[OT] X1800XT - Woof, what a card!
Pistol Whipped
Beats the nVidia 7800 GTX hands down. Completely redesigned core,
processors, memory access. The test specs match if on the 7800 GTX you
turn OFF all AA and AF, but turn them ON in the X1800XT ... quite an
advantage!
And if that isn't enough, its apparently designed to make an excellent
stand alone central processing unit (GPGPU they call them).
Wonder what two of these babies will do with ATI's version of SLI?
Hmmmm... :)
---
PW
McGrandpa
"Pistol Whipped" <pwhi...@NOtampabaySPAM.rr.com> wrote in message
news:aCn1f.1716$ae....@tornado.tampabay.rr.com...
hey, I'm still a bit reluctant to get into PCI-e stuff yet. I'm sure
sometime i'm gonna have to do it. But not looking at another mobo till next
year.
I really do wanna get some more use out of this 6800GT AGP card!!!! And a
uLI chipset is out, they're not very mature and pretty buggy still :(
McG.
Pistol Whipped
about 10/07/2005 07:19 AM, and I could have sworn it said ...
You've still got a month or so to mull it over! ;)
I'm mostly just surprised that its taken the card companies this long to
realize that consistent throughput (i.e. highly parallel processing) is
what is going to make graphics fast and smooth. Fast and smooth means
high detail with natural motion and you just can argue that reality
necessitates both of those to look convincing.
Not to mention that high parallel processing is, by its very nature,
scalable and therefore cost effective at every performance level.
Hell, Evans and Sutherland were harping on throughput in every one out
of ten pages in their book over twenty years ago! One of the first
things they discovered was the necessity for parallel channels of video
in their flight simulators (the real thing).
---
PW
McGrandpa
> In the dead of night, a faint whisper from McGrandpa was heard, at about
> 10/07/2005 07:19 AM, and I could have sworn it said ...
>> "Pistol Whipped" <pwhi...@NOtampabaySPAM.rr.com> wrote in message
>> news:aCn1f.1716$ae....@tornado.tampabay.rr.com...
>>
>>>I sure hope Legends doesn't demand this kind of power!
>>>
>>>Beats the nVidia 7800 GTX hands down. Completely redesigned core,
>>>processors, memory access. The test specs match if on the 7800 GTX you
>>>turn OFF all AA and AF, but turn them ON in the X1800XT ... quite an
>>>advantage!
>>>
>>>And if that isn't enough, its apparently designed to make an excellent
>>>stand alone central processing unit (GPGPU they call them).
>>>
>>>Wonder what two of these babies will do with ATI's version of SLI?
>>>Hmmmm... :)
>>>
>>>---
>>>PW
>>
>> Crossfire? Got to get yet another mobo for that? Looks interesting.
>> but hey, I'm still a bit reluctant to get into PCI-e stuff yet. I'm sure
>> sometime i'm gonna have to do it. But not looking at another mobo till
>> next year.
>> I really do wanna get some more use out of this 6800GT AGP card!!!! And
>> a uLI chipset is out, they're not very mature and pretty buggy still :(
>>
>> McG.
>
> You've still got a month or so to mull it over! ;)
Well, not wanting to be wasteful; I'll get a cheaper A64 single core
processor to go with this motherboard when I do get a S939 PCI-e mobo and
some more ram. That will build out a full rig using this mobo and the
6800GT but let me put the X2 4800+ in the newer mobo along with a PCI-e vid
card. Hell, I'll be building a new rig for less than half what I spent on
this kit!!! That X2 really knocked a hole in the wallet man :) ANYway...
>
> I'm mostly just surprised that its taken the card companies this long to
> realize that consistent throughput (i.e. highly parallel processing) is
> what is going to make graphics fast and smooth. Fast and smooth means
> high detail with natural motion and you just can argue that reality
> necessitates both of those to look convincing.
The GPU designers HAVE been going this way as much as their designs allow,
considering the demands that go WITH 'reality processing'. First, they've
had to get their overall bandwidth up. They've run into brick walls with
core and memory clockspeeds so have had to implement other forms of parallel
processing just to keep framerates up to the needs of higher standard gaming
resolutions and 32 bit depth for everything. So, now we are seeing the GPU
makers just barely able to start branching into further areas of parallel
processing like the world physics of what is being viewed, to unload the CPU
somewhat and keep all this activity in one board to minimize latency. Look
at what all we DO have now. Per pixel shading/lighting and transforms.
Particle systems. Texture systems, onboard active mesh dynamics. All of
this is stuff that's being called different names, but it's still work that
was being called necessary 20 years ago that is now just being done. Just
like you said. BUT, it's being done in ways that they just couldn't imagine
20 years ago. These pipelines for instance, and 'texel units', are all
being grown into independant sub-processors! And ATI and Nvidia are busy
doing their best to implement 64 pipes as fast as they can and each with as
much independance as possible. Fully programmable units. Pipes that are
more powerful than the TnT concept entirely. The whole thing of pipes IS
parallel processing :) While it's a bit rudimentary now, it's definitely
getting there. Now, top that off with multiple GPU cores in a single chip.
Now we're getting somewhere :)
>
> Not to mention that high parallel processing is, by its very nature,
> scalable and therefore cost effective at every performance level.
Yes.
>
> Hell, Evans and Sutherland were harping on throughput in every one out of
> ten pages in their book over twenty years ago! One of the first things
> they discovered was the necessity for parallel channels of video in their
> flight simulators (the real thing).
yep, and the sim designers will be taking full advantage of all the graphics
power they can get their greedy li'l mitts on! :o)) IL2+AEP+PF merged
install takes more horsepower to run with ALL the goodies on than Riddick
EFBB does. That game hits my rig harder than Doom3 does! HL2? Nah, it's a
dream to run. It was VERY well thought out and coded. It shows tradeoffs,
and left out some of the more difficult candy in favor of keeping fr's up
with heavy traffic in multiplayer. This was VERY well done. you and I
ought to get together in an HL2 dM or co-op match :)
McG.
>
> ---
> PW
Pistol Whipped
<brevity snip>
>
> The GPU designers HAVE been going this way as much as their designs allow,
> considering the demands that go WITH 'reality processing'. First, they've
> had to get their overall bandwidth up. They've run into brick walls with
> core and memory clockspeeds so have had to implement other forms of parallel
> processing just to keep framerates up to the needs of higher standard gaming
> resolutions and 32 bit depth for everything. So, now we are seeing the GPU
> makers just barely able to start branching into further areas of parallel
> processing like the world physics of what is being viewed, to unload the CPU
> somewhat and keep all this activity in one board to minimize latency. Look
> at what all we DO have now. Per pixel shading/lighting and transforms.
> Particle systems. Texture systems, onboard active mesh dynamics. All of
> this is stuff that's being called different names, but it's still work that
> was being called necessary 20 years ago that is now just being done. Just
> like you said. BUT, it's being done in ways that they just couldn't imagine
> 20 years ago. These pipelines for instance, and 'texel units', are all
> being grown into independant sub-processors! And ATI and Nvidia are busy
> doing their best to implement 64 pipes as fast as they can and each with as
> much independance as possible. Fully programmable units. Pipes that are
> more powerful than the TnT concept entirely. The whole thing of pipes IS
> parallel processing :) While it's a bit rudimentary now, it's definitely
> getting there. Now, top that off with multiple GPU cores in a single chip.
> Now we're getting somewhere :)
>
And to think they had most of this stuff 20-30 years ago ... Of course
there was the little problem of it taking up a football field and
costing 10's of millions of dollars ... but hey!
>
>>Not to mention that high parallel processing is, by its very nature,
>>scalable and therefore cost effective at every performance level.
>
>
> Yes.
>
>>Hell, Evans and Sutherland were harping on throughput in every one out of
>>ten pages in their book over twenty years ago! One of the first things
>>they discovered was the necessity for parallel channels of video in their
>>flight simulators (the real thing).
>
>
> yep, and the sim designers will be taking full advantage of all the graphics
> power they can get their greedy li'l mitts on! :o)) IL2+AEP+PF merged
> install takes more horsepower to run with ALL the goodies on than Riddick
> EFBB does. That game hits my rig harder than Doom3 does! HL2? Nah, it's a
> dream to run. It was VERY well thought out and coded. It shows tradeoffs,
> and left out some of the more difficult candy in favor of keeping fr's up
> with heavy traffic in multiplayer. This was VERY well done. you and I
> ought to get together in an HL2 dM or co-op match :)
> McG.
>
That'd be no fun. You'd stomp me into the ground ... I've never played
Half-Life, not to mention HL2.
---
PW
McGrandpa
Never played Half-Life. The game spawned a genre, and you've never played
it. Hm. You should. Really. I've seen 'speed run' recorded demos where
it's been played in its entirety in less than one hour. But your first time
through it you'll likely spend a week at it :) Your second time, a weekend.
If you're *really* good at it, that is! It's story driven, yes, on rails
if you will. That's what story is about, after all. But it's pretty good
story. And when you're done, then play Half-Life 2 and learn what really
makes zombies tick! It is not a 'twitch' shooter. Though you do have to
fight. There are those of us who have tried to run the game without
killing, and damn near succeeded. Specific kills are necessary to complete
the game. But you probably won't mind.
Playing either hl or hl2 in co-op would be fun. especially with voice coms
on :) "no PW, go THIS way, yes, like that.... hey, you crouch-jump by
hitting SPACE first, then quickly hitting C... psssst, use some stealth
here, and switch to the crossbow!" Oh yes, this is the game where I learned
to Love the crossbow :o))) "Pw, draw your .357 and get a headshot on that
zombie!" Great single player game :)
McG.
Pistol Whipped
Well... I *am* running short of games to play until ... oh ... spring of
2006. Maybe I'll pick it up next time I see it.
Never have been much for the zombie/creature FPSs. That kind of
visualization, I don't really need. There tends to be so much blood and
gore in the demos that I have played. Even the F.E.A.R demo I just
recently went through.
When it comes to "shoot-em ups", I prefer the tongue-in-cheek variety to
the tongue-on-ground variety (like NOLF and the old Duke Nukem 3D,
although the latter is starting to take itself seriously).
---
PW
---
PW
McGrandpa
and install it without running or installing Steam. I picked up one of
those for $9.99 at wallyworld i think. If you decide you want hl2, then you
will do Steam. No two ways about it. If you have broadband, then you can
buy it online. BUT, it's cheaper in the stores right now. $19.99 at Best
Buy. $49 thru Steam :-[
If you do get the old HL, then you will need the 1.1.1.0 patch. It is the
latest pre-steam patch you can get. And it will patch from ver 1.0 on.
This will do for the single player game or LAN only. if you want to hit the
internet with it, then you have to go steam.
Steam does not put itself in your system registry either. At all. Steam is
free, the games aren't :) Steam is content delivery and management. It's
the internet gate way for the games it covers.
on a side note, i learned something about the copy protection that you and
DB stumbled into with PoP:SoT last year. It's evil! It does (and probably
ruined db's dvdrw!) things to your system, and it doesn't even tell you it's
being installed or what it does.]
McG.
Pistol Whipped
Thanks for the low-down. That should save me some frustration.
> on a side note, i learned something about the copy protection that you and
> DB stumbled into with PoP:SoT last year. It's evil! It does (and probably
> ruined db's dvdrw!) things to your system, and it doesn't even tell you it's
> being installed or what it does.]
> McG.
>
>
Good thing I don't run that system anymore! ;)
Actually, there are only two things I could think that software could do
to "ruin" a DVD.
(a) exercise some function which intentionally pushes the hardware
beyond its capability. Which, if the maker is at all careful, should
not be possible.
(b) It overwrites part of the PROM.
Good thing I burned the latest PROM upgrade when I moved it to the new
machine! :)
---
PW
McGrandpa
"Pistol Whipped"
snippage major
> Good thing I don't run that system anymore! ;)
>
> Actually, there are only two things I could think that software could do
> to "ruin" a DVD.
> (a) exercise some function which intentionally pushes the hardware beyond
> its capability. Which, if the maker is at all careful, should not be
> possible.
> (b) It overwrites part of the PROM.
>
> Good thing I burned the latest PROM upgrade when I moved it to the new
> machine! :)
>
> ---
> PW
A jumble of characters filled in with question marks for the unit ID in
device manager. I've seen that myself on a Phillips drive I had. Not so
far back either. Yep, if I can dl and run a flash utility I'm sure that
professional coders can do something dirty with just a few bytes. Ubisoft
is using dirty stuff. But so are the people who published American McGee's
Alice and Scrapland.
have a look here:
http://www.similarities.org/starforce.html
I've never had any of these games installed. But I've had a number of games
that use safedisc. Safedisc will disable software, drivers, even some
hardware it deems 'dangerous'.
McG.
Pistol Whipped
I'll have to keep an eye open for problems, 'cause I've had Syberia II
on my (old) machine as well as PoP:SoT.
Thanks.
---
PW