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GeForce FX Ultra no more?
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)
Posted by: taco_fox
From www.hardocp.com
 Quote:
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As we noted here Thursday, the GeForceFX 5800 Ultra will never make it to retail. Those of you that PreBuy the cards will still get an Ultra model with the FX Flow cooling unit. Those who don't will have the opportunity to get the non-Ultra version (500/800) off the retail shelves for a price of US$300.00 although the price is not confirmed.
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(The non-ultra version doesn't have the loud blower everyone was complaining about.)
Interesting.. this may further rumors of the next card coming out by June.
edit: The non-ultra speed was a typo by Kyle. It's supposed to be 400/800
Posted by: Bobaroo
Yea I heard about this. nvidia wanted to blow away ATI so they are just focusing on their new chip.
Posted by: SKYHN
Its a sad day when Tomshardware can influence so many people with their idiocy...
Posted by: uh...ok
Elaborate, Sky?
-uh...ok
Posted by: SKYHN
Tomshardware put out some soundfiles of the fans on the GFFX ultra and the Radeon 9700. It caused an uproar because the GFFX one sounded like a 747 Engine, when its not that. They over exagerated it by a big margin. Thats when all the bashing started, and its continue ever since. They think a reference board is a final finished product.
Then when gainward announces their GFFX ultra cooler puts out 7db of noise, everyone calls it BS and writes off the GFFX.
Posted by: tkron
Sounds like a law suit is in order.
Posted by: taco_fox
erm.. I don't know if you've heard, but Tom's isn't exactly liked by everyone. Other sites reviewed the card too. HardOCP rated the fan at 60dB without a soundfile, and people still had a fit. It is loud, there's no way around it. nVidia just needs time to develop better cooling methods (and a better chip..).
Posted by: uh...ok
It's just ridiculous how shallow people are these days - and these are just video cards. It's rather alarming to see many, many faithful nVidia buyers turn around and ridicule the company just for one "failed" product that hasn't even been released yet.
Do people have so much money that they can buy the newest video card everytime it comes out? I mean, besides that, I don't see why anyone should care about how much more FPS one new card can chuck out over another on Quake 3 (and old, OLD engine). Or how loud it is, for that matter.
Seems more like all those people are just sheep following the crowd led by people like TH.
-uh...ok
Posted by: taco_fox
/kick
Some of you probably could care less, but check out Chaintech's FX Ultra
http://www.rivastation.com/go_e.htm?
http://www.rivastation.com/news/news_de.htm
Screenshot of video card
I'm not a big fan of blue LEDs, but that looks pretty damn good. ...And only 30dB
Posted by: ZeRo_MaXwInG
This goes further to prove that reference boards are not an example of a finished product.
Posted by: uh...ok
GFX is gonna kick ass. 
Posted by: Digitalphatman
Quote:
Originally posted by uh...ok
GFX is gonna kick ass.
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Bah its gonna suck 
that chaintech card looks sweet, it would be nice if you had a window
Posted by: Bobaroo
Damn that card is hot. Too bad there won't be to many
Posted by: pakenney38
I'm still interested to see what sort of an uproar the GeForce FX makes either way. I'm not buying one, because I want to see the Ati R300s with DDR3. I'll probably go with that. To be honest, I haven't gotten the performance that I would have like to have seen from Nvidia products. And their cards have maybe four months of life before they are outdated. That sucks.
Posted by: Outlaw
Quote:
Originally posted by pakenney38
To be honest, I haven't gotten the performance that I would have like to have seen from Nvidia products. And their cards have maybe four months of life before they are outdated. That sucks.
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That's not true at all. I've had my Geforce 2 GTS for about 1,5 year now, and I can still play alot of the new games that come out if I put the details down. I agree that not all games run on it now (but the ones that don't run suck anyway  ), but it lasted me at least a year without any problems.
They're only outdated in 4 months if you constantly want to have the fastest thing available, which is a waste of money too if your old card still does the job.
Posted by: uh...ok
Maybe he went cheapo and got himself a GeForce MX.
-uh...ok
Posted by: redwench
only 2 ways you can say its outdated after 4 months. either youre buying everything as soon as it comes out, and you consider everything but the latest and bestest to be obsolete, OR you wait until its incredibly cheap to buy it.
Posted by: TotalRecall
Quote:
Originally posted by ZeRo_MaXwInG
This goes further to prove that reference boards are not an example of a finished product.
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Reference boards should be a reliable base for performance of a card. Manufacturers of the final cards can make a slight improvement, but you aren't going to see a massive speed jump.
These cards are a template and are a reliable idea of the final release. nVidia is a fault for releasing the card before it was ready or expecting hardware reviewers to ignore performance and focus on how pretty the card is.
Posted by: pakenney38
The machine I have now came with an original Geforce 3. At the time it was a darn good card, but I'm hooked on FPSes. The common FPS tends to be ahead of the graphics curve which is probably why I have an issue with Nvidia. To actually be honest, there are quite a few games I'm seeing developed out there for a certain piece of Nvidia hardware in mind. By the time the game actually ships however, we've gone through two iterations of video cards. To me, that's advancing the world of graphics faster than needs to be done. And that's what Nvidia is pushing. ATI, on the other hand, along with a handful of others, put a great product out there and stake the integrity of their company on the product. That's good, old-school business. So Nvidia doesn't get my vote, although I'm interested to see what direction they go in.
Posted by: redwench
ati puts out a great product? in spite of their notorious driver problems? the best hunk of plastic metal and silicon in the world wont help if it WONT WORK CORRECTLY.
Posted by: taco_fox
I've used nVidia since Riva TNT2. I never really had any bias. I just recently bought a Radeon 8500 (because it was cheap and I wanted an upgrade from my GF2), and I have to agree with redwench. Their drivers are a load of crap. Espically when it comes to OpenGL which I use every once in a while.
I haven't tried the 3.1 cats yet and I'm not sure I want to.. I hear from others that ATI has really improved their drivers, but they're still a long way from nVidia, in my opinion.
Posted by: pakenney38
I agree with the driver issues, but I can't say that there is really a use for OpenGL anymore. Not in games anyway. And that's really what these cards are - they're gaming cards. If you're doing design with OpenGL, then it's probably best to find a Quadro. In my humble opinion, ATI's driver performance on DirectX has been top notch since about halfway through the Rage 128's product life. I haven't heard any complaints about DirectX performance at all since the Radeons shipped with retail drivers. I did hear that some of the preliminary drivers were sketchy, but that's why they're preliminary.
I don't know, I think I'll stick with my first impression at this point and say that we need to back away from performance a bit and get a long-term card out there that developers can write for, and will still be around in two of Nvidia's product cycles. The GeForce FX is not going to be this product, and neither is the Ultra. I really doubt that even the successor to the GeForceFX will hold ground for more than six months before Nvidia tells the game developers, " Oh you've got seven months left on game XYZ? Well, we're releasing a new card in four."
Posted by: redwench
programmers dont usually write for the latest card anyway. theres a lot of people out there that still dont even have the equivalent of a gf2 yet, and thats a good 2 years old, if not 3.
Posted by: Null Actor
I don't know what crack you are on, but I've had a geforce 3 for nearly two years, and the *only* game that has been slow for me was unreal 2. And that's probably because I'm still running SDR ram in my main box, and my processor is an athlon, pre-xp.
Battlefield 1942, arguably one of the most graphics intensive games in ages, runs FINE on the two geforce 3 systems I use. And we aren't talking ti 600 or anything, we are talking about plain jane GeForce 3s.
Quote:
Originally posted by pakenney38
I agree with the driver issues, but I can't say that there is really a use for OpenGL anymore. Not in games anyway. And that's really what these cards are - they're gaming cards.
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See, now I know you are smoking something.
Check out this handy list of the top online games of the past few years:
Battlefield 1942
MoH: AA
UT2K3
Quake 3
America's Army
Neverwinter Nights
RtCW
SoF 2
UT
Tribes 2
Jedi Knight II
The ones in bold use Open GL. And I suppose games like Doom III (which will use open GL), and all the games made with the doom 3 engine, will be of no consequence?
You sir, are very very wrong. Open GL is still very much important for games.
