NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 (G80): GPUs Re-architected for DirectX 10
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on November 8, 2006 6:01 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The thing to remember is that, even when all optimizations are disabled, there are other optimizations going on that we can't touch. There always will be. The better these optimizations get, the faster we will be able to render accurate images. Gaining more control over what happens in the hardware is a nice bonus, but disabling optimization for no reason just doesn't make sense. Thus, our tests will be done at default texture filtering quality on NVIDIA hardware. In order to understand the performance impact of High Quality vs. Quality texture filtering on NVIDIA hardware, we ran a few benchmarks with as many optimizations disabled as possible and compared the result to our default quality tests. Here's what we get:
We can clearly see that G70 takes a performance hit from enabling high quality mode, but that G80 is able to take it in stride. While we don't have the ability to specifically disable or enable optimizations in ATI hardware, Catalyst AI is the feature that dictates how much liberty ATI is able to take with a game, from filtering optimizations all the way to shader replacement. We can't tell if the difference we see in Oblivion is due to shader replacement, filtering, or some other optimization under R580.
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dwalton - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
When using older cards sacrificing IQ for performance is typically acceptable. Who needs AA when running F.E.A.R on a 9700 Pro.However, on a just launched high-end card, why would anyone feel the need to sacrifice IQ for performance? Some may say resolution over AA, but I find it hard to believe that there is a lot of gaming enthusiasts with deep pockets, who play with insane resolutions yet no AA.
JarredWalton - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
If I look for jaggies, I see them. On most games, however, they don't bother me much at all. Running at native resolution on LCDs or at a really high resolution on CRTs, I'd take that over a lower res with 4xAA. If you have the power to enable 4xAA, great, but I'm certainly not one to suggest it's required. I'd rather be able to enable vsync without a massive performance hit (i.e. stay above 60 FPS) than worry about jaggies. Personal preference.munim - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
"With the latest 1.09 patch, F.E.A.R. has gained multi-core support,"Where is this?
JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
I wrote that, but it may be incorrect. I'm trying to get in contact with Gary to find out if I'm just being delusional about Quad Core support. Maybe it's NDA still? Hmmm.... nothing to see here!JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
Okay, it's the 1.08 patch, and that is what was tested. Since we didn't use a quad core CPU I don't know if it will actually help or not -- something to look at in the future.Nelsieus - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
I haven't even finished reading it yet, but so far, this is the most comprehensive, in-depth review I've seen on G80 and I just wanted to mention that beforehand.:)
GhandiInstinct - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
What upcoming games will be the first to be fully made on DX10 structure? And does the G80 have full support of DX10?timmiser - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
Microsoft Flight Simulator X will be DX10 compliant via a planned patch once Vista comes out.JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
All DX10 hardware will be full DX10 (see pages 2-4). As for games that will be DX10 ready, Halo 2 for Vista will be for sure. Beyond that... I don't know for sure. As we've explained a bit, DX10 will require Vista, so anything launching before Vista will likely not be DX10 compliant.shabby - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
They're re-doing a dx8 game in dx10? You gotta be kidding me, whats the point? You cant polish a turd.