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Nvidia Talks About Next-Gen Geforce, Plus Pics
Per Hansson writes "Techspot was at Comdex in Sweden a few days ago; we have now posted a small interview with Nvidia along with some high-res pictures of the Geforce FX on this page in our new comments system." This is one of the strangest looking video cards I've ever seen (and it isn't cheap), though it may look different by the time you can buy it in a box. Which is not yet, despite all the hype.
This is "market specific?" What market? Ill tell you this, They best not think people will go for a 2 slot card for "heat management". I do agree with the passive heat sinks on the reverse though, very good idea!
Obviously this is a first crack at the FX. I'd bet serious money that within six months of its release, a version will be ready that requires only one slot. Consumers hate incoveniences like this -- what if a cap on the motherboard gets in the way of one slot? Moreover, those who wait six months are more likely to be price-conscious consumers -- which means their systems are less likely to have gobs of space open (cheaper mobos = fewer slots).
Still, I want one. Now.
Make cheese not war 8:)
What are we up to now? Three months to obsolescence? It was just last Fall that we heard about the ultra-mega-super Radeon 9700 that could render 47umptyzillion somethingorothers every picosecond (only $400 while supplies last)?
I wonder if we're ever going to get to a point where "this is the hardware. You have 10 years to do something cool with it" instead of "oh, look, your program is obsolete again! Your graphics are dated! Another 10 man-years down the drain! Place your bets... (spin)"
sigh...
LadyStar - Your Magical and Mysterious Adventure Awaits
The Inquirer has an article that takes a look at the GeForceFX. Hopefully things won't turn out as they did for 3DFX.
The dogcow says "Moof!"
Honestly, there's gotta be a smarter way to cool that thing than a huge, ugly, entire-slot-using heatpipe. Either that, or developing a new way to crunch graphics numbers other than using a single chip..... SLI on one card using two slightly slower chips? Power consumption would go up, but you could use floppy power connectors in lieu of a new bus solution that provides more voltage grunt, and it'd be easier to cool.
Why don't manufacturers start doing dual-DVI outputs? Granted, most LCD's have a second analog input, but what's the point of having one DVI output then?
I wish they'd start putting dual-DVI outputs on them. Maybe one of the other companies that makes them (MSI, PNY, Leadtek, etc) will offer one finally. AFAIK they don't even offer a hydrahead adapter for the one DVI port to split to two (doubt its possible without a proprietary output like the Radeon VE's).
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
Ever stop to think how few people would have two LCDs that use DVI and wnated to waste them on a dual head configuration instead of use them on two seperate machines? It is highliy likely that they wouldn't even be able to recoup the costs of a single run of such cards.
I wonder if we're ever going to get to a point where "this is the hardware. You have 10 years to do something cool with it"
Only when, if ever, we can render something like the Final Fantasy movie in real-time. Something tells me Moore's "law" will have broken down before that though.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In my day, video cards didn't even use these new-fangled slot whatsits. We didn't even have monitors back then - the video card had to do all the drawing and thne DISPLAY it to us as well. And we didn't have RAM or ROM either, so we had to remember each byte ourselves and give it to the video card when necessary. Not that it ever TOLD you when it needed a byte, OR which byte it needed. You had to memorise the order in which bytes were required - the list was provided in invisible ink on the back of the installation manual (which we DIDN'T have) and it was written in reverse-polish ascii pseudo-hexadecimal with a Russian accent. AND it could do everything we needed! And it didn't even need a heatsink (but the horses that powered it did need a break every now and then, and you had to train them not to go potty on the computer ... that was a real CORE DUMP)
This sig intentionally left bla... dammit!
Who's got the whiteout?
I've just put together a new computer an Nvidia nforce2 ASUS A7N8X motherboard, and you know how many PCI slots I use? None. My video uses the AGP, but then sound is on board (and it's good), usb/firewire/serial-ATA RAID/regular ATA, etc are all on board PLUS two NICs. Sure, I could add SCSI (but how many home users do?), or a TV tuner (already built in to my video card), or a variety of other things, but I really have no need for these PCI slots. I'm surviving quite well without them.
http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021118/gefo rcefx-03.html
the most complex games, on the highest resolutions, get WAY too many frames
you're kidding me, right? Get UT2003 in 1600x1200 with everything maxed out and even on a 9700pro you won't see more than 30 or so fps on certain maps (alone, just looking around, in heavy firefights I'd suspect it'll drop to the teens: I don't have a system like that but I'm basing this on vidcaps I saw when UT came out).
Human eye is unable to perceive extra frames beyond a certain number
bs, it also really depends on what you're doing. If you're in a driving game going straight ahead and you get 30fps, you *might* not notice the difference between your 30 and 90fps. In a shooter or other game where the screen moves around quite a bit, I'm sorry but I can see the difference between 30fps and 70fps quite easily...
The moment somebody creates a card that is able to mantain refresh-rate-synced-updates (say 85fps) in any available game at any resolution regardless of what is going on, it's the moment a new game will be announced that will take a card 4x as powerful to do the same.
