NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 (G80): GPUs Re-architected for DirectX 10
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on November 8, 2006 6:01 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Prey Performance
With Prey being based off of the Doom 3 engine, only with some enhancements, scores tend to be quite a bit lower than many other games. At our maximum detail settings, dual graphics cards were previously required to play at the highest resolution. Now, a single 8800 GTX card is once again able to equal the performance of X1950 XTX CrossFire, which is no small achievement. The reduction in pixel and vertex processing power results in the 8800 GTS performing quite a bit lower, although it still manages to outperform 7950 GX2 by a small margin.
Quad SLI continues to be a disappointing prospect, providing no performance increase over a single GX2 card. The release of GeForce 8800 pretty much seals the fate of Quad SLI as well, as it's doubtful that NVIDIA will continue to invest time in optimizing the QSLI drivers when they have new GPUs that could make better use of optimizations. We can only hope that most of you didn't get sucked in by the marketing.
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dwalton - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
When using older cards sacrificing IQ for performance is typically acceptable. Who needs AA when running F.E.A.R on a 9700 Pro.However, on a just launched high-end card, why would anyone feel the need to sacrifice IQ for performance? Some may say resolution over AA, but I find it hard to believe that there is a lot of gaming enthusiasts with deep pockets, who play with insane resolutions yet no AA.
JarredWalton - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
If I look for jaggies, I see them. On most games, however, they don't bother me much at all. Running at native resolution on LCDs or at a really high resolution on CRTs, I'd take that over a lower res with 4xAA. If you have the power to enable 4xAA, great, but I'm certainly not one to suggest it's required. I'd rather be able to enable vsync without a massive performance hit (i.e. stay above 60 FPS) than worry about jaggies. Personal preference.munim - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
"With the latest 1.09 patch, F.E.A.R. has gained multi-core support,"Where is this?
JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
I wrote that, but it may be incorrect. I'm trying to get in contact with Gary to find out if I'm just being delusional about Quad Core support. Maybe it's NDA still? Hmmm.... nothing to see here!JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
Okay, it's the 1.08 patch, and that is what was tested. Since we didn't use a quad core CPU I don't know if it will actually help or not -- something to look at in the future.Nelsieus - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
I haven't even finished reading it yet, but so far, this is the most comprehensive, in-depth review I've seen on G80 and I just wanted to mention that beforehand.:)
GhandiInstinct - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
What upcoming games will be the first to be fully made on DX10 structure? And does the G80 have full support of DX10?timmiser - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
Microsoft Flight Simulator X will be DX10 compliant via a planned patch once Vista comes out.JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
All DX10 hardware will be full DX10 (see pages 2-4). As for games that will be DX10 ready, Halo 2 for Vista will be for sure. Beyond that... I don't know for sure. As we've explained a bit, DX10 will require Vista, so anything launching before Vista will likely not be DX10 compliant.shabby - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
They're re-doing a dx8 game in dx10? You gotta be kidding me, whats the point? You cant polish a turd.