The NVIDIA Turing GPU Architecture Deep Dive: Prelude to GeForce RTX
by Nate Oh on September 14, 2018 12:30 PM ESTUnpacking 'RTX', 'NGX', and Game Support
One of the more complicated aspects of GeForce RTX and Turing is not only the 'RTX' branding, but how all of Turing's features are collectively called the NVIDIA RTX platform. To recap, here is a quick list of the separate but similarly named groupings:
- NVIDIA RTX Platform - general platform encompassing all Turing features, including advanced shaders
- NVIDIA RTX Raytracing technology - name for ray tracing technology under RTX platform
- GameWorks Raytracing - raytracing denoiser module for GameWorks SDK
- GeForce RTX - the brand connected with games using NVIDIA RTX real time ray tracing
- GeForce RTX - the brand for graphics cards
For NGX, it technically falls under the RTX platform, and includes Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS). Using a deep neural network (DNN) specific to the game and trained on super high quality 64x supersampled images, or 'ground truth' images, DLSS uses tensor cores to infer high quality antialiased results. In the standard mode, DLSS renders at a lower input sample count, typically 2x less but may depend on the game, and then infers a result, which at target resolution is similar quality to TAA result. A DLSS 2X mode exists, where the input is rendered at the final target resolution and then combined with a larger DLSS network.
Fortunately, GFE is not required for NGX features to work, and all the necessary NGX files will be available via the standard Game Ready drivers, though it's not clear how often DNNs for particular games would be updated.
In the case of RTX-OPS, it describes a workload for a frame where both RT and Tensor Cores are utilized; currently, the classic scenario would be with a game with real time ray tracing and DLSS. So by definition, it only accurately measures that type of workload. However, this metric currently does not apply to any game, as DXR has not yet released. For the time being, the metric does not describe performance any publicly available game.
In sum, then the upcoming game support aligns with the following table.
| Planned NVIDIA Turing Feature Support for Games | |||||
| Game | Real Time Raytracing | Deep Learning Supersampling (DLSS) | Turing Advanced Shading | ||
| Ark: Survival Evolved | Yes | ||||
| Assetto Corsa Competizione | Yes | ||||
| Atomic Heart | Yes | Yes | |||
| Battlefield V | Yes | ||||
| Control | Yes | ||||
| Dauntless | Yes | ||||
| Darksiders III | Yes | ||||
| Deliver Us The Moon: Fortuna | Yes | ||||
| Enlisted | Yes | ||||
| Fear The Wolves | Yes | ||||
| Final Fantasy XV | Yes | ||||
| Fractured Lands | Yes | ||||
| Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice | Yes | ||||
| Hitman 2 | Yes | ||||
| In Death | Yes | ||||
| Islands of Nyne | Yes | ||||
| Justice | Yes | Yes | |||
| JX3 | Yes | Yes | |||
| KINETIK | Yes | ||||
| MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries | Yes | Yes | |||
| Metro Exodus | Yes | ||||
| Outpost Zero | Yes | ||||
| Overkill's The Walking Dead | Yes | ||||
| PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds | Yes | ||||
| ProjectDH | Yes | ||||
| Remnant: From the Ashes | Yes | ||||
| SCUM | Yes | ||||
| Serious Sam 4: Planet Badass | Yes | ||||
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | Yes | ||||
| Stormdivers | Yes | ||||
| The Forge Arena | Yes | ||||
| We Happy Few | Yes | ||||
| Wolfenstein II | Yes | ||||
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Spunjji - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
There's no such thing as a bad product, just bad pricing. AMD aren't out of the game but they are playing in an entirely different league.siberian3 - Friday, September 14, 2018 - link
Good architectural leap for nvidia but it is sad very few of gamers can afford the new cards.And AMD is not doing anything for 2018 and probably navi will be mid range on 7nm
V900 - Friday, September 14, 2018 - link
Meh, it’s always been that way with the newest, fastest GPUs.Wait 6 months to a year, and prices will be where people with more modest budgets can play along.