It really never ends... of course if all you'd like to do is play counterstrike you can get by quite well like myself with a really old p3-450 + geforce1.
-- the cake is a lie
... 2 slot card for "heat management"....
Remember, the "2nd slot" would normally (always?) be occupied by a PCI GFX card in a ATX form factor motherboard that features AGP. The AGP and PCI slot are usually (always?) mutually exclusive so the fact the GeForceFX card uses the unused back panel slot to vent 60W is a good idea IMO.
--- Rahul.
Its true that there's a maximum frame-rate that the human brain (not eye) can perceive. Its somewhere between 60-120 in most humans. Film is displayed [in the US] at 24 frames per second, video is 29.97. This leads to the common misconception that 30fps is the max framerate that means anything.
There is also the fact that these are "average" frame rates: if your average fps is 30, you're going to quite often be getting sub-30 fps, resulting in jerkiness. So the ideal FPS is somewhere around an average of 75-135, so as to remain in perfect smoothness. (this refers to your question about why a gamer would want a new card).
"Stumble before you crawl"
If I zoom in will I be able to see the blood pumping through it's wings?
Or a bunch of flowers.
Is each individual pollen grain to be described?
Will the water eventually splash?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
The GeForce FX is in my opinion, not going to be what the world has expected from nVidia. It is simply too little, too late - 6 months too late. It may have the performance crown for a month, but it will be short-lived.
.13u process. In case some people haven't noticed, the leaked benchmarks of the GeForce FX show it to only be marginally faster than the Radeon 9700 Pro. Not to mention that it's 500MHz vs. 325MHz. It seems that ATI is faster in terms of IPC's.
ATI will simply respond with the R350, which is likely going to be an improved R300 core, as well as DDR2 and manufactured with the
It would be unfeasible for nVidia to respond until the summer with the NV31/34, at which time ATI will announce the R400.
I will have to give nVidia one thing though, their drivers are excellent. This is perhaps the only thing they have going for them at the moment. However, ATI is pumping out a new driver set almost every month, and at this rate, they will soon reach parity with nVidia.
OK, now who Slashdotted the site, come on now - who was it (50 million /nerds raise their hands gleefully)
Oh, a quick addendum re: fps.
Part of why film [at the aformentioned 24fps] seems smooth is that motion blur is recorded on the film: when an object is moving too quickly for hte light to capture a still image on the film [due to exposure], it captures a blur. Our brain loves to use that blur to assemble motion. Since computers lack this motion blur, they need more fps.
"Stumble before you crawl"
They could probably save more money on the cooling solution if they just freaking use enough thermal paste!!!
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Well, I agree that the latest cards are usually overkill, but I'll try to address the question-
The newest cards can generally push more frames than is strictly necessary on existant games, but there are always newer graphics technologies that require the extra processing power. For instance; per-pixel shading. Really, though, that developement is usually around 6 months to a year behind the hardware now. Who really cares if the GeforceFX can push 20% (just a random number, BTW) more frames than the Radeon 9700Pro? Does it really make any difference at that point? Not now, but maybe in six months. And in six months, maybe the GeforceFX will be somewhat affordable. I'll continue buying just behind the latest tech., and I don't really see any reason to buy right on the bleeding edge.
And you have to also consider the fact that the movie is being projected on a reflective screen in the dark.
Of course, and I highly suspect it, I may be talking out of my ass. -oqti
The Inquirer has an article [theinquirer.net] that takes a look at the GeForceFX. Hopefully things won't turn out as they did for 3DFX.
Disclaimer: I have no idea about the economic status of Nvidia. But I do see them in pretty much every computer advertized, and they've generally delivered very successful products since the first Geforce chip, so I assume they got a strong finacial position. And if you can't solve it even if you got more money to throw after it than the rest, well maybe you deserve being dethroned. That's what competition is all about, isn't it?
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
This happens whe M$ gets the liberty to set hardware standards... like DirectX 9. After years of software bloat, here come meaty example of hardware bloat!
Yuhoo...
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
Manufacturers may start to think that peripherals that take two slots are 'OK'.
With cards of this nature it may be necessary to have a powerful active cooler, but in smaller cases this sort of design would either be incredibly cramped or not fit at all. Heres hoping that by the time it hits the consumer market the cooler is a little smaller.
People call liquid cooling dangerious, unneccesary, and extravigant, and then buy video cards that have cooling such as this one, cpu coolers that are enormious, and put half a dozen case fans in their case to try to keep the temperature down.
I do security
having it take up two slots is not a big deal. it is stupid to install anything next to a video card with a fan. it will most likely block the airflow (totally with the help of some dust, pet dander and smoke residue) and the card will die.
all current cards require 2 slots, 1 for the card and 1 empty to give room for fan/heatsink.
Why do the graphics card manufactures feel the need to completely update the capabilities of their cards every six months? What's the point? As it is, there is such a huge range of cards out there that many games don't even take advantage of the features in a Geforce2, let alone geforce4.
