The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founder's Edition Review: Bigger Pascal for Better Performance
by Ryan Smith on March 9, 2017 9:00 AM ESTGrand Theft Auto V
The latest edition of Rockstar’s venerable series of open world action games, Grand Theft Auto V was originally released to the last-gen consoles back in 2013. However thanks to a rather significant facelift for the current-gen consoles and PCs, along with the ability to greatly turn up rendering distances and add other features like MSAA and more realistic shadows, the end result is a game that is still among the most stressful of our benchmarks when all of its features are turned up. Furthermore, in a move rather uncharacteristic of most open world action games, Grand Theft Auto also includes a very comprehensive benchmark mode, giving us a great chance to look into the performance of an open world action game.
On a quick note about settings, as Grand Theft Auto V doesn't have pre-defined settings tiers, I want to quickly note what settings we're using. For "Very High" quality we have all of the primary graphics settings turned up to their highest setting, with the exception of grass, which is at its own very high setting. Meanwhile 4x MSAA is enabled for direct views and reflections. This setting also involves turning on some of the advanced redering features - the game's long shadows, high resolution shadows, and high definition flight streaming - but it not increasing the view distance any further.
Otherwise for "High" quality we take the same basic settings but turn off all MSAA, which significantly reduces the GPU rendering and VRAM requirements.
Grand Theft Auto V is another game where the GTX 1080 Ti won’t quite reach 60fps at 4K with all the bells & whistles, but it gets close in doing so. Given that this was originally a console game that ran at 30fps, 51.1 should make a lot of people reasonably satisfied, but there’s always room for improvement.
Relative to the GTX 980 Ti, this is actually the GTX 1080 Ti’s best game; it picks up a better-than-average 83% in performance. I suspect that GTAV is an outlier that is especially memory bandwidth sensitive, benefitting from the combination of a raw 44% increase in memory bandwidth from the previous generation, and NVIDIA’s improved memory compression technology on the Pascal architecture.
Looking at the minimum framerates, the story is much the same. For gamers looking for high minimum framerates, the GTX 1080 Ti is the first card that can deliver better than 30fps at the 99th percentile. So while it can’t average 60fps, it also will never drop to the 30fps rate that its console counterparts are capped at in the first place.
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theuglyman0war - Sunday, March 12, 2017 - link
Geez developers can't catch a break...I been a registered developer with ATI/AMD and NVIDIA both for years...
Besides the research and papers and tools they invest to further the interest of game development. I have never had to do anything but reap the rewards and say thank you. Maybe there are secret meetings and koolaid I am missing?
Not sure what the actual correct scenario is tell you the truth?
Either triple AAA dev is hamstringing everyone's PC experience because development is all Console centric ( Which means tweaking FOR an "AMD owned architecture landscape" for two solid console cycles where "this console cycle alone sees both BOBCAT and PUMA being supported"! )
Or the Industry is in Nvidia's back pocket because of what? the overwhelming PhysX support? There is an option to turn on Hair in a game? Their driver support is an evil conspiracy?
Whatever... If there is some koolaid I wanna know where that line is? Gimme! I want me some green Koolaid!
theuglyman0war - Sunday, March 12, 2017 - link
Turns out your right! There is a monopoly in game development Software optimization supporting only one hardware platform! Alert the press!http://developer.amd.com/wordpress/media/2012/10/S...
HomeworldFound - Thursday, March 9, 2017 - link
Underhanded deals are part of the industry. Have you ever wondered about the prices even when price fixing is disallowed and supposedly abolished?These deals are always happening, look at the public terms of the deal NVIDIA and Intel.
Nvidia gets:
1.5 Billion Dollars, Over six Years.
6 Year Extension of C2D/AGTL+ Bus License
Access To Unspecified Intel Microprocessor Patents. Denver?
NVIDIA Doesn't Get:
DMI/QPI Bus License; Nehalem/Sandy Bridge Chipsets
x86 License, Including Rights To Make an x86 Emulator
For a company that was supposed to be headed into x86 wouldn't you say that's anti-competitive?
eddman - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Prices, I don't know. Isn't it a combination of market demand, (lack of) competition and shortages.What does that deal has to do with this? Not giving certain licenses, publicly, is not the same as actively preventing devs from optimizing for the competition in shadows.
theuglyman0war - Sunday, March 12, 2017 - link
Well there was/is a lot of litigation it seems like admittedly!close - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
It would not be illegal, it's called "having the market by its bawles". Have you ever actually talked to someone who does this or do you like assuming it's illegal and conspiracy theory (@eddman)?You're thinking about GameWorks and GW is offered to developers under NDA with the agreement prohibiting them from changing the GW libraries in any way or "optimizing" for AMD. And by the time AMD gets their hands on the proper optimizations to put in their drivers it's pretty much too late. Also GW targets all the weaknesses of AMD GPUs like excessive use of tessellation.
But since everywhere you throw a game at you're going to find an Nvidia user (75% market share), game developers realize it's good for business and don't make too much noise.
Nothing is illegal, it's certainly not a conspiracy theory, it may very well be immoral but it's business. And it happens every day, all around you.
eddman - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
I'm not talking about GPU-bound GW effects that can be disabled in game, and I do know that they are closed-source and cannot be optimized for AMD.I'm talking about whole game codes. Nvidia cannot legally prevent a developer from optimizing the non-GW code of a game (which is the main part) for AMD.
Besides, a lot of GW effects are CPU-only, so it doesn't matter what brand you use in such cases.
ddriver - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
It cannot legally prevent devs from optimizing for amd, but it can legally cut their generous support.There isn't that much difference between:
"If you optimize for AMD we will stop giving you money" and
"If you optimize for AMD we will stop paying people to help you".
It is practically a combination of bribe and extortion. Both very much illegal.
And that's at studio level, at individual level nvidia can make it pretty much impossible to have a job at a good game studio.
Intel didn't exactly bribe anyone directly either, they just offered discounts. But they were found guilty.
Although if you ask me, intel being found guilty on all continents didn't really serve the purpose of punishing them for their crimes. It was more of a way to allow them to cheaply legalize their monopoly.
An actually punitive action would be fining them the full amount of money they made on their illegal practices, and cutting the company down to its pre-monopoly size. Instead the fines were pretty much modest, even laughably low, a tiny fraction of the money they made on their illegal business practices, and they got to keep the monopoly they build on them as well.
So yeah, some people made some money, the damage done by intel was not undone by any means, and their monopoly built through illegal practices has been washed clean and legal. Now that monopolist is as pure as the driven snow. And it took less than a quarter's worth of average net profit to wipe clean years of abuse.
ddriver - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
amd was not in the position to make discounts, intel was, so they abused that on exclussive terms for monetary gainsamd is not in the position to sponsor software developers, nvidia is, so they abuse that on exclussive terms for monetary gains
I don't really see a difference between the two. No one was exactly forced to take intel's exclussive discounts either, much like with nvidia's exclusive support and visits to strip clubs and such.
So, by citing intel as precedent, I'd say what nvidia does is VERY MUCH ILLEGAL.
eddman - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Then why nothing has happened all these years, for something that seems to be open knowledge among game publishers, developers and GPU manufacturers?A dev asking nvidia for help optimizing a game is not illegal. It is a service. AMD is free to do the same.
What about those games where AMD helped the devs to optimize for their hardware? Was that illegal too? It's either illegal for both or none.
If they've been doing it openly for years and even put their logos in games' loading screens, then it's safe to say it's not illegal at all.