ATi's Multi-GPU CrossFire Graphics Card Unveiled

MojoDog writes "ATi has unveiled their new Multi-GPU technology dubbed "CrossFire" today out at the Computex show in Taiwan. HotHardware has a full preview of the technology, which requires both a Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire based motherboard and a CrossFire graphics card, in addition to another Radeon X800 series PCI Express card, for dual 3D Graphics processing with three available types of load balancing. CrossFire supports Split-Screen, Alternate Frame Rendering and SuperTiling mode load balancing between the GPUs."

Comments

Anandtech also has a review

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2432

Just thought would be good to add variety.

Re:Anandtech also has a review

[Anonymous Coward]

IMO, the AnandTech review is *MUCH* better than the HotHardware review ... Slashdot should really add the link to the front page.

Re:Anandtech also has a review

[Eugene]

Anand's has a much better review/first look article then the one submitted, of course, he is trying to promote his site through /. after all. and there are people fall for it everytime.

Re:Anandtech also has a review

[Jahf]

Putting his site in the main review is one thing. Posting in the replies is another. Why shouldn't he?

Re:Anandtech also has a review

[Guspaz]

The Anandtech article brings up one important point that everybody else here seems to miss; CrossFire is not only about multi-GPU rendering.

CrossFire contains a rather neat implementation of multi-GPU antialiasing that provides double the samples compared to single-card anti-aliasing. This works on all games, even those that don't work with normal multi-GPU acceleration, or those that don't see any benefit.

The new CrossFire AA features not only normal AA (8x or 12x) but the first implementation of super-sampling AA on a modern card. ATI is actually doing a mixed mode, where you get 8x or 12x multisampling AA, and 2x rotated-grid supersampled AA. This will be, of course, the highest quality AA we've seen in videocards to date. It will help with things like the chain link fences in HL2, since it will antialias the whole scene (including textures) instead of just polygon edges.

I highly reccomend people read the Anandtech article and check it out. Interesting stuff.

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Crossfire == SLi?

Re:So?

[StarWreck]

Crossfire != SLI

Crossfire is apparently scalable to 32 GPU's. So it probably won't be unheard of for graphics cards using Crossfire to have 2 or 3 GPU's and if you use dual graphics cards that means you could have a total of 4 or 6 GPU's balancing the load of a future game of Doom 4 or Half-Life 3!

Re:So?

[Leroy_Brown242]

Do I have to wear abspestos to stand the heat?

Re:So?

[rpozz]

There's going to be a few problems with that:

Firstly, heat dissipation - a single GPU spews out enough heat as it is. Given that for some stupid reason GPUs point DOWN and thus the heat rises through the PCB itself, you're looking at a toasty machine.

Unless you want the card to be absolutely enormous like the dual nVidia GPU cards shown previously, the GPUs are going to have to share memory, which brings up all sorts of problems and bottlenecks also found in SMP solutions.

PCIe bandwidth is going to need to increase (ie more lanes) - you need to have all those things talking to the CPU!

Just my 2 cents anyway.

Re:So?

[StarWreck]

I think it was Anandtech who did these tests when SLI first game out, using the latest nVidia card with Doom 3 back then at highest settings. 8x PCIe had no drop from 16x PCIe, neither did 4x PCIe. 2x PCIe had a 10% drop and 1x PCIe had a 25% drop.

"For the time being", I think 16x PCIe is doing "just fine".

Re:So?

[SorcererX]

The dual nVIDIA GPU cards enormous? You should take a look at some old pictures of 3Dfx Voodoo5 6000 some time :)

Re:So?

[TMonks]

When will GPU manufacturers realize that they have reached the limit of current technology? For example, why can't they integrate the GPU into the motherboard? Think of the possibilities- Give the GPU its own socket (like the CPU), and its own memory bank (also like the CPU). Not only would this solve power problems and cooling problems, but it would mean that when you needed to upgrade the GPU you wouldn't have to buy a whole new set of memory with it (not to mention all of the other circuitry found on graphics cards). Give the GPU a direct link to the CPU (much like a dual-CPU setup) and you have also solved all of your bandwidth problems. You might even be able to set up a four socket motherboard and fill the sockets according to your needs- If you are a heavy gamer you could put in one CPU and three GPUs (This assumes that the GPUs would use the same socket and protocols as the CPU). If you are someone who needs the processing power alone, you could put in four CPUs and use a cheaper PCI GPU. I understand that this would require radical changes to the power supply and motherboard standards, but if NVidia and ATi are already making the chipsets, would it really be all that hard for them to convince the motherboard manufacturers to completely change their products to suit the new standards?

Re:So?

[DCMonkey]

Given that for some stupid reason GPUs point DOWN and thus the heat rises through the PCB itself, you're looking at a toasty machine.

Behold the BTX Form Factor

Re:So?

[blackicye]

I wonder if GPUs point downwards on cards because they are typically right beside the CPU Heatsink.

Maybe its because its just the way it was traditionally done, before tower-style casings became the norm.

Any EEs care to explain why reference designs place the GPU and its cooling solution on the underside?

Re:So?

[TrancePhreak]

The ATi dual GPU cards are also ginormous. Just check out the pix on HotHardware. A CrossFire enabled X850 is two slots with another two slots taken by the CrossFire.

Awesome

[Keystroker]

This is just in time. I'm sure many nex-gen games coming out will be transferred over to PC. This sort of begs the question. Slowly, the computer is becoming an all in one console. Next gen consoles may soon become useles.

PS- ATI, we need Linux drivers!

Re:Awesome

[RaboKrabekian]

Slowly, the computer is becoming an all in one console. Next gen consoles may soon become useles.

So all the new consoles are announced and everyone thinks PC gaming is doomed.

New video cards are announced and people thing console gaming is doomed.

Which is it?! TELL ME WHAT TO THINK!!!

Inf act there will always be consoles/dedicated gaming machines AND a market for games played on PCs. Wow, that was hard.

Re:Awesome

[fr0dicus]

Meanwhile, on planet Earth, the PC gaming market shrinks every year, as even Microsoft shift focus to games consoles.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm...
Console: $300
Gaming PC:
-Motherboard: $100
-Quality RAM: $100
-Hard Drive: $100
-Fast CPU: $200
-Case & power supply: $100
-DVD drive: $40 to $120
-Operating system: $200
-Dual video cards: $900
-Peripherals (mouse, keyboard): $80
Total system cost: about $1900

I think I'll keep my old PC and leave the games to the consoles.

Does this mean I have to turn in my geek card?

Re:Awesome

[NanoGator]

" I'm sure many nex-gen games coming out will be transferred over to PC. This sort of begs the question. Slowly, the computer is becoming an all in one console. Next gen consoles may soon become useles."

The opposite could just as easily be said. Next gen systems are rivaling PC's. Slowly, PC games will move over to consoles.

Frankly, either prediction is silly. The sole difference between PC's and consoles isn't the graphic power. There are a set of trade-offs for either platform. The PC, for example, requires up to date hardware, doesn't have a standard controller, and often requires a lot of configuration to get going. The game console, however has, standard hardware, no installation BS, games designed to play on the lowes common denominator, and a multi-purpose controller. One you'll happily play Quake on, the other you'll happily play Zelda on.

Me personally, I'm not thrilled with PC gaming anymore. Too much hassle with too little payoff. Maybe I'm just busier than I used to be, but I like the idea of a $200 box I can just hook up to the TV, pop a disc in, and play.

Re:Awesome

[digidave]

"Slowly, the computer is becoming an all in one console."

Not so slowly, the console is becoming an all-in-one computer. Think: media player, internet browser, etc.

Re:Awesome

[Woogiemonger]

Meanwhile, on planet Earth, the PC gaming market shrinks every year, as even Microsoft shift focus to games consoles.

While that's true, graphic-intensive simulation (military certainly) is not moving to gaming consoles.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly what question does it beg?

Re:Awesome

[Xugumad]

While I'm not saying you're wrong, would either side please quote some numbers?

Re:Awesome

[Espectr0]

Meanwhile, on planet Earth, the PC gaming market shrinks every year, as even Microsoft shift focus to games consoles.


And then PC users get only console ports, which are badly done, therefore no one wants to buy PC games, making the problem worse every year.

Re:Awesome

[rokzy]

>Next gen consoles may soon become useles.

not as long as an entire multimedia and internet capable games console costs half the price of just the graphics card in a high-end PC.

Re:Awesome

[shawn(at)fsu]

funny how you posted a comment about linux being able to do everything windows can in a post about gaming.