Posted by: taco_fox
It's not like ATI's D3D is the best, either. When I was playing Half-Life I had to switch between D3D and OpenGL while playing because of problems with each. With D3D I couldn't see underwater and with OpenGL it looked like some objects' structures (I can't think of a name right now) were deformed and textures frequently had rips or deformities.
Weird. I never had these problems with my GeForce 2.
Posted by: uh...ok
Quote:
Originally posted by pakenney38
I don't know, I think I'll stick with my first impression at this point and say that we need to back away from performance a bit and get a long-term card out there that developers can write for, and will still be around in two of Nvidia's product cycles. The GeForce FX is not going to be this product, and neither is the Ultra. I really doubt that even the successor to the GeForceFX will hold ground for more than six months before Nvidia tells the game developers, " Oh you've got seven months left on game XYZ? Well, we're releasing a new card in four."
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I'd like to know how you are able to make that assertion. What exactly causes you to say that the GeForce FX is not going to be a long-term card? What information are you getting? Because I have read something that states exactly the opposite.
In the www.the-group.org forums I linked a thread from yet another forum I visit, which I'll take an excerpt from and put it up following this post. I'm not taking this post as gospel, but I have yet to see a comment on the new video cards as solid as this one.
Quote:
hostage writes:
We (kick ass game developers who know our shit) talked about this today at lunch. The geforceFX (we have one) has not been a disappointment at all. The benchmarks are bad examples. What the geforceFX was designed for was games with a lot of texture passes (real time lighting takes a lot of passes) and games using pixelshaders 2.0. Games that use PS 2.0 could/will look better on the geforceFX because ATI is still lacking basic features that Nvidia has provided us with a long time ago. GeforceFX was designed to use the directx 9 feature set to see the full potential of the card.
Any benchmarks you see with Quake 3 (along with many other games) are just stupid and out dated. The quake3 engine was written to render one triangle at a time as fast as it could (because this was all crappy 3dfx could do). This is just silly now days since you can send a whole lot of triangles down to the video card at once. This is known as batching or triangle strips. With the GeforceFx you can send 500k triangles down to the card every frame. I believe the target for the Geforce4 was 200k. That is a huge jump for games that are starting development and their base video card is a GeforceFX. So yes it will take a while to see how great the GeforceFX really is. One of the most important things for us is that it handles PS 2.0 really fast, which is great because there are so many great things you can do with PS 2.0. One example I saw was specular highlights in PS 1.0 had noticeable banding artifacts, in PS 2.0 the banding was gone and it looks perfect from what I could tell.
ATI does a good job with providing developers with useless tools, while Nvidia has done an awesome job with writing great tools that we use every day. Also CGfx is the shit.
And yes, the ATI drivers are still shitty, thank ATI for adding the useless trueform tech instead of fixing their drivers. Rock!
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Full thread can be found here .
-uh...ok
P.S. And as far as I know, a lot of games still use OpenGL. Those games that have D3D only usually get a lot of shit from game reviewers, not to mention gamers themselves.
Posted by: Null Actor
Not to mention that developers don't even pretend to start supporting new videocard features for at least a year after a card gets released. Actual use of new features usually takes almost two years.
Almost no games use pixel shaders yet, and they've been available for nearly two years. Why? Because game development is limited by the average gamer system. Average videocard right now is about GF2 level. Not GF3.
Posted by: pakenney38
OK! Please allow me to rephrase.
What this all really boils down to for me is UT 2003 and Dungeon Siege. Both run fine, but not well enough to be smooth. At the moment I'm using a Athlon 1.4 GHz system with 512MB of PC 2100, with a Geforce 3. This is what I think of as a middle of the road system now, but for the most part, I'm becoming very aware of the fact that it's no going to be too fit for Doom III - which is a must have in my opinion. I know I have to upgrade soon, but I have a few choices to make. First of all, an Athlon XP 2100+ is going in. It's the best proc I can use on this board. Then, I can either choose a Radeon 9700 Pro or a GeForce FX... or I can wait for the 9700 Pro that comes equipped with either DDR2 or DDR3. It's tricky, but with current benchmarks, and some of the bus issues on the GeForce FX that I've been reading about (relating to GPU/Memory communication), AND the fact that I believe the ATI cards are going to be able to pull off most of the things that the GeForce FX can graphically, my vote thus goes to some sort of ATI card - at this particular moment.
