Unstable for *you*, maybe. I haven't had any sort of stability problem on NVidia hardware in almost two years... and the problem then was the motherboard. That's on either Linux or Windows.
Now, why can't you make it work on PPC? Because the drivers aren't compiled for PPC. Duh. As for x86, I'd suggest trying the latest drivers, and seeking help on #nvidia at irc.openprojects.net.
My GTS was $120, and that was quite some time ago... Are you using PriceWatch?::looks at PriceWatch:: umm... the prices appear to have gone up... odd... $130 for a GTS.
Doom 3 is designed to run on the GeForce and up, according to Carmack. Of course, it will look much better on the GeForce3, but it will run on basically any T&L card.
According to the NVidia GL extensions docs, NV_vertex_program is supported in hardware on the NV1x series (GeForce 1&2), but only using the R10 drivers.
As geometric detail increases, so does required bandwidth. So does overdraw.
Usually, no. As I mentioned elsewhere, geometry data is usually pulled from AGP memory, NOT from VRAM. Thus, it isn't much affected by the VRAM bandwidth. Furthermore, geometry data takes far less bandwidth than pixel data, so even if VRAM bandwidth does affect it, it doesn't affect it much.
As for overdraw, no, increasing geometric detail does not increase overdraw. Usually, added geo detail means *smaller* triangles. The total surface area rendered is about the same, which means the overdraw is about the same.
Lack of T&L is a BS argument that nVidia only fanboys keep putting up, which has little basis in reality.
Umm... would you care to tell me what makes you think that? Personally, I tend to believe the T&L thing based on my experience in 3d graphics. Other people knowledgable in the field, like John Carmack, Tim Sweeny, all of SGI, and others, generally seem to agree that T&L is, well... a good thing.
You know, the CPU speed requirements for Tribes 2 are 40% lower if you have a GeForce 2 than if you have a Kyro. I don't think they made that number up. Perhaps, however, you think that Tribes 2 is not part of reality? I know, it's hard to believe that it was finally released. Maybe you haven't received your copy yet, and don't believe it exists. But it does.
I, instead, assert that the argument that T&L doesn't matter is a BS argument taken up by Kyro and 3dfx fanboys.
You're just using T&L as an excuse for why not to buy a Kyro2, when it performs extremely excellent on current day games.
Huh? I'm not on NVidia's payroll. Why would I support NVidia without a good reason? Hell, let me go right out and say that I like the Radeon. It's a pretty good card. It has T&L.
I'll tell you why I want people to buy T&L cards: I do NOT want to be limited by having to support cards with no geometry accelleration. I prefer that the industry moves *forwards*. Yes, the tile-based rendering is nice, but it is not worth the loss of T&L.
The argument about current games not using it is not only wrong (current games DO use T&L), but it is stupid. It's a chicken-and-egg problem. If non of the gamers buy T&L hardware, none of the developers will use it. Fortunately, NVidia has managed to, for the most part, keep their hardware competitive in current games at the same time as they add new features for future games. I like it when the industry advances. Don't you?
Interesting... I just tested vertex shaders on my GF2, and they seem to be supported just fine. Perhaps Aquanox uses some special feature that isn't supported, like n-patches... Thanks for the link, though.
Hmm... I'm not sure if the NVidia drivers currently support vertex shaders on the GF2. I know the GL ones say it won't be supported until R10, which apparently hasn't been released yet. But it is supposed to be there eventually.
I suppose buying a Kyro to tide yourself over until the GF3 is at a reasonable price is a good idea, as long as you have a nice, fast CPU to back it up.:) The tile based rendering is actually a pretty cool technology... I'd love to see a card with both tile rendering and the feature set of the GF3. I suspect NVidia's next big core change will be such a card, but that's probably a year off or more.:(
I just don't like it when people claim that a technology is useless because games don't use it. If that mentality keeps up, then people won't buy the cards with the newer features, and thus developers will continue to not use the features. Then, the industry goes nowhere. Luckily, NVidia has been the best choice for both current and future games for awhile now, and thus they have managed to keep the industry advancing despite the chicken-and-egg dilemma. Kyro is advancing the industry in its own way (tile-based rendering), but at the same time it is a step back in T&L, which I see as the more important technology at the moment.:S
Just out of curiosity, how low do you have to set your graphics settings to make that work? On my GF2 I have no trouble maxing out everything. Without T&L, however, you probably won't be able to set the geometric details very high. I haven't seen actual benchmarks, but neither have you.:)
As for the DX8 not supporting GF2 T&L... The GeForce 1&2 support programmable vertex shaders a la DX8, so I'm not sure what you mean. I assure you NVidia and Microsoft would never let DX8 out the door if it didn't support current hardware.