B3an - Friday, September 14, 2018 - link
You must literally live under a rock while also being absurdly naive.It's never been this way in the 20 years that i've been following GPUs. These new RTX GPUs are ridiculously expensive, way more than ever, and the prices will not be changing much at all when there's literally zero competition. The GPU space right now is worse than it's ever been before in history.
Amandtec - Friday, September 14, 2018 - link
I read somewhere that8800GTX + inflation = 2080ti price
Without factoring in inflation the prices seem unprecedented.
Yojimbo - Saturday, September 15, 2018 - link
And you must factor in inflation, otherwise you are just pushing numbers around.Yojimbo - Saturday, September 15, 2018 - link
And comparing the 2080 Ti to previous flagship launch cards is not really proper. The 2080 Ti is a different tier of card. The die size is so much larger than any previous launch GPU. It's just a demonstration of the increase in the amount of resources people are willing to devote to their GPUs, not an indication of an inflation of GPU prices.eddman - Saturday, September 15, 2018 - link
2006 $600 at 2018 dollar value = $750Samus - Saturday, September 15, 2018 - link
What inflation, exactly are you talking about. The dollar hasn't had a substantial change in valuation for 20 years (compared to other first-world currency.)The USD inflation rate has averaged around 2.7%/year since 2000. That means one dollar in 2000 is now worth slightly less than $1.50 today. That means the top-of-the-line GPU released in 2000, I'd take a guess it was the Geforce2 GTS and/or the 3Dfx Voodoo5 5500, both cost $300.
For those who want to throw in cards like the Geforce 2 Ultra and the Voodoo5 6000, the former a card for nVidia to 'probe' the market for how much they could milk it going forward (and creating the situation we have today) and the other a card that never actually "launched"...we can include them for fun. The Ultra launched at $500 (even though it was slower than the Geforce 3 that launched 3 months later) and the Voodoo5 6000 had an MSRP set by 3Dfx at $500.
These were the most expensive gaming-focused GPU's ever made up until that date. Even SLI setups didn't cost $500 (the most expensive Voodoo2 card in the 90's was from Creative Labs @$229/ea - you needed two cards of course - so $460.)
Ok, so you have the absolute cream-of-the-crop cards in 2000 at $500, one was a marketing stunt, and the other never launched because nobody would have bought it. Realistically the most expensive cards were $300. But we will go with $500.
The most expensive high-end gaming focused cards now are $1000+
That would assume an inflation rate of over 5% annually, or the value of the dollar DOUBLING over 2 decades. Which it didn't come close to doing.
Stop using inflation as an excuse. It's bullshit. These companies are fucking greedy. Especially nVidia. They are effectively charging FOUR TIMES more than they used to for the same market segment card. 20 years ago you would have bought a TNT2 Ultra for $230 bucks and had the ultimate card available. Most people purchased entirely capable mainstream cards for $100-$150 like the TNT2 Pro or the Geforce2 MX400 that ran the most demanding games of the day like Counter Strike and Half-Life at 1024x768 in maximum detail.
http://www.in2013dollars.com/2000-dollars-in-2018?...
Yojimbo - Saturday, September 15, 2018 - link
"What inflation, exactly are you talking about."CPI. Consumer Price Index. Even though inflation has been low for quite a while, $649 in 2013 is $697 today. That's almost $50 more, and it's enough to make up the difference between the 2013 launch price of the GTX 780 and the 2018 launch price of the RTX 2080.
I'm not sure why you are talking about cards from 20+ years ago. It's not relevant to my reply. In any case, those cards were completely different. The die sizes were much smaller and the cards were much less capable. They did a lot less of the work, as much of it was done on the CPU. The CPU was much more important to the game performance than today, as was the RAM and other components that were worth spending money on to significantly improve the gaming performance/experience.
"Stop using inflation as an excuse."
I'm not using inflation as an excuse. I'm using inflation as a tool to accurately compare the prices of cards from different years. And doing so clearly shows that the claim that the OP made is wrong. My reply had nothing to do with whether cards were in general cheaper 20 years ago or not. It was in response to "These new RTX GPUs are ridiculously expensive, way more than ever". That's provably untrue. Why are you replying to me and arguing about some entirely different point I wasn't ever talking about?