zackepceo

Or, the I don't have any more reasons to say 'Oooh!' now other than the fact that Cinema 4D isn't nearly as hideous as 3DSM.

Look at this card JackAxe, it's OpenGL 2.0 and has 640Mb of GDDR3 plus virtual VRAM, and supports up to 9 megapixel displays. http://www.3dlabs.com/products/product.asp?prod=293

And ATI's x850 manages to trounce the 6800, finally.

__________________

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism."

SamuraiCatJB

graphics cards are one of those interesting entities... you can argue over strict performance, or strict reliance on standards. The wildcat is a wildcard, it moves up and down on the performance, it used to be king, now it takes turns.

ATI and nVidia still argue over performance from a "purists" standpoint, ATI's floating point compression to 24bit from 32bit achieves a boost of 25% from strictly a throughput issue. So yet only achieves a 15% gain in some markets, but not all. The old HL2 vs. Doom3 can go on forever, as long as the OpenGL to Direct3d can go on. HL2 teams got preproduction and design information so that they could optimize directly for one hardware model, ATI. Is this a good thing? Games designed to run fastest on only one piece of hardware or games designed in a generic way so that hardware has to compete on equal ground? tough call.

I cannot use ATI from a strictly purist view, we are starting to do floating point calculation of mathematical data, not just color, on the graphics card. The human eye may not be able to distinguish between 128bit HDR color and 96bit HDR color, but when calculating energy distribution across a spectrum, fluid dynamics, or other real data, ATI falls by the wayside due to 25% bit loss.

But how many games actually use the graphics card for calculation vs. color maps? not many. There are a few particle engines on GPU which makes special effects localized to the GPU as a whole, and very efficient. so only time will tell which will be better.

__________________
And now, Grandfather, I ask you to bless the White Man. He needs your Wisdom, your guidance. You see, for so long, he has tried to destroy my people, and only feels comfortable when given power. Bless them, show them the peace we understand, teach them humility. For I fear they will someday destroy themselves and their children, As they have done so Mother Earth. I plead, I cry. After all, They are my Brothers.... ~ Prayer ~

zackepceo

Thanks for clearing that up for me Samcat. I was wondering why you wanted 96 and 128 bit colour. Right now I'm saving up to buy one of those hardware raytracers. (It's easy for me to write to the software developers to get copies of software due to my developer connections, but giving away hardware is a totally different beast.)

Also, sorry you're feeling ill.

__________________

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism."

SamuraiCatJB

HDR rendering is pretty common now, Lucasfilms EXR file format is also pretty common. the definition is 128bit color and 64bit half-float color. ATI takes the standard definition and trims it on the fly. If this were any other industry and someone decided to "trim" the standard on the fly rather than actually claiming a new standard, they would be called liers and cheats.

But if ATI were to actually try to make a competing standard at 12,24bit floats people would be asking why we need a new standard, they asked the same for 16bit half-floats. but now you are talking 3/8 floats and 3/4 floats? people would shy away. So they claim to support the 16/32 bit float, they simply trim on the fly the calculations because they claim the extra bits are worthless...

__________________
And now, Grandfather, I ask you to bless the White Man. He needs your Wisdom, your guidance. You see, for so long, he has tried to destroy my people, and only feels comfortable when given power. Bless them, show them the peace we understand, teach them humility. For I fear they will someday destroy themselves and their children, As they have done so Mother Earth. I plead, I cry. After all, They are my Brothers.... ~ Prayer ~

JackAxe

I've been waiting for that monster to be made available for the Mac. 3Dlabls make the only true workstation cards.

<]=)

__________________

I be a hearty pirate that plunders many waffles.

The Dread Pirate Monkey Gizmo has scurvy! :)

Nintendo DS and Wii, me gaming machines of choice.

seraphim_9:11

On another note, here's something that some might find useful :
www.omegadrivers.net ...This guy seems to be making alternate set of drivers for ATI and NVidia ... ATI is actually happy with this guys efforts and recommends his stuff ...