Quake3 has much higher geometric detail than UT, hence the difference. (Part of the higher polygon count is due to crappiness of the Q3 engine, though.)
Yes, I prefer UT over Q3, but that is besides the point. Games coming out *now* have high geometric detail levels--higher than Q3--, and that means you want a card with T&L support.
The page you linked to discusses memory bandwidth problems between the chipset and the on-board memory. This is not really a T&L issue. T&L info is usually pulled from AGP memory in large DMA transfers, or streamed directly from the CPU via the AGP bus. On-board memory bandwidth primarily affects fill rate, which is why the Kyro II kicks ass in that department.
Trust me, I have been writing graphics software for two years. T&L is important. Going from a GF2 to a Kyro II would be a major step backwards, and future games will run much better on the GF2 than on the Kyro II. As a matter of fact, the GF2 beats the Kyro II by far in current T&L-heavy games. Look at that AnandTech review you linked, under Quake3. Even at extremely high resolutions, the Ultra beats the Kyro by over a third (15fps). I'd like to see some Tribes 2 benchmarks. I suspect they will be similar. Tribes 2 actually has different system requirements based on your hardware -- GF2 requires a PII 300MHz, while a Kyro requires a PIII 500MHz.
Troll? Probably, but I wouldn't want anyone to be mislead by your words, so...
1) removing all content relating to linux.3dfx.com and 3dfxgamers.com
That was 3dfx that did that, NOT NVidia. NVidia is NOT responsible for supporting 3dfx's current product line. NVidia gave 3dfx a fat wad of cash which 3dfx is *supposed* to be spending on supporting their users. Hmm...
2) not updating either of the Linux, Mac, or MS Windows codebase for the 3dfx Voodoo products.
Again, that is not NVidia's responsibility. NVidia did NOT buy 3dfx's current product line. If you go out and buy a Voodoo card right now, the money goes to 3dfx, NOT NVidia. Thus, NVidia has no reason to be supporting Voodoo cards.
3) releasing closed-source drivers for their video cards that prevent accurate security audits
I think this has been argued enough, but just in case, here is the primary argument: NVidia's GL drivers contains MUCH MUCH more than just a hardware interface. OpenGL drivers are required to implement all of OpenGL's functionality, even if the hardware doesn't support it. Thus, NVidia's GL drivers contain software implementations of anything that isn't supported in all of their cards. This includes an extremely good T&L implementation, which every one of NVidia's competitors would probably love to have. It would not be legal for them to release that open source -- their shareholders would sue them!
4) conspiring with the enemy ala Microsoft
NVidia does not suck up to Microsoft. Microsoft sucks up to NVidia. Has NVidia ever done anything purely for Microsoft's sake? No. They are providing hardware for the X-Box, but at a price, and at the same time they are providing hardware for the Indrema, a fact which I'm sure Microsoft is not happy about. Furthermore, NVidia has the best 3D hardware drivers available on Linux (closed source or not). Microsoft has acknoledged Linux to be their primary competitor, so I'm sure they'd prefer than NVidia not support Linux. Last, but not least, NVidia has the best GL implementation of any consumer 3D hardware vendor. There is no advantage whatsoever to using Direct3D rather than OpenGL on NVidia hardware. As a matter of fact, the GL implementation is often said to be *better* than the D3D implementation. I don't think Microsoft likes that, either.
In summary, NVidia makes a point of not being manipulated by Microsoft, and they are damned proud of it.
5) not boosting and advertizing for the widespread software development on the indrema console; which has incorporated their hardware.
What the hell are you talking about!? NVidia doesn't advertise for the X-Box either. They also don't advertise for any of the graphics card manufacturers that use NVidia's chipset. As a matter of fact, NVidia does not (for the most part) advertise *any* individual product which uses their hardware. They only advertise their chipset itself.
It is Indrema's responsibility to advertise their own hardware. I want Indrema to succeed too, but NVidia is the last place I'd blame if they fail.
Other than the costs involved in shipping, which others have pointed out, there is also the time zone difference. Blizzard may want to do a server load test from 7 to 10 PM their time, which is perfectly reasonable for most people in the western hemisphere. However, that would be (depending on where you live) about 3 to 6 AM your time. Maybe you are willing to do that, but probably not. At least, you probably wouldn't be able to do it as often as they want you to.
You, sir, are the most successful troll in the history of Slashdot.
