Official HD 2900 Discussion Thread

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05-15-2007, 08:43 AM
DilTech

Guys... ATi's R600 lacks the hardware for AA Resolve.... Sadly this means AA is likely to always be slow on the part, and no driver will fix that because it's using shader power to do this job.

Quote:

Originally Posted by beyond3d

Then we come to the ROP hardware, designed for high performance AA with high precision surface formats, at high resolution, with an increase in the basic MSAA ability to 8x. It's here that we see the lustre start to peel away slightly in terms of IQ and performance, with no fast hardware resolve for tiles that aren't fully compressed, and a first line of custom filters that can have a propensity to blur more than not. Edge detect is honestly sweet, but the CFAA package feels like something tacked on recently to paper over the cracks, rather than something forward-looking (we'll end up at the point of fully-programmable MSAA one day in all GPUs) to pair with speedy hardware resolve and the usual base filters. AMD didn't move the game on in terms of absolute image quality when texture filtering, either. They're no longer leaders in the field of IQ any more, overtaken by NVIDIA's GeForce 8-series hardware.

http://www.beyond3d.com/content/reviews/16/16

Quote:

Originally Posted by anandtech

First, they refuse to call a spade a spade: this part was absolutely delayed, and it works better to admit this rather than making excuses. Forcing MSAA resolve to run on the shader hardware is less than desirable and degrades both pixel throughput and shader horsepower as opposed to implementing dedicated resolve hardware in the render back ends. Not being able to follow through with high end hardware will hurt in more than just in lost margins. The thirst for wattage that the R600 displays is not what we'd like to see from an architecture that is supposed to be about efficiency. Finally, attempting to extract a high instruction level parallelism using a VLIW design when something much simpler could exploit the huge amount of thread level parallelism inherent in graphics was not the right move.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988&p=31

Due to this, it's unlikely the R600 will ever catch up with AA involved.
05-15-2007, 08:55 AM
DeathReborn

Quote:

Originally Posted by v_rr

AMD Cautioned Reviewers On DX10 Lost Planet Benchmark

http://www.vr-zone.com/

Funny how AMD are happy to give out an outdated version of CoJ that has bugs specific to nVidia Hardware then call fowl on Lost Planet. Pot, Kettle & Black anyone?
05-15-2007, 09:03 AM
Periander6

Quote:

Originally Posted by XeRo

I thought delay was so they could launch the entire family at once. BTW, what happen to we'll launch 10 DX10 GPUs?

Did people seriously believe this excuse? A more transparent piece of BS is hard for me to imagine.
05-15-2007, 09:03 AM
Caparroz

Quote:

Originally Posted by largon

There's more sofware bottlenecks to R600 than the drivers ATi writes. The shaders on R600 are so much different that current DirectX can't properly utilize them.

I reckon we'll see noticeable gains as soon as Microsoft updates DirectX and more importantly, optimises the HLSL (high-level shader language) compiler in it for the shaders found in R600.

Finally someone with some sense that actually read the architecture bit of the reviews. The erratic performance of 2900xt across several diferent game benchmarks is to be expected. It's simply the nature of the R600 architecture design.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Periander6

Did people seriously believe this excuse? A more transparent piece of BS is hard for me to imagine.

People will believe whatever they're willing to believe and it takes very hard work to change that. As a advertising professional I thank for that.
05-15-2007, 09:30 AM
XeRo

Quote:

Originally Posted by Periander6

Did people seriously believe this excuse? A more transparent piece of BS is hard for me to imagine.

What can I say? I'm just very gullible:fact:
05-15-2007, 09:40 AM
deathman20

Quote:

Originally Posted by largon

There's more sofware bottlenecks to R600 than the drivers ATi writes. The shaders on R600 are so much different that current DirectX can't properly utilize them.

I reckon we'll see noticeable gains as soon as Microsoft updates DirectX and more importantly, optimises the HLSL (high-level shader language) compiler in it for the shaders found in R600.

Totally forgot about the HLSL. Good catch, I know I read some things on it but it sounded like it was already implemented, guess more or less they where talking about when its implemented.
05-15-2007, 10:00 AM
Caparroz

Quote:

Originally Posted by deathman20

Totally forgot about the HLSL. Good catch, I know I read some things on it but it sounded like it was already implemented, guess more or less they where talking about when its implemented.

HLSL is nothing new. It was introduced when DX9c was released, IIRC. The only diference is that all shaders must be writen in HLSL for DX10.
05-15-2007, 10:00 AM
eXceeded

hmmm so all that bandwidth is wasted since the card is poor at doing AA anyway?! No way...
05-15-2007, 10:11 AM
nn_step

hardware processing has always been and will always be the fastest however, it is the absolutely most limited. hence we have Software controlling our Processors instead of the computer being hard coded.
05-15-2007, 10:12 AM
Caparroz

Quote:

Originally Posted by eXceededgoku

hmmm so all that bandwidth is wasted since the card is poor at doing AA anyway?! No way...

The 2900xt has a massive BW. It's not like it's allwasted doing AA, but it definitively hurts. But that applies for all GPU designs. The real problem for R600 lacking a dedicated part for AA in the render back units is that it will use shader processing power for it, as pointed by the more in-depth reviews and DilTech.
05-15-2007, 10:19 AM
DilTech

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caparroz

The 2900xt has a massive BW. It's not like it's allwasted doing AA, but it definitively hurts. But that applies for all GPU designs. The real problem for R600 lacking a dedicated part for AA in the render back units is that it will use shader processing power for it, as pointed by the more in-depth reviews and DilTech.

Yep, so essentially, it's hurting in bandwidth(which, the HD 2900XT has more than enough) AND shader power.

Essentially, it takes two hits for turning on AA instead of one. Definitely not a good thing, and it's not something drivers can technically fix either. It's a hardware problem.
05-15-2007, 10:21 AM
mascaras

another call of juarez DX10 bench:

http://www.chip.de/bildergalerie/c1_...23.html?show=4

http://aycu08.webshots.com/image/162...9256431_rs.jpg

btw:

Quote:

ATI Drivers for Radeon HD 2900 Series

The following driver version 8.37.4.3 is provided as an update to the driver software that currently ships with the Radeon HD 2900 series products. The download file contains the display drivers and Catalyst Control Center. This driver applies to the following operating systems: Windows XP Home/Professional/Media Center Edition/Professional x64 Edition and Windows Vista 32/64-bit. For more information please refer to the release notes.

Source: AMD/ATI

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=31181

regards
05-15-2007, 10:40 AM
BlaqMale

Quote:

Originally Posted by XeRo

I thought delay was so they could launch the entire family at once. BTW, what happen to we'll launch 10 DX10 GPUs?

isn't it 5 for desktop and 5 for mobile sector?
05-15-2007, 10:50 AM
Sumanji

Quote:

Originally Posted by mascaras

btw:

So is someone gonna bench these for us or what?! :D:D
05-15-2007, 10:55 AM
cantankerous

This is all very disheartening. I can't believe anyone who bought an 8800 6 months ago is still not going to go through any buyers remorse anytime soon. I honestly didn't see this happening. The clarification that the 8800 performs MUCH better and has better IQ to boot is a hard thing to read as I have always been very pro ATI. I waited a long time for this day when both cards would compete head to head. All this talk about R600 having inherent hardware flaws such as lack of ROPS, a shoddy implementation of how AA is done etc is really making me feel quite disappointed in this card as a whole. I know it is my own fault but I wasted a ton of precious time in my life scouring all the message boards I could to gain every last bit of info on this card that I thought would be the end all, be all. I regret wasting all that time now. What makes it worse is the 8800GTX continually coming to my mind over this card is something I thought would never happen. Much better performance and technically better AF are winning me over, higher price or not. It seems people are just happy with the low(er) price of the 2900XT instead of what it can actually offer. The BFG 8800GTX OC2 is fairly cheap and less than a vanilla EVGA 8800GTX which sweetens the deal.

One other thing that is really bothering me that perhaps someone could answer. Why did ATI get rid of the 6xAA option? It has always looked VERY good on past cards however was kind of unusable due to the high performance hit. I was looking forward to using 6xAA on this card yet getting the same performance as 4xAA on my current X1900XTX essentially and technically bumping up IQ with no real loss in performance to what I am getting now with my current card. Getting rid of the 6xAA option and jumping straight from 4xAA to 8xAA means there is no longer a middle ground for IQ vs. performance. Jumping from 4xAA to 8xAA yields a high performance hit and is now going to be just like running 6xAA over 4xAA due to the drop the current cards having from doing this. Is there any technical reason they removed 6xAA being the only card to offer this or was just simply a choice they made that we have to live with?
05-15-2007, 10:58 AM
Noobie

Quote:

Originally Posted by DilTech

Yep, so essentially, it's hurting in bandwidth(which, the HD 2900XT has more than enough) AND shader power.

Essentially, it takes two hits for turning on AA instead of one. Definitely not a good thing, and it's not something drivers can technically fix either. It's a hardware problem.

What about the latency of the ring-bus design with 4 bus-stops?

Quote:

Originally Posted by cantankerous

This is all very disheartening. I can't believe anyone who bought an 8800 6 months ago is still not going to go through any buyers remorse anytime soon. I honestly didn't see this happening. The clarification that the 8800 performs MUCH better and has better IQ to boot is a hard thing to read as I have always been very pro ATI. I waited a long time for this day when both cards would compete head to head. All this talk about R600 having inherent hardware flaws such as lack of ROPS, a shoddy implementation of how AA is done etc is really making me feel quite disappointed in this card as a whole. I know it is my own fault but I wasted a ton of precious time in my life scouring all the message boards I could to gain every last bit of info on this card that I thought would be the end all, be all. I regret wasting all that time now. What makes it worse is the 8800GTX continually coming to my mind over this card is something I thought would never happen. Much better performance and technically better AF are winning me over, higher price or not. It seems people are just happy with the low(er) price of the 2900XT instead of what it can actually offer. The BFG 8800GTX OC2 is fairly cheap and less than a vanilla EVGA 8800GTX which sweetens the deal.