If they'd just let things stabilise a bit, the PC world would end up more like the console world, where a limited system is driven to its limits because it's a staionary target. That way, you get excellent graphics without a card that requires a whole PCI slot for its cooling fan. Did you see some of the things they managed to do with the PSone after a few years?
This sounds just like what caused the death-knell of 3DFX: company bets the bank to make a monster video card that blows everything out of the water, and holds off on a whole scheduled version release (once every 18 months) to make this monster card... and blows it big time.
3DFX used to compete with NVIDIA. When NVIDIA released a new line of cards, so did 3DFX, or when 3DFX released a new line of cards first, so did NVIDIA.
When the GeForce2 cards came out, everyone waited for 3DFX to release their competitive line. About 4 months later, 3DFX released a couple Voodoo4 cards, but not much in the way of competition, and nothing spectacularly advanced above the Voodoo3's. However, they also let out news of plans to make a market breaker card, the Voodoo 5-6000, which would take up fall case length (and bump harddrives), have 5 fans on it, and require an external wallwart-style DC adaptor for power supply. It was a $600 card meant for the mega-gamers and graphic designers out there. This was a huge card... and their biggest flop, for once it came out, NVIDIA was already releasing the GeForce3's which had better specs and lower prices overall.
Now, Nvidia does something just like that. This card is double-height (the second slot worth is ducting for external air intake and exhaust) and is full case length. It's got monster specs, and has thrown off their regular 18-month cycle of new cards. This new one is $600 as well.
Sounds to me like some of the execs of 3DFX have gotten on the board of NVIDIA via the buyout, and are trying to make another Voodoo5-6000. I hope it doesn't end the same way, with this company going down the tubes as well.
I'm of two minds about this card.
On one hand, it's a powerful piece of hardware if any of the hype we're getting fed is remotely accurate.
On the other hand, is it really a good idea to completely reinvent the wheel? Have we really pushed the computing power available to us in the old methods of rendering things in 3 dimensions?
Building in a cooling solution like that which is totally unrepairable by the end user is a great way to build in forced-obsolescence.
I think I'll stick with my radeon. If the fan quits, I'll just replenish the oil.
Kudos to Nvidia, though, for finding a way to force their users to buy new cards in the future! This'll certainly be the wave of the future, like fibreglass bodies on cars!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
i'll repeat myself on this topic:
One of the artifacts of lower frame rates is ghosting, a form of temporal aliasing.
From sgi
Ghosting. A true FAQ is why multiple images of objects like trees, house edges, the horizon, etc. are seen as the viewer turns. This is a form of "temporal aliasing" and is an attribute of having a frame rate which is less than the video refresh rate.
The problem is that a single image is scanned out onto the monitor several times before being changed. The repetition of a frame means that the image is temporally inaccurate for motion. Real moving objects do not stay in one place for a couple frame times and then move.
What's actually happening is that your eye is following an object, moving with the same angular velocity, which keeps the image stationary on the retina. Between two video refreshes of the same frame, your eye has moved, but the image on the screen has not. Consequently the image of the second frame appears at a different location on the retina, and you see a "ghost" image.
So a simulation running at 20Hz update on a display refreshing at 60Hz, the object will appear tripled. On large objects such as horizon silhouette, the effect manifests itself as multiple edges.
I wonder if they are coming out with a laptop model also... =P
Fast mirror here.
that had a 486 fan atached to that huge aluminun heatsink. took 2 slots. I ended up without slots because of it, 2 nics and a SCSI card, so no more big cooling in video cards for me. thank you.
maybe when they move to a smaler interconect size (what they're using in this card ? 0.13 micron ?) it runs cooler. then I'll buy.
What ? Me, worry ?
Check out some of the equipment from Sun Microsystems, SGI, IBM, and Stereographics.
A bunch of their equipment is designed for a 10 year obsoletion-cycle. Cost's a hefty penny, though. Designed for business and major research universities.
At the University, we were using Creator3D graphics cards from Sun Microsystems. That was in 1999, and the general consumer market still hasn't caught up with that tech. Me, I'm still looking around for auto-stereoscopic monitors. Sharp is coming out with a consumer model next year, I hear.
it's called silicon real-estate.
it's also called packaging cost.
it's called data routing on the board (FR4 is very, very slow unless you use a LOT of traces, which is very, very diffcult).
I think it may also be called lower MTBF.
and how about "debugging is a pain?"
either way, though - don't expect "multi-processing" on but the most high-end incarnations - when they have squeezed out of every bit of performance per-chip.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
While all of the modern 3D chipsets have impressive frame rates for running 3D games they tend to suck badly for much of anything else.
The chips are very slow to switch from text to graphics and vice versa.
I had a board with a slightly older Nvidia chip set. I wasn't very satisfied with the stability of the Xfree drivers for it so I tried the Nvidia Linux drivers. Their driver took five minutes to switch between text and graphics modes.
Older chipsets were much more practical for day to day use; the super speed models remind me of trying to drive a AA fuel dragster to the office every day.
Actually, this goes out to all the video card manufacturers..