If you actually believe everything you say, some of which is downright offensive, and some of which goes very much against Christian ideals, then I suggest you seek help.
However, I do believe, based on your words and you bio, that you are a fake. And trust me, you receive more respect from me as a troll than as the zealot you pretend to be.
Oh... the old "I know this post will be modded down" trick. By some bug in the moderation system, you get modded up if you say that. *sigh*
I am no Linux zealot (see sig). I am posting this from Win2k right now. I use Debian Linux, Win2k, and MacOSX on a regular basis, and I like them all about the same.
I have to disagree with your post, however. Not only is it blatantly insulting, but it is insulting people for reasons that are beyond their control. Riddle me this: My roommate has a fresh Win98SE install on his system. If he leaves it on for more that 12 hours or so, he finds that Deus Ex gets really really choppy. Reboot and the problem is solved. Is that his fault? No, it is a combination of driver problems and a not-so-well-written OS.
Win2k is great. I have no qualms with it. Win9x is NOT. Just out of curiosity, which might your system be? Oh, and BTW, 4 days is not an impressive uptime.
I agree with your main point -- that the Linux zealots are out of control around here. However, you don't have to be a GOD DAMNED ASSHOLE to express that point.
Oh, I almost forgot. Yeah, I bet this post will be modded down because... um... moderators are stupid or something. Right? Right? So if you mod this down, you are stupid. Really. Trust me. wink wink, nudge nudge.
It utilizes a two-pass bit-sieve to first remove all unimportant data from the data set. Lzip implements this quiet effectively by eliminating all of the 0's. It then sorts the remaining bits into increasing order, and begins searching for patterns...
The algorithm could be made faster by eliminating the sorting step. After all, once you remove the zeros, all you have left is ones. Thus, there is nothing to sort. I don't know about the rest of you, but I wouldn't trust my data to anything written by anyone who could miss such an obvious optimization.
Yes, that's an excellent idea. libfaim could include an md5 sum from every possible segment of the aim executable that the server could request a sum of. Now, aim.exe is 24576 bytes in size (pretty small, but it uses lots of dll's). Given that the segment has to end at some point after it starts, the total number of possible segments is 24576 * 24575 / 2, or 301,077,600 possibilities. If each checksum is 32 bits (I don't know how big MD5's are, so correct me if I'm wrong), then the total size of the database will be 1,207,910,400 bytes, or about 1.12GB. I'm sure any AIM user would be willing to download that in order to allow their favorite open source AIM client to check people's away messages.
So, when can we be seeing a site listing the names and addresses of the people who maintained this thing and anyone who ever mirrored it? I wonder if that would make them feel a bit differently...
Slashdot Mirror
There is no PPC version. And no, of course I don't have the source.
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Now, why can't you make it work on PPC? Because the drivers aren't compiled for PPC. Duh. As for x86, I'd suggest trying the latest drivers, and seeking help on #nvidia at irc.openprojects.net.
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I've played it a bit, and it appears that it gets alot choppier in internet play. Single player and lan games work wonderfully for me...
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Doom 3 is designed to run on the GeForce and up, according to Carmack. Of course, it will look much better on the GeForce3, but it will run on basically any T&L card.
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According to the NVidia GL extensions docs, NV_vertex_program is supported in hardware on the NV1x series (GeForce 1&2), but only using the R10 drivers.
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Again, geometric detail generally is not so much limited by VRAM bandwidth. Fillrate is. See my other posts.
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As geometric detail increases, so does required bandwidth. So does overdraw.
Usually, no. As I mentioned elsewhere, geometry data is usually pulled from AGP memory, NOT from VRAM. Thus, it isn't much affected by the VRAM bandwidth. Furthermore, geometry data takes far less bandwidth than pixel data, so even if VRAM bandwidth does affect it, it doesn't affect it much.
As for overdraw, no, increasing geometric detail does not increase overdraw. Usually, added geo detail means *smaller* triangles. The total surface area rendered is about the same, which means the overdraw is about the same.
Lack of T&L is a BS argument that nVidia only fanboys keep putting up, which has little basis in reality.
Umm... would you care to tell me what makes you think that? Personally, I tend to believe the T&L thing based on my experience in 3d graphics. Other people knowledgable in the field, like John Carmack, Tim Sweeny, all of SGI, and others, generally seem to agree that T&L is, well... a good thing.
You know, the CPU speed requirements for Tribes 2 are 40% lower if you have a GeForce 2 than if you have a Kyro. I don't think they made that number up. Perhaps, however, you think that Tribes 2 is not part of reality? I know, it's hard to believe that it was finally released. Maybe you haven't received your copy yet, and don't believe it exists. But it does.