One other thing that is really bothering me that perhaps someone could answer. Why did ATI get rid of the 6xAA option? It has always looked VERY good on past cards however was kind of unusable due to the high performance hit. I was looking forward to using 6xAA on this card yet getting the same performance as 4xAA on my current X1900XTX essentially and technically bumping up IQ with no real loss in performance to what I am getting now with my current card. Getting rid of the 6xAA option and jumping straight from 4xAA to 8xAA means there is no longer a middle ground for IQ vs. performance. Jumping from 4xAA to 8xAA yields a high performance hit and is now going to be just like running 6xAA over 4xAA due to the drop the current cards having from doing this. Is there any technical reason they removed 6xAA being the only card to offer this or was just simply a choice they made that we have to live with?

It has 6xAA? http://www.beyond3d.com/content/reviews/16/10
05-15-2007, 11:05 AM
mascaras

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sumanji

So is someone gonna bench these for us or what?! :D:D

tomorow :thumbsup:

btw:

ARmed Assault benchmark:

http://3d-center.de/images/radeon_hd..._armed_sg1.png
05-15-2007, 11:13 AM
madcho

Noobie>6x AA is not available on HD 2900XT.

cantankerous> Don't cry, this is x1800 like. R650 is gonna fix this.

Keep in mind a x1900 is always very good in games ;)
05-15-2007, 11:15 AM
Noobie

Quote:

Originally Posted by mascaras

tomorow :thumbsup:

btw:

ARmed Assault benchmark:

http://3d-center.de/images/radeon_hd..._armed_sg1.png

I like the image quality test of that review : http://3d-center.de/artikel/radeon_h..._xt/index6.php

Quote:

Originally Posted by madcho

Noobie>6x AA is not available on HD 2900XT.

cantankerous> Don't cry, this is x1800 like. R650 is gonna fix this.

Keep in mind a x1900 is always very good in games ;)

Depends on your definition of AA. I say AA is measured by the total number of samples taken for the filter to work with, which means 6xAA = 2x + Wide Tent or 4x + Narrow Tent.
05-15-2007, 11:15 AM
XeRo

Quote:

Originally Posted by madcho

Noobie>6x AA is not available on HD 2900XT.

cantankerous> Don't cry, this is x1800 like. R650 is gonna fix this.

Keep in mind a x1900 is always very good in games ;)

man I hope not. A couple people I know already bought the card and said refresh won't come for a long time.
05-15-2007, 11:17 AM
cantankerous

Quote:

Originally Posted by madcho

Noobie>6x AA is not available on HD 2900XT.

cantankerous> Don't cry, this is x1800 like. R650 is gonna fix this.

Keep in mind a x1900 is always very good in games ;)

Maybe it is just my cpu that is beginning to suck but I still find FEAR doesn't play as well as I would like. To top this off Oblivion etc may run on a X1900 but you surely see what a difference a faster card can make on a game like this.

EDIT... wow, the prices are already dropping. Directcanada had a retail box HIS for $479 yesterday, it is now $456. $23 drop in 24 hours. The Diamond and Powercolor variants have also dropped in price.
05-15-2007, 11:27 AM
Think

Quote:

Originally Posted by cantankerous

Maybe it is just my cpu that is beginning to suck but I still find FEAR doesn't play as well as I would like. To top this off Oblivion etc may run on a X1900 but you surely see what a difference a faster card can make on a game like this.

EDIT... wow, the prices are already dropping. Directcanada had a retail box HIS for $479 yesterday, it is now $456. $23 drop in 24 hours. The Diamond and Powercolor variants have also dropped in price.

Expect more drops...local distributor is going to shoot down the prices to $399 in a week if demand doesn't increase.
05-15-2007, 11:28 AM
mascaras

Quote:

Originally Posted by cantankerous

Maybe it is just my cpu that is beginning to suck but I still find FEAR doesn't play as well as I would like. To top this off Oblivion etc may run on a X1900 but you surely see what a difference a faster card can make on a game like this.

EDIT... wow, the prices are already dropping. Directcanada had a retail box HIS for $479 yesterday, it is now $456. $23 drop in 24 hours. The Diamond and Powercolor variants have also dropped in price.

of course a Intel C2D make huge diference ;)

regards
05-15-2007, 11:31 AM
Noobie

Quote:

Originally Posted by mascaras

of course a Intel C2D make huge diference ;)

regards

Actually I haven't seen any "C2D vs AMD x2 scaling on the HD2900" reviews. Anybody got one?
05-15-2007, 11:35 AM
Shintai

Quote:

Originally Posted by XeRo

man I hope not. A couple people I know already bought the card and said refresh won't come for a long time.

Even AMD hinted at an interview that R650 would be 2-3 months after R600.

I also bet any GT/XL/Pro/XTX version waits for that.

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