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New NVidia Graphics Cards Reviewed
UnixRevolution writes "Tom's Hardware has a review of Nvidia's new FX5950 and FX5700. According to Tom's Hardware, ATI's Radeon 9800XT is still at the top of the heap." They're still some pretty slick cards, if only for their heat sink designs.
is over three weeks old.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Sure. If all you're looking for is umpty-bazillion frames a second, the 9800 is going to be what most power-gamers go drooling after.
But, until ATI can actually come out with a stable driver that works with all games and apps, neither I, nor anybody I know can, in good conscience, actually recommend an ATI card.
Additionally, if you want a decent 3D card for Linux, you can pretty much forget ATI.
And don't just take my word for it. Go browse around a few of the ATI-centric sites that cater to ATI's users. Take a look at the issues being raised.
And before some frothing fanboi starts yelling about driver cheats, DX9 compliance, etc...I acknowledge the issues with nVidia. But, even in the light of those issues, nVidia's drivers still work.
PERIOD.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Lets see:
Extasy GeForce 3: after 8 months the fan fails and it burns out the network card two slots over. Geforce survives. Fan replacement arrives and its still running to this day.
Chaintech Geforce 4: after 3 months the fan fails and burns out the video card itself. Still waiting to hear back from chaintech for warranty service.
Why do they put the world's cheapest fans on these things? Saving 10 cents can't be worth the warranty replacements when these things burn themselves out.
You can see this demonstrated on the page you linked to which says that the Dish PVR's 250-GB hard drive can store 25 hours of HDTV while the MyHD FAQ (a popular HDTV tuner card) lists the card as storing HDTV signals at a rate of 9.4 GB/hour.
As to why current HD recorders (both PC-based and stand-alone D-VHS) can't take satellite signals, it's because DirecTV and DishNetwork use a different signal from the OTA standard (FCC-mandated) 8VSB modulation. So, somewhat like NTSC VCRs and DVRs, you can't store the raw (compressed) satellite signal unless the unit is integrated or a method is provided by which the compressed signal can be transmitted (after the actual demodulation of the original satellite transmission) to the outside recording unit.
This is where the IEEE-1394 (Firewire) interface on the new Dish DVR 921 will eventually (when the software is enabled) comes in. It will have at least the ability to connect to a D-VHS VCR so that HDTV programs can be permanently archived (compressed, of course). It *may* (given the right software on the PC) be able to connect to a computer so that the compressed stream can be dumped to a PC hard drive/server. Of course, such a PC would need either decoding software (and a pretty decent amount of power) or a decoder card like the MyHD to decode the stream.
As I read back over this, it may be even more confusing, so I'll sum up:
1. As it currently stands, no high-definition recording solution decodes and then re-encodes before saving to hard drive. This is done a) to reduce the hardware overhead and b) because there are no current consumer-level hardware HDTV encoding solutions.
2. The DishNetwork PVR you mentioned (again, the 921) WILL have the capability, through Firewire, to connect to outside HDTV recording solutions - at least D-VHS and very likely PCs.
Hope that helps! :)
Yes it does (and my ReplayTV works the same way). And it's NTSC, having nothing to do with HDTV.
The same happen would happen with digital satellite, with one notable exception that I'm aware of: DirecTV and TiVO jointly produce a unit which saves the MPEG stream directly to the disk
Your one notable exception isn't the only one. The same thing happens on DishNetwork with their PVR501/721 line (the 721 was the full-featured dual-tuner big dog before the HDTV-capable 921). The reason that it doesn't happen outside of satellite right now is because the vast majority of channels are NTSC, and NTSC channels aren't "naturally" compressed. Thus, if you want this kind of capability with current digital cable/satellite, yes, you have to go proprietary.
This is how I want to see it being done for HDTV.
You listed the DVR721 from DishNetwork which IS that way. DirecTV I'm sure will be releasing a similar unit at some point. What's the question again?
What you're talking about doesn't exist... where are you getting these signals from? Over the air? That doesn't interest me. I'm not going to invest the kind of cash to make this work just so I can watch CBS broadcast in HD.
What are you referring to? Everything I described in my post exists. There are currently at least two over-the-air PC HDTV card solutions that I know of, both of which can interface with D-VHS recorders. The DVR921 (again, YOUR example) is planned to be able to interface via Firewire with a D-VHS VCR, allowing you to archive HDTV programs on tape. It's not a stretch at all to assume that this will probably be compatible with PCs in the same fashion. Again, at all points until actual viewing, the MPEG-2 HDTV stream will REMAIN compressed.