Why hasn't anyone put the GPU on the OPPOSITE side of the card yet? Every AGP card I see, the GPU is ALWAYS facing towards the PCI slots in the system where it.
A. Blocks out other PCI cards
B. The fan causes noise and instability if it is running too close
C. It exhaust the heat onto those other cards.
Instead of trying to put the carridge before the horse, why not just mount the GPU on the opposite side? There's no PCI slots to get in the way, and you could fit a HUGE cooling solution there.
Hey Nvidia if you want to hire someone with more common sense design tips like this i'm availiable. I'll slap your engineers with a cluestick for ya.
Once again, we're seeing a very elaborate (and ungainly) design for the next ultra high power graphics chip. As technology progresses, we're accustomed (as it should be) to the new products to be the same physical dimension (or smaller) as the older products. This is how we have such concepts as the PDA, the microATX form factor, just to name a few.
The graphics card arena has been a major exception to this for the last few years. It's one of the few industries that I can think of where the product is actually GROWING in size and becoming more combersome as the technology becomes increasingly faster and more complex. I believe this is a sign that, not unlike how we discovered in the Pentium II/III era, that card/based processor packages are poor product design that are a) larger than necessary b)gum up the works, and c) only enhance the problem of cooling, thus needing continuingly more complex cooling systems.
The current AGP(or PCI or whatever) bus expansion card methodology for video cards can be seen as going through the same problem, especially in the case of the GeForceFX. We've seen these problems previously in the designs for the GeForce3,4, made much fun of them in the case of the 3dfx Voodoo5 6000 cards, and even the latest ATI cards are requiring more power than the AGP bus can provide. Doesn't this show that there is an inherent flaw in the packaging design for this technology?
GPUs need to take the same road that CPUs have taken (and now restored since we now use socket based motherboard solutions again) and be sold soley as the graphics processor, with the memory substructures and soforth built onto the motherboard. This increases the efficiency and ease that the GPU can communicate with the central bus and the rest of the system. In addition, you will no longer need to build an elaborate cooling strucutre to make up for the lack of ventilation provided by the typical AGP/PCI card slot design.
Nvidia is part way there with the NForce already, building the graphics subsystem as a central part of the motherboard chipset and PC bus, but the flaw here remains (as in most integrated motherboard systems) that you are stuck with the technology. Of course, you can upgrade an NForce system with a full GeForce4 FX or Radeon if that is your choosing, but that just brings back the card problem. What needs to be done is to create a NForce type chipset with an FCPGA type socket for the GPU as well as the CPU, that way both systems are imminently upgradable (not to mention the potential benefits in creating a more efficient in-line cooling solution for the interior of the system) and thus our size problems begin to be alleviated.
-Julius X
remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send
perhaps its time for a case/tower that has openings in the back ala the normal ones that we are used to... but the top 2 slots are meant to be used with a card like this.
:)
anticipating rear exhaust/cooling, the 2nd to top lines up with a slot, and the top one just has the cut in the back, in case you have a card that needs it.
chances are youll only have one card that uses a dual slot, and that leaves the rest to be used normally.
the people who always put the big ass power supply at the very end of the strip so the rest of the plugs can be used will understand what im talking about
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Always you read the the last on ./E nglish/nVidia/index.php
And by the way that is not a full interview
Here http://www.nordichardware.se/artiklar/Intervjuer/
developer http://flamerobin.org
You can see 2 videos of outpout of the FX card here:The Dawn Fairy demo and the Toys demo. Click the Video links on the left side of each page. Real and WMP. Looks darn cool.
I thought I'd take a
picture and make a rebuttal to your statement. Gotta love digital.
In this pic there are 5 mobo's.
Intel 850GB
Some asus socket370 thing
Some soyo socket370 thing
Iwill BD100 slot1
Some intel socket370 thing
You will notice on the asus board I put a tape measure across as a reference.
Now out of the 5 boards sampled, only 1 has no space for heatsinks on the right
side. Also to note this board is a slot1, which is no longer in production.
On the other hand, every single semi modern board in this picture has more
than adequate room for heatsinks on the right side.
So unless these newer cards are going into an outdated system, putting the
fans/heatsinks on the right side shouldn't be a problem right? Simple enough
solution without having to resort to heat pipes/water cooling or peizo electric
cooling.
"How cool, a video card with what looks like a trojan stretched over it for safe gaming."
How apt!
- - - - - - - -
Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
Correct! And as both a nerd AND a hermit, I'm gonna buy me one of these. Now fuck off.
bs, it also really depends on what you're doing. If you're in a driving game going straight ahead and you get 30fps, you *might* not notice the difference between your 30 and 90fps. In a shooter or other game where the screen moves around quite a bit, I'm sorry but I can see the difference between 30fps and 70fps quite easily...
It's interesting to note that the US military has done extensive testing in this area, specifically so that they can build simulators as absolutely 'real' as possible, and not produce any extra frames (and the increased cost involved in delivering them). According to a few engineers from Evans and Sutherland, who at least used to build the image generators for them, the vast majority of fighter pilots were unable to distinguish between framerates above 60fps.
