View Single Post
  #8  
Old April 16th 04, 01:37 AM
Derek Baker
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"John Reynolds" wrote in message
...
"John Lewis" wrote in message
...
From the nVidia news release:-


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
NVIDIA Corporation ( NASDAQ: NVDA), the worldwide leader in visual
processing solutions, introduced today the NVIDIA(R) GeForce(TM) 6800
models of graphics processing units (GPUs) for high-performance
desktop computers. The NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series, which includes the
flagship GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800, is designed to deliver:

-- Industry-leading 3D performance -- new superscalar 16-pipe
architecture delivers more than twice that of current industry leading
NVIDIA GPUs

-- New features, including Microsoft DirectX(R) 9.0 Shader Model 3.0
feature set -- for ultra-realistic cinematic effects

-- Unprecedented on-chip video processing engine -- enabling high-
definition video and DVD playback

"This is the biggest generation-to-generation performance leap that we
have ever seen with a new GPU," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO
of NVIDIA. "In addition to the raw performance increase, we had two
fundamental strategies with the 6800 models. First was to take
programmability to the next level with the industry's only GPU with
Shader Model 3.0. Second was to extend the reach of GPUs to the
consumer electronics market with a powerful and fully programmable
video processor capable of multiple video formats and 'prosumer' level
image processing."

"As DOOM 3 development winds to a close, my work has turned to
development of the next generation rendering technology. The NV40 is
my platform of choice due to its support of very long fragment
programs, generalized floating point blending and filtering, and the
extremely high performance," said John Carmack, president and
technical director of id Software


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------

Still have to hear from Gabe@Valve. All quiet from him, so
far......... Must be busy tweaking the HL2 code for Shaders 3.0 ?
Shaders 2.0 must now be just a little passe..... Far Cry V1.1
implementation of Shader 3.0 is apparently little rough at the
moment, but Crytek says that they are working on it. No doubt
it will be in a polished patch by the time the NV40 is retail
available.

For me personally the 6800 is as exciting a step forward in PC
peripherals as the Voodoo1 was when it first emerged. Not only for
the 6800s enormous graphical power, but also for its potential
contribution to PC-based video production and editing, which is an
active business for me. The very powerful integrated video processor
is as important to me as the graphics capability, particularly the
MPEG-2 encoding hardware elements. Adobe After Effects have
already declared support for the NV40 and no doubt other video
toolmakers like Pinnacle are looking hard at its capability. Now if
Intel would only reduce the price of the P4 EE to that of the retail
list of the 6800Ultra, or less, instead of fleecing potential
customers at $999 a pop, then I would be very happy indeed with my
video production/editing hardware after those two were installed.

John Lewis


Your post would be. . .hmmm, what's the word. . .more legit if you weren't
coming off as a nVidia fanboy flaming away at Valve, John. Newell simply
voiced what every developer knew about the FX parts: they sucked at

running
DX9 code at floating point precision. Hell, these NV40 previews show that
more clearly than anything else. And what do Carmack and Newell have in
common? Their companies' new engines both required special code paths to
get good performance out of FX boards? Think about that, John. Oh, and

for
Far Cry whether those new screenshots require SM 3.0 support is still up

in
the air. I've heard they're created using offset mapping, not vertex
texturing; this was written by Democoder, the guy who got that Unreal 3
engine movie and some Far Cry shots from yesterday (he's a regular poster

at
B3D).

Anyways, the 6800U looks like a very impressive part. The only real
negatives are the power consumption/heat and the fact that both AA and AF
could be better. It'll be interesting to see if the R420 from ATI can
compete. Anthony "Reverend" Tan just quoted Tim Sweeney on B3D's board

and
Tim said, about R420, that "It rocks!". This next generation is

definitely
going to be much more interesting than last year's, that's for sure.

John "fanboys suck" Reynolds



Got a link for that Tan comment?

--
Derek