The ATI Radeon 5XXX Thread

[saaya]

Most likely but not yet confirmed.
What was confirmed was a near-perfect AF algorithm which will produce better AF IQ than Nvidia's cards, though the difference will not be easily seen w/o still shots and 300-400% zoom.

no, you need big zoom to see it on still shots, but if you believe you cant see it when playing a game you must be blind :P

texture filtering is imo the worst problem with rasterization atm... forget about hdr causing problems with aa, the resulting iq is still pretty good and not a huge diference compared to propper aa, but texture filtering artefacts are really terrible... its either blurry and doesnt flicker or its sharp but flickers when moving... it depends on the angle the textures are in, but even the most common angle having a flat terrain texture in front of you in first person view causes flickering or blurry textures even with the highest quality settings on both nvidia and ati cards...

i really hope they stop their perf battle which is pointless imo, and focus on image quality instead... what we need is for games to look better, not for them to run at 300fps...

if i had to chose between a card that gives me 50fps with notably improved image quality or a card that gets me 100fps with worse image quality id get the first one, even if it costs more...

[LordEC911]

no, you need big zoom to see it on still shots, but if you believe you cant see it when playing a game you must be blind :P

I was talking about the small differences in AF IQ between RV870's near perfect angle independent AF algorithm vs Nvidia's.

Just like you cannot tell the differences between pre-RV870 AF vs post-G80 AF. The difference in IQ is there but hard to tell without still shots and zoom.

[Your_Boss]

You need a better cooler, then. My Sapphire Toxic 4870 idles at 44-45C when the fan is at 30%. I'd think about buying a replacement cooler.

It's just the stock cooler. What's a good one to buy then? Well, nevermind, I think I will just upgrade to the 5850 or 5870 when they come out. That should give me a little boost.

[STaRGaZeR]

I was talking about the small differences in AF IQ between RV870's near perfect angle independent AF algorithm vs Nvidia's.

Just like you cannot tell the differences between pre-RV870 AF vs post-G80 AF. The difference in IQ is there but hard to tell without still shots and zoom.

You don't need any zoom or still shots to see how bad the angle dependent AF of ATI cards looks sometimes.

[Chickenfeed]

It's just the stock cooler. What's a good one to buy then? Well, nevermind, I think I will just upgrade to the 5850 or 5870 when they come out. That should give me a little boost.

Don't worry about it. 1 idle temps don't really don't matter. It just doesn't matter. 2 stock coolers although not the best are designed with some overhead. Not saying people should be doing any serious overclocking on them but in all honesty the main reason to go third party with VGA coolers is noise. The last generation or 2 of gpus barely benefit from lower operating temperatures so the argument you'll be able to manage considerably higher overclocks is moot. ATI could have made the fan profile on the 4890 more human but because everyone was crying they decided to use a more aggressive (aka obnoxious ) one. I don't expect this to be the case with the 5800s.

With ATIs improved power play down clocking as well as the full length dual slot cooler, I expect that these new cards should be easy to tame ( apart from the 5870x2 )

[AffenJack]

...but even the most common angle having a flat terrain texture in front of you in first person view causes flickering or blurry textures even with the highest quality settings on both nvidia and ati cards...

if i had to chose between a card that gives me 50fps with notably improved image quality or a card that gets me 100fps with worse image quality id get the first one, even if it costs more...

Did you ever compare Nvs and atis af?Nvs HQ AF is much less flickering than Atis AF since G80. I'm hoping we'll see the same with Atis newer af and not only a better af flower. Flickering on R600 and their derivates is really the bigger problem than non-angle independant af.

[Oberon]

Did you ever compare Nvs and atis af?Nvs HQ AF is much less flickering than Atis AF since G80. I'm hoping we'll see the same with Atis newer af and not only a better af flower. Flickering on R600 and their derivates is really the bigger problem than non-angle independant af.

ATI's "high-quality AF" setting suffers from flickering, the normal setting does not (kind of the opposite of NVIDIA's situation).

On another note, I had an interesting thought about the story from Fudzilla mentioning that NVIDIA is confident that G300 will beat the 5870: This statement is coming from the same company that said their previous generation products were faster just because they support PhysX!

[wrangler]

no, you need big zoom to see it on still shots, but if you believe you cant see it when playing a game you must be blind :P

texture filtering is imo the worst problem with rasterization atm... forget about hdr causing problems with aa, the resulting iq is still pretty good and not a huge diference compared to propper aa, but texture filtering artefacts are really terrible... its either blurry and doesnt flicker or its sharp but flickers when moving... it depends on the angle the textures are in, but even the most common angle having a flat terrain texture in front of you in first person view causes flickering or blurry textures even with the highest quality settings on both nvidia and ati cards...

i really hope they stop their perf battle which is pointless imo, and focus on image quality instead... what we need is for games to look better, not for them to run at 300fps...

if i had to chose between a card that gives me 50fps with notably improved image quality or a card that gets me 100fps with worse image quality id get the first one, even if it costs more...

Just want to reiterate the above. I couldn't have voiced how I feel about this issue any better than this.

[AffenJack]

ATI's "high-quality AF" setting suffers from flickering, the normal setting does not (kind of the opposite of NVIDIA's situation).

No, ati is allways suffering from flickering. AI off is a bit better than AI Standard, but you can't really use it because of the other optimizations which were turned off with AI Off.

[Kylzer]

9/22-9/23 depending on which side of the world you are on

Thats sucks lifting NDA on release date.

[zerazax]

Thats sucks lifting NDA on release date.