Of course, then there's the whole 'aliasing' you get whenever you actually have a 'frame-based' video, compared with 'real life'. Case in point: Ever notice how helicopter blades, propellors, wheels, etc. seem to spin 'backwards' on TV? It's sample aliasing. Even your own eyes see this whenever your light source 'blinks', which is the case in nearly all artificial light. Take a bicycle tire, put it between your eyes and a flourescent light, and spin it; you'll see the aliasing artifacts with no problems. Take the same bicycle tire outside (in sunlight), and do the same thing-- no more aliasing!
To realistically remove all aliasing, we'd have to have much higher framerates than 60fps; however, it's generally considered a 'normal' thing, since we grew up seeing it, and nobody fusses about it.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Left Column - Top Motherboard: Has a small heatsink which could get in the way. Capacitors close to the AGP slot could get in the way.
Left Column - Middle Motherboard: RAM Banks will get in the way of the cooling solution.
Left Column - Bottom Motherboard: Card would not fit. The AGP slot is up too high on the motherboard and there would be no way of actually attaching the video card. The reason is that the game-port is too close to the AGP slot and thus, the cooler would not get a slot on the back of the case - which means the card wouldn't fit.
Right Column - Top Motherboard: Card wouldn't fit at all - processor is in the way.
Right Column - Bottom Motherboard: Again, same problem as before. RAM Banks and serial/game-port connectors are too close to the AGP slot.
In short, none of the motherboards that you pictured look adequate to hold such a massive cooler. You'll notice that there is absolutely no standard clearance between all three of them.
I think, therefore I am an Atheist.
I remember reading that John C is going to cap the FPS on Doom3 to like 30 or 40 FPS per seconds. I'm hoping so, I bet he is tired of people grading video cards by how many FPS they can get Quake 3 running.
The best thing about the FX isn't the overall FPS per second. It is the pixel shaders and such. The number of instructions it can excute per shader, and the rate at which it processes these is the real evolution of this card. The more complex the shader and the faster they run the more life like graphics will look.
We have been stuck in the same basic quake engine for a while now. Unreal II and Doom 3 ( doom3 more ) will be the first real change in graphics we've had. Now the GPU's can handle movie style rendering, without a ton of little tricks.
We really do need the horse power. The FX could probably render toy story in real time, that is pretty amazing. I can't wait till I can watch a movie and pause it and change the angle. The ability to have true 3-d movie projection is becoming more realistic with this type of hardware ( of course we need the 3d projector )
$400 dollars for this is nothing. You don't seem to realize that just 10 years ago a 486 DX system could cost over $4000 grand. With 16 megs of ram and 1/2 gig of harddrive. The price is rather low considering what it takes to create such wonders, stop bitchin.
Open source will help out in this arena as well. You got to think that the pros that did the work on Golem for LOTR are fans of open source, it won't be long until those kinds of shaders and techniques will be available for game programmers.
To me saying "why do we need all this power" is kind of sacreligous. Remember that increasing speed and creating a market for new hardware is what keeps most of us employeed. Never say more speed is a bad thing. And don't blame sluggish performance on the developers, as software becomes more complex you have to give up some performance for stability and expandability.
I thought I would point one more
thing out
There is an extra slot to the right of the AGP slot, I have the area circled /. crowd, how many other people out there
in white. Quick question for the
have a case with an unusable slot on the right like me?? Seems to make
perfect sense to put the fan there doesn't it?
Whoo!
It looks like we're on our way to having full length video cards again.
Now when we have 5-1/4" full height hard drives as standard again, we'll have come full circle.
I wonder when they'll come out with the 13" CGA LCDs to match?
That's Quake IV or DOOM III.
:)
Personally, the day Quake III comes out is the day I upgrade my video card.
Well, you're a couple years late, better hurry!
Top left is the same mobo i'm currently using. Plenty of room on it, remember we're only taking up the same amount of space as any add on card.
Mid left, so you have to leave about an inch open on the bottom of the cooler, again not a problem.
Bottom left, you would have to channel the exhaust back into the case, if you have adequate air flow, not a problem.
Top right, We agree here, but I did say that slot 1's were no longer manufactured so that was a moot point.
Bottom right, come to think of it, a internally exhausting fan wouldn't present a problem here either as long as the cooler had adequate clearance over the ram.
I could also link to every mobo manufacturer where the installation instructions say "Install your CPU and RaM first" but i'm too lazy and I think you get the picture. If the cooler is properly designed it could accomidate %90 of all socket370 boards (sorry I don't do AMD so I can't speak for them there)
Oh for christs sake, the damn thing is priced at ATI 9700 Pro prices. I have no idea why the prices are so high for Europe (sorry), maybe the original post is way out of date.
Best Buy preorder
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
"you're kidding me, right? Get UT2003 in 1600x1200 with everything maxed out and even on a 9700pro you won't see more than 30 or so fps on certain maps (alone, just looking around, in heavy firefights I'd suspect it'll drop to the teens: I don't have a system like that but I'm basing this on vidcaps I saw when UT came out)."
thats cause ut2003 is VERY cpu bound. your cpu isnt fast enough. look at the flyby benchmarks vs the botmatch benchmarks. its like a different game. the truth is, ut2003 does NOT stress videocards very much at all. hell a geforce *1* has no problems with it as long as you got a good cpu. i know, ive tried it.
