End of the world?

[AlphaWolfII]

First, kudos to Nvidia for the latest Doom 3 benchmarks. They looked pretty impressive compared to the ATIs.

But, as an owner of a 9800 Pro 256MB card, and a huge fan of id and all their games, I've got to take a deep breath and wonder if this is the end of the world? The questions/comments I have are this:

When I bought my rig about a year ago, I had a choice of 2 256MB cards, the 9800 Pro and the 5900. The real question for me (being rather self centered and all) is did I choose the right card? I look forward to to seeing some benchmarks when the game arrives. Will anyone bother to benchmark these 2 cards?

The benchmarks did not touch on visual quality, just pure framerates. I recall seeing a comment in the latest PC Gamer (the one with the Doom3 review) that had an offhand comment from Carmack about ATI not having some of the visual quality problems that Nvidia had. Sorry, I'm writing this at lunch and I don't have the exact comment on hand. I think it had to do with lighting or color wash out. In any case, I am very curious about both cards visual quality.

Also, chances are I will not be running Doom3 at 1200x1060 (or what ever). Last time I tried that with a game (Halo), it looked stunning but was a virtual slide show [3.2 Pentium, 1.5GB RAM, 9800 Pro]. So I'm also interested if Doom3, when run at lower settings (i.e., the ones at which I will run the game - there's that selfish thing again), will have the same framerate difference as at the higher resolutions? Or will the gap widen or close?

As for drivers, I'm not expecting much improvement (at least in relation to Nvidia improvements).

Anyway, the bottom line is while I'm not thrilled to see the gap between the high end cards, what does it matter in running Doom3 for me? I'm waiting to see whether or not this is much ado about nothing or do I have to shop for a new card.

Sitting tight .......

AWII

[Clay]

[H] is supposed to have some more benchmarks with a much wider variety of cards (including yours) sometime this week (hopefully). So, stay tuned for more benchmarks to come out.

[Mojoe]

I think Kyle said it will be out this Wednesday.

[jbirney]

I dont think its a suprise to anyone that NV "won" the Doom3 benchmarks. They have been hand tunning both the hardware/software for this title for a long time. There is nothing wrong with that and hats off to nV!!!!! There is no doubt that NV will always be the fastest here. However I am sure that on your hardware you will still get "playable" frame rates. Of course your gonna to have to make some trade-offs. I would wait till the game till you see more benchmarks before making a call...

[evilchris]

I dont think its a suprise to anyone that NV "won" the Doom3 benchmarks. They have been hand tunning both the hardware/software for this title for a long time. There is nothing wrong with that and hats off to nV!!!!! There is no doubt that NV will always be the fastest here. However I am sure that on your hardware you will still get "playable" frame rates. Of course your gonna to have to make some trade-offs. I would wait till the game till you see more benchmarks before making a call...

Why hasn't ATI? Major miscalculation. Who is the idiot over there that didn't think Doom3 should be a point of investment in hardware innovation?

[UDawg]

So they are an idiot? I don't think you are in a position to make that smear against them. ;)

[jbirney]

Why hasn't ATI? Major miscalculation. Who is the idiot over there that didn't think Doom3 should be a point of investment in hardware innovation?

It was a call. And so far weather it was the right or wrong call is still up in the air. Doom3 is a major game. However its not the only major game out there. HL2 may make this call more intresting.

It all comes back to trade offs. ATI did not chose to go with Doom3 this time and they will lose sales based off that. However ATI cards seem to have more appeal to the OEM market segment (as ATI has picked up a number of major OEM wins) so maybe the were willing to trade OEM for Doom3?????

[technoid]

AlphWolfII

You definitely did the right thing getting the 9800Pro 256 Meg. I do think the 6800 Series will be best for DOOM III but when you bought your board it was the right thing to do. NVidia put some hardware in place for DOOM III and it's going to work out for them, goodie.

[neliz]

Okay, guys, about Catalyst Driver Development.

You have seen with the "new" Geometry instancing feature that nV's beloved SM3.0 is crumbling rapidly.
All the features that are supposed to be performance and quality improving are rapidly recreated by ATi's Catalyst program.
If you've seen the 1.2 comparison you've noticed that in some instances the performance of the X800Pro is 10 to 20% better and that is just driver work (and patching work of crytek.)
Geometry instancing, multiple pass lightning has been done and is increasing performance.

but the biggest boost will probably come from "Humus"
ATi's tech department has been developing this in secrecy and it will allow dynamic branching on R420 CPU's through software.
That's right people, the only thing dividing the "oh so godly 6800" and the "pigeon poo X800" will be available to us within a few Catalyst releases.

CryTek has made it known that they will support 3Dc in patch 1.3 and when those benchmarks hit the net, all the 12 year olds that payed a gazillion dollars for an 6800 will run back to "Fry's electro store" or whatever to get their X800's back because they stepped away from a product just because of one silly benchmark of an unreleased product with Beta drivers...

oh god, how the fanboys can be so blind..

oh .. if you want sources (in dutch) http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/938611

[Clay]

I dont think its a suprise to anyone that NV "won" the Doom3 benchmarks. They have been hand tunning both the hardware/software for this title for a long time. There is nothing wrong with that and hats off to nV!!!!! There is no doubt that NV will always be the fastest here. However I am sure that on your hardware you will still get "playable" frame rates. Of course your gonna to have to make some trade-offs. I would wait till the game till you see more benchmarks before making a call...
Why did you even make this post? Between my response and Mojoe's I think it directly answered AlphaWolfII's question. Your coming in here with this post (that you seem to be carbon-copying latel) is quite odd and out of place.

[jbirney]

I see nothing wrong with that post Clay. I did not say anything wrong and even gave another compliment to NV on how they made their cards the best for Doom3, and I have never said other wise.

[Clay]

I see nothing wrong with that post Clay. I did not say anything wrong and even gave another compliment to NV on how they made their cards the best for Doom3, and I have never said other wise.Heheh your "compliments" of NVIDIA fall on deaf ears. ;)

[Razor1]

Okay, guys, about Catalyst Driver Development.

You have seen with the "new" Geometry instancing feature that nV's beloved SM3.0 is crumbling rapidly.
All the features that are supposed to be performance and quality improving are rapidly recreated by ATi's Catalyst program.
If you've seen the 1.2 comparison you've noticed that in some instances the performance of the X800Pro is 10 to 20% better and that is just driver work (and patching work of crytek.)
Geometry instancing, multiple pass lightning has been done and is increasing performance.

but the biggest boost will probably come from "Humus"
ATi's tech department has been developing this in secrecy and it will allow dynamic branching on R420 CPU's through software.
That's right people, the only thing dividing the "oh so godly 6800" and the "pigeon poo X800" will be available to us within a few Catalyst releases.

CryTek has made it known that they will support 3Dc in patch 1.3 and when those benchmarks hit the net, all the 12 year olds that payed a gazillion dollars for an 6800 will run back to "Fry's electro store" or whatever to get their X800's back because they stepped away from a product just because of one silly benchmark of an unreleased product with Beta drivers...

oh god, how the fanboys can be so blind..

oh .. if you want sources (in dutch) http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/938611

You are the only person here calling the x800's pigeon poo my friend. And NO THE X800's can never do what the gf 6 line can do, not all of it, I'm sorry there is no way to circumvent dx9c features as much as ATi wants you to believe its possible. Humus's demo can only do bracnhing for lights, nothing else. And even then its not true branching. With the 512 instruction limit of sm 2.0b it can pass a max of 4 lights in a scene in a single pass. I suggest you start looking more deeply at who the fan boy is here before you post a retreric about pigeon poo.

Btw what Humus did wasn't a secret, it was done on previous generations of cards too, just that its easier now not as many lines of code.

[Nutty]

Okay, guys, about Catalyst Driver Development.

You have seen with the "new" Geometry instancing feature that nV's beloved SM3.0 is crumbling rapidly.
All the features that are supposed to be performance and quality improving are rapidly recreated by ATi's Catalyst program.
If you've seen the 1.2 comparison you've noticed that in some instances the performance of the X800Pro is 10 to 20% better and that is just driver work (and patching work of crytek.)
Geometry instancing, multiple pass lightning has been done and is increasing performance.

but the biggest boost will probably come from "Humus"
ATi's tech department has been developing this in secrecy and it will allow dynamic branching on R420 CPU's through software.
That's right people, the only thing dividing the "oh so godly 6800" and the "pigeon poo X800" will be available to us within a few Catalyst releases.

CryTek has made it known that they will support 3Dc in patch 1.3 and when those benchmarks hit the net, all the 12 year olds that payed a gazillion dollars for an 6800 will run back to "Fry's electro store" or whatever to get their X800's back because they stepped away from a product just because of one silly benchmark of an unreleased product with Beta drivers...

oh god, how the fanboys can be so blind..

oh .. if you want sources (in dutch) http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/938611


All I can say is... "lol!"
I dont care what Humus does, you cant just make SM3.0 invalid, no matter how many fiddly workarounds you do. SM3.0 is all about removing fiddly complicated workarounds, making things easier, simpler, more efficient. Whatever techniques ATI come up with, will work just as well on the 6800, with the added flexibility of incorprating SM3.0 as well.

[evilchris]

Okay, guys, about Catalyst Driver Development.

You have seen with the "new" Geometry instancing feature that nV's beloved SM3.0 is crumbling rapidly.
All the features that are supposed to be performance and quality improving are rapidly recreated by ATi's Catalyst program.
If you've seen the 1.2 comparison you've noticed that in some instances the performance of the X800Pro is 10 to 20% better and that is just driver work (and patching work of crytek.)
Geometry instancing, multiple pass lightning has been done and is increasing performance.

but the biggest boost will probably come from "Humus"
ATi's tech department has been developing this in secrecy and it will allow dynamic branching on R420 CPU's through software.
That's right people, the only thing dividing the "oh so godly 6800" and the "pigeon poo X800" will be available to us within a few Catalyst releases.

CryTek has made it known that they will support 3Dc in patch 1.3 and when those benchmarks hit the net, all the 12 year olds that payed a gazillion dollars for an 6800 will run back to "Fry's electro store" or whatever to get their X800's back because they stepped away from a product just because of one silly benchmark of an unreleased product with Beta drivers...

oh god, how the fanboys can be so blind..

oh .. if you want sources (in dutch) http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/938611

Your whole post was riddled with fanboispeak. Don't throw stones from your glass house. I also didn't buy my GT for FarCry. FARCRY IS NOT THE BE ALL END ALL OF GAME PERFORMANCE.

[UDawg]

Please cut out the fan boy smears or this thread will "a splode" or in english it will be closed. There will be only one warning.

[pat777]

Edit: didn't see your warning, Udawg.

[euan]

All I can say is... "lol!"
I dont care what Humus does, you cant just make SM3.0 invalid, no matter how many fiddly workarounds you do. SM3.0 is all about removing fiddly complicated workarounds, making things easier, simpler, more efficient. Whatever techniques ATI come up with, will work just as well on the 6800, with the added flexibility of incorprating SM3.0 as well.

Seconded.

[zoomy942]

i dont see why it would be the end of the world. the performance difference for the 9800's and the 5900's in doom 3 is about 3 fps. who cares about that? i dont have a 6800 or x800 yet, so, as i am very interested in the performance, its for my own entertainment. any besides.. why cany we all froth at the mouth and enjoy the fact that doom 3 wil be playing on our lcd's soon.. we have waited years for this game.. and some people are forgettiong that its about that game. not "my card is .467 frames faster!"