Re:Awesome

[Xugumad]

The really big advantage to a PC is the controls. Quite why no-one makes console games that can talk to USB keyboard & mouse, I don't know; FPSs on a console drive me nuts, just can't get used to the control system.

There are other issues, like consoles have substantially less memory, which makes it harder for game designers to put large maps in (I'm really puzzled the next gen consoles aren't going for more memory; 512mb is okay now, but in 5 years time?).

Re:Awesome

[Queer Boy]

Which is it?! TELL ME WHAT TO THINK!!!

All you have to do is look at the numbers. Console game sales (software-wise) are skyrocketing while PC-based games are creeping along. Look to IDG for the hard numbers.

Also, all the next-gen consoles are PPC based and use ATi graphics. You're looking in the wrong direction if you think PCs are going to benefit from this, wrong architecture.

Re:Awesome

[JFitzsimmons]

If only I had mod points. Oh how I love modding the zealots down. (And the witty people up)

Re:Awesome

[mrm677]

...and people start realizing Linux can do everything windows can and more, for the low low cost of $0.00.

Right...gaming is the primary reason why people 90-95% of people/business choose Windows over Linux. Sorry, but it will take a lot more than the transition of gaming to consoles in order for Linux to capture more than 25% of the market for desktops. Many of these reasons are business-related (yes, big bad Microsoft has a nice monopoly), but many are technical as well. Even putting aside things like the user interface and lack of a clear winner of a component model (kParts, Bonobo, what else?), even the device driver model in the Linux kernel sort of stinks for closed-source drivers. Just ask nVidia and the silly wrapper they have to maintain in order to directly access kernel structures.

Re:Awesome

[OlivierB]

Spot on!
I'm just waiting for some typically PC only games to come to consoles such as Age Of Mythology etc...
They require a mouse (done with AOE for PS2) AND a hig hres display.
I hope the new high res capabilities of the next gen consoles will be used for some computer like experience.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Prices coming from www.canadasys.com

Athlon 64 - 3200 Venice ( ADA3200BPBOX ), available from May 11 $236
512M OEM / Infineon, Samsung $49
512M OEM / Infineon, Samsung $49
Radeon X600Pro 256M $124
Tsunami High QualityATX Case AR46 ( with power supply ) $35
200G / 8M $122
Gigabyte K8NF-9 ( Socket 939 / PCI -E ) $133
Total: $748

Adding the CD/DVD drives, network card, sound card and whatever I might have missed it comes out to around $900

BTW, that's canadian dollars. This system can play any of the current games in high settings, and probably will last for 3 years. To play games you don't need the latest cards, since for a 10% or so increase in performance you pay more than double the price.

Re:Awesome

[bluk]

PS3 has Nvidia graphics, and I don't think Nintendo Revolution has decided yet. GameCube did have an ATI graphics chip but who knows if Nintendo is sticking to it.

Re:Awesome

[AviLazar]

Another few reasons why there will be both:

Consoles are more user friendly - virtually no crashing...requiring no loading or advanced configuartion

PCs are more customizable, can do other things (i.e. you can type your homework on it), and are not so locked up.


Some people, also, cannot afford both. Maybe someone can afford to spend 1200 on a bangin gaming machine...but they may not be able to afford that 1200 piece of hardware and an additional 400-600 console.

There will be a market for both in the near future, and even mid future (5-10 years)... Maybe past 10 years these devices will merge...but oh wait they will just be PC's marketed as consoles...maybe you can do less upgrades to them.

Re:Awesome

[Dragoon412]

I don't think that the assumption that consoles will soon kill off PC gaming is all that far fetched. Why?

(And keep in mind, I'm a very staunch PC gamer that's had and subsequently traded in all 3 current consoles because I find their games to be so shallow and short-lived).

The PC really has two advantages over consoles, and neither is specific to the PC itself: the control scheme (I love gamepads and all, but they simply can't compete with the level of precision and complexity a keyboard and mouse offer in many situations), and display technology.

Well, HDTV is rapidly becoming more commonplace. 1080p displays put more pixels on the screen than all but the highest-end PC monitors. And really, how difficult would it be to make a mouse, trackball, keyboard, or some sort of high-precision gamepad controller?

To compete with console gaming, PCs need to eliminate the hassle (and especially the "release it broken and patch it later" mindset so many distributors have), eliminate the bugs and compatibility issues, and simplify installation. Quite a lofty goal, to be honest.

What do consoles need to match the PC? A hard drive? Already happening. Better displays? Already happening. Better conrol mechanisms? Trivial. Throw in a Knoppix-like disk-bootable set of utilities with an office suite, web browser, etc, and what's the PC got left?

I think in terms of gaming nirvana, the console's beginning to step on the PC's toes. The next generation of them (the one after the PS3/360/Revolution) may very well have me, a long-time PC gamer that can't stand consoles, scratching my head, asking myself "...why do I want to spend $500 on this GeForce 8900 again?"

Re:Awesome

[Peldor]

but I like the idea of a $200 box I can just hook up to the TV, pop a disc in, and play.

Then you won't be buying a next-generation system for a while. Maybe Nintendo will keep the price low, but MS and Sony will be closer to double that (if not more by the time you actually buy a game to play on the thing).

Re:Awesome

[rikkards]

They aren't shifting focus just expanding the horizons. With the cash cow that is Office it would take a lot more for them to shift focus.

Re:Awesome

[bluk]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/05/26/news_61265 52.html

GameSpot's quarterly report said PC sales were down, and that they only account for 4% of sales. You could argue that PC sales remained the same and console related sales skyrocketed, but this is the tail end of a console generation when people are usually saving up money for the next console.

Since GameSpot doesn't sell PCs that I know of and console hardware sales are around 20% from that same report, you can venture that roughly 70% of sales are from console games. That's a staggering number from the number one games only retailer.

But really, just look at your Walmart and Best Buy. Console games store space take up at least 2 times as much space as PC game titles. Look at the sheer number of console games too compared to PC games. Ever wonder why companies like Epic are moving to console games and supporting those platforms? It's not a big mystery why console games outsell PC games.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't be waiting for the DOD to start selling their sims to the public.

Re:Awesome

[coopaq]

Meanwhile, on planet Earth, the PC gaming market shrinks every year, as even Microsoft shift focus to games consoles.

hmmm... to mod or reply?

The PC Gaming market is not shrinking.

The console game market may be growing faster though.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why no one has come out with a hardware device that'll allow PCs to run consol games.

Re:Awesome

[typobox43]

The Revolution will indeed have an ATI chip.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between the two is that the consol is locked down. This is the goal of the DMCA driven dreams of the software industry. You'll take what they give you and that's it.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know; FPSs on a console drive me nuts, just can't get used to the control system.

Racing and fighting games on computer drive me nuts. Using the keyboard and mouse sucks.

Re:Awesome

[NanoGator]

"I don't know why no one has come out with a hardware device that'll allow PCs to run consol games."

I don't know why PC games require an installation in the first place.

Re:Awesome

[Xugumad]

Ah, but I can at least get an adaptor to plug console controllers into my PC. That's just a few minutes searching the web, I'm sure there's an X-Box version out there somewhere too...

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Cow herd]

Uhh.. performance, plain and simple. Seek times on HDD's are significantly lower than seek times on current media

Re:Awesome

[jleq]

We need Linux games before we need linux drivers...

Re:Awesome

[NanoGator]

"Uhh.. performance, plain and simple. Seek times on HDD's are significantly lower than seek times on current media"

That's what caching's for. You don't need an installation, only a temp folder. Even then, console games aren't that bad about it.

Re:Awesome

[DrSkwid]

raises the question

begs the question doesn't mean what you think it does

Re:Awesome

[getnate]

I think sony said they are NOT using a chip from Nvidia but are consulting them on some sort of rendering solution.

Re:Awesome

[balthan]

The PC Gaming market is not shrinking.

Maybe not, but crappy ports and games designed to work better on consoles (ala Deus Ex 2) are making up far more of the available titles. PC only titles are becoming a rarity.

Re:Awesome

[superpulpsicle]

You mean to tell me Gran Turismo runs on a Playstation with 2MB of memory. And we can't figure out how to run PC games with 1000MB.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but I can at least get an adaptor to plug console controllers into my PC.

Yes there are. There are also nice gamepads just for computers (I have a nice Logitech gamepad as a matter of fact). But there is no standard for gamepads for computer so that A) there are virutally no fighting games for computer, B) there are no racing games to match Grand Turismo or even Project Gotham on computer, and C) I usually windup tweaking the button layout for my comfort anyway. It usually not worth the effort.

