Well at least it pushes polygons!

[NickSpolec]

Seems GFFX is a beast a polygons, which is a good thing, in fact, it's a GREAT thing.

Polygons are what make games look good. Textures can only take you so far, and nothing is worse then cardboard boxes.

As from Anand...


3DMark 2001 Polygon Count

9700 Pro - Low: 74.2, High: 15.1
5800 Ultra - Low: 103.9, High: 31



At least something is very attractive about the card. The 9700 Pro seems like a lightweight here.

[Kruno]

Will the GFFX will do better than an R300 in Doom 3 becuase of this?

I would think so.

[druga runda]

Perhaps the card will have a longer life in the low resolutions because of higher clock speed, and subsequent higher poly pushing power.

[stncttr908]

I'm glad there is one positive here. Overall, I must say I'm a little disappointed so far.

[undercover]

Originally posted by K.I.L.E.R
Will the GFFX will do better than an R300 in Doom 3 becuase of this?

I would think so.

Isn't doom III all about low-poly counts and high fill rates ?

[Hanners]

I'm pretty sure polygon counts in Doom III are relatively low, but are made up for with vast amounts of bump-mapping and dynamic lighting to make it look good.

[druga runda]

More I read more dissapointing it seems, well if you have r300 this seems like an downgrade, and if you don't have any than obviously buy better and cheaper. I couldn't see why would you want to do anything else other than R300?

And once R350 comes out - the story is finished it seems.

[Kruno]

Originally posted by undercover
Isn't doom III all about low-poly counts and high fill rates ?

I thought it has more polys than any game out other than UT2K3. :)
Also the lighting would make the scene filed with polys. :)

[pastor]

Originally posted by undercover
Isn't doom III all about low-poly counts and high fill rates ?

i'm pretty sure FX will perform better on last generation games like DOOM III :

http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030127/geforce_fx-27.html

look at the score for multitexturing ( doomIII use at least bump map and shininess map )

look at the score for 8 dynamic lights (Doom III is full of this)

[NickSpolec]

Doom III is still based on 3 generation old hardware (GeForce 1), and it's not a big polygon engine. While it looks amazing, it is still in the "Dark age". Not the fault of the developers though --- It's a fault of hardware makers.

Too long has the PC market sat in low polygon output, while consoles are far outpacing PC's. All because the graphics hardware have not had the ability to realistically meet any possible demands or any engine that might be pushing a lot of polys.

I use it as an example, but it is a good one. While some Dreamcast games managed to get in excess of 3 million (as much as 5 million) fully lit and textured polygons on screen, I would be surprised to learn if any PC game was pushing more then 1 million on screen.

ATI seemed happy to not have the R300 be that strong on high detailed polygons (it only barely puts out more 8 lit polys then a GeFrce4). Which was a mistake.. They continued the tradition of fillrate/textures over polygons. And thus, developers have no reason to make high polygon games. In fact, they have every reason NOT to adapt high polygon engines --- performance would be pants if they did, as the graphics market isn't there yet.

Which is why I am glad that finally a card has come along that can push the polygons that hopefully one day will be used and welcomed in the PC industry. Games suddenly won't be polygon intensive, but if the hardware continues to have the ability to push massive amounts of them, then hell, something like Final Fantasy the movie will be possible.

So, good job, GFFX. You may yet be very useful.

[Hanners]

Originally posted by K.I.L.E.R
I thought it has more polys than any game out other than UT2K3. :)
Also the lighting would make the scene filed with polys. :)

I'm pretty sure Doom III uses between 2000 - 6000 polygons per character, whereas UT2k3 is in the 10,000 polygon range.

One possible bonus for the GeForce FX is that I noticed it performed really well in the 8-light test of 3DMark, which might well relate to a performance advantage in Doom III.

[Hanners]

Originally posted by NickSpolec
ATI seemed happy to not have the R300 be that strong on high detailed polygons (it only barely puts out more 8 lit polys then a GeFrce4). Which was a mistake.. They continued the tradition of fillrate/textures over polygons.

If this is the case, how would you explain the 9700 Pro's dominance over the GeForce FX in UT2k3 benchmarks, considering this is probably the most high-polygon game available?

I think there's more to how many polygons a chip can push than the numbers 3DMark give you...

[NickSpolec]

Really am not sure. There would have to be documented material on exactly how many polygons scenes are made out of in it (something from the developer stating how much).

The results obtained by 3DMark for the polygon tests is to draw an image of a set number of polygons (with 1 and 8 lights), then see how fast is can be rendered by the hardware.

Because, as it is, you take the number of polygons used for an entire scene, and multiply that by how many times it is being rendered per second (frames per second).



So, a scene made out of 50,000 polygons in total, and it is being rendered at 60FPS gives you...

3,000,000PPS (Polygons Per Second).


So, with that in mind, 3DMark's test (which is really as simple as it gets in terms of showing you what a card can do) shows that the 9700 Pro is not able to render as fast as a GFFX.

[Nemesis77]

Originally posted by NickSpolec Seems GFFX is a beast a polygons, which is a good thing, in fact, it's a GREAT thing.

And the facts still are that when compared to 9700

-FX is huge and noisy
-Is released 6 months after 9700
-Is more expensive
-has inferior AA and FA
-loses to 9700 when using AA and AF

So how exactly it's a "great thing". Or is this one of those "yeah, this thing is done really well, altrough we never see the benefits in real-life tests"?

