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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.
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 You have 10 years to do something cool with it" instead of "oh, look, your program is obsolete again!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!"
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
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
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"
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.
When I talked with the guys from BFG (who are already taking preorders) at the HardOCP Workshop, they had a FX card on hand that you could look at up close. I asked one of their guys about the huge ass coolers and they said that the manufacturers had the choice to put their own type of cooling on it if they wanted. So I'm sure there will be some 1 slot options out there if the customers demand it...
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.