Compared with a PS2 or XBox where I just pop in a disk and go.

Re:Awesome

[GotenXiao]

"Rivaling PCs"?
Rivaling? ...
I take it you've been living under a rock for the past month or so. Because only then could you say that.

First: nVidia RSX. Is it on PC? No. Is it in the PS3? Yes.
Second: Cell. Is it on PC? No. Is it in the PS3? Yes.

Unless you're talking about the '360, Next-gen systems are whooping the PCs back into the stone age.

Re:Awesome

[bluk]

Where did you get this information? They already have a part name (RSX), and various comments by NVIDIA's executives state to the effect that they are making a part. Sony even has their name displayed quite prominently through some of their presentations.

Even if NVIDIA doesn't make the actual part, this is like saying IBM is only consulting Sony on some sort of processing solution. IBM and NVIDIA are doing a majority of the work with Sony and Toshiba contributing to the design (at least for the Cell processor).

Re:Awesome

[NanoGator]

"Unless you're talking about the '360, Next-gen systems are whooping the PCs back into the stone age."

a.) The Cell processor, nor the graphic capabilities of the PS3 have been proven. (You were impressed by a pre-rendered demo made by really good artists. The latter is far more important than the technical specs of the machine.)

b.) Those systems are sold at a loss. PC components are not. You might be buying $700 worth of hardware for $400.

c.) No, next gen systems are not knocking PC back into the stone age. They're a little nicer. They're not leaps and bounds, or even an entire generation ahead. PC graphics would easily catch up within a year of the PS3s release, if that long.

Re:Awesome

[sharkey]

TELL ME WHAT TO THINK!!!

Well, I think it's time to go to the bar. YMMV.

Re:Awesome

[prionic6]

And really, how difficult would it be to make a mouse, trackball, keyboard, or some sort of high-precision gamepad controller?

They are on the market for most of the consoles. Even the SNES had a mouse. But how do you use a mouse and a keyboard sitting on the couch?

Re:Awesome

[Keystroker]

Notice my subtle note that ATi needs to make drivers for Linux? :-D

Re:Awesome

[apoc06]

i believe that nvidia is designing the chip prototype: the RSX. once the chip is complete, then they are going to hand over the manufacture of them to sony. so sany can make them in its own factories and cut costs accordingly.

Re:Awesome

[Keystroker]

To play the games we need drivers.

Re:Awesome

[ArbitraryConstant]

The next gen consoles have a substantial advantage over PCs because all their hardware is optimized specifically for games in ways that are mutually exclusive with good PC performance.

However, I wouldn't be all that surprised if graphics cards started getting console subsystems entirely on the card.

Re:Awesome

[grolschie]

> Slowly, the computer is becoming an all in one console.

Not if ATI are involved with it. Seriously. The result will be truly awesome hardware with truly appauling drivers. That, a gaming console, does not make! Great hardware is useless if the drivers are flakey. I have owned two Radeons, and have had a few years now of driver hell and will never buy another ATI product again - no matter how tempting. The Windows XP (and 98/ME for that matter) Catalyst drivers and MMC software suite is an embarrassment to ATI.

> PS- ATI, we need Linux drivers!

PS- ATI has already given us Linux drivers! And they work too.

Re:Awesome

[Tim C]

UT2k4 is a little over 6GB installed. I would expect UT2k7 to be significantly larger.

Swapping DVDs in the middle of a game isn't my idea of fun.

Besides which, I prefer not having to have the disc in the drive just to play a game (which is my main objection to copy prevention schemes that require the disc). I have a young kid, and so know just how fragile those little plastic discs really are...

Re:Awesome

[nmosfet]

Is the ps3 out one the market right now? No. End of story.

Comparing future consoles to current PC's don't really make sense in my mind but maybe that's just me.

I'm pretty sure that by the time those console are released, NVIDIA and ATI will have GPUs for PC that meet or exceed that of consoles in terms of hardware.

Also with regards to the cell processor, based on my knowledge of it and history, I don't really see it catching on in the general computing market. It has the two major flaws similar to the Itanium (different instruction set, and performance heavily dependent on optimization). It will probably work well for consoles but will unlikely displace x86 chips. I may work for Apple but that depends on the chips performance and Apple's final decision.

Re:Awesome

[Bun]

The game console, however has, standard hardware, no installation BS, games designed to play on the lowes common denominator, and a multi-purpose controller. One you'll happily play Quake on, the other you'll happily play Zelda on.

What? Sorry, you can play Quake on your multi-purpose controller, if you want to have one hand figuratively tied behind your back. I'll take my keyboard and mouse combination any day of the week.

Re:Awesome

[NanoGator]

Uh, yeah, that was the point. I think you misunderstood what I said. You wouldn't want to play Zelda with a kb and mouse anymore than you'd want to play Quake4 on a controller.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Radeon X600Pro 256M $124...BTW, that's canadian dollars. This system can play any of the current games in high settings, and probably will last for 3 years. To play games you don't need the latest cards, since for a 10% or so increase in performance you pay more than double the price."

Whilst that is a competent gaming rig, its a bit of a stretch to claim it will play most/all current games at high settings. let alone the games for the next 3 years.

Then again, "high settings" is subjective.

I consider medium settings to be at least 1024x768 with 4x AA and 2x Anisotropic filtering. And I don't think the X600Pro is up to task.

It won't be able to handle Guildwars, WoW, EQ2 or HL2 let alone Doom 3 at acceptable framerates at these settings.

High settings would be 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 with 4x AA and 8x Anisotropic filtering. Even a 6800GT or an X800Pro in that rig wouldn't be able to handle it.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Tsunami High QualityATX Case AR46 ( with power supply ) $35



Link only works in IE, page will not render in firefox, double eww.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

oops

http://www.tsunami.com.tw/product/Pc/case/AR46.htm

Re:Awesome

[0111 1110]

You forgot to mention that most console games are still targeted at child gamers. I realize that thirty-somethings like myself are a minority in the gaming market, but for us hardware comparisons are largely irrelavent. Even if/when consoles add qwerty keyboards and monitor connections, there really is (almost) nothing for us to play.

I already went through that arcade game phase with Atari 2600 and Atari 400/800 (or Apple II) games in the early 80s and again with IBM PC first person shooter games (i.e. Wolf3D) in the early 90s. I played Pac-man, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Frogger, and Pole Position and enjoyed them when I was ten. Although even as a preteen I found them kind of boring. I prefered Archon, Castle Wolfenstein, Choplifter, and Crush, Crumble and Chomp. I could play those for hours. Graphics have improved by orders of magnitude but gameplay has mostly stayed the same. That sort of gameplay is great when you are 12. It is much easier to entertain children. Games aimed at a younger crowd don't need to be as sophisticated overall and are much cheaper to make.

There are (still) hardware differences of course. Even the best computer monitors are much cheaper (and smaller/lighter) than 1080p HDTVs and keyboards are useful for complex games. Display-wise game machines should really have moved on to autostereoscopic LCD monitors, HMDs with head trackers, shutter glasses, and other immersive gaming options that are relatively easy to do on a dedicated gaming machine. NTSC televisions are display technology from the 1960s (PAL is only slightly more advanced). Great for hooking up an Atari 2600 to play Pong or Breakout but completely ridiculous as a display for the kind of graphics technology in an Xbox 360 or PS3. Juvenile clickfest, hand-eye coordination exercises, displayed on a grainy, flickering, TV just don't hold much interest for me anymore.

Re:Awesome

[0111 1110]

why do I want to spend $500 on this GeForce 8900 again?

Why do I want to spend $5000 for a 1080p HDTV when I can buy a state of the art monitor with higher resolutions and refresh rates for $500-$1000 and even an HMD with a head tracker or autostereoscopic 3D monitor for far less money? Can you answer that for me? Consoles are kiddie-computers. They are only popular because little kids are the largest demographic of game players.

Re:Awesome

[0111 1110]

Compare the Oblivion PC screenshots to the Oblivion console screenshots. I don't care how good the graphics chipset is. If the result is being displayed on flickering, grainy, interlaced, 1960s display technology it can never be immersive or photorealistic. For current and even nextgen consoles it doesn't matter what goes in because it's always Garbage Out.

Or maybe you will be interested in purchasing a Samsung HL-R6768W for $7000 when it is released this summer. Personally I'd rather invest in Dual X850s and 16x antialiasing on an autostereoscopic LCD screen and a dual 1280x1024 HMD with headtracker. I could have all of it for a fraction of the cost of a 1080p HDTV.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

The day they make mouse and keyboard the default controls for a console I will buy one, ever played a FPS on a joypad and just wished it was a mouse/keyboard?

