A lot of Nvidia rumors. Looks like ATI will have a DX11 card before N!

Checking The Rumor Feed http://rumorfeed.blogspot.com/2008 [...] ws-on.html as well as some other sites I noticed that only the GT300 is currently confirmed to have DX11. Since the Radeon 5X generation will all have DX11 this could finally end my Nvidia fanboyism. They were first with DX10.1, and now they will be first with DX11. I am still ticked off that my higher priced GTX280 is slower than my friends lower priced 4870X2.

What the heck is Nvidia doing lately?

What do you guys think about their cards as of late? I am pretty disappointed.

ATI is the right choice in terms of performance and price for Windows.

Nvidia still reigns with Linux due to poor ATI Linux drivers.

I just assumed ATi would make it to DX11 first. DX10.1 was about half the battle.

So the GT206, GT212, and GT216 are still sticking to DX10 or will they at least go for 10.1 support?

just because dx11 will be supported first doesn't mean the cards will be able to run it well...
so in that sense of the word, it doesn't really matter whose coming out with it first, but i do commend ati for pushing the technological envelope from one generation to the next for a few gens now....

hopefully they stick to their marketing plans and keep the cards from low-mid level, and concentrate less on the upper class cards... i think that would bring more incentive to buy pc games =]

Initial half decent newly released DX10 cards were expensive and the affordable cards like the 8600GTS and 2600XT were way to underpowered for any DX10 gaming use. If we look now, DX10 hasn't been adopted in many games, but at least there's plenty of affordable and capable cards now available.

I don't know for sure about DX11, but I can see this happening again

There are a ton of game swith DX 10 support.
Assasin's Creed (which had DX10.1, but patched to DX10 due to pressure from Nvidia), Bioshock, Crysis, Far Cry 2 (which actually has DX10.1) and Lord of the Rings Online. There are a lot more, but those are the ones I own.

After seeing these games in DX10, I simply will not go back to 9! Also Far Cry 2 looks a bit better in DX10.1 and runs a bit smoother on my friends machine than it does with DX10 on mine. The only difference between our PC's is that I bought the GTX280 at launch and he was smart enough to wait for the 4870X2.

my friend owns a 4870 X2 he has higher frames than 1 of my 280s, but his min framerate is down right terrible, and he has a 1000$ CPU and I have a 250$ CPU...sigh....thats why I hate x2 cards and I got rid of my GX2, the min frame rate issue is just too much of a pain the bum.

I remember in Source with the GX2 (even worse with Quad) frame rates dipped to 20s @ 1280x1024 for no reason.

Meh.

yup
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/1040 [...] n_q4_2009/

Not really. What it can do is use a work around to take advantage of a feature that is found by default in DX10.1, similar but not quite the same thing.

It's similar to other possible work arounds to things, but it's not actually DX10.1

Yeah I know that, but I probably should have stated it was a workaround within DX10, rather than full 10.1 spec in my last post.

Logically ATI were never going to have anything extra over Nvidia, because the game was developed on Nvidia Hardware.

I used to think the same thing, but -everyone- calls it GT200 so I figured what the hell.

As for FarCry 2, it uses a DX10.1 feature (multisampled Z-buffers I think) that just happens to exist on NVIDIA DX10 hardware but is not exposed by the DX10 API. So NVIDIA enabled it via an extension.

www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/10/22/n [...] ar-cry-2/1

There are games that came out DX9 but have DX10 patches. Yes, I understand your frustration. Games take years to develop and we'll probably only see DX11 games in a couple of years. Until then, patches for Dx10 will get better. As most developers are paid (or bribed with hardware) to participate in Nvidia's TWIMTBP program, you won't see DX10.1 support in most games that arrive as DX10 over the next year.

That doesn't make Nvidia a better choice, or ATI a worthless GPU investment come June 2009. I'm sure optimizations for DX11 have some impact on DX9 gameplay, or patched DX10 gameplay. After all, the newer cards will be a die shrink at the very least.

IMHO, it's Nvidia that's held back the implementation of DX10 in games because they felt that Vista wasn't necessary. Plus, Microsoft screwed up the roll out of Vista. It's great with SP1 and I'm having fun playing the DX10 patched version of LOTRO, but that really doesn't look much different than my wife's DX9 version under XP. The water looks a bit better, but the difference isn't as great as it was between DX8.1 and DX9.

Those cards suffered from being marketed towards HTPC and video editing. ATI fixed the problems with the next generation; the 3850, and is doing even better with the 4670 and 4830. Nvidia fixed their marketing niche problems with the 9600 cards. I can't see them making the X2600/8800gt mistake again, as they didn't make the mistake in the last generation. The mainstream cards are capable for gaming at 1280 resolutions; sometimes even with AA and AF enabled.

the root of dx10 problems is in incompatibility with XP. developers dont make games based entirely on dx10 because they lose half of their market that still plays on windows xp. so they base it on dx9 and just add a few dx10 effects. If microsoft let it work on XP we'd see a lot more dx10 games.

