-Shakespeare, 2 Gentlemen of Verona, 1. 1. 147
I like nVidia's products, great cards with great drivers. But I think that ATI has done the market a big favor reminding nVidia that there are competitors not just in the value market but also in the performance market.
One year ago it looked like the video processor industry would go the same way as the CPU industry 4-5 years ago, one giant corp. delivering the only viable alternative.
http://www.intellipool.se/ - Intellipool Network Monitor
What it will result in is fewer banding problems, particularly in areas where there's little color variation over a large area, such as fog. Such artifacts are more obvious in moving pictures such as movies or real-time 3D than they are in static images.