Just about every release out there has been like that..

[Kylzer]

Just about every release out there has been like that..

Yes that makes it suck.

[labs23]

9/22-9/23 depending on which side of the world you are on

I don't know now guys if 9/22-23 NDA won't change in your place, NA, EMEA countries.

But one thing is for sure, Asia will have the retail cards on Oct. 13, and NDA is set to be lifted at the same date.

[W1zzard]

I don't know now guys if 9/22-23 NDA won't change in your place, NA, EMEA countries.

But one thing is for sure, Asia will have the retail cards on Oct. 13, and NDA is set to be lifted at the same date.

amd has been very clear about the nda, i havent seen any evidence of any other date. feel free to post some

[Leeghoofd]

Conference call very soon

[W1zzard]

those are just telephone briefings under nda

[saaya]

I was talking about the small differences in AF IQ between RV870's near perfect angle independent AF algorithm vs Nvidia's.

Just like you cannot tell the differences between pre-RV870 AF vs post-G80 AF. The difference in IQ is there but hard to tell without still shots and zoom.

i see loads of flickering in several diferent angles with g92 and g200 based vgas as well as rv6 and rv7 based cards... there is no big diference between them...

the easiest way to spot it is warcraft3 since you got all kinds of angles towards the camera there since they use few polygones... in modern monster triangle games its harder to reproduce since the angles vary a lot... but theres no game where i havent noticed texture flickering on the floor and walls yet when moving along them...

Did you ever compare Nvs and atis af?Nvs HQ AF is much less flickering than Atis AF since G80. I'm hoping we'll see the same with Atis newer af and not only a better af flower. Flickering on R600 and their derivates is really the bigger problem than non-angle independant af.

set everything to max quality and tried diferent settings one at a time... its slightly better on nvidia vs ati... but no big diference...

ATI's "high-quality AF" setting suffers from flickering, the normal setting does not (kind of the opposite of NVIDIA's situation).

On another note, I had an interesting thought about the story from Fudzilla mentioning that NVIDIA is confident that G300 will beat the 5870: This statement is coming from the same company that said their previous generation products were faster just because they support PhysX!

it flickers with any setting, even the most blurry unsharp one... its just less... but thats a terrible compromise, blurry textures so they dont flicker? thats like pouring a drop of lemon juice in each eye before gaming so you dont notice the lack of anti aliasing in some hdr games

[003]

Just like you cannot tell the differences between pre-RV870 AF vs post-G80 AF.

I owned both a GTX280 and a 4890, and with both cards at 16x AF with the highest quality settings in the drivers, the 280 had noticeably less shimmering. GT200 AF algorithm is superior to RV7x0 AF, this has been objectively demonstrated by Anandtech (I think that was the source) with test images depicting AF. Can't find the article now, but it's there.

[LordEC911]

I owned both a GTX280 and a 4890, and with both cards at 16x AF with the highest quality settings in the drivers, the 280 had noticeably less shimmering. GT200 AF algorithm is superior to RV7x0 AF, this has been objectively demonstrated by Anandtech (I think that was the source) with test images depicting AF. Can't find the article now, but it's there.

Yes, Nvidia's current AF algorithm is superior to ATi's, I already mentioned that quite a few times.
The "shimmering" effect is a completely different beast and while it takes a negative effect on IQ, that isn't something that I factored into the equation.


Edit- I don't know how I am not being clear enough...
Basically Nvidia's AF is better than ATi's in the same way that ATi's AA is better than Nvidia's.
The difference is so negligible that it is extremely hard to see in-game.

[saaya]

I owned both a GTX280 and a 4890, and with both cards at 16x AF with the highest quality settings in the drivers, the 280 had noticeably less shimmering. GT200 AF algorithm is superior to RV7x0 AF, this has been objectively demonstrated by Anandtech (I think that was the source) with test images depicting AF. Can't find the article now, but it's there.

can you find the link?
how can you see flickering on images though? you need high fps high res video and thats not easy to capture...

[XS2K]

Indeed Nvidia has a better algorithm for AF than ATi since the G80 generation,with 5870 it seems that ATi takes the crown again regarding AF quality.

[saaya]

i dont see a big difference between g92 and rv670...
they both flicker...

[cstkl1]

I don't know now guys if 9/22-23 NDA won't change in your place, NA, EMEA countries.

But one thing is for sure, Asia will have the retail cards on Oct. 13, and NDA is set to be lifted at the same date.

nope
23rd/24th 10 units of sapphire HD5870 in Malaysia. MRSP RM1450-1499.

also havent u noticed asia usually gets the first cards in the past 2 years or so
heck wont be surprised if based on past nda etc.. somebody in asia will get it 1-2 weeks before.

[fellix_bg]

For all AF quality nerds, here is an extended animation sequence, comparing various AF pattens from ATi and Nvidia in default and high quality modes, incl. HD5000 series mode:

[Xoulz]

Just want to reiterate the above. I couldn't have voiced how I feel about this issue any better than this.

DirectX 11 is better image quality...


DX11 does makes things better. Simple and easy all the way around (from a marketing standpoint and a industrial shift). Whether thats using Windows itself (ie: Aero), or CAD, multimedia, Media, Animation, productivity, social networking, games, etc... all easier and more usable. People are going to seek DX11 if it's that easy to obtain.

Coincidentally, the proliferation of 64bit everything, cheap memory, SSD's, affordable 1TB HD's & Windows 7... will usher in a new gaming era.



i love my crystal ball..