Vigile writes "Few people will doubt that PC gaming is in need of a significant shot in the arm with the consistent encroachment of consoles and their dominating hold on developers. Today AMD is releasing the Radeon HD 5870 graphics card based on the Evergreen-series of GPUs first demonstrated in June. Besides offering best-in-class performance for a single-GPU graphics board, the new card is easily the most power efficient in terms of idle power consumption and performance per watt. Not only that, but AMD has introduced new features that could help keep PC gaming in the spotlight, including the first DirectX 11 implementation and a very impressive multi-monitor gaming technology, Eyefinity, which we discussed earlier this month. The review at PC Perspective includes the full gamut of gaming benchmarks in both single- and dual-GPU configurations as well as videos of Eyefinity running on three 30" displays."
Time to move up from 1280x1024 displays finally? My hardrive size and processor speeds have gone up 10x in the last 10 years. My screen resolution is unchanged. I think for games, doubling pixel density would be more than noticeable. From their screen sizes could increase 15~21inch standard over 15 years is a pretty sad change for the computer industry.
Time to move up from 1280x1024 displays finally? My hardrive size and processor speeds have gone up 10x in the last 10 years. My screen resolution is unchanged.
As are your eyes. Beyond a certain point, FSAA will increase perceived quality as much as higher DPI.
I think for games, doubling pixel density would be more than noticeable.
Supporting ClearType style subpixel rendering in your FSAA might help too. But the big problem with doubling pixel density is that so many Windows applications other than games are hardcoded for 96 dpi, ignoring Display Properties > Settings > Advanced > General > DPI setting.
15~21inch standard over 15 years is a pretty sad change for the computer industry.
For one thing, desks haven't gotten much bigger. For another, after a certain point, the amount of glass and other materials in a display outweighs the number of pixels in determining price. I went to Walmart* and saw a 32" 720p class Vizio TV for $399 and an otherwise identical 1080p TV for $499. Compare that to the price difference between 32" vs. 42" TVs.
My thinkpad has 1920x1200 on a 15" screen, so they exist. You might want to get the 75% more pixels before you complain. Honestly though, the biggest difference in gaming is what's *in* the pixels. Pretty important too, and todays games render in SPF (seconds per frame) instead of FPS on ten year old graphics cards. Or rather on your CPU, because it's doing all emulation in software. 1920x1200 is same resolution as a BluRay which is pretty damn good, if my games looked like that I'd be extremely impressed.
WHY THE FUCK DON'T LAPTOPS COME WITH BETTER RESOLUTION?
Probably just penny pinching to get the sticker price down. But perhaps you've been looking at the wrong laptops. Those in most stores have crappy resolutions, even with large displays. I just hate when they say 18" widescreen LCD, without saying how many pixels. As like as not, it's just 1440x800 or something equally pathetic, but you might have to corner a sales droid to find out.
At home, I've got a 6-year-old laptop, with a 17" WUXGA (1920x1200) display. Since I got it, I'm unwilling to accept any less.
Check out Dell Precisions, Thinkpads, HP EliteBooks... just a few that offer WUXGA @ 15.4".
Personally, I'm not sure if WUXGA might not be cutting it a little too closely. I'm on WSXGA+ (1680x1050) @ 15.4" right now, and I couldn't be happier.
I would much much prefer 2 960 x 1200 monitors to a 1920 x 1200 wide screen, It just helps me group stuff better.
Then get a window manager that will do that for you. All versions of Windows since Windows 95 can do it: control-click on several windows in the title bar, right-click one of them, and choose "Tile Horizontally".
Reading the PC perspective reviews and a couple of others the 5870 seems to be a bit faster than the GTX285 but not by much, and certainly not by a margin one would expect from a new generation of parts vs old.
Admittedly this is all DX9/10 stuff, and there's probably a lot of the transistor budget allocated to new DX11 features but I would have expected ATI's latest offering to have utterly destroyed NVIDIA's last gen part. The GTX 295 is really 2 gpus so it's not really a fair comparison.
I have to amend this. I hadn't looked at http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5870-review-test/ reviews, which seem to have a different selection of games and paint the 5870 in a better light than the pc perspective article. The PCper article I got the impression teh GTX285 was in some cases faster and only 10-15% slower than the 5870 in most cases, the GURU3D test has a more noticeable 25% or thereabout performance boost for the 5870. Better, but not stunning. I would have still expected a 50% or so
...I really with they'd come out with decent Linux support. I mean, come on guys, 1280x1024@75Hz is the max screen size you can do with fglrx in your driver?