And if that isn't enough to make all of you understand, well then, I guess I'm just going to retire to my old school ways and let this debate pass. However - I'll be back once Nvidia falls.
By the way, when you quote something about "crappy" 3dfx, keep in mind that the GeForce FX probably would have been better AND on time (like one year ago) if 3dfx had not bit the dust - and Nvidia would have had nothing to do with it. Nvidia claims that this was mostly a joint collaboration between engineers from both companys, but I remember most of the things that 3dfx claimed Rampage would be able to do years ago - and the resemblance is striking. You can take that however you want to, but for me personally I think Nvidia advanced the business in the wrong direction - by making games look better instead of making games more fun to play. There was plenty of things developers could have done even with the TNT2 hardware that didn't really need to involve heavy graphics processing. It's a classic misconception that better looking games are actually going to be more fun. I'd rather see another new video card once a year rather than three times a year, and have developers make great playing average looking games rather than trying to push the graphics envelope constantly (regardless of how the gameplay turned out). More than likely, making a focus on technically pushing the envelope will take focus away from the gameplay for most developers.
A classic example (IMHO) is the Gran Turismo series on the Playstation consoles (and please don't give me the crap about how much the development process differs - we're at a state of convergence here). On Playstation 1, we had Gran Turismo 2 as the definitive driving game. On the new platform, we had Gran Turismo 3. I cannot express how dissapointed I was with GT3 after playing GT2. Sure, technically, GT3 was (almost) graphically flawless. However, GT3 controlled like a brick, and lacked used cars entirely, which was most of the appeal (at least in the USA).
So I have to ask, which would you rather see? A direction where gameplay gets most of the attention during development, or a direction where graphics get most of the attention? Well the former gives us consistently great games, and the latter gives us great looking showpieces that may or may not play worth a damn. I think Nvidia is looking at the latter route. I know - it's really their business to sell graphics hardware, but does it really hurt to sell the same platform for at least a year?
Posted by: Canis Lupus
Good discussion so far ... let's keep it clean  Keep the discussions focused on the product ...
Posted by: TotalRecall
Quote:
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You can take that however you want to, but for me personally I think Nvidia advanced the business in the wrong direction - by making games look better instead of making games more fun to play.
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I don't see how nVidia can be blamed for lack of interesting content. They only provide tools for developers. Impeding technology for "better games" is like slowing commercial jets down so people can get a better view of the ground.
Anyway, to try and keep this somewhat on topic, Gamers Depot asks if the card "is all that."
Posted by: taco_fox
Quote:
Originally posted by pakenney38
By the way, when you quote something about "crappy" 3dfx, keep in mind that the GeForce FX probably would have been better AND on time (like one year ago) if 3dfx had not bit the dust - and Nvidia would have had nothing to do with it. Nvidia claims that this was mostly a joint collaboration between engineers from both companys, but I remember most of the things that 3dfx claimed Rampage would be able to do years ago - and the resemblance is striking. You can take that however you want to, but for me personally I think Nvidia advanced the business in the wrong direction - by making games look better instead of making games more fun to play. There was plenty of things developers could have done even with the TNT2 hardware that didn't really need to involve heavy graphics processing. It's a classic misconception that better looking games are actually going to be more fun. I'd rather see another new video card once a year rather than three times a year, and have developers make great playing average looking games rather than trying to push the graphics envelope constantly (regardless of how the gameplay turned out). More than likely, making a focus on technically pushing the envelope will take focus away from the gameplay for most developers.
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Sorry, but I don't 'get' this whole paragraph. I don't see how 3DFX and nVidia could have a joint project when 3Dfx isn't even a company anymore. Yes, nVidia bought some engineers and intellectual property, but could you explain to me how this would be considered a joint project and how it would be a reason for the FX to fail?
Also, like TR said, how is nVidia (or any other card maker) responsible for how developers make games?
Please elaborate.
Posted by: Null Actor
Quote:
Originally posted by pakenney38
You can take that however you want to, but for me personally I think Nvidia advanced the business in the wrong direction - by making games look better instead of making games more fun to play.
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Durrr.... Please, tell me how nvidia controls in any fashion how fun a game is. Last I checked, they had no input in the creative process of a game whatsoever.
Quote:
Originally posted by pakenney38
There was plenty of things developers could have done even with the TNT2 hardware that didn't really need to involve heavy graphics processing.
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Huh? You are going to have to elaborate on this one, because last I checked, videocards ONLY handled graphics processing. So what are these 'plenty of things' we could have done that didn't involve graphics processing? All the TNT could do was render textured and colored triangles. Doesn't get any more basic than that.
Quote:
Originally posted by pakenney38
It's a classic misconception that better looking games are actually going to be more fun. I'd rather see another new video card once a year rather than three times a year, and have developers make great playing average looking games rather than trying to push the graphics envelope constantly (regardless of how the gameplay turned out). More than likely, making a focus on technically pushing the envelope will take focus away from the gameplay for most developers.
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There are about two developers that try and push the graphics envelope. id, and Epic. No one else bothers. Other people just makes their games, and don't really care about graphics cards. And actually, I take that back. Epic doesn't even push the envelope. The new unreal tournament 2003 engine doesn't use any non geforce1 features. Please, tell me how it's pushing the envelope to use features of a 3 year old videocard.
Quote:
Originally posted by pakenney38
So I have to ask, which would you rather see? A direction where gameplay gets most of the attention during development, or a direction where graphics get most of the attention? Well the former gives us consistently great games, and the latter gives us great looking showpieces that may or may not play worth a damn. I think Nvidia is looking at the latter route. I know - it's really their business to sell graphics hardware, but does it really hurt to sell the same platform for at least a year?
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Of course, people would rather see gameplay. What I don't see is how NVidia supposedly controls the distinction. I've never seen an nvidia guy running around the office telling us what to do.
Posted by: redwench
i now have a very interesting image in my head thanks to that last line nova.
Posted by: pakenney38
OK - To answer a "few" questions:
I consider the GeForce FX to be a "joint" project because the ideas behind most of the technology involved were created by 3dfx before they were purchased. I don't consider a purchase of that technology to make it anything less than a joint project. It's just in how you look at it. And, of course, I was once a 3dfx fanboy. Heh, heh.
As far as the creative process goes, I think Nvidia has some limited input into some of the more high profile developments. Nvidia doesn't make games themselves, so they have to rely on other companies to create showcases for their product (but not ALL developers). I hope that explains something. It basically just boils down to corporate politics and market share, which is evident in pretty much any industry. But in the graphics hardware industry, games cannot survive with graphics hardware, and *most* graphics hardware cannot survive without games.
I would consider Id and Epic to be pushing the envelope. I wouldn't recommend running UT 2003 on a GeForce 1 either, unless you're backing that hardware with other, very cutting edge hardware.
I also consider pushing massive amounts of geometry and lighting to be pushing the envelope. With that said, I would also consider Gas Powered Games, Bioware and Blizarrd to be pushing the envelope with their 3D products- and that's basically because it takes some decent hardware to make their games run consistently well. And it doesn't hurt to see all of the bells and whistles in these games either. It's not horribly neccessary - but why include certain graphics features if you don't want it to be seen?
I get the sense that most of the comments made here are done with development in mind. That's cool since many of you ARE developers, but for those who do not develop games, like me, I think it's important to look at the situation from the casual gamer's perspective. That raises a lot of questions - I do realize that. I'll try to keep it (sorry about that Canis - you know I get carried away). I will also try to answer all the questions I can because I'm sure developers like to get all the feedback they can. I'm proud to support development in any way I can, but I'm also watching the wallets of myself and everyone else out there who sees the end result. I'm also here to learn. So if there is something I'm missing about the GeForce FX, and it seems that there is more potential for the card that what I'm informed of, please clarify. I love this stuff.
Posted by: Null Actor
I think you are confusing 'pushing the envelope' with 'poor programming'.
How do you associate making games with massive poly counts with nvidia trying to influence people? Any new videocard will push lots of polies.
Also, trust me on this one, nvidia has no control or influence on the creative development of a project. None. What nvidia will do, however, is offer to optimize render code, or aid in doing so. This has nothing to do with what the game is, how it's played, or how fun it is.
Corporate politics and market share have little to do with most high profile games, since most high profile PC developers are privately - not publicly - owned.
Posted by: pakenney38
Why did Nvidia get Epic and others together to run their games on GeForce FX hardware during their big product conference? That sounds like politics. It sounds like a form of endorsement for both parties. Why does Nvidia promote various game titles at their website? ATI doesn't do that. I think Nvidia wants people to see the games that they endorse. I don't know. Maybe now that I've re-worded this, I won't sound like such a jerk.
My point was never that Nvidia controlled the creative process. Only that they would endorse (and promote) anything that showcases their product. To me, that gives the developer an extra incentive to produce code that takes advantage of Nvidia hardware - or from the developer's train of thought - Nvidia hardware extensions to various interfaces. That may sound like an optimization to some people, but to me it sounds like a part of Nvidia's total product.
Posted by: Null Actor
DirectX knows nothing of developer specific extensions.
And endorsement have zero to do with the development process or creation of the game. It's a great way to get free hardware for the devs, and that's about it. If it is marketing, it's nvidia's marketing. And they aren't the only one to do it. 3dfx, who's logo you wear so proudly, was one of the WORST when it came to slapping their logo on everything to endorse it. So why is it so bad when nvidia does it? Huh?
Posted by: uh...ok
When Starsiege: Tribes came out, the only computers that could run it was anything that had a 3dfx card (Glide-only support). Only in the later patches did they add OpenGL support.
Of course Tribes had great gameplay (and I'd argue the best for an FPS), but it was a pretty game for its time.
-uh...ok
Posted by: Null Actor
Quote:
Originally posted by uh...ok
Of course Tribes had great gameplay (and I'd argue the best for an FPS)
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I was entirely of that opinion until BF1942.
Posted by: uh...ok
Quote:
Originally posted by Null Actor
I was entirely of that opinion until BF1942.
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It's THAT good, eh? *considers buying*
*considers his health and grades*
Anyways, we diverge.
-uh...ok
Posted by: GeForce_4_
It's THAT good, eh? *considers buying*
*considers his health and grades*
Anyways, we diverge.
-uh...ok
I've even thought about that , can FPS like counter-strike and Half-life affect grades and health?
I'm 13 and I play lots of Counter-strike.......
Posted by: uh...ok
Quote:
Originally posted by GeForce_4_
I've even thought about that , can FPS like counter-strike and Half-life affect grades and health?
I'm 13 and I play lots of Counter-strike.......
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I meant games in health as in time to do homework and sleep. Video games, when done in moderation and with other priorities sorted out, don't really harm you. At least we believe that.
But this is the wrong thread for such a topic.
-uh...ok
Posted by: pakenney38
Quote:
Originally posted by Null Actor
3dfx, who's logo you wear so proudly, was one of the WORST when it came to slapping their logo on everything to endorse it. So why is it so bad when nvidia does it? Huh?
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Nostalgia... and I knew what my platform was. I knew that if I saw the word "Glide" on the gamebox along with the name of a chipset or even a 3dfx logo, I had more of a chance - in those days - of running the game than if the box said Direct X or OpenGL. It was really hard back then to find a card that would run everything. I'm talking about like mid-Voodoo 2 timeframe. That wasn't just a seal of approval... it was a mark of compatibility. I generally like to see a platform stick around for awhile that ensures compatibility. It's much more fun to play a plug-and-play game than it is to play a plug-and-tweak-then-play game.
All this talk makes me want to dig out Quake II.
Posted by: Null Actor
If you are pro compatability you should be pro-nvidia, since their cards are the only ones to run reliably in all games nowadays.
Posted by: pakenney38
Quote:
Originally posted by Null Actor
If you are pro compatability you should be pro-nvidia, since their cards are the only ones to run reliably in all games nowadays.
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Good point.
I hate to say this after all this crap I've unloaded into this topic, but I am interested to see whether the "death of GeForce FX Ultra" rumors are true or not. I think time will tell what the card will be capable of... and it will also be interesting to see if it brings back loving thoughts of those wonderful 3dfx days. Actually, if it gets UT 2003 over 60 fps, that will be good enough for me. For some reason, the slower frame rates tend to feel unnatural to me for that type of game and it diverts my interest.
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