The day they make mouse/keyboard fully compatable with consoles I will more than likely move over gaming onto a console.

Joypads have thier place (fight/sports ect) but some games are just unplayable with a pad :)

Re:Awesome

[DeadScreenSky]

If the result is being displayed on flickering, grainy, interlaced, 1960s display technology it can never be immersive or photorealistic.
Why would you do that even now though? The Xbox supports 480p for almost every game (so does the Gamecube AFAIK). The next-gen consoles are making an even bigger push for HDTV. Since you are making a pro-PC (ie pro-expensive) argument, why wouldn't you just spend $500 on an HDTV?

Re:Awesome

[DeadScreenSky]

They are only popular because little kids are the largest demographic of game players.

Since when has that been that true? For as long as I've been paying attention to the statistics (around five years), the largest group of game players is in their mid-20s to sometime in the 30s.

Anandtech

[shamowfski]

AnandTech is running a good story as well.

Re:Anandtech

[shamowfski]

Whoever modded this redundant, I posted it at the same time as the first one...

Who needs a card that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you waste your time on the same old tired "who needs it" posts, here's the answer:

Obviously not you.

Now stfu and be happy.

Re:Who needs a card that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Zalman...

They needed a test rig for this

Fine but does it run under...

[strider3700]

Yes I'm coming across as a troll here but I'm still pissed about having bought a 9200 and the need to fight it to get it working reasonably under linux. TV out should not have taken a days worth of work. Until ATI gets it together and starts releasing good drivers for something other then windows my cards will be nvidia.

Crossfire may be able to support up to ...

[guyfromindia]

...32 graphic chips!!!
From TomsHardware http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050526_1558 43.html

I will live on bread and water from now on to afford a system with this... in the far future! :-)

Re:Crossfire may be able to support up to ...

[Leroy_Brown242]

DOn't worry, by the time you can afford it, it will be out of date hardware. :)

Re:Crossfire may be able to support up to ...

[TMonks]

If you plan on putting four 6800 ultras (two-slots wide) in that thing, I guess you can say goodbye to your soundcard, among other things...

Re:Crossfire may be able to support up to ...

[ignorant_coward]

You will retire poor, with only an obselete 32 GPU graphics card to show for it. I hope you enjoy your shared room at the understaffed nursing home, because that's all Medicare/Medicaid will cover. When you are no longer a profit center for the nursing home, then, that leaves just the card, which will likely be thrown out with your hospital gown.

When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[jellomizer]

At a speed where it can render the entire earth. at the string theory level at 80 FPS?

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[Zangief]

Never, if that uber computer remains on earth.

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[Leroy_Brown242]

Sounds about right, yeah.

Sort of low FPS though. . . :)

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[SharpFang]

Not really. When it can render some 8 square kilometers of real terrain at 60FPS with resolution sufficient to show objects the size of a single pixel of some 1600x1200 display. Say, a field of grass in the wind. To the horizon. Each visible straw composed of some 20 polygons.
We don't need to get beyond what human eyes can see.

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[lastchance_000]

I have one, in my head. I'd bet you do to.

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[lastchance_000]

My spellchecker sucks, however.

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[nigel_q]

My imagination was killed by coding ASP for living. :(

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[jellomizer]

Hmm at 32 bit color that would be 10^19 Yottabits of Video Ram at least. I wont dare to calculate Mhz or um probably Yhz to get the work done. Nore will I even attempt to figure how much heat will be dicipated in the calculation. Needless to say with out 2005 knowlege. It probably cant be done.

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[DrEldarion]

Oh, I thought that the computer would BE Earth.

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[merlin_jim]

heh I don't think string theory is in vogue any more...

And yeah I know you didn't want a real answer.

You're getting it anyways.

Simple fact of computation; in order to simulate anything in real time, you need to have more complexity than the elements you are simulating. This complexity directly correlates to component count.

Build a GPU the size of the solar system and it might be doable...

But then again a GPU the size of the solar system would have so many lightspeed delays that you couldn't get a decent framerate out of it.

You'd be better off taking the raw material and just building another earth....

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably, but what was that question again?

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[Ian Action]

Thing were so much easier when the earth was flat...

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[FauxPasIII]

> We don't need to get beyond what human eyes can
see.

Tell it to the people who insist on a sustained 200fps whilst running their monitors are
retracing at 85hz.

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I'll say it...42

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh. Once I get that card, DOOM 10 will come out the next day, and you know it'll involve the whole solar system.

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[horza]

At a speed where it can render the entire earth. at the string theory level at 80 FPS?

Only then will we find out the question to which the answer is 42.

Phillip.

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[iswm]

2024 I called it.

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[Short Circuit]

But then again a GPU the size of the solar system would have so many lightspeed delays that you couldn't get a decent framerate out of it.

The key is making the architecture sufficiently wide (superscalar) and sufficiently deep (pipelining) to handle all your pixels. Lightspeed delays don't need to enter into the calculations until the end, unless you intend to accurately simulate effects that travel at the speed of light, such as EM or (theoretically) gravity.

Equip each calculation unit of the GPU with its own projector, and aim them all at your screen. If you shaped the GPU in a circular fashion, the light from each frame will reach your screen at the same time, or near enough for it to be unnoticable.

You'll still need to deal with some awful latency, though. Press a button, and discover that you died before all the elements had a chance to render it.

I love technical speculation.

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[merlin_jim]

Equip each calculation unit of the GPU with its own projector, and aim them all at your screen. If you shaped the GPU in a circular fashion, the light from each frame will reach your screen at the same time, or near enough for it to be unnoticable.

I'm not sure that would cut it or not; each partition would have to communicate with the others; meaning that the boundaries still have some sort of lightspeed propagation problem.

I guess you could have a central controller sending updates in all directions simultaneously. As you said, you would have a latency problem still...

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[SamSim]

I've got a simulator running which renders the entire Earth at string theory level at 10^34 FPS.

Unfortunately it's in use at the moment.

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[chill]

When will a GPU Be Good enough at a speed where it can render the entire earth. at the string theory level at 80 FPS?

Sometime next Thursday, if you believe the marketing departments of Sony, nVidia, Microsoft or ATi.

-Charles

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[swv3752]

I think you will enter into some macro applications of quantum uncertainty. The amount of heat buildup will throw the model out of balance. On a more pratical level, the amount of flooding might be an issue. :-P

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

But you have the ability to update your spellchecker and grammar checker. and if desired, make it virtually 100% correct.

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[PIBM]

my good old crt can run 120 hz in 1280x1024. So, when can a field of grass like that, with two armies crushing each other with human-like face animation of pain can be redendered at that speed so I can run some nice little 3d shutter glass ? =)

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you could have a central controller sending updates in all directions simultaneously. As you said, you would have a latency problem still...

Ha ha ha! Preposterous! As if it would be possible to create a fusion-based central controller sending updates in all directions simultaneously with a MTBF of more than 5 billion years!

If you're reading this, Y'gur!nk, you need to be warned: the humans are getting far too close to the truth. Prepare the troops.

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[Brazilian Joe]

I don't want to spoil the surprise, but YES, I want to spoil your surprise: 42.
Now put that hardware back on good use: that MMORPG you were coding...

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[Short Circuit]

each partition would have to communicate with the others; meaning that the boundaries still have some sort of lightspeed propagation problem.

Hm. As long as we're talking about a GPU, and we're not delving into a realtime physics simulation, I don't think we have a problem. At this scale, there's nothing wrong with allowing duplication of effort. You could generate your data as many times as you care to, once for each subprocessor, so long as you can gaurantee a state sync between each one. You'd need your simulation data sent to each processor at the same time.

That suggests a sort of bicone structure. At one peak, you have your simulator. At the circle around the center, you have your GPU. At the other peak, you have your viewing device.

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[blahplusplus]

>>>> We don't need to get beyond what human eyes can
see.

>> Tell it to the people who insist on a sustained 200fps whilst running their monitors are
retracing at 85hz.

Me: It's not about the retrace or pure benchmark "framerate", it's about the framerate spikes that are constantly fluctuating depending on what is happening in the game that occur during playing the game fully loaded with big battles, and beutiful models, textures and environments. In my opinion this is because games, gaming hardware have no "Quality of Service" standards.