...I really with they'd come out with decent Linux support. I mean, come on guys, 1280x1024@75Hz is the max screen size you can do with fglrx in your driver?
Would you even begin to contemplate a 20% to 30% increase in R&D expenditure to address what is effectively a non-existent market?
We have a severe chicken and egg problem here. Until games support linux directly the market will stay small. That won't happen if the drivers suck, nobody will put money into better drivers if there is not market.
There is a defacto standard that works relatively well (and keeps getting better) until that changes gaming on linux is king of screwed. But don't go blaming the
And today, they're running OpenGL 1.4 and lots of games work great (OpenArena, Nexuiz, Doom3), and waiting for Gallium3D to change the X acceleration architecture so they can get GLSL and such going. Check the Phoronix forums [phoronix.com] for the current state of affairs. Things change fast in open-source land.
Took the industry long enough to deliver a great 3D perforance and 3 monitor outputs on one card*. If the Linux support is on par with nVidia's support, I look forward to replacing my current nVidia dualhead card and Matrox Dualhead2go box with one of these beauties. Especially since the Dualhead2go "Digital" edition uses an analog VGA input and I can see some faint ghosting on text/sharp lines.
* I know that Matrox had the Parhelia line of 3 monitor cards, but the 3D performance was sadly lacking in those
The summary misses the point of why consoles are gaining so much ground in the gaming world. The main reason consoles are so popular is because the hardware never changes. Most people (like myself) don't want to have to go out and buy the latest and greatest graphics card to run a new game. With an XBOX 360 or PS3 I know that if I buy a title for that platform, it will work. Yes, there are certain exceptions like hard drive requirements, etc., but for the most part it is true. The stability also allows developers to get the most out of the hardware, and generally by the end of a consoles life expectancy, the games are getting very, very good.
There will probably always be a market for the hardcore gamers, but the average, casual gamer would rather play an XBOX 360 at 720P on their big screen than play at double the resolution on a screen a quarter the size.
It's cyclical. When the consoles first come out they look good. But for how long? At some point PC tools and PC hardware make consoles look antiquated. This new hardware is 4 generations later than console hardware, but some of those generations were more die shrinks than anything consumers care about. For the moment we're fluttering around equal quality between PC and consoles, the race to the bottom in PC prices and hardware has meant that trying to make a decent PC only game which both takes advanta
Graphic cards have TV-Out (first S-Video, now HDMI) since what, 2000?
I see two kinds of PC cases at Best Buy: slimline and mid-tower. Mid-towers look out of place next to a TV. Slimline PCs look better, more like an Xbox 360 or an old PS3, but they typically don't come with a graphic card. Instead, they tend to have Intel's Voodoo3-class GMA chipset on the motherboard because they're designed for web and office apps.
The reason consoles are gaining so much ground is no one wants to waste money on the PC. Why spend millions of dollars on developing a title when 25% of the user base is going to pirate it anyways?
Not every developer is interested in "spend[ing] millions of dollars on developing a title". If you don't have millions of dollars, the PC can prove more profitable because there's a lot less overhead in obtaining a PC devkit than a console devkit.
do you really think the dev kit cost is significant, alogside code/ressources/marketing ?
Console makers want to see a "secure facility" and "industry experience" before they'll even talk to a developer. A "secure facility" is at least a leased office, not your basement, attic, or garage. "Industry experience" is either a previous commercial PC title or an internship at a major video game developer in another state. A team of part-time developers with day jobs outside the video game industry is unlikely to have those.
The reason they are gaining ground is because they are a lot of people like me. My computer: P4 3gz, AGP video card slot, 2 gigs of memory (not sure type anymore), etc. I think it is about 5 years old or so. Does all my work without a problem. Can't play any PC games at any reasonable performance level that have come out in the last few years.
So do I:
A) buy a new computer plus invest all my time to get it up and running with my applications, settings, etc, or
Yes, $380 for a video card that provides graphical performance that well supersedes the capabilities of the PS3, and possibly even the PS3's successor. Or you can actually compare a video card with very similar capabilities to the card in the PS3, the NVIDIA RSX "Reality Synthesizer" with a 550MHz CPU and 256 MB of DDR2, which would be an NVIDIA GeForce 9400 that you can pick up for about $50.
He's just saying that if you want to experience games as they are on a ps3 or xbox360, in all their low-resolution, non-AA, 30fps glory you can just buy a $50 card and stick it in your $200 pc. I have quad-sli gtx295 because I want my games to look the best and run at 60fps.
You seem to be contradicting yourself here. First you say that you were not talking about image quality then you go and try and refute his argument that a PC card can cost just $50 by saying that then he will not be getting a good piture quality.
So with a PC you have a choice between spending a little like a console (the $50 card) and getting a low quality option and you have the choice of a $380 card and all the other costs for a really good machine which is much better than the console. So in summary wi
Anandtech http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3643 [anandtech.com] "At the end of the day, with its impressive performance and next-generation feature set, the Radeon HD 5870 kicks off the DirectX 11 generation with a bang and manages to take home the single-GPU performance crown in the process. It's without a doubt the high-end card to get"
Techreport http://techreport.com/articles.x/17618 [techreport.com] "Well, Sherlock, what do you expect me to say? AMD has succeeded in delivering the first DirectX 11 GPU by some number of months, perhaps more than just a few, depending on how quickly Nvidia can get its DX11 part to market. AMD has also managed to double its graphics and compute performance outright from one generation to the next, while ratcheting up image quality at the same time. The Radeon HD 5870 is the fastest GPU on the planet, with the best visual output, and the most compelling set of features. Yet it's still a mid-sized chip by GPU standards. As a result, the 5870's power draw, noise levels, and GPU temperatures are all admirably low. My one gripe: I wish the board wasn't quite so long, because it may face clearance issues in some enclosures. "
"Few people will doubt that PC gaming is in need of a significant shot in the arm with the consistent encroachment of consoles..."
I know I don't count, but I resent the assumption that everyone cares. I don't care. I'd never buy a console to play games other than Wii sports.
I assume GPUs will get better and better, as will CPUs, and I'll benefit But I'm still playing StarCraft 1, and I just want a higher resolution interface for the same screen -- I know people think it affects the balance, but I'd like to see the zerglings when they're a little further away.
I don't think PC gaming needs a shot in the arm. I think it needs well designed games that stand the test of time.
But it would be nice if we could get the kind of power we can get for a reasonable price (sub $1000 PC including graphics) today to run cool without fans.
I think it needs well designed games that stand the test of time. But it would be nice if we could get the kind of power we can get for a reasonable price (sub $1000 PC including graphics) today to run cool without fans.
This. 1000 times this.
I have no interest on playing on a platform where I am forced to invest thousand of dollars every couple of years.
I would be interested on buying a fun game that runs on the computer I already have!
And you can't? Seriously, look at the graphs on the review sites, they're cranking it all up to 2560x1600 with max AA/AF with Ultra High quality. It's not like you can't play with anything less...
Seconded. I played lots of games with my 4670 at 1680x1050. Now that I have two of them, there aren't a ton of games I can't play at that res, even on decent settings (AA, and so on), and I paid less than $100 total for the pair of 'em.
Thirded (? is that a word?). I have a fanless 4670. It plays the games I want fine. Not everything is maxed, but I play at 1680X1050 on the monitor fine. I have hooked the computer via hdmi to a 1080p tv and it looked great there as well.
If one does their homework before buying they are usually better off. This machine I was going for tv hdmi connectivity with it being a DVR. So I got a low power (no extra power plug) 4670 and a fanless one for less noise. It plays my games as well as my the 8800gt I have.
Speaking of cooler chips, [H]ard|OCP's review [hardocp.com] found this card to have reduced power draw and temperatures compared to the 4870 and GeForce GTX 285.
It does vary depending on the load the card is under (duh), but for a card that is about twice as powerful as its predecessor, it's quite impressive.
It turns out the card has the same power consumption as the 4870 at load (3dmark), not to mention exceptional idle power. Way to go ATI, I could have sworn TSMC's 40nm bulk CMOS (no metal gates) would have raised leakage, but this proves me wrong!
My take away from the reviews is that it is significantly cheaper than Nvidia's current top of the line single-card solution while offering slightly better performance with a more modest power draw. In another year or two, we'll all be able to play Crysis with all the eye candy turned on.:)
Nvidia seems to be between a rock and hard place. AMD is nudging it out of the limelight in the graphics marketplace and Intel and AMD are nudging it out of the market for motherboard chipsets...with Intel doing so more aggressively.
A middle-tier ARM SoC provider competing against TI, Freescale, Qualcomm and Samsung for the media player market, with a sideline in high-end compute and graphics boards that exist as a technology testbed for said SoC products?
Yeah, I have to agree: I don't see Nvidia dying anytime soon, but I have to say that (barring some impressive new market), their days of growth are over.
Intel has locked Nvidia completely out of the Intel chipset business, destroying one of Nvidia's major market segments (who buys Nvi
PC Gaming may or may not need a shot in the arm, but it isn't because of graphics. It's most likely the plug-and-play nature of games and the dumbing down of controls. Not that ASWD is particularly complex, but if you throw in mouse-look...it's basically like rubbing your tummy and patting your head. Not everyone's up to the challenge.
Yes, in consoles we only use one hand... no? Then we use the two hands to do the same thing... no? Oh, that's right, we use one hand to control a joystick and another to press buttons.
I hardly see this as being much easier to use than WASD+Mouse looking. On the contrary, even though I've started playing in my N64, I have ever find Mouse looking much more intuitive than Joystick looking.
All those reveiws and not 1 of them tested a Lynnfield chip that I could find to see if the dual 8x pci-e slots get pinned when running a DX11 card in SLI. Not one review used a typical median computer that someone would currently own.
So after all those 'reviews' *cough advertisements* we still don't know if someone with a Core2 Duo at 3 Ghz can even feed that card effectively. No DDR2 systems, no Quad Core Core2 running DDR3... just the usual i7 Etremes that tell typical consumers anything. We don't know, after all those review if it's even worth buying based on a typical machine. ZZZzzzz....
If anyone can find a Core2 system tested with this new card let te rest of us know if any of us who don't own $1000 processors get a benefit...
Personally, DDR2 vs DDR3 has WAY too many variables like RAS, CAS, and RAS-to-CAS delay, burst memory sends, etc. When I had my brother do this analysis for me (he designs RAM...) he found that in many cases DDR2 was smoking early DDR3 in random access and was only slightly slower in burst. That was until I found a CAS20 DDR3 chip running at 1600MHz in my price range (which sealed the deal for me going with DDR3). Just letting you know, though - if you have fast DDR2, it may be faster than early DDR3.
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday September 23, @01:35PM (#29519301)
The review/source contains no information that's even remotely useful to those of us who look for video cards that are quiet, do not reach absurd temperatures (anything above 60C under load is considered absurd; do people realise just how hot 60C is?), and do not have excessive power requirements.
All I've seen after reading the review is a bunch of snapshots stolen from a PowerPoint presentation with said "technological improvements", and some graphs indicating the card draws less watts than competing cards.
Given the size of the HSF (it's full-length -- look at that sucker!), I'm inclined to believe it runs hot. Given the size of the HSF, I'm also inclined to believe the card sounds like a mack truck barrelling down the highway when under load. Finally, given that the card has two -- count 'em, two -- PCIe 6-pin power connectors, this indicates the card requires at least 24V (e.g. two dedicated 12V rails), and God only knows what its amperage requirements are. Then take a look at it's price.
I feel like the only one on this planet who cares about the amount of heat hardware emits, the amount of power it draws, and the amount of noise it makes. Instead, it appears that the "i gota haf 50829fps in WoW!!!!1!! fag!!!11" gamers have taken over technological evolution and turned it into what Intel during the days of the original Pentium 4. Are there others here who have the same reservations about this kind of hardware as I do?
The kind of shot in the arm that PC gaming needs isn't at the high end but at the low end. If something better than Intel graphics became common on slimline PCs (as opposed to bulky towers), that would open up the market for gaming on home theater PCs.
I must be few people, as i doubt PC gaming needs a shot in the arm. The way i see it PC gaming has its market and consoles have theirs. For single seat games it is still (and always will be) the shit, except for a short period around the release of new consoles it is not lacking in the hardware department. The same way that the Wii didn't eat into "real" console sales, i doubt the console are eating into pc game sale, what they are doing is being played by a huge market of people who regularly enjoy playing with friends in the same room. It could be argued that PCs lack the software to play multiplayer in the same place (because the HW is there to do it with emulators), but tbh if your going to do that you need to plug it into a TV so either its expensive (laptop) or pointless (if you have a dedicated gaming box connected to you TV why not just call it a console). If you don't play with local mates -> PC gaming If you play with local mates --------> Console gaming If you only play with local mates --> Casual Gaming
Despite these categories overlapping in terms of both games and players, they do not directly compete much.
tbh if your going to do that you need to plug it into a TV
PCs have started to come with 19" monitors lately. These are big enough for two players, but I'll admit not four like on the consoles.
if you have a dedicated gaming box connected to you TV why not just call it a console
Because unlike a console, a gaming HTPC can run free software, freeware, shareware, mods for commercial games, and other software that hasn't been digitally signed by the PC maker.
If you don't play with local mates -> PC gaming
If you play with local mates --------> Console gaming
If I play with local mates, but I also want to play (and possibly even make) mods, then what?
Eyefinity videos (Score:5, Informative)
There are some videos of Eyefinity at work in this article, here is a direct link as well:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=783&type=expert&pid=6 [pcper.com]
Time to move up (Score:2)
Apps that ignore the system DPI setting (Score:4, Informative)
Time to move up from 1280x1024 displays finally? My hardrive size and processor speeds have gone up 10x in the last 10 years. My screen resolution is unchanged.
As are your eyes. Beyond a certain point, FSAA will increase perceived quality as much as higher DPI.
I think for games, doubling pixel density would be more than noticeable.
Supporting ClearType style subpixel rendering in your FSAA might help too. But the big problem with doubling pixel density is that so many Windows applications other than games are hardcoded for 96 dpi, ignoring Display Properties > Settings > Advanced > General > DPI setting.
15~21inch standard over 15 years is a pretty sad change for the computer industry.
For one thing, desks haven't gotten much bigger. For another, after a certain point, the amount of glass and other materials in a display outweighs the number of pixels in determining price. I went to Walmart* and saw a 32" 720p class Vizio TV for $399 and an otherwise identical 1080p TV for $499. Compare that to the price difference between 32" vs. 42" TVs.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I've been using 1600x1200 for a long time now....on a DELL CRT that's probably approaching 6 years old now.
Re: (Score:2)
My thinkpad has 1920x1200 on a 15" screen, so they exist. You might want to get the 75% more pixels before you complain. Honestly though, the biggest difference in gaming is what's *in* the pixels. Pretty important too, and todays games render in SPF (seconds per frame) instead of FPS on ten year old graphics cards. Or rather on your CPU, because it's doing all emulation in software. 1920x1200 is same resolution as a BluRay which is pretty damn good, if my games looked like that I'd be extremely impressed.
Re: (Score:2)
WHY THE FUCK DON'T LAPTOPS COME WITH BETTER RESOLUTION?
Probably just penny pinching to get the sticker price down. But perhaps you've been looking at the wrong laptops. Those in most stores have crappy resolutions, even with large displays. I just hate when they say 18" widescreen LCD, without saying how many pixels. As like as not, it's just 1440x800 or something equally pathetic, but you might have to corner a sales droid to find out.
At home, I've got a 6-year-old laptop, with a 17" WUXGA (1920x1200) display. Since I got it, I'm unwilling to accept any less.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Check out Dell Precisions, Thinkpads, HP EliteBooks... just a few that offer WUXGA @ 15.4".
Personally, I'm not sure if WUXGA might not be cutting it a little too closely. I'm on WSXGA+ (1680x1050) @ 15.4" right now, and I couldn't be happier.
How do I tiled windows? (Score:2)
I would much much prefer 2 960 x 1200 monitors to a 1920 x 1200 wide screen, It just helps me group stuff better.
Then get a window manager that will do that for you. All versions of Windows since Windows 95 can do it: control-click on several windows in the title bar, right-click one of them, and choose "Tile Horizontally".
Re: (Score:2)
Or use a tilling window manager like Awesome.
Not quite the numbers I would have expected (Score:2)
Reading the PC perspective reviews and a couple of others the 5870 seems to be a bit faster than the GTX285 but not by much, and certainly not by a margin one would expect from a new generation of parts vs old.
Admittedly this is all DX9/10 stuff, and there's probably a lot of the transistor budget allocated to new DX11 features but I would have expected ATI's latest offering to have utterly destroyed NVIDIA's last gen part. The GTX 295 is really 2 gpus so it's not really a fair comparison.
It will be intere
Re: (Score:2)
I have to amend this. I hadn't looked at http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5870-review-test/ reviews, which seem to have a different selection of games and paint the 5870 in a better light than the pc perspective article. The PCper article I got the impression teh GTX285 was in some cases faster and only 10-15% slower than the 5870 in most cases, the GURU3D test has a more noticeable 25% or thereabout performance boost for the 5870. Better, but not stunning. I would have still expected a 50% or so
Really good GPUs but... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
...I really with they'd come out with decent Linux support. I mean, come on guys, 1280x1024@75Hz is the max screen size you can do with fglrx in your driver?
Would you even begin to contemplate a 20% to 30% increase in R&D expenditure to address what is effectively a non-existent market?
We have a severe chicken and egg problem here. Until games support linux directly the market will stay small. That won't happen if the drivers suck, nobody will put money into better drivers if there is not market.
There is a defacto standard that works relatively well (and keeps getting better) until that changes gaming on linux is king of screwed. But don't go blaming the
Re: (Score:2)
About time (Score:2)
Took the industry long enough to deliver a great 3D perforance and 3 monitor outputs on one card*. If the Linux support is on par with nVidia's support, I look forward to replacing my current nVidia dualhead card and Matrox Dualhead2go box with one of these beauties. Especially since the Dualhead2go "Digital" edition uses an analog VGA input and I can see some faint ghosting on text/sharp lines.
* I know that Matrox had the Parhelia line of 3 monitor cards, but the 3D performance was sadly lacking in those
Re: (Score:2)
Missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)
The summary misses the point of why consoles are gaining so much ground in the gaming world. The main reason consoles are so popular is because the hardware never changes. Most people (like myself) don't want to have to go out and buy the latest and greatest graphics card to run a new game. With an XBOX 360 or PS3 I know that if I buy a title for that platform, it will work. Yes, there are certain exceptions like hard drive requirements, etc., but for the most part it is true. The stability also allows developers to get the most out of the hardware, and generally by the end of a consoles life expectancy, the games are getting very, very good.
There will probably always be a market for the hardcore gamers, but the average, casual gamer would rather play an XBOX 360 at 720P on their big screen than play at double the resolution on a screen a quarter the size.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's cyclical. When the consoles first come out they look good. But for how long? At some point PC tools and PC hardware make consoles look antiquated. This new hardware is 4 generations later than console hardware, but some of those generations were more die shrinks than anything consumers care about. For the moment we're fluttering around equal quality between PC and consoles, the race to the bottom in PC prices and hardware has meant that trying to make a decent PC only game which both takes advanta
Re: (Score:2)
I keep my PC connected to my TV: it costed me $2 to buy a S-Video cable. Graphic cards have TV-Out (first S-Video, now HDMI) since what, 2000?
PCs without a graphic card (Score:2)
Graphic cards have TV-Out (first S-Video, now HDMI) since what, 2000?
I see two kinds of PC cases at Best Buy: slimline and mid-tower. Mid-towers look out of place next to a TV. Slimline PCs look better, more like an Xbox 360 or an old PS3, but they typically don't come with a graphic card. Instead, they tend to have Intel's Voodoo3-class GMA chipset on the motherboard because they're designed for web and office apps.
Re:Bologna (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason consoles are gaining so much ground is no one wants to waste money on the PC. Why spend millions of dollars on developing a title when 25% of the user base is going to pirate it anyways?
Not every developer is interested in "spend[ing] millions of dollars on developing a title". If you don't have millions of dollars, the PC can prove more profitable because there's a lot less overhead in obtaining a PC devkit than a console devkit.
Parent
Re:Bologna (Score:5, Informative)
do you really think the dev kit cost is significant, alogside code/ressources/marketing ?
Console makers want to see a "secure facility" and "industry experience" before they'll even talk to a developer. A "secure facility" is at least a leased office, not your basement, attic, or garage. "Industry experience" is either a previous commercial PC title or an internship at a major video game developer in another state. A team of part-time developers with day jobs outside the video game industry is unlikely to have those.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
So do I:
A) buy a new computer plus invest all my time to get it up and running with my applications, settings, etc, or
B) buy a console (PS3 and 360 have
Re:Missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, $380 for a video card that provides graphical performance that well supersedes the capabilities of the PS3, and possibly even the PS3's successor. Or you can actually compare a video card with very similar capabilities to the card in the PS3, the NVIDIA RSX "Reality Synthesizer" with a 550MHz CPU and 256 MB of DDR2, which would be an NVIDIA GeForce 9400 that you can pick up for about $50.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You seem to be contradicting yourself here. First you say that you were not talking about image quality then you go and try and refute his argument that a PC card can cost just $50 by saying that then he will not be getting a good piture quality.
So with a PC you have a choice between spending a little like a console (the $50 card) and getting a low quality option and you have the choice of a $380 card and all the other costs for a really good machine which is much better than the console. So in summary wi
More reviews (Score:5, Informative)
Anandtech
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3643 [anandtech.com]
"At the end of the day, with its impressive performance and next-generation feature set, the Radeon HD 5870 kicks off the DirectX 11 generation with a bang and manages to take home the single-GPU performance crown in the process. It's without a doubt the high-end card to get"
Techreport
http://techreport.com/articles.x/17618 [techreport.com]
"Well, Sherlock, what do you expect me to say? AMD has succeeded in delivering the first DirectX 11 GPU by some number of months, perhaps more than just a few, depending on how quickly Nvidia can get its DX11 part to market. AMD has also managed to double its graphics and compute performance outright from one generation to the next, while ratcheting up image quality at the same time. The Radeon HD 5870 is the fastest GPU on the planet, with the best visual output, and the most compelling set of features. Yet it's still a mid-sized chip by GPU standards. As a result, the 5870's power draw, noise levels, and GPU temperatures are all admirably low. My one gripe: I wish the board wasn't quite so long, because it may face clearance issues in some enclosures. "
A shot in the arm? How about cooler chips? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Few people will doubt that PC gaming is in need of a significant shot in the arm with the consistent encroachment of consoles..."
I know I don't count, but I resent the assumption that everyone cares. I don't care. I'd never buy a console to play games other than Wii sports.
I assume GPUs will get better and better, as will CPUs, and I'll benefit But I'm still playing StarCraft 1, and I just want a higher resolution interface for the same screen -- I know people think it affects the balance, but I'd like to see the zerglings when they're a little further away.
I don't think PC gaming needs a shot in the arm. I think it needs well designed games that stand the test of time.
But it would be nice if we could get the kind of power we can get for a reasonable price (sub $1000 PC including graphics) today to run cool without fans.
Re:A shot in the arm? How about cooler chips? (Score:5, Funny)
Reasonable.
Parent
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My quad Opteron and 1GB Nvidia card are passively cooled from slow running case fans.
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I think it needs well designed games that stand the test of time.
But it would be nice if we could get the kind of power we can get for a reasonable price (sub $1000 PC including graphics) today to run cool without fans.
This. 1000 times this.
I have no interest on playing on a platform where I am forced to invest thousand of dollars every couple of years.
I would be interested on buying a fun game that runs on the computer I already have!
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And you can't? Seriously, look at the graphs on the review sites, they're cranking it all up to 2560x1600 with max AA/AF with Ultra High quality. It's not like you can't play with anything less...
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Thirded (? is that a word?). I have a fanless 4670. It plays the games I want fine. Not everything is maxed, but I play at 1680X1050 on the monitor fine. I have hooked the computer via hdmi to a 1080p tv and it looked great there as well.
If one does their homework before buying they are usually better off. This machine I was going for tv hdmi connectivity with it being a DVR. So I got a low power (no extra power plug) 4670 and a fanless one for less noise. It plays my games as well as my the 8800gt I have.
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Speaking of cooler chips, [H]ard|OCP's review [hardocp.com] found this card to have reduced power draw and temperatures compared to the 4870 and GeForce GTX 285.
It does vary depending on the load the card is under (duh), but for a card that is about twice as powerful as its predecessor, it's quite impressive.
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Yes, and Xbit Labs, as is their tradition, got a true power consumption reading direct from the 12v and 5v PCIe supply lines [xbitlabs.com].
It turns out the card has the same power consumption as the 4870 at load (3dmark), not to mention exceptional idle power. Way to go ATI, I could have sworn TSMC's 40nm bulk CMOS (no metal gates) would have raised leakage, but this proves me wrong!
Seems like a good bang for the buck (Score:2)
My take away from the reviews is that it is significantly cheaper than Nvidia's current top of the line single-card solution while offering slightly better performance with a more modest power draw. In another year or two, we'll all be able to play Crysis with all the eye candy turned on. :)
Tough times ahead for Nvidia? (Score:2)
Nvidia seems to be between a rock and hard place. AMD is nudging it out of the limelight in the graphics marketplace and Intel and AMD are nudging it out of the market for motherboard chipsets...with Intel doing so more aggressively.
Where do you see Nvidia 3-5 years down the line?
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A middle-tier ARM SoC provider competing against TI, Freescale, Qualcomm and Samsung for the media player market, with a sideline in high-end compute and graphics boards that exist as a technology testbed for said SoC products?
Yeah, I have to agree: I don't see Nvidia dying anytime soon, but I have to say that (barring some impressive new market), their days of growth are over.
Intel has locked Nvidia completely out of the Intel chipset business, destroying one of Nvidia's major market segments (who buys Nvi
Graphics not the issue (Score:2)
PC Gaming may or may not need a shot in the arm, but it isn't because of graphics. It's most likely the plug-and-play nature of games and the dumbing down of controls. Not that ASWD is particularly complex, but if you throw in mouse-look...it's basically like rubbing your tummy and patting your head. Not everyone's up to the challenge.
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Yes, in consoles we only use one hand... no? Then we use the two hands to do the same thing... no? Oh, that's right, we use one hand to control a joystick and another to press buttons.
I hardly see this as being much easier to use than WASD+Mouse looking. On the contrary, even though I've started playing in my N64, I have ever find Mouse looking much more intuitive than Joystick looking.
No Core2 Tests (Score:4, Insightful)
All those reveiws and not 1 of them tested a Lynnfield chip that I could find to see if the dual 8x pci-e slots get pinned when running a DX11 card in SLI. Not one review used a typical median computer that someone would currently own.
So after all those 'reviews' *cough advertisements* we still don't know if someone with a Core2 Duo at 3 Ghz can even feed that card effectively. No DDR2 systems, no Quad Core Core2 running DDR3... just the usual i7 Etremes that tell typical consumers anything. We don't know, after all those review if it's even worth buying based on a typical machine. ZZZzzzz....
If anyone can find a Core2 system tested with this new card let te rest of us know if any of us who don't own $1000 processors get a benefit...
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This card costs more than the low-end i7s. Just buy one.
You can't buy the latest bleeding-edge
graphics card and be a cheap bastard at the same time. It doesn't work that way.
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Personally, DDR2 vs DDR3 has WAY too many variables like RAS, CAS, and RAS-to-CAS delay, burst memory sends, etc. When I had my brother do this analysis for me (he designs RAM...) he found that in many cases DDR2 was smoking early DDR3 in random access and was only slightly slower in burst. That was until I found a CAS20 DDR3 chip running at 1600MHz in my price range (which sealed the deal for me going with DDR3). Just letting you know, though - if you have fast DDR2, it may be faster than early DDR3.
Mem
Temperatures, power requirements, noise (Score:3, Interesting)
The review/source contains no information that's even remotely useful to those of us who look for video cards that are quiet, do not reach absurd temperatures (anything above 60C under load is considered absurd; do people realise just how hot 60C is?), and do not have excessive power requirements.
All I've seen after reading the review is a bunch of snapshots stolen from a PowerPoint presentation with said "technological improvements", and some graphs indicating the card draws less watts than competing cards.
Given the size of the HSF (it's full-length -- look at that sucker!), I'm inclined to believe it runs hot. Given the size of the HSF, I'm also inclined to believe the card sounds like a mack truck barrelling down the highway when under load. Finally, given that the card has two -- count 'em, two -- PCIe 6-pin power connectors, this indicates the card requires at least 24V (e.g. two dedicated 12V rails), and God only knows what its amperage requirements are. Then take a look at it's price.
I feel like the only one on this planet who cares about the amount of heat hardware emits, the amount of power it draws, and the amount of noise it makes. Instead, it appears that the "i gota haf 50829fps in WoW!!!!1!! fag!!!11" gamers have taken over technological evolution and turned it into what Intel during the days of the original Pentium 4. Are there others here who have the same reservations about this kind of hardware as I do?
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its working on DX11 "mindshare" building more than anything else were I to guess.
Re:PC gaming is in need of a significant shot in a (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:PC gaming is in need of a significant shot in a (Score:4, Insightful)
I must be few people, as i doubt PC gaming needs a shot in the arm. The way i see it PC gaming has its market and consoles have theirs. For single seat games it is still (and always will be) the shit, except for a short period around the release of new consoles it is not lacking in the hardware department. The same way that the Wii didn't eat into "real" console sales, i doubt the console are eating into pc game sale, what they are doing is being played by a huge market of people who regularly enjoy playing with friends in the same room. It could be argued that PCs lack the software to play multiplayer in the same place (because the HW is there to do it with emulators), but tbh if your going to do that you need to plug it into a TV so either its expensive (laptop) or pointless (if you have a dedicated gaming box connected to you TV why not just call it a console).
If you don't play with local mates -> PC gaming
If you play with local mates --------> Console gaming
If you only play with local mates --> Casual Gaming
Despite these categories overlapping in terms of both games and players, they do not directly compete much.
Parent
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tbh if your going to do that you need to plug it into a TV
PCs have started to come with 19" monitors lately. These are big enough for two players, but I'll admit not four like on the consoles.
if you have a dedicated gaming box connected to you TV why not just call it a console
Because unlike a console, a gaming HTPC can run free software, freeware, shareware, mods for commercial games, and other software that hasn't been digitally signed by the PC maker.
If you don't play with local mates -> PC gaming
If you play with local mates --------> Console gaming
If I play with local mates, but I also want to play (and possibly even make) mods, then what?
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10 guy friends of mine... cream themselves... joy overload.
Gayest post evar.