Keep in mind that when I talk about signal modulation (8VSB and whatever the satellite companies are using - I can't recall the acronym off the top of my head), that's different from MPEG-2 compression. The former is the method by which the latter is transmitted through the atmosphere - once it hits the satellite or set-top box it is DEmodulated (before being decompressed) into the MPEG-2 stream. That stream can then be read and decoded by any HD-capable MPEG-2 decoder, whether it ends up on a satellite box hard drive (in the case of the DVR921), a D-VHS video tape or a PC hard drive. HDCP (high-definition copy protection which the MPAA is trying to force on everyone) adds a layer of complexity, but the basics I describe still hold true as long as the decoder can handle and pass HDCP.
And the unit I linked to earlier is far better than using the standard tuner the cable/satellite co. gives you, and then plugging that into a HD PVR.
I will only say that not once in my post did I describe anything like a standalone HD PVR. You're reading something that isn't there.
I'm fully aware that people will need to go through a cable or satellite box to receive all the available HD signals (right now, about half). That's no different, really, than the way the current NTSC signals are handled - I can't watch ESPN, Comedy Central, etc. without having a satellite decoder and most digital cable systems have the same limitation (though in many cases cable companies are required to offer a basic analog package that doesn't require a box).
Again, summing up: You seem to be confused as to what the DishNetwork DVR921 is capable of. Specifically, it can receive and store both NTSC and HDTV signals via satellite and "over the air" (regular broadcast networks). Said signals can then be decoded immediately for viewing and/or stored (BEFORE decoding) on the hard drive. With the Firewire, once it is enabled, it will be able to send the STILL-COMPRESSED recorded streams to other devices (such as a PC or D-VHS VCR) for archiving.
As to other devices that are available, they are indeed all restricted to over-the-air broadcasts unless they are sent a stream from a cable/satellite device such as the DVR921.
Actually ATI does manufacture their own cards as well as license the design. I don't think Nvidia produces any cards though.
They have major, minor, and speed release cycles. Every couple years you have a major release cycle. The GeForce FX, or ATi 9700 would be an example. So would the GeForce 3. This is when they go to a new architecture with majorly different feautres. Fore example the GeForce 3 instroduced (for the nVidia line) programmable pixel and vertex shaders.
Well, within those major releases, they also have minor releases. The ATi 9800 or the GeForce 4 would be an example of that. Both had some actual different features over their predicessors,but only minor ones. The platform with still fundimentally the same. Both the GF3 and 4 are DirectX 8 cards and there is no real important feature difference between them.
Then there are the little speed releases. This is when they just bump speeds up, or release a slower economy version, maybe move to a smaller fabrication process, etc. The GeForce 3 Ti lines were an example of that. Two new cards. Totally functionally equivalant to the orignal 3, one was just slower, and one faster.
The problem 3dfx had was they, literally, kept remaking the same Voodoo chip over and over again. The Voodoo2 was the orignal chip, with support for 3 texture units, though only 2 were ever implemented (the orignal acutally supported 2 and some Quantum 3d units implemented both), SLI and a higher clock speed. The Voodoo 3 was just all 3 Voodoo 2 chips on a single chip with a higher clock speed and a larger unified ram. And there it sat for a long time.
That's why they had their problems. BEcause all the while nVidia and ATi were moving up, in line with DirectX increases. The TNT2 was the last DirectX 6 card from nVidia. The GeForce was a DX7 card and supported the fixed function T&L unit that implied. Then when the GeForce 2 was out and the 3 was nearing completion, the VSA-100 that composed the Voodoo 4 and 5 came out. Basically, it was doomed to failure from the start. It didn't have any of the new DirectX 7 or upcomming 8 features. It was also a return to the expensive multi-chip designa nd non-shared memory. So while it had neet feautres like FSAA, it was too expesnvie and too dated to really make a big showing. Then The GeForce 3 and DX8 came out. This introduced a programmable T&L line (programmable pixel and vertex shaders). This was something really worht having and completely out of the question for VSA-100 anytime soon. PLus the 3 was quite a bit faster and it ALSO did all the FSAA stuff. It was done for 3dfx soon afterwards (they also made some other mistakes along the line like buying STB).
No, nVidia has kept up well with the technology trends. The FX series are just as capale as the Radeon series, function wise. However, they've lost their crown as speed king, ATi is offering a better preice/performance ratio AND a higher high end right now, though not a whole lot. Couple tha with ATi drivers that finally work right, and nVidia is threatened. But, it's not the same as with 3dfx. nVidias products are still competitive, and they still have new designs in the pipe, not just rehashes of what they've got now. Doesn't mean they won't get run out of bussiness, but means they have a fighting chance at least.