Imagine, its similar to when on a network you your ping is low while you're not doing anything besides playing the game, but try to play a game and download a movie off bit-torrent and the data rate and trip time for the games packets suddenly spike skyhigh making your experience from frustrating to bad to unusable. Games have a similar problem where they cannot predict the throughput and amount of data to and from wherever that data is going, and the bottle necks and texture thrashing cause framerate hitches in the game.

Sure you have 100 or 200 fps in a room with no enemies or explosions going on, but then bam, down to 30-50 fps once you get a room full of people and enemies and their projectiles nad special effects animating all at once, all on the same screen in real time. So when you see high FPS scores just remember, It's about a cards ability to handle the immense load of random models and spells, effects, etc of animated (and non-animateD) models, geoemetry and textures during a actions scenes that have a lot going on in them.

Just benchmark some of the most punishing amounts of players on the same screen at once in modern MMO's or the bigger multiplayers games and you start to realize it's about what kind of load the video card can handle and keep things playable for when things get hectic (and the most fun).

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[merlin_jim]

That suggests a sort of bicone structure. At one peak, you have your simulator. At the circle around the center, you have your GPU. At the other peak, you have your viewing device.

Heh I was thinking too 2D... viewing device and simulator at the same location.

I like this setup better. But still for particle-accurate rendering of the earth you're looking at a HUGE lagtime.

Not that anyone would do particle accurate full earth renders. But when we move to a system mind setup we'll need to figure out how to handle the lightspeed propagation delays

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine runs at 10^35 FPS. you might want to check your initialization files.

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[Short Circuit]

. But when we move to a system mind setup we'll need to figure out how to handle the lightspeed propagation delays

I wouldn't think we would need to. The human brain operates at chemical speeds, and human perception is limited by lightspeed anyway. Even if we were to assume 1cm^3 per neuron, that's a cube 60m on a side. If a signal needs to go from one side to the other, lightspeed is no object.

(Assuming my math is correct. I'm exhausted...in the time it took me to write this comment, I've been asked for help six or seven times. And that rate has kept up all day.)

Re:When will a GPU Be Good enough.

[merlin_jim]

Even if we were to assume 1cm^3 per neuron, that's a cube 60m on a side. If a signal needs to go from one side to the other, lightspeed is no object.

I was referring to the popular theory that the natural evolution of any intelligence that develops computational theory and spaceflight is to build a Matrioshka Brain; an MB is a series of computational shells deriving energy from thermal gradients (one side facing the sun, the other side facing interstellar space) such that the sun itself is not visible outside the system. Many claim that such a setup is inevitable as energy demands and computational needs of an interplanetary civilisation grow. The earth only gets a tiny portion of the energy that our sun outputs; when we need more than that the only way to get it is going to be space-based computational systems.

A lot of smart people now believe this is why SETI has failed to find signs of intelligent life; SETI observes visible stars, not "empty" space. Any Type-III civilisation would be "visible" only as a dim infrasun.

A good paper on MBs can be found here

How funny.

[Spy der Mann]

Slowly, the computer is becoming an all in one console. Next gen consoles may soon become useles.

The same was said of the PC 10 years ago.

Re:How funny.

[G3ckoG33k]

Agreed, but check out the free Streaming Video of the game Killzone 2. Also, Tim Sweeney said about some upcoming console vs pc:

"Well, the PC is a more scalable platform, so it'll run on $500 PCs and it'll scale down to the Xbox 360 ".

Re:Fine but does it run under...

[Anonymous Coward]

And come again why Linux is so good? I plug the card into my Windows box and it FUCKING WORKS! It seems like all Lunix users do is try to get thinks to work.

HardOCP and brief overview

[IronChefMorimoto]

HardOCP (http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Nzc4) also has a decent preview. If you look down the list of the various news items for today, the [H] has included links to other previews. Also, they have some photographs from CompuTex (???) in Taipei from this week.

I skimmed both the Anandtech and HardOCP articles, and the basic gist about ATI's "SLI" is:

- needs an ATI chipset (the 200 -- for both Intel and AMD right now)
- "SLI" connector is external via some sort of weird DVI dongle
- uses one (1) existing X800 or X850 flavor card + a special CrossFire edition of same card models = no real need to get TWO CrossFire cards at one time if you already have the above models

Looks like I'm gonna need a monster case to ever be able to do this setup (ATI's demos at CompuTex take up 4 friggin' slots on the back of a case).

IronChefMorimoto

Re:HardOCP and brief overview

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like I'm gonna need a monster case to ever be able to do this setup

Actually, what you will apparently need is an ATI PC.

Re:HardOCP and brief overview

[leuk_he]

You might also have noticed the content of all the sites is nearly identical. Just a rewrite of the ati press kit is suppose. They all miss benchmarks (the whole purpose of sli is speed).

Here is a list of some more sites:
beyond3d
techreport
tweakers.net (dutch, but the content is identical to other sites
the faq from ati

Next in line: these same sites (i left anand tech and tomshardware out) will bring the benchmarks all the same day the nda on the benchmarks expires

Re:Fine but does it run under...

[zoobaby]

ATI's *nix drivers are getting better (but still suck), but you are running a 9200, a POS card. Doubt you are doing much graphic intensive work on that card. So you really need to ask yourself, do you need this kind of power? If you want to upgrade to this system, be prepared to shell out the big bucks. I doubt it will support *nix for quite a while.

HyperComputer

[Doc Ruby]

Now we've got loadbalancing GPUs. Which means cheap supercomputers, on a PCI LAN, in cheap P4 clients running the OS of our choice. Everyone overclocking your Pentium for more power: GPGPU is the cheapest way to get the fastest PC. First demo of a pool of parallel LAME process running on a stacked beast, let me know.

Re:HyperComputer

[Doc Ruby]

Even better: in addition to the PCI Express bus for internode signaling, the DVI cable is available for throughput, without clogging the PC host apps' IO on the PCI bus. These little monsters are screaming for GP parallel processing.

Re:HyperComputer

[modecx]

Heh, it's sounding quite alot like the big SGIs of yore.... And that would be neat.

Re:HyperComputer

[BiggerIsBetter]

There are libraries for some of that here... http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/brookgpu/ and here... http://libsh.org/

I had a play with BrookGPU a while back, running parallel test jobs an AGP GF4 GPU, and PCI GFFX GPU. Worked well enough, but that was on PCI and AGP bus, and it killed the CPU trying to keep up with the GPUs. Probably needed bigger datasets to keep the GPUs busy or something...

Anyway, if there's an easy way to load-share accross these things using a single graphics context, I reckon it's got huge GPGPU potential.

Re:HyperComputer

[Doc Ruby]

The question for BrookGPU, Sh, and other GPGPU languages, is how "GP" they are - how closely they map to the full C++ (or C) they map to the underlying shader hardware. Once the initial compile of the LAME source, using the GP language/library, fails, what is required to debug and run? Is it just syntax, call graphs, linguistic changes? Or does the algorithm need changing to run at all, let alone optimized for the GPU architecture?

Those languages have been around a while, but GPGPU projects don't seem to use them, except subprojects researching the language itself. Maybe a more dataflow oriented, higher-level language is needed. Apps like LAME would need to be graphed in UML, for example, then compiled for the GPGPU target, with eg. a Brooks preprocessor. If I were still hacking graphics a lot, I know I'd be working that seam - making a porting tool for open source that runs on $1K supercomputers at 120GFLOPS sounds like a great business, and a fascinating adventure.

Imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

..a Beowulf Cluster of these!

Crossfire eh?

[DrinkingIllini]

John Stewart will be getting this whole project cancelled in no time!

How do you feel?

[Bruha]

That ATI and Nvidia have cards out in production that are twice as powerful as any currently out but are holding back on any new innovation probably until well after the Consoles have sold.

ATI and Nvidia are selling out the PC Gamer's in hopes of pleasing the console makers so they can make even more money off our backs.

Re:How do you feel?

[rpozz]

I'm going to make a totally baseless claim here and guess that those GPUs aren't anywhere near the production stage yet and those console makers are full of shit and showing us graphics either pre-rendered, or running off a very experimental prototype card.

Re:How do you feel?

[Xugumad]

Certainly, the X-Box 360 demos were all all run on PowerMacs with X800 cards, not any kind of next gen hardware.

ATi did actually have a demo of their next-gen R520 at E3, which should be launched later this year (a time frame that at worst puts it in line with X-Box 360). No news from Nvidia on the GF70, from what I can tell, but I'd imagine they'll try to launch around the same time as ATi.

