NV40 to have angle dependant AF like ATI

[bloodbob]

Well anyone out their who has seen the UT2K4 pics from the NV40 ( the real ones that came out today ) you will cleary see the slopped walls have crap quality compared the GF FX. Thankfully atleast it also looks like the drivers will finally allow people to disable the tri-linear optimisations. Oh well you win some you loose some.

Anyone who chooses to doubt me can feel silly as of 9am tomorrow.

[jimmyjames123]

One nice thing is that NVIDIA is giving users the option of enabling and disabling various "features".

Regarding the image quality, it was a little difficult at times to discern differences between the cards with those pictures. Hopefully as more reviews come out, we will get a better idea of how the 6800's image quality stacks up against the ATI cards. Also, the drivers are relatively raw with respect to NV40. Since there seems to be large architectural differences between NV3x and NV40, one would think that there is definitely room for improvement for NV40 in the drivers.

[c4c]

Get 'em while they're hot:

LINK REMOVED
Edited by MUYA;
a few hours man come on

[coldpower27]

Looking thru all those images took awhile, though impressive performance, usually you can up a resolution with this card and turn on AA/AF if the previous gen could do 1 lower res with no AA/AF....

[coldpower27]

Hehe, fortunately I got to the link :angel2: before it was removed heh both times :)

[jAkUp]

not too impressed...

[schuey74]

This was the the most disappointing of all the benchmarks. The others look quite impressive considering the settings. The problem with Far Cry is DX9. See, the NV40 is rendering everything in FP32, while ATI's cards only have to do it in FP24. That's why the R3xx series won't be smoked by the 6800U in DX9, although it will be a big jump in performance in OpenGL. Very early indications are that the DX9 crown will continue to belong to ATI......

[coldpower27]

Myabe that's one of the reason why ATI doesn't wanna support Shader Model 3.0? It requires FP32Bit Precision, which ATI can't do currently or doesn't want to? Due to lack of speed?

[bloodbob]

Generally the NV40 cards run better then that say higher res and higher AA and the same speed as the R360. There is the baseline DX9.0 preformance which require PS2.0 and then their is PS3.0 preformance and their has been a number of rumours that the R420 ain't got PS3.0

NV40 8x AA mode is nice :) its COMPARABLE to the 6x ati but it could be slightly better or slighty worse ( or maybe exactly the same in IQ ). From the shots I've seen but we won't really know until we get some nice PNG images when the NDA's expire.

[retsam]

i thought ut2k4 had some dx9 codepaths ...am i wrong

[bloodbob]

i thought ut2k4 had some dx9 codepaths ...am i wrong
Very wrong anyway that benchmark was of far cry. UT2K4 has some DX8.0 ( maybe 8.1) pixel shaders and NO vertex shaders.

[jbirney]

i thought ut2k4 had some dx9 codepaths ...am i wrong


Wrong. While UT2k4 may require the DX9 run time its still mainly a DX7 rendering engine with some slight usages of DX8 stuff (most of the DX8 stuff is use to reduce the number of passes)

[coldpower27]

FarCry use Shader Model 2.0 so they only need FP24.... so ATI's has an advanatge at meeting the minimum just right on, while NV40 has to do extra work at FP32. Maybe they can make FarCRy take advantage of Shader Model 3.0 somehow....

Wonder what's gonna happen now with Half Life 2? Since it uses Shader Model 2.0, ATI still might hold the crown in that, becuz of FP24.

[bloodbob]

FarCry use Shader Model 2.0 so they only need FP24.... so ATI's has an advanatge at meeting the minimum just right on, while NV40 has to do extra work at FP32. Maybe they can make FarCRy take advantage of Shader Model 3.0 somehow....

Wonder what's gonna happen now with Half Life 2? Since it uses Shader Model 2.0, ATI still might hold the crown in that, becuz of FP24.

Could well be true though HL2 does make use of PP hints ( which won't help all that much on the NV40 but will help a little ).

[Eymar]

The first indications do not live up to the hype. I would love to see how it does with 500mhz\1.2ghz clocks, but by the looks of the cooler it seems it oc'd by a bit already. Realistically (forgetting about the hype) the UT2K4, BFV and COD scores do look good (COD especially). Definitely looks like fillrate speed don't make as big an impact when PS2.0 shaders get involved. I'm waiting on shadermark scores since FarCry maybe CPU limited.

[GlowStick]

I havent noticed any problems with my 9800pro and AF.

But lets say there was an option to make it FX style AF at a preformance hit, i dont think anyone would turn it on.

[ChrisRay]

Jeez people. The Link can be found at a certain forum where tech heads hang out, Just quit tryen to post it here. Its only a few more hours.

[ChrisRay]

I havent noticed any problems with my 9800pro and AF.

But lets say there was an option to make it FX style AF at a preformance hit, i dont think anyone would turn it on.



I would. I'm extremely disapointed in Angle Dependent AF, It seems very likely I'll buy an ATI card next, Just depends, If the Nv40 still offers the various Super Sampling Mods the Nv30/nv35/nv20/nv25 does.

If Nvidia is just gonna force MUlti Sampling on me like ATI does, Might as well go Over to ATI, Cuz all that would be left is Digital Vibrance, And hell ATI could include a ramdac capable of it on the r420

[jimmyjames123]

What if ATI's AF algorithm is still angle dependent also moving forward? :D

[Viral]

FarCry use Shader Model 2.0 so they only need FP24.... so ATI's has an advanatge at meeting the minimum just right on, while NV40 has to do extra work at FP32. Maybe they can make FarCRy take advantage of Shader Model 3.0 somehow....

Wonder what's gonna happen now with Half Life 2? Since it uses Shader Model 2.0, ATI still might hold the crown in that, becuz of FP24.

There is a patch coming out for FC that adds shader model 3.0 support. We can only wait and see what it does in the way of increasing IQ and performance.

[jbirney]

There is a patch coming out for FC that adds shader model 3.0 support. We can only wait and see what it does in the way of increasing IQ and performance.


I dont think its gonna offer much in terms of IQ. But it should have some perfromance increases. Remember decent PS effects have to be worked out at the engine level. Yes you can tack on a feature..but usally it looks like it was tacked on :)

[bloodbob]

http://www.beyond3d.com/previews/nvidia/nv40/index.php?p=16

Shows the clean angle dependance.