Yep that about hits the nail on the head as far as i am concerned, don't think DX10 can just be enabled on XP though, i have heard that there is no reason for it not to work but others have said it cant and have given reasons. Right or not i believe the it cant version. Doesn't matter if its games or apps or hardware, bottom line is as you say the biggest user base is XP and so that's where the companies aim.
Perversely this is exactly what m$ were trying to avoid with the hamfisted heavy handed approach to the new API, im sure they could have initially made it work as an update on XP but they wanted a new revenue stream and unfortunately for them the basket they chose to put their eggs in (DX10) wasn't the killer deal sealer some idiot at M$ thought it would be.
That alone has to tell you that DX10 was meant to be so much more at release, however due to pressure from Nvidia it was dumbed down to suit the cards they had and now vista and DX10 are about where they should have been to start with.

Mactronix

DX10/10.1 actually improves performance if implemented properly. Just look at FarCry2 or Flight Sim. Well maybe not Flight Sim so much since they didn't get to use the geometry shader like they wanted to but definitely FarCry 2.

BTW, since I know I'll hear it, Crysis Warhead in DX9 mode does perform better, but it also misses a key feature that makes the game looks so special - object motion blur.

Shadows in lotro werent just distant shadows, standing at the foot of the tree it made a massive difference, instead of a static shadow and a slightly breezey tree you had a shadow that move with the tree the edges of the shadow were far more "natural" looking, it wasnt just trees either virtually every static objects shadow was far better. To me personally shadows are a big deal, they help give a "feel" for a hot sunny day, they really help emphasize the effects of weather etc. To me the shadows alone were worth taking a performance hit for. I would post screen shots, but my subscriptions been down for a while, until the new expansion comes out.

In crysis have you tried benchmarking dx9 very high hack vs dx10 very high? From what I remember I found dx10 very high in vista seemed to perform better than hacked very high under dx9 and xp, (that was with an 8800GTX, E6600 and 2gb of ram) however I didnt record fraps results between the installations, and its been a while since I went to vista, my rigs have seen a lot of upgrades since then. I seem to remember that using the very high hack under xp I did get "god rays" through trees, just not as good as they were under dx10.

I do think though that crysis showed just how great dx9 graphics can be. But from what I remember the very high hack under dx9 seemed to be far worse performance than the same level of effects under dx10.

I think overall we still havent seen a dx10 only game, until we do and until dx10s became defacto standard we wont really know what it can do! just compare dx9 crysis to KOTOR, both under dx9 but at opposite ends of its life span, as far as Im concerned at the moment we are still only seeing dx9 games with dx10 used for whistles and bells. I suspect its more used to make more efficient use of effects than to add efffects that werent previously available.

That I do agree with I do think theres a big chance that dx10 may be killed off by dx11 before it ever gets a chance to show its full potential.

One of the great things DX10 and vista DID bring to us was the performance leap from the 7 series to 8 series by nvidia. I believe the performance achieved was a direct result of the card being designed for dx10... Its just a shame it was followed by an 18 month lull in progress. However despite the GPU being designed for dx10 and vista, dx9 and xp saw the a huge benefit from the new architecture

Kind of on the original topic I dont see a card supporting a "future" DX version as much of a selling point. I brought the 8800gtx at launch not for its dx10 compatibility but for its performance under dx9. Ive brought a 4870 not because I believe 10.1 is ever going to catch on, but because it provides a good performance boost under dx9 and the few dx10 patched titles out there at a very modest price. I will buy a dx 11 card when a) its dx 9 /10 performance warrants an upgrade over my existing card or b) When theres a title out that benefits significantly in performance or visuals from dx 11. I tend to buy for todays needs, as technology moves to fast and a lot of possible future technologies wither on the vine...

The argument of whether something brings value to the table is all in the eye of the beer holder.

Some people prefer better graphics and are willing to sacrifice resolution or fps to achieve that, other people prefer higher fps and are willing to sacrifice for that.

However I still haven't seen anyone explain to me how having more tools at a lower cost and better performance is a bad thing.

If you were trading DX11 for 50% more SPUs, fine makes sense to say, don't bother with DX11 or whatever, but if you're essentially taking the space of what would likely be less than 5% or even just empty space, then why not?

Since posting about the trees in lotro Ive got a email from codemasters, Ive got 3 days free play starting today, so I will actually be able to take some screen shots to illustrate the differences .

Its pure chance timing that I got the email now, It wasnt related to posting here - they are just trying to get ex subscribers back in time for the expansion.