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OT: Eye-candy demos

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Ped Xing

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May 9, 2008, 8:09:05 AM5/9/08
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I remember "back in the day" as new 3D hardware came out there would be
cool graphic demos to show off the new features and serve as eye candy.
Sometimes these were put together by the company making the card like
NVIDIA, and sometimes by others. Anyway, my question is, does anyone still
do this?

I have 3DMark 03 and 05. I see that they released a new one called
Vantage, but that requires Vista which I don't run.

Any suggestions? I know that games can serve this purpose but I'm looking
for something primarily non-interactive.

Thanks.

--
Ped Xing

Shawk

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May 9, 2008, 1:21:47 PM5/9/08
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NVidia certainly did it up to the 8800 Ultra but nothing yet for the
9xxx series

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_nvidia.html

ATI still do them too but have never turned out as many as NVidia

http://ati.amd.com/developer/demos.html

HTH

noman

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May 9, 2008, 1:27:53 PM5/9/08
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On Fri, 09 May 2008 12:09:05 GMT, Ped Xing <ped...@lycos.com> wrote:

>
>Any suggestions? I know that games can serve this purpose but I'm looking
>for something primarily non-interactive.

nVidia and ATI still make graphic demos. Check out "Toy Shop" from ATI
if you haven't done so. "Pipe Dreams" - an older DX9 demo from ATI, is
also worth downloading.

Of course the latest DX10 demos from both manufacturers require a DX10
card and Vista.
--
Noman

Shawk

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May 9, 2008, 1:39:20 PM5/9/08
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noman wrote:
> On Fri, 09 May 2008 12:09:05 GMT, Ped Xing <ped...@lycos.com> wrote:
>
>> Any suggestions? I know that games can serve this purpose but I'm looking
>> for something primarily non-interactive.
>
> nVidia and ATI still make graphic demos. Check out "Toy Shop" from ATI
> if you haven't done so. "Pipe Dreams" - an older DX9 demo from ATI, is
> also worth downloading.


Hmm, I used to love pipe dreams. Might have to d-load that one again...

Ped Xing

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May 10, 2008, 5:09:22 AM5/10/08
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noman <no_...@zzzyahoo.yycom> wrote in
news:6s19249487iqurnnh...@4ax.com:

> nVidia and ATI still make graphic demos. Check out "Toy Shop" from ATI
> if you haven't done so. "Pipe Dreams" - an older DX9 demo from ATI, is
> also worth downloading.
>
> Of course the latest DX10 demos from both manufacturers require a DX10
> card and Vista.
> --
> Noman


Thanks Noman and Shawk! But yeah, it seems these new ones need Vista.
Well, now that the service pack is out maybe it's time to move on. Do you
guys know how Vista compares to XP with gaming performance these days?

--
Ped Xing

Shawk

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May 10, 2008, 9:19:18 AM5/10/08
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I am dual-booting XP Pro and 32 bit Vista Home Premium. TBH I didn't
expect much of Vista but with SP1 it's fine and I quite like it now.

Sometimes I 'think' Crysis is running a few frames less than on XP but
it's maybe perception thing. I haven't measured it. All other games
are running as well as they did under XP, even with the additional DX10
effects.

I have a Dual Core 2 Duo E6600, 8800GTS 512MB, 2 Gig Ram.

I bought the £60 OEM version of Vista just to trial it. Might be worth
doing the same?

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Software/Operating+Systems/Microsoft+Windows+Vista+Home+Premium+32bit++OEM+?productId=25905

Ped Xing

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May 12, 2008, 10:09:09 PM5/12/08
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Shawk <sh...@clara.co.uk.3guesses> wrote in
news:OKadnZ0Im6NFPbjV...@bt.com:

> I am dual-booting XP Pro and 32 bit Vista Home Premium. TBH I didn't
> expect much of Vista but with SP1 it's fine and I quite like it now.
>
> Sometimes I 'think' Crysis is running a few frames less than on XP but
> it's maybe perception thing. I haven't measured it. All other games
> are running as well as they did under XP, even with the additional
> DX10 effects.

I ordered an OEM copy and am going to try it out. Also just read this link
so it seems there's no reason for concern:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2303830,00.asp

--
Ped Xing

Frank

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May 13, 2008, 1:42:14 PM5/13/08
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haven´t games become pricey eye-candy demos?

(scnr)

bye


frank

http://tvc15.blogs.com/


Shawk

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May 13, 2008, 2:19:33 PM5/13/08
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Interesting article and my experience certainly coincides with it.
Thanks for that. Enjoy Vista.

noman

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May 14, 2008, 2:49:47 PM5/14/08
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On Tue, 13 May 2008 02:09:09 GMT, Ped Xing <ped...@lycos.com> wrote:

[about Vista]


>
>I ordered an OEM copy and am going to try it out. Also just read this link
>so it seems there's no reason for concern:
>
>http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2303830,00.asp

That has been the case since the end of last year, when Microsoft
released several hotfixes to improve gaming performance and the
graphic chip vendors came out with better drivers.

Vista pretty much runs games (DX9) at the same frame rates as XP. You
get the added advantage of running DX10 games.

The only problem still there is that the nVidia SLI setup on Vista at
times underperform compared to XP. ATI crossfire support fares better.
This may have changed with the latest nVidia official WHQL drivers
(175.16) which just came out. For single GPU (or ATI) users, there
really isn't any drawback gaming-wise going to Vista.

Now that I have gotten used to Aero (tearing-free desktop among other
things), system stability / alt-tabbing that works almost always etc,
using XP seems very limiting.
--
Noman

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