Hehe... I bought this card. What a cheapskate I am.
Hmm, when I was doing my comparisons of motherboards, I neglected to mention that I was using the GeForceFX as a reference. The cooler on that card is massive and doesn't look like it would fit on any of the motherboards that you listed for the reasons that I mentioned before.
There is one problem. Who gets to stamp out the "proper design" of the cooler. As the picture that you posted proves - there is no real standard on how much room should be above the AGP slot. Of course, this would also represent a problem for the manufacturers of micro-atx boards because the'll have to leave more room above and below the AGP slot to accomodate different kinds of video cards.
One of the reasons I want a top mounted cooler is so that my video card isn't blowing hot air down onto my other components.
I think, therefore I am an Atheist.
That slot is for motherboard expansion (if theres not enough space on the other MB output area (like extra usb ports etc).
;)
> Why hasn't anyone put the GPU on the OPPOSITE side of the card yet?
Very easy - heat flows upwards - the card itself would block the heat stream.
And of course the electrons would fall off
Before you email me, remember: "There is no god!"
Well, on my old MSI-6330 mobo, my top slot was my GF4 Ti4600.
On my Gigabyte GA-7VAX, I now have the free top slot like that picture.
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
Hardware - graphics
Hardware - sound
Processor - physics
When will we see AI hardware? Anyone hear of any standards? If you're just thinking of gaming AI hardware seems a little over the top, but when you think of the direction that computers are supposed to go, AI hardware should be next on the list... HAL?
No, I didn't pull it out of my ass. That's not saying it's correct though. :)
Someone else posted what I meant to say. The brain has a limit to how many frames it can see. But it's much higher than 30. That sounds more reasonable.
Thanks for your explanation (and everyone else who posted under my thread).
I guess I fell victim to that "common misconception". Thanks for the info!
Good plan. I've noticed also that buying just behind the latest tech decreases power consumption/fan noise/size too. Developers usually end up sacrificing those factors for more speed when creating something top of the line. But after a few months their manufacturing will get to the point it should have been in the first place, and you'll get a "normal" looking/sounding card that pushes the same performance.
But very few makers ever put this into production. IIRC Gainward had the only board retailing. Guess there aren't too many people out there with two LCD's.
-- taking over the world, we are.
nvidia has lost this and probably the next generation of 3D to ATI. ATI's Radeon 9{5|7}00 is a very good card. Superior to the GeForce4. By the time the GeForceFX is released, ATI will have their next-generation chipset prepared. nvidia will be a generation behind. ATI cards are already close in price to their nvidia bretheren. nvidia needs a new product to get the performance crown back, or ATI will dominate.
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
why? irq conflicts. Sure, some stuff works. but it's generally a good rule not to have a card in the top pci slot next to the agp slot, as they share irq's. I've seen computers not work for months until i tell someone 'take that card, and move it'
No, I am not an English major. My posts are subject to typos and incorrect grammar. Do not expect perfection.
Uncomprehensible-post-of-the-week award nominee.
Jeremy
Theres a difference between common practice, and what the standard allows, though. I don't know for sure, but it's a possibility.
Holy shit that heat-sink is insane. The size of heat-sinks on chips and graphics cards has been ridiculous lately. I remember the first time I got a video card with a tiny heat sink hastily glued on.
:P
I guess if people are willing to buy it, more power to 'em, but that thing is just wrong
Maybe in a few years PCs will have standard coolent connectors the way they have standard power connectors today...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
This brings up something interesting: if you look at a new Philips digital tv, you'll probably find a feature called DNM (Dynamic Natural Motion). What this does is, it takes a video-source of any type and ups it to 60fps, interpolating [quite well] between frames. The result is that even things shot for film (i.e. originally 24fps, now on DVD at 29.97fps with no interpolation) look like they were shot at 60fps, resulting in the visual feel of [home]video! Its disturbing at first (it feels cheap, some how, since we associate the look of video as being cheaper than film), but after watching for awhile it becomes addictive...
"Stumble before you crawl"
A year ago or two ago, Intel said they were expecting 35 Ghz machines five years later (using chips burned on glass or microtechnology, I don't remember which.) That's a bit more optimistic than Moore's Law, but it's not a real law.
Cover your eyes and click this link!
These shots were done with this card
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The TNT generation was their real first success, the aim of graphics cards companies is to produce cards that are eventually incorporated into average or budget systems. TNT and TNT2 (more so) became a kind of standard video card and was a precursor to the nvidia on mother-board video card (the nforce chipset).
because if it's still 60hz
Without flicker.
(how often do you see guys running geforce cards with 300fps potential...running a monitor at 60hz)
Motion blur accumulated across five frames makes good use of excess video card power, and it looks just the same to the eye as actually drawing all five frames separately, especially on a flicker-free display such as an LCD panel.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I wish I had a digital camera, so I could include a pic for you.
