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Far Cry Review- NV SM3.0 vs ATI Sm2.0b

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a nice read, too bad they didn't run and AA and AF tests.

seems that ATI has better "instancing" then nVidia and SM3.0...LMAO, even I can't believe that.

must do more research before I forget.

mica
 
Definitely a good read(for me anyway). According to that article, the x800's have the minimum number of instruction slots to qualify for SM3. If that's really the case, then it's pretty reasonable that given the right coding, the x800 cards would see a sizable performance increase equal or close to that of the 6800 cards.

I'm certainly no expert on the subject but I find the geometry instancing very interesting as well. Especially when they make this comment, "It is important to point out that ATI’s RADEON X800 XT and PRO graphics cards handle extreme geometry load better compared to NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800 Ultra and GT, which may mean that from this point ATI’s visual processing units have higher future-proof than NVIDIA’s latest graphics processing units do." I find this interesting considering the trend of the industry lately to more shader power and less pure geometry throughput, unless I'm missing something here? Definitely some interesting stuff here.
 
Steven4563 said:
well in the screenshots i couldnt notice any difference what so ever

but it was a nice read before work :D

before....look.


after....LOOK.


I do like the ATI pics better then the nVidia ones in SM3.0, too many BLACK trees in the SM3.0 shots.....BLACKNESS.

but that's just me... :-/

mica
 
This sums it up.
"Even though ATI considerably improved performance of the RADEON X800-series graphics cards in FarCry’s “Pure Mode”, NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800 Ultra still can claim performance leadership here, as in quite a lot of cases speed delivered by the GeForce 6800 Ultra is a bit higher compared to the rivalling RADEON X800 XT".
 
micamica1217 said:
before....look.


after....LOOK.


I do like the ATI pics better then the nVidia ones in SM3.0, too many BLACK trees in the SM3.0 shots.....BLACKNESS.

but that's just me... :-/

mica

Thats PS3 at work. If you look closely, that is the shadow cast from the clouds onto the trees <not kidding>
 
what i gathered from this review, the x800xt and 6800u are pretty close, with the x800xt beating the 6800u in the highly intensive levels. it again shows that the GT and Ultra are very close. the x800pro falls behind the 6800GT in most of the tests, with the minimum fps close in some of them. I will bet my left pinky that with AA and AF turned on, we will see the same results as we have always, the XT will murder the 6800U and GT, and the x800pro will win most and lose some to the 6800u and GT
 
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Sentential said:
Thats PS3 at work. If you look closely, that is the shadow cast from the clouds onto the trees <not kidding>
That doesn't make any sense, there are "dark" trees right in amongst the "light" trees, as well as there being no shadow on any of the other foliage nor the ground. Why would the ground be at normal brightness but a tree be dark?

I don't recall cloud shadows being part of this patch, nor HDR...
 
mica i still cant see any difference lol :Confused: i got to also agree toh the Nvidia Screenshot that mica should has nasty dark bits i was thinking about getting a 6800 with my A64 system after my holiday aswell :(
 
coldfusion71 said:
there is not any difference between the 2 cards, certain people claim to see a diffrence but they are only trying to justify thier purchase.
What are you talking about? Did you even look at the screenshots that were linked? There are these arbitrary trees scattered throughout the scene that look like they were spraypainted BLACK. It's not justification or rationalization, it's called OBSERVATION.

And in case anyone needs a dictionary to understand what observation means:
  • The act or faculty of observing.
  • The fact of being observed.
  • The act of noting and recording something, such as a phenomenon, with instruments.
  • The result or record of such notation: a meteorological observation.
  • A comment or remark. See Synonyms at comment.
  • An inference or a judgment that is acquired from or based on observing.

Just making sure I have all the bases covered for the flamebait reply :)
 
I'm almost wanting to get the fubared 1.2 patch from somewhere else, just to try out Geometry Instancing on my ATI X800XT. I don't like the look of the flat vegitation sprites in the distance; I already manually specify a much higher vegitation LOD ratio even though it hurts performance.
 
Sentential said:
Thats PS3 at work. If you look closely, that is the shadow cast from the clouds onto the trees <not kidding>

your kidding me right?

this patch is flawed in many ways.
I'm not suprised that the 6800 cards even get a large boost in framerate when SM3.0 is NOT used.
yet I'm still suprised the the ATI cards got up to a 20% performance decline with this patch, pre DX9.0b.



x800.png



with ONLY outside benchmarks tested, I have even heared that beside the fact that the 6800 cards may not render light sources from time to time, but the shadows are far harsher then ATI x800's...more jaggie.
the X-bit links are down for me, yet I have more IQ pics to show more on shadows.

now why should we see benchmarks INSIDE ???
because THAT'S were we will see the true performance of the cards, without being CPU limited...

LOOK.

Hopefully this will help clear up when peeps ask is my CPU limiting a 6800/X800. You notice that outside is very CPU limited and the fps hardly changes between the res. However inside, where alot of shaders are used, especially for the lighting, the GPU carrys alot of the FPS and there is a huge diff between the res.

some added reading, that shows more info on SM3.0 and farcry....look.


*mica puts on flamesuit, as he knows he'll be attacked far more them last nights scrim...lol*

mica
 
coldfusion71 said:
there is not any difference between the 2 cards, certain people claim to see a diffrence but they are only trying to justify thier purchase.

I guess your now ineligable to judge if nVidia's brilinear filtering is just as good or not, as trilinear filtering.


mica
 
more on shadows.....


ATI
radeon_shadows.jpg



nVidia
geforce_shadows.jpg



yeah, no IQ differance... :rolleyes:
if that's nVidia's "ultra shadowII" at work, then I don't want it.

mica
 
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