The AMD Radeon VII Review: An Unexpected Shot At The High-End
by Nate Oh on February 7, 2019 9:00 AM ESTGrand Theft Auto V (DX11)
Now a truly venerable title, GTA V is a veteran of past game suites that is still graphically demanding as they come. As an older DX11 title, it provides a glimpse into the graphically intensive games of yesteryear that don't incorporate the latest features. Originally released for consoles in 2013, the PC port came with a slew of graphical enhancements and options. Just as importantly, GTA V includes a rather intensive and informative built-in benchmark, somewhat uncommon in open-world games.
The settings are identical to its previous appearances, which are custom as GTA V does not have presets. To recap, a "Very High" quality is used, where all primary graphics settings turned up to their highest setting, except 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 rendering features - the game's long shadows, high resolution shadows, and high definition flight streaming - but not increasing the view distance any further.
We've updated some of the benchmark automation and data processing steps, so results may vary at the 1080p mark compared to previous data.
GTA V is another game where the Radeon VII starts off on the back foot. Its 38% 4K performance improvement over the RX Vega 64 is outstanding and nothing to be scoffed at, but even this jump isn't enough to draw even with the GTX 1080 Ti FE and RTX 2080. Ultimately, it lands somewhere in between the reference RTX 2070 and RTX 2080.
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eva02langley - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
I should not say realistic, I should say credible.webdoctors - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
Open source is NOT the only way a new standard can be adopted. Microsoft has been pushing DirectX 9/10/11, etc. and those are HUGELY popular standards. If MS is adopting it in their API, than yes it'll show up in PC games.Raytracing is not a gimmick, its been around since before you were born or Nvidia was even founded. It hasn't been "feasible" for real-time and as such as been largely ignored in gaming. Many other technologies were not feasible until they were and than got incorporated. Graphics is more than just getting 60FPS otherwise everything would just be black and white without shadows. Its about realism, which means proper lighting, shadows, physics.
Ppl need to call out the price, if you're a regular joe who's just getting a card for gaming and not mining or business use, why would you buy this over the competition? They seriously need to drop the price by $100 or it'll be a tiny seller.
D. Lister - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
RTX is just Nvidia's way of doing DXR which is the IP of Microsoft. AMD has already announced specific development for it in future to be integrated in their GPU's. RT has been announced by both Sony and MS for their next consoles. Of course because of their use of AMD GPUs, the application of RT would be of a lower quality compared to what RTX can do. It is very much like the current console implementation of anti-aliasing, HBAO or tessellation, where on consoles you get a very basic level of those features, but on decent PCs they can be cranked up much higher."The whole G-synch fiasco should have been enough to prove it."
This is nothing like G-Sync. The problem with GSync is the extra cost. Now considering that the 2080 is the same price/performance as a Radeon VII, but has hardware DXR (RTX) as well, you're essentially getting the ray-tracing add-in for free.
Thirdly, while many things can be faked with rasterization to be within the approximation of ray-tracing, it requires far greater work (not to mention, artistic talent) to do it. In rasterization, a graphics designer has to first guess what a certain reflection or shadow would look like and then painstakingly make something that could pass off for the real thing. Raytracing takes that guesswork out of the task. All you, as a developer, would need to do is place a light or a reflective surface and RT would do the rest with mathematical accuracy, resulting in higher quality, a much faster/smoother development, fewer glitches, and a much smaller memory/storage footprint for the final product.
D. Lister - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
A helpful link:https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/directx/2018/03/1...
Manch - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
RTX is a proprietary implementation that is compatible with DirectX RT. AMD may eventually do DirectX RT but it will be there own version. As far as consoles go, unless NAVI has some kind of RT implementation, youre right, no RT of any significance. At best it will be a simple PC graphics option that works in a few titles maybe like hair works lol.eva02langley - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
It is ... a GAMEWORKS feature... as of now. RTX/DLSS are nothing more than 2 new gameworks features... that will just break games, once again to cripple the competition.The goal is not even to have RTX or DLSS, it is to force developers to use their proprietary tools to break game codes and sabotage the competition, like The Witcher 3.
RTX is nothing good as of now. It is a tax, and it breaks performances. Let's talk about it when it can be implemented in real-time. until then, let's Nvidia feel the burden of it.
eddman - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
I do agree that these RTX/DLSS features absolutely do not justify the current prices and that nvidia should've waited for 7nm to mature before adding them, but let's not get so emotional.Gameworks are simply modules that can be added to a game and are not part of the main code. Also, its GPU based features can be disabled in options, as was the case in witcher 3.
TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
And by flinging insults you have shown yourself to be an immature fanboi that is desperately trying to defend his favorite GPU company.eva02langley - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
I didn't insult anyone, I just spoke the truth about RTX. I am not defending AMD, I am condemning Nvidia. Little difference...To defend RTX as it is today, is being colored green all over. There is no way to defend it.
ballsystemlord - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
I agree, Huang should have listed to himself when he said that Ray tracing would have been a thing in 10 years (but he wanted to bring it to market now).Remember when there were 2D and 3D accelerators?
I say we should be able to choose 3D or Ray-tracing accelerators.