Anyway, if you've been following the graphics card market (which you really should if you're thinking of buying a multi-GPU rig), you'd know that new cards are released regularly, and that their power doubles every 18 months or so. This stuff should suprise no-one these days.

Re:Fine but does it run under...

[TopSpin]

for something other then windows

Erm. So, ATI finally has their drivers working well for Windows?

Honestly, how many of you actually believe ATI is capable of making multiple GPUs work reliably? And on Linux?

Go ahead ATI fanbois, I can spare the karma.

I'm a bit cynical...

[richardcavell]

Firstly, this entire article was obviously written from marketing material. No working and buyable Crossfire hardware currently exists. Secondly, the setup requires that you buy an ATI-licensed motherboard, which includes their proprietary audio, and so on. Have we now officially reached the point where the graphics hardware is booting and running the CPU, rather than the other way round? By the way, when 2 cards are installed, the PCI express bus speed gets divided between the two.

Re:I'm a bit cynical...

[bWareiWare.co.uk]

To be fair the ATI design specificly addresses the PCI Express bus issue. The cards use an external connector (can anyone say 3dfx?) to composite the frames, so unlike nVidia's SLI they don't need to send the rendered frames across the bus. (Except for Render to Texture commands and the like).
Obviously two cards are going to push more of the bottlenecks onto onther areas of the system, but this is true of every new top of the range card. The are still lots of situations where games are GPU bound.

Re:I'm a bit cynical...

[merlin_jim]

By the way, when 2 cards are installed, the PCI express bus speed gets divided between the two.

BTW, PCI devices all share the same bus.

Same with ISA and VLB.

I guess that's why it's called a bus.

PCIe at least has the advantage of offering switching, meaning if you have multiple communications going on simultaneously, they're not necessarily all waiting on each other (though I don't think that's going to be very useful in a real world environment)

The only graphics interface format that ever dedicated bandwidth is AGP... but fun multi-GPU tricks aren't possible there.

Honestly, I don't think the bus speed is the bottleneck on PCIe... I think that a top of the line comp today has more graphics bus than it can use (which of course is exactly the condition you want)... I think the fundamental limiter is the CPU in a lot of titles... and the GPU in everything else.

Re:I'm a bit cynical...

[JorDan Clock]

Workable, yes. Buyable, no. Check it. Although, that's probably some pre-production model and really can't be held to a high level of scrutiny until a proper comparison can be made, obviously.

Re:I'm a bit cynical...

[KillShill]

no, pci e is not like pci. each slot gets the full bandwidth of that particular speed (x1 gets 250MB/s and so on).

it is light years ahead of pci in terms of capability.

What... what's that word I'm thinking of... ah yes

[Anonymous Coward]

"Decadence"

Say no to goofy external dongles....

[Chas]

I have yet to use any video hardware that required an external dongle and still got decent throughput to the monitor. There was always some image degradation due to the passthrough. No matter how non-shoddy it was.

Re:Say no to goofy external dongles....

[Jarnis]

Image degration?

Ever heard of what 'DVI' stands for

Hint; the 'D' stands for 'Digital'. Want to explain to me how a digital signal 'degrades' in the cable?

Re:Say no to goofy external dongles....

[Xugumad]

This is an all digital DVI-I goofy external dongle, so theoretically there should be no degredation (unlike VGA goofy external dongles, which should be taken outside and shot).

Re:Say no to goofy external dongles....

[Anonymous Coward]

Noise will do it but it would have to be a pretty shitty cable.

Re:Say no to goofy external dongles....

[CausticPuppy]

Hint; the 'D' stands for 'Digital'. Want to explain to me how a digital signal 'degrades' in the cable?


Of course digital signals can degrade. This is precisely why the guy at Best Buy told me to get the more expensive shielded optical cable for my DVD player.

Re:Say no to goofy external dongles....

[timeOday]

In my experience DVI is a bit iffy at 1600x1200 60hz (which is its max). I've found that some monitors are more likely than others to suffer dropouts (often seen as regions of flashing pixels, or green pixels). On a professional DVI capture board with a passthrough that I use at work, 1600x1200 is not usable because of all the dropouts.

With all the advancements we've seen in graphics boards, I'm disappointed screen resolutions haven't gone up very much - the upper end of mainstream has hovered around 1600x1200 for quite a few years.

Re:Say no to goofy external dongles....

[dogmatixpsych]

Hey, some men only have goofy external dongles. You shouldn't reject them just for that.

Who needs a card that...GNP

[Anonymous Coward]

"Before you waste your time on the same old tired "who needs it" posts, here's the answer:"

The question's moved from "who needs it?" to "who can afford it?".

---
"Slow Down Cowboy!

Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between each successful blowjob to allow everyone a fair chance at blowing too.

It's been 3 minutes since you last successfully blew it"

version 1 of this dual gpu stuff just isn't there

[Zed2K]

I'm holding out for version 2. I just don't see why you need an ati or nvidia chipset for this stuff. If you have a motherboard with 2 16x pci slots next to each other then just sell the connector bracket that includes the necessary logic. Also this current generation drops the 16x slots down to 2 8x slots. Next gen should give you 2 full speed 16x slots if nvidia follows through.

I refuse to get locked into either an ATI implementation or a Nvidia implementation. I want a MB with a chipset that I select to work with either one. Then in the future I can upgrade the 2 video cards to a different brand without having to change out everything else.

Aren't you not surprised

[Man in Spandex]

that they didn't bench Doom3?

The game itself might not have been as exciting at it first seemed but the engine surely is. Quake 4, EnemyTerritory: QuakeWars and I'm sure some other games also are based on Doom3.

offtopic, but i couldn't resist...

[gyratedotorg]

don't get caught up in the... crossfire!

And don't forget...

[daveschroeder]

...ATI's forthcoming R520, with hardware H.264 codec support.

Imagine a Mac mini or laptop with that chipset...it will enable HD playback on a lot of hardware that wouldn't otherwise support it.

Re:And don't forget...

[KillShill]

except that all video cards from r300 (9700) generation till now have that capability. except those bastards have been including support for encoding and decoding acceleration into all their product spec sheets up till now.

and it's only just in the last week that we've had wmv HD decoding and a pathetic one at that. it is clearly above the 20% cpu usage (it uses 50-60% of a 2-2.5ghz a64) that we saw in "benchmarks" a few months back.

they can suck it down and be john's bitch.

no one has called them on this lying garbage and nvidia is in the same position.

No ATI board *required*

[Jarnis]

"which requires both a Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire based motherboard and a CrossFire graphics card"

Wrong. Instead they stated that the 'optimum' platform is the Xpress 200 CrossFire.

However, between the marketing bullshit, you can clearly see that the motherboard is just a dupe of NForce4 SLI (and of similar Intel chipset coming up). Exact same PCIE setup. So it's almost certain that CrossFire will run just fine on nVidia chipset SLI motherboards.

I doubt they'd do a commercial suicide to prevent it on driver side. Today ATI has 0 SLI boards out. Nvidia has a gazillion - many of which are currently running X800/X850 cards. Nforce4 was first working PCIE AMD chipset, so many bought it - even the more expensive A8N-SLI or similar from other manufacturers, because nothing else was available at the time. Then they noticed how sucky the 6800GT/Ultra drivers currently are (stuutttteeerr bug in EQ2 comes to mind) and decided to fill the board with top of the line ATI card.

Such people are the PRIME candidates for forking out extra 500$+ for a CrossFire card, and I'm quite sure that they'll want the money from these people WITHOUT forcing upon them a crappy unproven ATI chipset based motherboard.

Now I do admit that ATI has been very elusive about this in their marketing material (ahem, I mean 'exclusive previews'), but if you go over them all, nowhere it says the thing *requires* ATI chipset, and I'm quite sure that detail is missing for a very good reason - they are late to the party on the motherboard side, and their system is exactly same (two x16 slots, running at x8 mode), that doing it any other way would be just silly.

Re:No ATI board *required*

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree I looked at the outside of the chips and they are clearly wired identically.

I'm surpised ATI can get away with it.

Incidently, the text/image thing is fucking shit it's taken me about 8 attempts to post cos it's unreadable.

Now....

[Viceice]

When they finally write DECENT drivers then I will be impressed. As it is the official drivers are buggy and dual monitor support is absolute crap compared to nVidia's drivers.

Lets not talk about load balancing between cards, ATi can't even get scaling one desktop over 2 momnitors right. And thats if you can get monitor #2 to detect, which is still a hit or miss affair with the official drivers.

Re:Now....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny how I have no such problems on any of the 6 ATI systems I deal with daily. Perhaps get some skills, yes?

