Originally Posted by [cibyr] I could be wrong though, please correct me if I am :)
Nope, you're spot on. In a number of ways ATI has been commendably forward thinking with its inclusion of a tesselation engine and with pure shader based MSAA. Unfortunately they haven't quite got the balance right and performance is simply not good enough, at least with current games. As developers move towards using features like tessellation and custom AA then ATIs current offerings should be better than nVidias. The only trouble being that by the time the games start to arrive, new cards from nVidia should be hitting the shelves.
Originally Posted by [cibyr] I thought ATi didn't include dedicated MSAA hardware, instead doing it with programmable shaders. Since DX10 requires the ability to do custom AA, ATi chose to leave off the MSAA hardware to make room for more shaders while nVidia went with less shaders but left the MSAA hardware. End result: nVidia kicking ATi's ass in almost everything with AA, except for Call of Juarez which uses custom AA.
I could be wrong though, please correct me if I am :)
Well, that's not been confirmed by AMD and the company still lists "Programmable MSAA Resolve" as a feature of the HD 2000-series ROP hardware. This alone suggests that there is MSAA resolve hardware available, but it's just not working.
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Originally Posted by Meanmotion Nope, you're spot on. In a number of ways ATI has been commendably forward thinking with its inclusion of a tesselation engine and with pure shader based MSAA. Unfortunately they haven't quite got the balance right and performance is simply not good enough, at least with current games. As developers move towards using features like tessellation and custom AA then ATIs current offerings should be better than nVidias. The only trouble being that by the time the games start to arrive, new cards from nVidia should be hitting the shelves.
As stated above, AMD's briefings state that there is a programmable MSAA resolve unit in each ROP partition, which suggests that there is hardware-based MSAA resolve. However, the MSAA performance deficit suggests that it isn't working in every driver available at the moment.
AFAIK, only the CFAA filters should use the shaders to enhance the anti-aliasing quality. The standard box filter shouldn't need shader-based MSAA resolve if there is a dedicated (and working) MSAA resolve unit in the ROPs. It's listed as a feature of R6xx's ROP hardware, so the only assumption one can make is that it isn't working.
An article explaining all the audio implications of high def dvds and xp/vista would be much appreciated as the situation seems very confusing.
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We got this card quite early on and at that point in time, HDCP wasnt mandatory on the GeForce 8600 GT.
However, Nvidia decided a month or so ago (after we started testing for this particular review) that it would make HDCP compliance a required feature on all GeForce 8-series cards
Do you mean that the early cards physically didn't include the crypto rom or that nvidia didn't require it to active by the card maker. I ask because ISTR Rich mentioning a while back that HDCP costs money per implementation and not just for the keys themselves e.g. nvidia would pay to have the crypto rom in the chip but say asus would also have to pay a fee if they wanted to implement the feature. Could you shed some light on that?
hello all,
i've read the review and all of your post, and i'm just become more confused, i'm an average medical student, with average computer knowledge, and i want to buy new graphic card to replace my old 2 years-now dead-old 6600gt.
i want a mid-performance graphic card which still can be used for at least 2 years (time where all is likely directX10 based). i will used it for things like works( write report,read ebook,etc),hear music, play videos, and games at medium-high quality at 1024 or 1280, and my budget just limit my choice to 8600gt or 2600xt or lower card. and i only have antec TP 430 watt power supply. my system now is amd 64 3000+(socket 939) and 1 gb ram, 2 hardisk, 2 optical drive
Originally Posted by falconsport hello all,
i've read the review and all of your post, and i'm just become more confused, i'm an average medical student, with average computer knowledge, and i want to buy new graphic card to replace my old 2 years-now dead-old 6600gt.
i want a mid-performance graphic card which still can be used for at least 2 years (time where all is likely directX10 based). i will used it for things like works( write report,read ebook,etc),hear music, play videos, and games at medium-high quality at 1024 or 1280, and my budget just limit my choice to 8600gt or 2600xt or lower card. and i only have antec TP 430 watt power supply. my system now is amd 64 3000+(socket 939) and 1 gb ram, 2 hardisk, 2 optical drive
so, can you suggest what card should i take??
thanks before....
Hey man, welcome to the forums and I'm sorry for the slight delay responding to your queries. I'd say that unless you're going to get an HD DVD / Blu-ray drive for your PC, I'd go with the 8600 GT if you had to choose between the two today.
You would also get away with an X1950 Pro if you're staying on Windows XP, as there's no sign of DX10 being supported there - you'll have to get Vista as well. I don't think DX9 games will die for a long time if I'm honest - it'll be the fallback graphics mode for a long while like DX8 was, as it wasn't all that long ago when DX8 was dropped. I reckon there's at least another three years of DX9 support.
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Nope, you're spot on. In a number of ways ATI has been commendably forward thinking with its inclusion of a tesselation engine and with pure shader based MSAA. Unfortunately they haven't quite got the balance right and performance is simply not good enough, at least with current games. As developers move towards using features like tessellation and custom AA then ATIs current offerings should be better than nVidias. The only trouble being that by the time the games start to arrive, new cards from nVidia should be hitting the shelves.
Well, that's not been confirmed by AMD and the company still lists "Programmable MSAA Resolve" as a feature of the HD 2000-series ROP hardware. This alone suggests that there is MSAA resolve hardware available, but it's just not working.
As stated above, AMD's briefings state that there is a programmable MSAA resolve unit in each ROP partition, which suggests that there is hardware-based MSAA resolve. However, the MSAA performance deficit suggests that it isn't working in every driver available at the moment.
AFAIK, only the CFAA filters should use the shaders to enhance the anti-aliasing quality. The standard box filter shouldn't need shader-based MSAA resolve if there is a dedicated (and working) MSAA resolve unit in the ROPs. It's listed as a feature of R6xx's ROP hardware, so the only assumption one can make is that it isn't working.
i've read the review and all of your post, and i'm just become more confused, i'm an average medical student, with average computer knowledge, and i want to buy new graphic card to replace my old 2 years-now dead-old 6600gt.
i want a mid-performance graphic card which still can be used for at least 2 years (time where all is likely directX10 based). i will used it for things like works( write report,read ebook,etc),hear music, play videos, and games at medium-high quality at 1024 or 1280, and my budget just limit my choice to 8600gt or 2600xt or lower card. and i only have antec TP 430 watt power supply. my system now is amd 64 3000+(socket 939) and 1 gb ram, 2 hardisk, 2 optical drive
so, can you suggest what card should i take??
thanks before....
Hey man, welcome to the forums and I'm sorry for the slight delay responding to your queries. I'd say that unless you're going to get an HD DVD / Blu-ray drive for your PC, I'd go with the 8600 GT if you had to choose between the two today.
You would also get away with an X1950 Pro if you're staying on Windows XP, as there's no sign of DX10 being supported there - you'll have to get Vista as well. I don't think DX9 games will die for a long time if I'm honest - it'll be the fallback graphics mode for a long while like DX8 was, as it wasn't all that long ago when DX8 was dropped. I reckon there's at least another three years of DX9 support.
Hope this helps,
Tim