I have an ASUS A7M266 mobo. Right above the AGP slot, there are the following, which would make it impossible to have a top-mounted chip/fan:
1.) Integrated sound card: While the external speaker out, line in, etc are in the standard ATX positions, the internal cables (such as CD-ROM drive (audio)->sound card, aux_input (from DVD/TV decoder), TAD input, etc.) is exactly in the path such a fan would take.
2.) Chipset (and fan): Within 1/2" of the top of the AGP slot.
And, of course,let's not forget the real reason:
3.) Standardization. There is a standard distance 'above' the AGP slot, which card makers must conform to. If the card is too big 'above' the AGP slot (and above any other slots), it is breaking the spec. However, 'below' the slot, doesn't break the spec, because the space is reserved for a PCI card anyway. The motherboard manufacturer knows that if they put a chipset fan or CPU there, it's asking for trouble. Same goes for cards: If they break the spec, they know there's gonna be trouble.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Throwing out frame-rate numbers on what the brain can perceive without backing up these numbers, apparently, is a good way of milking karma points from gullable moderators.
You can demonstrate, informally, how much framerate you can perceive through monitor refresh rates. Change your refresh rate to 60 hz. If that bothers your eyes like it does for most people, that probably means you can perceive changes that occur greater than 60 times a second (or 60 FPS). Keep upping the refresh rate until you know longer feel a difference between the present one and the previous one. That probably means that your minimum frame-rate threshold is somewhere in between the two refresh rates.
And to reply to my own comment: I'm sorry. I'm a horrible speller. Curious. It's so easy to criticize when the editors do it, but here I am making the same mistakes.
Boy do I feel like a schmuck.
2 slots NOT a bit deal
No, really, it is for the modern LAN gamer. Many are realising their huge ass 10 bay tower cases are a pain to haul around. So people are looking at cases like the Shuttle XPC series to cure this issue. And a GeForce FX high end card will not fit in one, due to the AGP slot being the second slot in the system.
Of course the FX dosen't really impress me all that much. Nothing solid has been released in the way of benchmarks, so I'll continue to enjoy my Radeon 9700 for now. I'll skip whatever replaces the 9700 and the FX, and upgrade with the next gen card. By then, I figure some games might need the power again to run at 1280x960 with all the settings to high.
>Quick question for the /. crowd, how many other people out there
;)
:-)
have a case with an unusable slot on the right like me??
Everyone with a "normal" full ATX case. Although, for some, it is usable. It's just that your mobo doesn't feature any ISA slots, so you'd have to have 6 PCI slots instead.
Sometimes an AMR expansion slot is above the AGP slot on el-cheapo motherboards. That's where this would go. In your case you have the non-cheapo CNR solution, at the bottom. It's like AMR, but reversed, so it's good instead of cheap.
Anyways, ATX spec says you need 7 0.8" expansion slots.
>Seems to make perfect sense to put the fan there doesn't it?
Yes, but only for motherboards where the manufacturer skimps on ISA slots.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
True, ATI is the king of OEM's, but the majoraty of that is for integrated motherboards and cheap Rage POS cards for Dell. I believe that Nvidia currently makes more mid range cards for the oem market than ATI.
> you're kidding me, right? Get UT2003 in
> 1600x1200 with everything maxed out and even
> on a 9700pro you won't see more than 30 or
> so fps
So what's the problem? Your eye can only see about 30fps anyway - so your proving the point that existing hardware is fast enough.
Nobody needs any more than 30fps - even your monitor can only draw about 85fps max at that resolution - and even if it could do more, the phosphors don't fade enough to actually show you all the frames anyway.
People that sit there for hours trying to get an extra 10fps when they're already getting 120fps (on a 70Hz monitor) are really quite sad.
Unless you can upgrade your eyes to see more than about 30fps, there really is no point. Games designers should be trying to improve the quality of the picture so it draws the best possible image at 30fps, rather than simply trying to dump out as many frames as possible to look good in the reviews.
Nick...
That probably means that your minimum frame-rate threshold is somewhere in between the two refresh rates.
Another factor is the amount of afterglow in the phosphors of your screen. Also note that your described experiment will only work on a CRT-type display.
A witty
[rumor]
This problem originates at TSMC (the fab), not Nvidia. TSMC couldn't get the NV30/GFFX chip working on their flagship low-K di-electric 0.13 micron process, and after a few time & money consuming spins, they had to change it to their "normal" 0.13 micron process. Hence the delay.
Applying the di-electric materials dampens signal noise in the chip's wiring. Without it, Nvidia had to increase core voltage to ensure stability at 500 MHz, hence more heat and the leaf blower.
[/rumor]
In contrast, 3dfx's fatal delays were due to featuritis with the next gen (for the original Voodoo!) Rampage, bad management (diverting to losing products like Rush, Banshee, Blackbelt), PCB production problems (the aged ex-STB plant in Juarez), and then normal chip engineering problems...