Re:Now....

[Slashcrap]

It's funny how I have no such problems on any of the 6 ATI systems I deal with daily.

Not really, I doubt that you do anything significant enough with them that you would run into their quirks and limitations.

And "deal with daily"? You don't own them do you? They belong to your employer don't they?

Let me translate for you : The 6 ATI systems that I can see when I'm cleaning the office after everyone has gone home don't have any problems that I know about. But then they are all switched off. Except the one I'm posting this comment from. Please don't tell my boss.

Yet another R300 refresh? No thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nvidia will have their second generation PS3.0 part out in before Crossfire ever hits store shelves. According to anandtech all the motherboard southbridge bugs in ATi's chipset are still being sorted.

It's the middle of 2005 and ATi is still selling refreshes of the same old R300 core...if you buy a crossfire setup right now (min $500 investment) there are already games which you can't run at max settings (no HDR in FarCry, no HDR in SCCT, etc)...

This would have been a really interesting technology if it had been announced 10 months ago alongside SLi...but now it's just too little too late...R520 Crossfire should be a different story though...

Multi-GPU out of necessity? or something else

[MichaelGospatric]

If I understand correctly, the reason that dual cores cpus are coming onto the market is because it is becoming increasingly more difficult to make single core cpus faster.

Is that also the case with GPUs? Or do they still have a ways to go in terms of single-core speed improvements?

Re:Multi-GPU out of necessity? or something else

[TheRaven64]

Disclaimer: This post contains oversimplifications.

Not really. Making GPUs faster is relatively trivial - just add more pipelines. There is very little in the rendering process that can't be excessively parallelised. Vertex shaders will only get into diminishing returns once there is one vertex shader pipeline per vertex (well, per primitive). Pixel shader pipelines will only get into diminishing returns once there is one per pixel. Other components can easily be parallelised more (e.g. compositing) by splitting up the screen into smaller fragments (not quite a linear speed-up, because of overlaps, but a significant one).

The problem is fitting all of these pipelines into an IC that doesn't spontaneously ignite when you remove it from the liquid nitrogen tank. Multi-GPU solutions step around this problem by putting some of the pipelines in a different package, so the cooling required is spread between two physical packages.

CPUs are different. They are designed for performing inherently serial calculations (while GPUs are inherently parallel). This means that doubling the speed of a CPU becomes increasingly difficult every time it is done, until eventually it will be impossible[1]. Dual Cores are a way to side step this, by making CPUs more parallel.

[1] This has been Real Soon Now(tm) for about 20 year, but isn't here quite yet, although we are seeing the first serious hurdles.

Re:Multi-GPU out of necessity? or something else

[raddan]

My father's graduate physics advisor swore up and down that clock speeds past 100MHz were impossible. We are definitely seeing diminishing returns at the moment, but a lot of people have been surprised over the last 20 years.

Crapdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what's with all the BS hype hardware news?

Even for DVI?

[disc-chord]

I wouldn't think this would be a problem with DVI. I know I hated my Voodoo2 for this reason, but that was Analog VGA -> Ditigal -> Analog VGA. Is there something I'm missing that would effect a Digitial -> Digital -> Digital solution?

Re:Fine but does it run under...

[rokzy]

jeez, if you want to still carry on with 5 year out of date arguments then of course nvidia can make better drivers if they pre-render your benchmark tests for you.

Re:version 1 of this dual gpu stuff just isn't the

[Jarnis]

Read the marketing spam bit more carefully.

Nowhere is it stated that ATI chipset motherboard is *Required*. Instead, the the term 'optimal' is used.

Translation from marketing bullshit: ATI Xpress 200 Crossfire = clone of NForce 4 SLI. Unless they want to shoot their leg by restricting it at drivers, their implementation on the motherboard side of things seems identical. I do hear that nVidia isn't allowing SLI on their drivers with anything except nVidia NForce 4 chipset (tho 'support for Intel chipsets' is coming, I hear).

If it actually would require ATI chipset, they would've stated so clearly. Instead if you read the fine articles, nowhere it is claimed to be a *requirement*.

Re:Fine but does it run under...

[phxbadash]

Well seeing as I've had 0 driver problems since I first got my 8500 I'd say they are working pretty good. It's not like Nvidia drivers are all that pristine anyways. I've seen issues with both manufacturer's cards and 9 times out of 10 it's not the drivers that are the cause but the user or rarely the hardware.

Re:version 1 of this dual gpu stuff just isn't the

[Zed2K]

And "optimal" means if it doesn't work on a competitors board then we won't work as hard to fix the drivers to make it work. Aka, buy it from us to actually get it working to its full potential.

Re:version 1 of this dual gpu stuff just isn't the

[Jarnis]

ASUS, DFI, MSI etc are not competitors of ATI. They are important partners. I'm quite sure ATI will lick ASUS's boots with whatever fix is required so that ASUS customers stay happy and ASUS sells lots of ASUS-branded Crossfire cards to the *existing installed base* of NF4 SLI + X800/X850 users. Sure they'll tell the clueless people that a new ATI chipset motherboard is the 'optimal' solution, but pissing off their prime customer base of technically savy too-rich ubergamers who already forked out a ton for that A8N-SLI seems to me like a true Bonehead Manouver. Since ATI is late, they really can't afford to be picky.

I'm quite sure that while nVidia might be unhappy that ATI is 'using' nVidia's chipset SLI boards with their cards like this, the big motherboard makers just want things to work and be compatible. So unless there is a real technical reason why not, it'll work. Unless nVidia wants to commit a commercial suicide and prevent it at chipset driver level (and that would be kinda blatant...)

ATI has been doing multi-GPU for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

ATI has been doing multi-GPU since the R300. Evans and Sutherland has been using multiple GPUs to provide rock-solid frame rates and 24x anti-aliasing for military simulators. ATI have been considering multi-GPU for longer than nVidia and I suspect their consumer solutions will be much more robust and thought out than SLI.

Wasted space

[oskard]

They sell a motherboard that is to be used with a new technology. They also include PCI slots for good measure. The damn video cards completely cover the 2 PCI slots, why are they there in the first place?

Old News, CrossFire Cancelled Months Ago...

[zamboni1138]

CNN cancelled CrossFire a few months ago after Jon Stewart pointed out to them that a couple of guys yelling at each other non-stop about one subject for five minutes != a debate show, as they bill it.

Yet hear we are, months later, and CrossFire is still on.

I really like it when Bob Novak starts getting pissed at James Carville for continuously interrupting the Red Party guests and starts dinging that little service bell, which in turn no one listens to, and he finally has to start yelling himself and try to talk over the guests and Carville to get them into commercial break.

And why does Carville now sit there saying "Uh huh, yeah, okay, right, okay, uh huh, yeah, yeah" the entire time the guests is talking (when he is not interrupting/responding to them). He only started doing that in the last few months. What's up with that?

Dual Core Gpus?????

[AgNO3]

Seems to me that a dual core gpu (or 2+ cores for that matter) would make more sense then 2 cards? Why can't they make these cards multicore?

Re:Dual Core Gpus?????

[tomstdenis]

Because they're not as hand-designed as processors are. For the most part GPUs are written in higher level ASIC tools [e.g. verilog/vhdl] which then filter through the tool chains [automatic...] with some human intervention along the way.

The benefit is that they can produce a graphics card in half the time [hint: the last significant AMD change in terms of logic was from the K6 to the K7...] as a typical CPU like an x86 but the downside is they're less efficient.

Processors are written with high level tools but there is much more human intervention before it goes to tapeout.

The software analogy would be comparing someone who goes from C to binary to someone who goes from C to assembly, tweaks it and then to binary.

Tom

Torrents

[WickedClean]

Do you think the more widespread use of high speed Internet and sites like Kazaa and BitTorrent locations are part of the cause. It is pretty easy to go download a commerical game, even if it might take all day to get a couple gigs worth of data.

I think the two main problems are buggy software and lack of innovation. They just keep polishing and repackaging the same old stuff.

That's exactly the point

[Anonymous Coward]

funny how you posted a comment about linux being able to do everything windows can in a post about gaming.

There are a lot of Linux users (myself for one) who haven't used Windows for anything except games in years, but still have to keep Windows around to play the latest and greatest.

If consoles completely take over the video gaming market, that will remove a major (and to a few people the only) reason for people to run Windows.

All I have to say is

[metalhed77]

Crossfire
CROSSFIRYAAAAAHHHHHH

(reference to an old commercial for those who don't know)

Re:All I have to say is

[DigitalHammer]

Ahh, stupid 90's commercials. Burn! Burn!