I, instead, assert that the argument that T&L doesn't matter is a BS argument taken up by Kyro and 3dfx fanboys.
You're just using T&L as an excuse for why not to buy a Kyro2, when it performs extremely excellent on current day games.
Huh? I'm not on NVidia's payroll. Why would I support NVidia without a good reason? Hell, let me go right out and say that I like the Radeon. It's a pretty good card. It has T&L.
I'll tell you why I want people to buy T&L cards: I do NOT want to be limited by having to support cards with no geometry accelleration. I prefer that the industry moves *forwards*. Yes, the tile-based rendering is nice, but it is not worth the loss of T&L.
The argument about current games not using it is not only wrong (current games DO use T&L), but it is stupid. It's a chicken-and-egg problem. If non of the gamers buy T&L hardware, none of the developers will use it. Fortunately, NVidia has managed to, for the most part, keep their hardware competitive in current games at the same time as they add new features for future games. I like it when the industry advances. Don't you?
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Interesting... I just tested vertex shaders on my GF2, and they seem to be supported just fine. Perhaps Aquanox uses some special feature that isn't supported, like n-patches... Thanks for the link, though.
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I suppose buying a Kyro to tide yourself over until the GF3 is at a reasonable price is a good idea, as long as you have a nice, fast CPU to back it up. :) The tile based rendering is actually a pretty cool technology... I'd love to see a card with both tile rendering and the feature set of the GF3. I suspect NVidia's next big core change will be such a card, but that's probably a year off or more. :(
I just don't like it when people claim that a technology is useless because games don't use it. If that mentality keeps up, then people won't buy the cards with the newer features, and thus developers will continue to not use the features. Then, the industry goes nowhere. Luckily, NVidia has been the best choice for both current and future games for awhile now, and thus they have managed to keep the industry advancing despite the chicken-and-egg dilemma. Kyro is advancing the industry in its own way (tile-based rendering), but at the same time it is a step back in T&L, which I see as the more important technology at the moment. :S
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As for the DX8 not supporting GF2 T&L... The GeForce 1&2 support programmable vertex shaders a la DX8, so I'm not sure what you mean. I assure you NVidia and Microsoft would never let DX8 out the door if it didn't support current hardware.
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Yes, I prefer UT over Q3, but that is besides the point. Games coming out *now* have high geometric detail levels--higher than Q3--, and that means you want a card with T&L support.
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Trust me, I have been writing graphics software for two years. T&L is important. Going from a GF2 to a Kyro II would be a major step backwards, and future games will run much better on the GF2 than on the Kyro II. As a matter of fact, the GF2 beats the Kyro II by far in current T&L-heavy games. Look at that AnandTech review you linked, under Quake3. Even at extremely high resolutions, the Ultra beats the Kyro by over a third (15fps). I'd like to see some Tribes 2 benchmarks. I suspect they will be similar. Tribes 2 actually has different system requirements based on your hardware -- GF2 requires a PII 300MHz, while a Kyro requires a PIII 500MHz.
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3fps difference in a game that is not T&L intensive. Whoop-de-do.
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Troll? Probably, but I wouldn't want anyone to be mislead by your words, so...
1) removing all content relating to linux.3dfx.com and 3dfxgamers.com
That was 3dfx that did that, NOT NVidia. NVidia is NOT responsible for supporting 3dfx's current product line. NVidia gave 3dfx a fat wad of cash which 3dfx is *supposed* to be spending on supporting their users. Hmm...
2) not updating either of the Linux, Mac, or MS Windows codebase for the 3dfx Voodoo products.
Again, that is not NVidia's responsibility. NVidia did NOT buy 3dfx's current product line. If you go out and buy a Voodoo card right now, the money goes to 3dfx, NOT NVidia. Thus, NVidia has no reason to be supporting Voodoo cards.
3) releasing closed-source drivers for their video cards that prevent accurate security audits
I think this has been argued enough, but just in case, here is the primary argument: NVidia's GL drivers contains MUCH MUCH more than just a hardware interface. OpenGL drivers are required to implement all of OpenGL's functionality, even if the hardware doesn't support it. Thus, NVidia's GL drivers contain software implementations of anything that isn't supported in all of their cards. This includes an extremely good T&L implementation, which every one of NVidia's competitors would probably love to have. It would not be legal for them to release that open source -- their shareholders would sue them!