There are modular systems such as you describe but games programming *IS TIED* to the system capabilities.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
There are many reasons why you might want more than 30fps. These include (but are not limited to):
If you track a moving object with your eye in reality then the object is not blurred.
Thus the motion blur helps things look more realistic when you are not following them closely.
This limitation is very noticable on panning shots across scenery. In an ideal display system these should appear to the eye exactly as sharp as a still shot. In current movies this is not the case.
What you are missing is the motion blurring that the human eye calls movement. With a high frame rate, two or three frames get overlayed on your retina before the cells can fire; this gives the motion-blurred effect on screen that you don't get at ~25fps. This is also why cinemas can get by at around 25fps.
I think.
Chris
PS. This means that you don't need a card that will do 85fps constantly, but a card that will motion-blur between frames at 25fps properly.
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read this if you don't mind filling your gaps.
from the article:
"Our eyes can indeed perceive well over 200 frames per second from a simple little display device (mainly so low because of current hardware, not our own limits)."
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
I would like to be able to play the Battle of Helm's Deep in Real Time with about 16 other people, in some sort of multi-monitor immersive environment (think CAVE) or VR setup. All the orc AI should be maxed as well as having a complete army on each side. Then maybe we can slow down a bit...
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
http://www.techspot.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threa did=3978
:)
"There seems to have been a slight problem with the database.
Please try again by pressing the refresh button in your browser."
not the brightest hint there
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
"I'm sorry but I can see the difference between 30fps and 70fps quite easily..."
;)
no you can't. It is just not possible.
If you can tell the different, then you we're NOT getting 30fps.
The only real argument for increased FPS is that the higher your base line is, the higher it will be when you have 32 people all shooting each other at the same time. I have seen 100fps drop to 10 fps in those situation.(usually just before I explode
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
But I wasn't talking about motion blur. I'm talking about TAA
I thought TAA and motion blur were the same thing, as this page seems to imply. Is there a difference?
I meant that it should be offered as a choice in the video card drivers. Much like Nvidia etc. offer enforced spatial anti-aliasing (FSAA)
The OpenGL rendering model introduces a big difference between spatial effects and temporal effects. The coordinates passed to OpenGL are three-dimensional (x, y, z), not four-dimensional (x, y, z, t)[1]. In OpenGL's coordinate space, coordinates of individual polygons within a rendered scene can be considered continuous. Only the rasterizer breaks this continuity, and a video card can choose traditional rasterization or FSAA rasterization because it has access to the (x, y) coordinates for interpolation within a pixel. On the other hand, OpenGL time is discrete, and each frame is considered a separate scene. There's no way to automatically map which polygons in one scene correspond to which polygons in another scene, so there's no way to interpolate an edge's coordinates along the fourth dimension.
[1] 't' (the time dimension) has nothing to do with 'w' (the homogenizing factor in homogeneous coordinates).
Will I retire or break 10K?
Well, to be fair, I wasn't entirely wrong. The eye can perceive much more than 30 FPS, but the brain peaks at 60-90. About 10 other people have already replied to the thread with this information.
First off, I'm late here, but thanks for replying! Hope you come across this sometime browsing your posts list...
:-)
:-)
There is a difference. As I understand it, TAA is anti-aliasing (increasing the sample count / sampling frequency) in the temporal domain as opposed to spatial AA. An accumulation buffer is the technical method to implement the consept of TAA. An accumulation buffer can be used for more specific things also, such as the motion blur effect, depth of field effect, soft shadows, etc... (The stuff 3dfx evangelised for Voodoo5. Their "Tarolli buffer" was a proprietary implementation of a generic accumulation buffer.) You spot the slight difference in the hierarchy of things
You're right, in OGL you can't do TAA within a single frame, for the reasons you described. But you can use the accumulation buffer to combine consequent finally-rendered frames to do TAA. There, you're just blending whole bufferfuls of pixel color data. -- Although with those specific "3dfx effects" such as motion blur you'd indeed need to remember poly info from scene to scene; I don't know how they did it internally (a multi-scene vertex buffer?), nor whether it worked in OGL at all. I know they performed their FSAA grid rotation by jittering the geometry slightly from frame to frame (scene to scene), so some inter-scene magic was done.
There's good articles on it at Beyond3D.com -> Articles -> T-buffer Investigated, if you're interested in gamming tech.
And all AFAIU, I'm no pro here, just a 3D aficionado
TAA is anti-aliasing (increasing the sample count / sampling frequency) in the temporal domain as opposed to spatial AA.
And then low-pass filtering in the temporal domain and downsampling to 70 Hz produces a blur effect, right?
But you can use the accumulation buffer to combine consequent finally-rendered frames to do TAA.
Which is exactly what I said in the first place: render five frames, accumulate them (rectangular FIR low-pass filter), and you get TAA, which is the "motion blur" that makes movies look good even though they're 24 fps.
so some inter-scene magic was done
But no correlation of geometry from scene to scene, right? That would produce really bad artifacts when panning over a fine triangle mesh.
Will I retire or break 10K?