Re:All I have to say is

[Anonymous Coward]

You've gotta win it in the FAR FIRE !!!

Re:Fine but does it run under...

[NotoriousQ]

Linux + Nvidia driver (with RenderAccel disabled) is damn stable.

ATI about 2-3 year ago has earned a reputation that they have really bad drivers. I believe that even Carmack has mentioned that he will only do development on nvidia, as the ATI's were too unpredictable. I believe the situation has changed but not for linux drivers.

Ati linux drivers are the same nightmare they used to be. Some cards are supported, others are not. In general it is a mess.

As far as your "F*CKING WORKS" comment...all I have to say is that it is not the case in my experience. One of the latest computers that I have configured for windows (Dad's Windows XP machine, hard drive with XP installed from the previous box) appears to not like AGP video. I booted Windows, and it freezes upon entering graphics mode. I started knoppix -- no problems. Windows -- freezes at entering graphics mode. Plugged in a different card - same result. Windows freezes at entering graphics mode. Fine, I immediately think that the windows is wrongly using the old configuration that is on the hard drive to start graphics, and is freezing. Here is the kicker...I decided to reinstall Windows only to have the installer freeze completely when entering graphics mode. Same result with the SP2 disc that I have bootlegged (The version I was installing was legit in fact).

I expected there would probably be bios flash for something like this, but no such new bios was available...and no one was reporting the same problem. The eventual workaround involved this: tell the bios to boot a pci graphics card first, and have any cheap pci card sitting there. Then tell windows that the agp card is the main desktop one and ignore the other card. That worked perfectly.

Total time spent to research, tinker, and workaround the problem: 4 days, with few breaks. I am persistent like that. Unfortunately that is more time than I have spent on configuring linux boxes in the last year or two.

And although the Plug and Pray experience of installing ISA modems did go away (mostly due to modems going away, I am sure the OS is still full of bugs in that respect), there is still plenty of fun to go around. Like the new vendor drivers versus generic drivers fighting each other. The SCSI card that the scanner uses disabling the CD drives, as in they are visible, but no longer send any media status info. Microphone on the card stopped working about a year and a half ago due to a generic driver update, and creative just says use generic driver.

Plenty of fun to go around when using windows boxes.

Dual GPU's ehh?

[toadlife]

Will this one will actually work with NT based OSs?

(bonus points for anyone who 'gets this')

Re:Dual GPU's ehh?

[KillShill]

it's cause their rage maxx chips wouldn't work in dual chip mode in nt/2000.

they probably just didn't have the people to write appropriate drivers instead of it technically being impossible.

still a bad decision.

Re:Dual GPU's ehh?

[toadlife]

ding! ding! ding! ding! ding! We have a winner!

I was burned badly by that card.

Re:Dual GPU's ehh?

[Psykechan]

This was on Final Jeopardy last night...

What is the ATi Rage Fury MAXX card?

I've been an ATi user for a long time but they sometimes do the dumbest things. I remember in '94 when their slogan was "Perfecting the PC"; they were shipping cards with a sticker that had obviously been typoed at the printers. It said:

ATi: Partecting the PC.

I had that stuck on my monitor at work for the longest time.

Meanwhile...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I get cards that are two (or even three) generations "old" that still kick the shit out of modern games for cheap. Suckers.

Are you sure?

[mcc]

So I don't follow these things too closely, but the way I heard it, the ATI card that the XBox 360 and Nintendo Revolution will be using derivatives of started its life as a PC card, but got the axe when it proved to be cost-inefficient, and wouldn't be hitting market at all at this point if it weren't for the consoles; and the NVidia chippy thing that the PS3 GPU is based off of actually IS outright coming to PCs as a retail product and will apparently be shown at Computex or whatever it's called this week.

Outpaced :)

[core]

Damn, I just barely started making 2D games that use the 3D card for rotation, blending, zooms and stuff. Great, what am I going to do with all this now ;)

--
Cartoon miniature golf game for Mac: http://www.funpause.com/

Re:Awesome - Graphics

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure PC gaming isn't going to totally evaporate, especially for those of us who need to keep our PC's specs up to date to do graphics and such (but still too cheap to buy high end workstation cards) still want to play games to justify, and tax the limits of our painfully expensive machines.

Never mind that modding PC games is a hobby all in itself not available (and not properly foreseeable) on consoles. Even with some modding ability, consoles can't load Photoshop or spew a workflow straight into a game SDK. Even a cable direct to a console with a hard drive would be a whole extra hassle.

In-depth examination

[Anonymous Coward]

Another in-depth examination of the technology can be found here

PC Game Market On Decline

[jasonmicron]

That is quite contrary to the latest issue of PC Gamer.

In the July issue (with Civ IV on the cover) they do an Eyewitness report on a game developer's conference. One very vocal developer talks about how most game developers simply view the PC as the "4th console" and as a result most of the games are designed around dedicated consoles first before being ported to the PC.

While the PC still has some dedicated games (Far Cry, Half Life 2, EverQuest, WoW etc) most games are now just being ported over. IE - the PC Gaming market is losing ground against the console market.

So thier Linux Support Still sucks?

[PaternityTest]

OOOOH let me buy an ATI board so i cant run linux at all

whilst

[Anonymous Coward]

The word "whilst" has been deprecated for centuries. From now on, use the more modern replacement "while."

Thank you.

YMMW

[WeblionX]

Especially after you have that drink.

Finally! Re:Who needs a card that...

[kesuki]

a system that can run PCSX2 ;) maybe now we'll get more people developing ps2 emulators ;)

YMMV

[Anonymous Coward]

me, i like the idea that once i've finished a game, i can go in, reverse engineer it, make some modifications (all for personal use, not distribution -- unless the license includes this -- e.g. TES construction set, with Morrowind, &al.), and play a different game, with the same underlying engine... 'till i get bored with that game engine.

sure, you could do this with console games, but it's a p.i.t.a.

personally, i get a lot more mileage out of PC games

The problem with console games...

[Suddenly_Dead]

... are that many of them are pretty dern alike, and there are limited genres within. Yet, this is why they sell. People like buying every GTA game, every run-and-shoot platformer, all the nearly identical FPS games. Until there start to be strategy games (I love Galactic Civilization and Sim City 4), moddable games, online games like Tribes/Tribes 2/Battlefield/BF2/Others that have a real good amount of depth (and should be possible with the increased console RAM), and etc., several PC gamers will stubbornly own just a PC or both.

I don't see how these types of games aren't possible anymore. TVs are at HD, allowing strategy games to work better. At least one of the consoles is using standard USB (hello keyboards/mice). They'll have harddrives, they'll have lots of RAM, they'll have downloadable things. I'm just hoping we don't get more of these simplisitc console games this time around (not that all are like that, just >90%), which is exactly what I hoped last time.

Also why I'm looking (bit doubtfully) at Nintendo, since they make completely insane things that work only as console games and aren't like shallow versions of PC genres.

Poor OpenGL

[Bun]

ATi has traditionally had poor OpenGL performance, now this:
"It has come to our attention that the "small number of applications" for which Supertiling does not work includes all OpenGL based titles."

I wonder how much ATi's cosy relationship with MSFT has to do with this?

Re:Poor OpenGL

[Jarnis]

None. ATI just sucks at implementing OpenGL for gaming use.

If you want 'real' OpenGL, they'll sell you an overpriced '3D productivity' FireGL card - with appropriate working drivers certified for all the major openGL apps.

Daaaiiisy, daaaisy....

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't help but notice ATI design, over nVidia's, allows for these to be daisy chained... a beowulf anyone?

Fine but does it run under...Turtling.

[Anonymous Coward]

[From Usenet]

"In order to keep XP from "turtling" when you change hardware
it would be advisable to set up hardware profiles first.(in XP)
IF you set up 2 profiles XP will ask you which to boot. That way
XP will "discover" new hardware rather than just crash.

I learned the hard way.

John"

Re:Fine but does it run under...Turtling.

[NotoriousQ]

This would not have helped here...as any configuration (including the setup from the CD) was crashing.

Obviously Windows did something that the motherboard did not like.

abspestos?

[Anonymous Coward]

"abspestos"? What is that, salsa for your stomach? Perhaps you meant "asbestos".

Re:Fine but does it run under...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you tried getting tv out to work on any windows boxes?
I have managed to get mine to work once, and I have no idea what I did different than the other forty times I tried, or on the twenty other computers I've tried setting it up for before...