AMD's Radeon HD 5870: Bringing About the Next Generation Of GPUs
by Ryan Smith on September 23, 2009 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The First DirectX 11 Games
With any launch of a new DirectX generation of hardware, software availability becomes a concern. As the hardware needs to come before the software so that developers can tailor their games’ performance, it’s just not possible to immediately launch with games ready to go. For the launch of DirectX 11 and the 5800 series, AMD gave us a list of what games to expect and when.
First out of the gate is Battleforge, EA’s card-based online-only RTS. We had initially been told that it would miss the 5870 launch, but in fact EA and AMD managed to get it in under the wire and deliver it a day early. This gives AMD the legitimate claim of having a DX11 title out there that only their new hardware can fully exploit, and from a press perspective it’s nice to have something out there we can test besides tech demos. Unfortunately we wrapped up our testing 2 days early in order to attend IDF, which means we have not yet had a chance to benchmark this title’s DX11 mode or look at it in-depth.
We did have a chance to see the title in action quickly at AMD’s press event 2 weeks ago, where AMD was using it to show off High Definition Ambient Occlusion. As far as we can tell, HDAO is the only DX11 wonder-feature that it current implements, which makes sense given that it should be the easiest to patch in.
The next big title in AMD’s stack of DX11 games is STALKER: Call of Pripyat. This game went gold in Russia earlier this week, with the English version some time behind it. Unfortunately we don’t know what DX11 features it will be using, but as STALKER games have historically been hard on computers, it should prove to be an interesting test case for DX11 performance.
DIRT 2 is a title that got a great deal of promotion at AMD’s press event. AMD has been using it to show off their 6-way Eyefinity configuration, and we had a chance to play it quickly in their testing labs when looking at Eyefinity. This should be a fuller-featured DX11 game, utilizing tessellation, better shadow filtering, and other DX11 features. Certainly it’s the closest thing AMD’s going to have for a showcase title this year for the DX11 features of their hardware, and the console version has been scoring well in reviews. The PC version is due December 11th.
Finally, AMD had Rebellion Games in house to show off an early version of Aliens vs. Predator. This was certainly the most impressive title shown, with Rebellion showing off tessellation and HDAO in real time. Unfortunately screenshots don’t really do the game justice here; the difference from using DX11 is far more noticeable in motion. At any rate, this game is the farthest out – it won’t ship until Q1 of next year at the earliest.
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Qfromchicago - Friday, November 27, 2009 - link
Windows 7 ProfessionOnkyo 805
Diamond 5870
Still no 3rd option for hd audio.
Has anyone been able to work this thing
charme - Friday, November 27, 2009 - link
same here.no 3rd option for hd audio
otni - Sunday, November 29, 2009 - link
YES, WORKING PERFECT FOR ME...TRY THIS: PLAY THE BLUE-RAY MOVIE THEN GO TO SETTING ON POWERDVD AND CHARGES TO THE 3ER OPTION FOR HD SOUND.IS WORKING FOR ME, THANKS CYBERLINK
FlyTexas - Saturday, November 14, 2009 - link
What good does it do to launch this, if there are still none for sale a month later?Yes, I know there were a few sold up front, but NewEgg has been out for awhile...
RavnosCC - Tuesday, November 17, 2009 - link
The 57xx series are readily available, they also support HD Audio.RavnosCC - Monday, November 23, 2009 - link
"As of today, new PowerDVD 9 Ultra customers will receive build 2320, which includes support for HDMI bitstreaming of undecoded (full quality) audio with ATI Radeon 5000 series graphics cards, and the Auzentech X-Fi Hometheater HD sound card. An update patch for current owners of PowerDVD 9 Ultra is scheduled to be available next Friday (11/27).Tom
Cyberlink"
Qfromchicago - Wednesday, November 25, 2009 - link
Though happy that finally we will get hd audio using powerdvd, but why limit it to new customers only. It seems to me that if you can offer it to new customers, you should be able to offer it to everyone at the same time.Qfromchicago - Sunday, October 18, 2009 - link
I have win 7, a diamond 5870, powerdvd 9 ultra version 2201 and still I don't get he 3rd choice for the HD audio bitstreaming. Has anyone been able to get bitstreaming to work with powerdvd 9. ThanksRavnosCC - Thursday, November 5, 2009 - link
UPDATE: Looks like late November for the mythical patch..."Hi everyone,
Yes... we read these forums regularly. Feedback is forwarded to the appropriate people. These forums aren't the best way for us to provide customer support, so if you have an issue, please open a support ticket through our website.
We can't always comment on new developments... or at least we like to wait until we have a definite answer. I know everyone noticed the reviews for the ATI Radeon 5000 series graphics cards, where certain reviewers were using a pre-release version of PowerDVD 9 to demonstrate HDMI bitstreaming of Blu-ray audio. Support for this feature will be in the next PowerDVD update (patch), which will be available later this month. I don't have a firm date on this, but we're trying to expedite it. Please keep in mind that each of our regular updates includes fixes for new BD titles and new (or forthcoming) hardware / drivers across the PC ecosystem, and so the feature you are anxiously waiting for isn't the only thing that we need to include in the update. Of course, each update has to go through a full quality assurance testing procedure, to make sure that none of the changes introduced any new issues.
So... sorry for going quiet on you... but I and others read every post in this thread and other relevant threads, following up as needed (in some cases, directly through private messages on these forums).
Tom
Cyberlink"
RavnosCC - Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - link
I am in the same boat, with Vista, I have powerdvd 9 ultra fully patched and still no third option for hi-def passthrough... :-/