4) conspiring with the enemy ala Microsoft
NVidia does not suck up to Microsoft. Microsoft sucks up to NVidia. Has NVidia ever done anything purely for Microsoft's sake? No. They are providing hardware for the X-Box, but at a price, and at the same time they are providing hardware for the Indrema, a fact which I'm sure Microsoft is not happy about. Furthermore, NVidia has the best 3D hardware drivers available on Linux (closed source or not). Microsoft has acknoledged Linux to be their primary competitor, so I'm sure they'd prefer than NVidia not support Linux. Last, but not least, NVidia has the best GL implementation of any consumer 3D hardware vendor. There is no advantage whatsoever to using Direct3D rather than OpenGL on NVidia hardware. As a matter of fact, the GL implementation is often said to be *better* than the D3D implementation. I don't think Microsoft likes that, either.
In summary, NVidia makes a point of not being manipulated by Microsoft, and they are damned proud of it.
5) not boosting and advertizing for the widespread software development on the indrema console; which has incorporated their hardware.
What the hell are you talking about!? NVidia doesn't advertise for the X-Box either. They also don't advertise for any of the graphics card manufacturers that use NVidia's chipset. As a matter of fact, NVidia does not (for the most part) advertise *any* individual product which uses their hardware. They only advertise their chipset itself.
It is Indrema's responsibility to advertise their own hardware. I want Indrema to succeed too, but NVidia is the last place I'd blame if they fail.
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Kyro II has no T&L. You think that isn't important for today's games? Well, you better hope you don't like Tribes 2.
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Other than the costs involved in shipping, which others have pointed out, there is also the time zone difference. Blizzard may want to do a server load test from 7 to 10 PM their time, which is perfectly reasonable for most people in the western hemisphere. However, that would be (depending on where you live) about 3 to 6 AM your time. Maybe you are willing to do that, but probably not. At least, you probably wouldn't be able to do it as often as they want you to.
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So the other guy noted... and so he noted almost exactly 12 hours before you.
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oops. well... negative still isn't between them... err... damnit...
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Air has a positive index. A vacuum has an index of zero. This new material has a negative index. "Negative" is not between "positive" and "zero".
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If you actually believe everything you say, some of which is downright offensive, and some of which goes very much against Christian ideals, then I suggest you seek help.
However, I do believe, based on your words and you bio, that you are a fake. And trust me, you receive more respect from me as a troll than as the zealot you pretend to be.
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I am no Linux zealot (see sig). I am posting this from Win2k right now. I use Debian Linux, Win2k, and MacOSX on a regular basis, and I like them all about the same.
I have to disagree with your post, however. Not only is it blatantly insulting, but it is insulting people for reasons that are beyond their control. Riddle me this: My roommate has a fresh Win98SE install on his system. If he leaves it on for more that 12 hours or so, he finds that Deus Ex gets really really choppy. Reboot and the problem is solved. Is that his fault? No, it is a combination of driver problems and a not-so-well-written OS.
Win2k is great. I have no qualms with it. Win9x is NOT. Just out of curiosity, which might your system be? Oh, and BTW, 4 days is not an impressive uptime.
I agree with your main point -- that the Linux zealots are out of control around here. However, you don't have to be a GOD DAMNED ASSHOLE to express that point.
Oh, I almost forgot. Yeah, I bet this post will be modded down because... um... moderators are stupid or something. Right? Right? So if you mod this down, you are stupid. Really. Trust me. wink wink, nudge nudge.
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From the site:
The algorithm could be made faster by eliminating the sorting step. After all, once you remove the zeros, all you have left is ones. Thus, there is nothing to sort. I don't know about the rest of you, but I wouldn't trust my data to anything written by anyone who could miss such an obvious optimization.
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Sorry, I shouldn't have read the original message so quickly. Yeah, the server could calculate the things on the fly. I see no problem with that.
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Yes, that's an excellent idea. libfaim could include an md5 sum from every possible segment of the aim executable that the server could request a sum of. Now, aim.exe is 24576 bytes in size (pretty small, but it uses lots of dll's). Given that the segment has to end at some point after it starts, the total number of possible segments is 24576 * 24575 / 2, or 301,077,600 possibilities. If each checksum is 32 bits (I don't know how big MD5's are, so correct me if I'm wrong), then the total size of the database will be 1,207,910,400 bytes, or about 1.12GB. I'm sure any AIM user would be willing to download that in order to allow their favorite open source AIM client to check people's away messages.
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So, when can we be seeing a site listing the names and addresses of the people who maintained this thing and anyone who ever mirrored it? I wonder if that would make them feel a bit differently...
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