Just thought this would be interesting

__________________
TJ
- Angel with swords -
-The best way to maintain order is a quick beheading -
- Hatred is the coward's revenge for getting intimidated

JackAxe

That's pretty cool.

<]=)

__________________

I be a hearty pirate that plunders many waffles.

The Dread Pirate Monkey Gizmo has scurvy! :)

Nintendo DS and Wii, me gaming machines of choice.

seraphim_9:11

I'm wondering if using it would actually let me play games that require more VRAM ... I have some great ones but cant play them

__________________
TJ
- Angel with swords -
-The best way to maintain order is a quick beheading -
- Hatred is the coward's revenge for getting intimidated

SamuraiCatJB

http://www.3dprofessor.com/index_ektron.asp
as an update the new quadro 4400 512mb card tops in pro-e and maya benches. which is actually better? both, in different ways.

__________________
And now, Grandfather, I ask you to bless the White Man. He needs your Wisdom, your guidance. You see, for so long, he has tried to destroy my people, and only feels comfortable when given power. Bless them, show them the peace we understand, teach them humility. For I fear they will someday destroy themselves and their children, As they have done so Mother Earth. I plead, I cry. After all, They are my Brothers.... ~ Prayer ~

JackAxe

To ramble off subject, but on subject. 10.3.9 will have completely new drivers for Nvidia and ATI that supposedly provide a substantial performance increase. I've heard that Tiger would offer something like this, so these are probably those drivers. I've been reading allot about how with PCs, a window can have complete control of OpenGL and really pump out the performance,where as OSX doesn't like to give up all it's OGL. So games even with properly optimize, non-left behind Window's code which plague virtually all Mac games not only have those factors, but can't grab all the attention of the GPU. I ramble toooooo much sometimes.

Any ways, I need Tiger or these new driver anyhoo, since my 6800U's drivers still have not been finalized.

<]=)

__________________

I be a hearty pirate that plunders many waffles.

The Dread Pirate Monkey Gizmo has scurvy! :)

Nintendo DS and Wii, me gaming machines of choice.

SamuraiCatJB

so you are saying OSX married to the GPU created one spouse who didn't like to give up control, and someone had to go back and teach it to relax....

Gee, that never happens in real life...

__________________
And now, Grandfather, I ask you to bless the White Man. He needs your Wisdom, your guidance. You see, for so long, he has tried to destroy my people, and only feels comfortable when given power. Bless them, show them the peace we understand, teach them humility. For I fear they will someday destroy themselves and their children, As they have done so Mother Earth. I plead, I cry. After all, They are my Brothers.... ~ Prayer ~

JackAxe

I think that's it. I guess core and thes new drivers are kind of like counseling.

<]=)

__________________

I be a hearty pirate that plunders many waffles.

The Dread Pirate Monkey Gizmo has scurvy! :)

Nintendo DS and Wii, me gaming machines of choice.

SamuraiCatJB

The perfect card: it's own best friend....
http://translate.google.com/transla...news_id%3D11588



four harddrive connectors, or two PCIe additional power connectors.... Dude!!! where's my 1000 watt power supply???!!!??

__________________
And now, Grandfather, I ask you to bless the White Man. He needs your Wisdom, your guidance. You see, for so long, he has tried to destroy my people, and only feels comfortable when given power. Bless them, show them the peace we understand, teach them humility. For I fear they will someday destroy themselves and their children, As they have done so Mother Earth. I plead, I cry. After all, They are my Brothers.... ~ Prayer ~

JackAxe

It will never be lonely. Ha a NV45 is considered ancient. What kind of world do we live in...

<]=)

__________________

I be a hearty pirate that plunders many waffles.

The Dread Pirate Monkey Gizmo has scurvy! :)

Nintendo DS and Wii, me gaming machines of choice.