Who Thinks the NV30 will be on store shelves before Dec 25th?

[FastM]

I know nVidia said their wont be "Full Production Shipments" until Jan 2003, but that doesn't mean they wont have any at all...

Personnally, i think their will be a very limited supply for the general public before Dec 25th, but not much....

[DrAkO]

Yeah...

A very limited but....price ?

I'll be wait first for the performance first...and if the performance is good ( beat the R9700 ), i'll check for buy this card...

If the performance is equal to R9700, i will be wait for NV35 or R350

But i very think that we have 2 versions, one with 128 bits and one with 256 bits...

128 bits to start and 256 bits in Q1 2003 or Q2 2003

[Dr_Colossus]

Shelves no. But in OEM systems probably.

[AngelGraves13]

who cares....my family doesn't celebrate birthdays or holidays or any other pagan celebrations...it'll be released when all the shipments come in so just sit back and relax, it'll get there....in Jan.

[StealthHawk]

i think some people will be able to get them some how. there probably won't be very many though, and if any retail channels have them at all the prices may be very inflated. we'll see soon though.

[thcdru2k]

the reviewers will probably have one :)

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by thcdru2k
the reviewers will probably have one :)

bah, some people will be able to buy them :D

[Uttar]

Actually, I think it was determined by someone ( didn't do the tests myself ) that theorical increase from 128 bit bus to 256 bit bus is only 60% and *not* 100%, because there is a bigger waste with 4x64.

So, considering that, the real R300 bandwidth, compared to a 4x32 card, is a lot more like 16GB/s... Which is precisely what the NV30 would have with 500Mhz DDR2 :)

In other words, it's likely the smartest design will win. Sounds like we'll have to see if the NV30's tech is really better.


Uttar

[StealthHawk]

aren't there programs that can test a video card's bandwidth? it seems like there should be.

[Uttar]

Well, I don't think such programs are of any use. And I don't think they exist, too.

Because the only REAL problem with 64x4 is waste. And there's no way you can guess what's the waste of bandwidth you'd have in real-world situations. Beside seeing your performance in real-world situations, of course :)

Now that I rethink about it, I wonder if anyone even confucted such a test... Maybe I invented that whole thing or got confused by the 3DMark fillrate numbers of the R300...

Avtually, the ONLY way I can imagine of seeing something which barely got anything to do with waste is seeing the number of triangles you got compared to your FVF. This could get bound by AGP, but you could always significantly reduce your memory to be CERTAIN AGP/Core Clock isn't the bottleneck.
So, yeah, maybe that should be done...But without a 256 bit card, I very hardly see how I could do that :) And even with one, I'm certainly not the most competent one to do so.

Hey, maybe we should ask nVidia to do such a benchmark with a Radeon 9700? Since the figure would nearly certainly be to their advantage, I doubt they'd refuse...


Uttar

[Kruno]

Mr Nvidia would know. ;)

Next year is going to be my best bet. :)

[tazdevl]

Next year.

[budd_wm]

I bet it doesn't ship till Feb.

[Lezmaka]

Assuming 128bit, would using to 8x16 controllers help much, or would it result in diminishing returns so it wouldn't be worth it?

[Evildeus]

February? :(

http://messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&action=m&board=15969433&tid=atyt&sid=15969433&mid=48602


NVDA article in IBD for Monday
by: soxrulzit
11/16/02 08:18 am
Msg: 48602 of 48607


This article is to appear in "Investor's Business Daily" for Monday, November 18, 2002

You can view it, if you have an account to IBD, today.
http://www.investors.com/editorial/tech.asp?v=11/16
.................................................. ............................................
Internet & Technology
Monday, November 18, 2002

Nvidia Chips Away At Real Animation
BY JAMES DETAR

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Is it real, or is it digital?

The quality of recent animated movies like "Shrek" and "Monsters Inc." makes it hard at times to tell whether a character's real or from a computer.

Graphics chipmaker Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) plans to unveil its latest line of chips on Monday. Nvidia says its new GeForce FX chips will bring to home video games the same level of animation in today's Hollywood movies. The company's earlier chips were part of the technology used to make "Shrek" and "Monsters Inc."

"We've been trying to bring 3-D graphics to the mass market," said Mike Hara, Nvidia vice president of investor relations. "We're moving at a rapid rate toward enabling people to do on a PC what people are able to do in cinema today."

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSM) will make the chips for Nvidia. TSMC will make the devices using the latest process.

The metal lines on the chips will be only 0.13 micron wide. That's less than 1/500th the width of a human hair. That will let Nvidia pack more transistors, and more features, onto the chips.

And TSMC will use copper. Copper lines let electricity flow faster than the aluminum lines that are today's standard. The result is a faster-running chip.

Some people say the Holy Grail in animation is to make people and scenery look perfectly real. With the release last year of the animated movie, "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within," the film industry took a huge step in that direction. The Columbia TriStar movie, also made with Nvidia chips, won acclaim for its realistic detail. Dr. Aki Ross, the movie's lead character, looks realistic down to individual strands of hair waving in the wind.

Hara, however, doubts digital animation will ever be as real-looking as movies with real people. "That may be a challenge we never meet," he said. "To emulate a human would take an incredible amount of computing bandwidth.

"The bandwidth needed just to show someone twiddling his or her fingers is beyond a supercomputer's bandwidth today. So how can you simulate a crowd of people clapping? The human is the ultimate challenge."

Frame of reference is important in the animation field, he says. Nobody's seen a living, breathing toy. So there's no frame of reference, and that makes it easier to suspend disbelief.

"The reason 'Toy Story' came off so well is we've never interacted with a toy. There's no way for a human brain to have a point of reference," Hara said.

For just that reason, it's harder for people to believe they're seeing real people on screen when they watch digital animation. "I'm not sure we'll be able to flawlessly make a human in the next 10 years," Hara said.

But Nvidia says GeForce FX chips will take digital animation a step in that direction. The chips will let game developers do "shading." That technique creates effects such as more realistic mouth movements in animated characters.

The GeForce FX chips are set to go on sale in February. Gaming enthusiasts will be able to buy a graphics card with a GeForce FX chip for about $360, Nvidia officials say. They also say some workstation and PC makers plan to include the chips in new machines, including Fujitsu Siemens Computers.

[thcdru2k]

good find