[Hanners]

I imagine the higher numbers for the GeForce FX are probably influenced by it's much higher fillrate - It will be interesting to see how the R350 will cope with that test.

[Nemesis77]

Originally posted by NickSpolec So, with that in mind, 3DMark's test (which is really as simple as it gets in terms of showing you what a card can do) shows that the 9700 Pro is not able to render as fast as a GFFX.

And still, 9700 bitch-slaps FX in real-life benchmarks. And those are ones that matter. Honestly, you are grasping at straws here. FX lost, 9700 won, learn to live with it.

[Fotis]

From Anands:

Vertex shaders:
GFFX=173
Radeon9700=201

Advanced Pixel shaders:
GFFX=107
Radeon9700=200

Does this show anything about GFFX shader power or do we wait for 3dmark 2003?

WOULD ANYONE CARE TO COMMENT ON GFFX CRAP MINIMUM FRAMES?

[druga runda]

And back to real games in Extremetexch review -


Baseline NASCAR 2002: Radeon 9700 Pro ahead by 26%
NASCAR 2002 with FSAA & AF: Radeon 9700 Pro ahead by 44%

Baseline IL-2 Sturmovik: GPUs are even
IL-2 Sturmovik with FSAA & AF: Radeon 9700 Pro ahead by 48%



OMG what a spanking :eek:

almost 50% or some of the games that are not regularly benchmarked :spank:

and hardOCP max settings image comparison in UT2003. R300 looks better (there is a dark bar on NV30,) has better AA, and is at 62 FPS as opposed to NV30's 27. :spank:

Peharps MSRP should be more like $ 250 for true "there is a reason to buy" solution.

[NickSpolec]

And still, 9700 bitch-slaps FX in real-life benchmarks. And those are ones that matter. Honestly, you are grasping at straws here. FX lost, 9700 won, learn to live with it.


I can't believe this...

Try and make a point out of an issue, that being the PC market and it's need to go towards polygons, and what do I get?

I am told I am "Grasping at straws", and I need to "Learn to live with it:.

Cut the f*cking attitude, alright? And quit being such an imbecile.

Not everyone who makes a point for or against a piece of hardware is a fanboy, yet, you foolishly label me as fanboy trying to defend "my" card. You couldn't have it more wrong.

So, just cut it out. This topic WASN'T EVEN ABOUT the graphics card hardware war.

P.S. Some people.

[Riptide]

Originally posted by druga runda
More I read more dissapointing it seems, well if you have r300 this seems like an downgrade, and if you don't have any than obviously buy better and cheaper. I couldn't see why would you want to do anything else other than R300?
And once R350 comes out - the story is finished it seems.
I think my 9700 pro will be serving me well into this summer. Looks like I'll be waiting for the R400/NV35 before I upgrade since the FX doesn't seem to be much of an upgrade and the R350 isn't supposed to be all that much faster than the FX...

[Nemesis77]

Originally posted by NickSpolec
I can't believe this...

Try and make a point out of an issue, that being the PC market and it's need to go towards polygons, and what do I get?

I am told I am "Grasping at straws", and I need to "Learn to live with it:.

Cut the f*cking attitude, alright? And quit being such an imbecile.

What I see in your posts are a denial to face the facts. Fact is that 9700 spanks FX in most of the benchmarks. Fact is that it runs cool and quiet when compared to FX. Fact is that 9700 is available RIGHT now and it doesn't cost as much as FX will cost. Those are all FACTS.

What you are saying is that "Yes but... FX can do polygons!". Boo-frigging-hoo! FACT is that 9700 still beats FX! I don't care if FX could push 10 times as much polygons as 9700 does, I care about two things really:

1. the quality of the image on my monitor
2. The speed of the graphics

And it seems that FX loses on both things. Maybe FX does push more polygons than 9700 does, but the fact is that it still loses to 9700. I really don't give a rats ass how the GPU does it's things or what kind of specs it has, I care about the end results. And the end result is that FX loses to 9700.

[Kruno]

WTF is wrong with you all? :confused:
I came into this thread to discuss the nv30's poly rates in 3dmark 2k1, not about what's faster while playing *so and so* games.

So why does the GFFX perform so well in that test?

[pastor]

:D he just has to grow up

poor cry baby he though that someone said sh*it about his 9700mummie :p

[digitalwanderer]

I've spent all morning reading FX reviews, (and still am, Ananananananda Tech's is me fave so far with Tom's being the silliest.), and cruising the general web and ATI site's reactions. This is me first time here all morning.

Ouch.


Y'know, the 9500 with Unwinder's soft9700 mod is REALLY starting to look like the way to go after all. (I was really hoping there was SOMETHING backing all the FX hype. :( )

I don't know, I just wanted to offer me condolences or something like that. You folks have been faithful as hell to nVidia, and I'm just sorry they let ya down.

If it's any consolation, ATI's drivers have REALLY improved in the last 6 months.... ;)

[DrFx]

Hmmm have to say I am very dissapoining with the Gffx, I sure have thought it should have outperformed the R300 by far, I mean come on 6 month after the R300 and this is all we got..I have a Ti 4600 now and i surely wont upgrade to Nv30..I most likely will go for the R350 and that will be my first ATI card for me and I see why not now then ATI have got there act together with their drivers ;)
Nvidia is loosing it..And Btw I have got a Ps2 and will chipp it anny day now hehe..nice to have a great console to relax with sometimes :angel: