GeforceFX=surprisingly slow

[Hammer]

As with NV25 and R300 examples, the driver support has to mature. Refer to serious OpenGL driver battle royal for the indications of NV30's potential. At the moment, official release drivers doesn’t even support NV30+ family (only in leaked beta form).

Anyway, nVidia has branched to chipset and integrated audio markets btw…

Likewise with “Pentium 4” product (a core change), it takes time mature.

PS; I recall, NVidia hasn't made the shift to pure 256bit bus unlike ATI, Matrox, 3DLabs.  Geforce FX is one crippled GPU, even with 1Ghz DDR technology (due to DDR overheads).

[Hammer]

On average its a little bit faster than a Radeon 9700 Pro, and in many tests, it is slower

To quote www.tomshardware.com

NVIDIA takes the crown! No question about it - the GeForceFX 5800 Ultra is faster than the competition from ATI's Radeon 9700 PRO in the majority of the benchmarks. However, its lead is only slight, especially compared to the distance that ATI put between its Radeon 9700 PRO and the Ti 4600. Still, when compared to its predecessor, the GeForce4 Ti, the FX represents a giant step forward.

[Hammer]

Hopefully nVidia will manage to turn things around, though.  For the most part, they've shipped quality products in the past, and have done some wise things with drivers, etc...  Of course, if they don't it'll just be ATI's turn to run with the lead for a while...  

Unlike 3DFX, there are no problems with nVidia’s financial future since they have branched to other market segments.  

From leak beta 42.70 driver's nv4_disp.inf file. There are other code names.

NVidia.Nv25.3    = "NVIDIA NV25"
NVidia.Nv25.4    = "NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200"
NVidia.Nv25GL.1  = "NVIDIA Quadro4 900 XGL"
NVidia.Nv25GL.2  = "NVIDIA Quadro4 750 XGL"
NVidia.Nv25GL.4  = "NVIDIA Quadro4 700 XGL"
NVidia.Nv28.1    = "NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4800"
NVidia.Nv28.2    = "NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8X"
NVidia.Nv28.3    = "NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4800 SE"
NVidia.Nv28GL.1  = "NVIDIA Quadro4 980 XGL"
NVidia.Nv28GL.2  = "NVIDIA Quadro4 780 XGL"
NVidia.Nv30.1    = "NVIDIA NV30"
NVidia.Nv30.2    = "NVIDIA GeForce FX 5800 Ultra"
NVidia.Nv30.3    = "NVIDIA GeForce FX 5800"
NVidia.Nv30GL.1  = "NVIDIA Quadro FX 2000"
NVidia.Nv30GL.2  = "NVIDIA Quadro FX 1000"
NVidia.Nv31.1    = "NVIDIA NV31"
NVidia.Nv31.2    = "NVIDIA NV31 "
NVidia.Nv31GL.1  = "NVIDIA NV31GL"
NVidia.Nv31GL.2  = "NVIDIA NV31GL "
NVidia.Nv34.2    = "NVIDIA NV34"
NVidia.Nv34.3    = "NVIDIA NV34 "
NVidia.Nv34.4    = "NVIDIA NV34  "
NVidia.Nv34GL.3  = "NVIDIA NV34GL"
NVidia.Nv34GL.4  = "NVIDIA NV34GL "

[Hammer]

Ilwrath wrote:

...there are no problems with nVidia’s financial future since they have branched to other market segments.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they said the same things about Enron... (Great growth, corporate diversification, etc...)  Of course, they were blatently cooking the books, where nVidia was only investigated, with no charges brought.  Take that for what it's worth.

Does Enron produce and owns real products (for sale)? Or are they just yet another middle man(i.e. energy distributor) ?

In today's microcomputer market, it only takes one botched product cycle to put you in pretty deep trouble.

Can that be said for the first release of Radon?

 Personally, I'm a bit worried that through all their other 'market segments' such as mediocre chipsets

NForce 2 is not a mediocre chipset relative to VIA "crap sets". It maybe true with the first nForce 1 release but not true on the second release. This pattern is similar to the original release of Geforce 256. It took the second release(e.g. Geforce 2 series)  to make this a real success(relative to 3DFX).

On Athlon XP 1800+/ASUS nForce 2/512Mb-DDR-SDRAM)/GF4-4200 delivers 254.1 FPS on QuakeIII(normal settings, timedemo 1, demo001, nosound). This is not bad for 1.53Ghz CPU. 3DMarks2001SE @ 10336. (No overclocking)

It should be competitive with similar equipped 2Ghz Pentium 4.  

My older MSI built VIA KT class mobo(with similar components as above)  doesn’t does deliver the same frame rates as the nForce 2 based board i.e. ~+182FPS on QuakeIII(default, timedemo 1, demo001, nosound). 3DMarks2001SE @ 8780.
(No overclocking)

 and XBox alliances, they lost sight of what got them to the top... making a good Graphics Processor.

Focusing on a single product doesn’t guarantee survival (refer to 3DFX ).

[Hammer]

However, there appears to have been a direct correlation between nVidia's delays in their process shrink and their next flashship product and a lack of consumer and investor confidence.

They still have a month for the final release. The conclusions was a bit premature.  The 42.xx drivers were still in beta stage.

It be would nice IF you could show me a link, which has non-beta 42.xx drivers. I have 42.70 which are still in beta stage.

I'm not sure what your example with 3dfx is supposed to show... they had a great product in the Voodoo2. Then they had delays with their follow-up products and the products didn't perform as well as people were expecting.

Read the previous post (I'm referring to Ilwrath's post). 3DFX only covers 1 market segment i.e. video card market.

Ilwrath's claim was 1 market segment = success. This case was not true for 3DFX.
 
3DFX don't have alternative revenue sources outside the video card market.

Are you trying to imply that ATI is going to buy and gut nVidia? That's the only thing I see in a reference to 3dfx (RIP).

Failed to read the previous post will ultimately lead you to a wrong conclusions.

[Hammer]

ATI and the Radeons have done well. The hardware is capable and the drivers have markedly improved. And they also have successfully been playing the PR game. Now it's time for nVidia to turn this disappointing first impression (after tons of delays) around into something positive.

Then try it on some AGP 8X motherboards.

From Australian PC USER Nov 2002 edition, page 30.

Five Radeon 9700 cards fail on the following motherboards;
1. MSI 648 Max (Sis648 chipset, Pentium 4)
2. Soltek SL-85ERV (VIA p4X400, Pentium 4)
3. ASUS P4S8X(SiS648, Pentium 4)
4. Gigabyte GA-7vAXP(VIA KT400, Athlon XP)
5. VIA P4PB400(VIA P4X400 Pentium 4)

Now the 5 Radeon 9700s cards.
1. ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
2. Gigabyte Maya II Radeon
3. Hercules 3D Prophet Radeon Series 9700 Pro
4. HIS Excalibur Radeon 9700 Pro
5. PowerColor Evil Commando Radeon 9700 Pro

In Australian PC USer Dec 2002 edition, Under the
title of "More Radeon 9700 Woes", page 36.
1. VIA P4PB400 (they manage to work with this mobo, but at a slower performance compared 4X mode).
2. "flakey" on Intel's new D845GEBV.

A typical ATI 9700 vendor response = "upgrade your bios". A mundane end users ("average punter") shouldn't be the ones be handling these issues (i.e. BIOS flashing and 'etc').

That should put things into perspective.

PS; Both SIS's Xabre and NV18  works fine with the above mentioned 8X AGP equiped motherboards.

[Hammer]

Commodore was pretty diversified too
 

Not quite diversified i.e. thier addons relies on the success of their main product (i.e. the Amiga PC).
I don’t think their X86 PC lines were competitive enough  

Refer to S3's example as a survivor in the X86 PC market unlike the 3DFX Inc.

I loved 3DFX my 5500 still running Nvidia drivers always have issues
 

I don’t think 3DFX V5500 was running on nv4(refer nv4_disp.inf file) family of drivers.

And I quote from "nv4_disp.inf" file.

NVidia       = "NVIDIA"
NVidia.Nv4 = "NVIDIA RIVA TNT"
NVidia.Nv5 = "NVIDIA RIVA TNT2/TNT2 Pro"
NVidia.Nv0A = "NVIDIA Aladdin TNT2"
NVidia.NvVanta = "NVIDIA Vanta/Vanta LT"
NVidia.NvUltra = "NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Ultra"
NVidia.Nv5M64 = "NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Model 64 Pro"
NVidia.Nv10 = "NVIDIA GeForce 256"
NVidia.Nv10DDR = "NVIDIA GeForce DDR"
NVidia.Nv10GL = "NVIDIA Quadro"
NVidia.Nv11 = "NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400"
NVidia.Nv11DDR = "NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 100/200"
NVidia.Nv11GL = "NVIDIA Quadro2 MXR/EX"
NVidia.NvCrush11 = "NVIDIA GeForce2 Integrated GPU"
NVidia.Nv15 = "NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS/GeForce2 Pro"
NVidia.Nv15DDR = "NVIDIA GeForce2 Ti"
NVidia.Nv15BR = "NVIDIA GeForce2 Ultra"
NVidia.Nv15GL = "NVIDIA Quadro2 Pro"
NVidia.Nv17.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 460"
NVidia.Nv17.2 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440"
NVidia.Nv17.3 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420"
NVidia.Nv17.4 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440-SE"
NVidia.Nv17GL.1 = "NVIDIA Quadro4 500/550 XGL"
NVidia.Nv17GL.2 = "NVIDIA Quadro4 NVS"
NVidia.Nv18.2 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X"
NVidia.Nv18.3 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440SE with AGP8X"
NVidia.Nv18.4 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420 with AGP8X"
NVidia.Nv18GL.1 = "NVIDIA Quadro4 580 XGL"
NVidia.Nv18GL.2 = "NVIDIA Quadro4 280 NVS"
NVidia.Nv18GL.3 = "NVIDIA Quadro4 380 XGL"
NVidia.Nv01F0 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU"
NVidia.Nv20 = "NVIDIA GeForce3"
NVidia.Nv20.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200"
NVidia.Nv20.2 = "NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500"
NVidia.Nv20DCC = "NVIDIA Quadro DCC"
NVidia.Nv25.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600"
NVidia.Nv25.2 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400"
NVidia.Nv25.3 = "NVIDIA NV25"
NVidia.Nv25.4 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200"
NVidia.Nv25GL.1 = "NVIDIA Quadro4 900 XGL"
NVidia.Nv25GL.2 = "NVIDIA Quadro4 750 XGL"
NVidia.Nv25GL.4 = "NVIDIA Quadro4 700 XGL"
NVidia.Nv28.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4800"
NVidia.Nv28.2 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8X"
NVidia.Nv28.3 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4800 SE"
NVidia.Nv28GL.1 = "NVIDIA Quadro4 980 XGL"
NVidia.Nv28GL.2 = "NVIDIA Quadro4 780 XGL"
nvWin2kDualview = "NVIDIA Dualview"

Can you find 3DFX in there?

[Hammer]

METAL wrote:

Now if only ATI can sort out their drivers.

More people living in the past. ATI's current driver sets are rock solid and great performers. Very much on par with NVIDIA.

I wish I could reply like this…

[Hammer]

For Geforce FX QnA with nVidia Corp refer to
http://forums.tweaktown.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7998

[Hammer]

Reminds me of the Matrox Parhelia. That card had more memory bandwidth than anything else out at the time, but the card was still not so hot (but is sure was expensive!!!)

Actually, GeF FX < R9700 in trems of real bandwidth.

GeF FX = 16Gb/s (128bit bus x 500Mhz mclk speed)
R9700 = 19Gb/s (256 bit bus x 310Mhz mclk speed)

Potential move for Nvidia (without another massive core change)
1. Move to 256 bit bus.

Potential move for ATI
(without another massive core change)
1. Move to higher clocked memory modules .
2. Move to higher clocked GPU.

[Hammer]

Herewegoagain wrote:

Yes, maybe typical, but there was a problem with the bios on a number of 8x capable boards that had to be resolved with a bios update before using 8x cards.

It is very valid, and should not be assumed that it is the Radeon 9700's fault.  Actually I didn't really attribute it as anyone's fault, just a glitch in moving to a new standard.

The cited motherboards was working with the other 8X AGP video cards(i.e. non-Radeon 9700 cards). Thus the issue was with ATI's end.

This is a repeat of

PS; Both SIS's Xabre and NV18 works fine with the above mentioned 8X AGP equiped motherboards.

Both SIS's Xabre and NV18  are 8X AGP capable video cards.

[Hammer]

Ok, but they were based on what?

I see you don't have a clue about SIS's Xabre and NV18. Both of these products are 8X AGP capable.
They work with the motherboards cited in my post.

The Geforce4 series?

Did you forget SIS's Xabre GPU card?

But the question is, would these same boards without the bios update

IF they are available.

have had similiar problems using the GeforceFX?? It would be an interesting test to try.
 

That is not the issue since those cited motherboards worked with other 8X AGP capable cards.

We can get to your theoretical scenario when that event actually happens(i.e. actual product release).

PS; ATI may release fixes or issue a revised R9700 design, which may fix these problems.

Sigh... Why does the average punter has to bear the beta testing phase?

[Hammer]

 (note the Xaber update in the Gigabyte bios).
 

That's nothing to do with AGP 8X. "STR" has something to do with "Suspend-to-RAM" feature.

It doesn’t automatically destabilize the card IF one doesn’t use this feature. One could use "Suspend-to-Disk" instead.

Asus P4S8X BIOS 1003A
 

ASUS’s updates may have two update values for example.

Via ASUS auto update feature
1001E has update value of "01/13/2003" (For A7N8X)

But from the ASUS web site;
1001E has update value of  "2002/12/23"(For A7N8X)
1001G has update value of  "2002/12/24 "(For A7N8X)

BIOS 1002 has update value of 2003/01/30, but it doesn’t exist (broken link perhaps) in the FTP sever at this time (AUS 31/01/2003).

2. Improve CPU to AGP performance for ATI AGP card.
 

A performance tweak. This is a common practice.

MSI 648 MAX
 

Update on website and FTP site(or via MSI's auto update feature) may not be in sync btw. Note that I do own a late model MSI VIA KT class board.

[Hammer]

I know, but thats not the point. This is the best Nvidia can come up with

I recall, the official launch date was somewhere in late February.

The processor has more transistors than the R300

NV30 has support for 128bit floating-point color feature, which R300 doesn’t not support.  A feature may require more transistors.

I dont think that the 256 bit bus on the R300 has as much latency as the DDR-II bus on the NV30

Well, NV’s DDR-II solution only delivers 16Gb/s, while ATI’s 256bit solution delivers 19Gb/s.

Go figure that out....

[Hammer]

Deffo agree with that - those Nforce2 chipsets are the tits! Most of the computers in my house use Via "crapsets", and the Nforce2 is worth about another 200+ rating on them.

Where?