[majortom]

this isnt the end of the world, doom3 is not going to kill ati. these bleeding edge cards that are coming out now only make up a very small percentage of sales, and are used mainly for bragging rights. i'll bet that if you look at ati and nvidia's sales, the bulk of their money comes from selling geforce 5200fx and radeon 9200's to mass consumers. we as gamers rely on the top of the line products to indulge in our hobbies but in actuality 5 fps difference in a video game isnt going to kill a company, nor will many of us really notice a difference (i know that i cant really tell the difference between 100 fps and 105, can you?). just wait, in 6 months to a year ati and nvidia will come out with something that will shred doom3, and any other game thats out now. sorry this post is all over the place, im at work and multitasking... :(

[neliz]

Your whole post was riddled with fanboispeak. Don't throw stones from your glass house. I also didn't buy my GT for FarCry. FARCRY IS NOT THE BE ALL END ALL OF GAME PERFORMANCE.

And the same goes for Doom3 offcourse... which some people just don't seem to realise...

[Sazar]

Please cut out the fan boy smears or this thread will "a splode" or in english it will be closed. There will be only one warning.

wot :confused:

don't you like seeing fanboi's calling other fanboi's fanboi's ?

:nanahump:

[cam9786]

Every time I see Neliz post, it's always glorifying the X800 and how it is "just behind the 6800", and that "A simple driver release will fix it all". I'm sorry my friend, but a simple driver release will NOT fix it all. All the ati people say " Oh yes, a new driver rewrite and well be as good as nvidia in the OpenGL department". No. No. No no no. That is untrue. The X800 IS NOT a pidgeon poo card, it's a good card, just that it is surpassed by the 6800, but by only a small amount, but that small amount counts. Just like SM3.0. Even when ATi didn't have SM2.0b, SM3.0 was just a small thing that was regarded by ATi people as " Oh, it's worthless, no benefits". Now that theres SM2.0b, it's the bees knees with ATi people. Now, when ATi gets SM3.0, all of nVidia's SM3.0 is gonna be "not true" SM3.0 by all the FanATics. These are both great cards, but face it, the 6800 series has won, even by a small amount, it has still won.

[neliz]

Every time I see Neliz post, it's always glorifying the X800 and how it is "just behind the 6800", and that "A simple driver release will fix it all". I'm sorry my friend, but a simple driver release will NOT fix it all. All the ati people say " Oh yes, a new driver rewrite and well be as good as nvidia in the OpenGL department". No. No. No no no. That is untrue. The X800 IS NOT a pidgeon poo card, it's a good card, just that it is surpassed by the 6800, but by only a small amount, but that small amount counts. Just like SM3.0. Even when ATi didn't have SM2.0b, SM3.0 was just a small thing that was regarded by ATi people as " Oh, it's worthless, no benefits". Now that theres SM2.0b, it's the bees knees with ATi people. Now, when ATi gets SM3.0, all of nVidia's SM3.0 is gonna be "not true" SM3.0 by all the FanATics. These are both great cards, but face it, the 6800 series has won, even by a small amount, it has still won.

I'm truely sorry but no 6800GT or Ultra can come close to my x800pro/XT
And do you truely think that driver updates can not make one card surpas another?
I thought you've allready read the FarCry 1.2 sm2.0b/3.0 comparissons as of now, the x800pro and 6800gt split the scores 2/2 (ati for low res, nv for high res)

I'm just not convinced by the spectacular visual benefits of SM3.0 because there are non, programming wise Sm3.0 has benefits yes, but remember that nv30/nv40 cards are much harder to program and need a lot of optimalization.

And sure, ati is cheating too with their af but I'm not impressed by the aggresiveness of nvidiots claiming the superiority of sm3.0 and the greatness of the nv40 processor while majority of the developers is asked to refrain from using full precission .

I remember seeing performance increases around 15% in some benchmarks with the 8.041 beta's and you say five times no that ati's opengl driver can't be improved? you're trying to defend one camp too much...

[pat777]

And do you truely think that driver updates can not make one card surpas another?
ATI cards are fill-rate limited by the Doom 3 benches. NV40 has UltraShadow 2 to help it in Doom 3.