Fermi is going to change gaming forever

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ShuttleLuv

Supreme [H]ardness
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Ok look first off, I love both Ati and Nvidia. I currently have a 5870 oc'ed. I love it. But reading up on the Fermi, I cannot help but come to the conclusion it is going to change gaming. I got on Stalker Clear Sky last night and played alittle. I then came upon some trees. The trees are a disgusting mess of a polygon. A GREAT looking game marred by small subtle disasters like that. The trees are so laughably unremarkable it isn't funny. The Fermi is going to push for geometry and polygons. Tesselation. We need more of this and we need it asap. I believe nvidia knows this. We are at a point when we have all the effects, all the shaders to do so, and tons of power, but nothing is advancing graphically like it should be. Games still have a crisp look on pc, very good aa / af and clear distances, but the geometry is not where it should be. When I come to a tree or a character or a building in a 2009 videogame and it looks almost as bad as a tree in a game from 99, there is something wrong. This is where Nvidia comes in. Forget eyefinity, forget it all. Geometry is what it is going to all be about in the coming years. This will get us one more step next to photo realistic gaming. I fully intend to buy a fermi and test it. But will I sell my 5870 right now to do so? Not even close. I love this card. But I do not doubt that fermi, however late it may be, is going to put us on the path to changing gaming forever. And this is coming from a guy thats been doing this way over a decade, using cards from 3dfx, ati, nvidia, rendition, intel, you name it.

****Just my opinion****
 
ShuttleLuv said:
Ok look first off, I love both Ati and Nvidia. I currently have a 5870 oc'ed. I love it. But reading up on the Fermi, I cannot help but come to the conclusion it is going to change gaming. I got on Stalker Clear Sky last night and played alittle. I then came upon some trees. The trees are a disgusting mess of a polygon. A GREAT looking game marred by small subtle disasters like that. The trees are so laughably unremarkable it isn't funny. The Fermi is going to push for geometry and polygons. Tesselation. We need more of this and we need it asap. I believe nvidia knows this. We are at a point when we have all the effects, all the shaders to do so, and tons of power, but nothing is advancing graphically like it should be. Games still have a crisp look on pc, very good aa / af and clear distances, but the geometry is not where it should be. When I come to a tree or a character or a building in a 2009 videogame and it looks almost as bad as a tree in a game from 99, there is something wrong. This is where Nvidia comes in. Forget eyefinity, forget it all. Geometry is what it is going to all be about in the coming years. This will get us one more step next to photo realistic gaming. I fully intend to buy a fermi and test it. But will I sell my 5870 right now to do so? Not even close. I love this card. But I do not doubt that fermi, however late it may be, is going to put us on the path to changing gaming forever. And this is coming from a guy thats been doing this way over a decade, using cards from 3dfx, ati, nvidia, rendition, intel, you name it.

****Just my opinion****
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I disagree. Fermi is going to change gaming as we know it FOREVER
 
ShuttleLuv said:
No but the hardware can put devs on the path to doing it so we don't get a mess like those tree's again.
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I hope you're right, but my personal opinion is that the majority of games will continue to be designed for console hardware, with very few PC-centric titles actually taking advantage of the hardware.
 
ShuttleLuv said:
No but the hardware can put devs on the path to doing it so we don't get a mess like those tree's again.
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Pretty sure DX11 already put devs on the path to tessellation, not to mention ATI has had DX11 hardware out to devs since the summer of 2009. Nvidia isn't gonna be changing shit.
 
DX11 does do tesselation (58XX series / 59XX series) as well, but they are purportedly gonna be doing it faster, AND using hardware made specifically for that job. Big difference there.
 
FranklyShankly said:
I hope you're right, but my personal opinion is that the majority of games will continue to be designed for console hardware, with very few PC-centric titles actually taking advantage of the hardware.
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The 360 has had hardware tessellation from 2005. It's pretty central to the platform.
 
I am not trolling. Can anyone ever say an opinion without being called a troll? It's ridiculous. And as for the 360 having hardware tessellation, maybe. But does it have the power to effectively use it? NO.
 
Don't count on it. Its great to have all this powerful hardware, but the simple fact is that its too bloody expensive to push graphics a lot. You aren't going to see a lot of it because its just not financially feasible for most companies. Why spend 30-40 million dollars on a new engine that can push graphics when such a pathetic amount of people can take advantage of it and its far more viable to make a game cheaper, have it take better advantage of a wide-range of hardware, and having the largest possible buyer's market? Thats not even going into the advantages of multiplatform development.
 
It's not.

Sorry, but no graphics card is. They are all evolutionary advances. Fermi looks to support all the same features at the 5800s (DirectX 11 in other words) just faster. Wonderful, but not revolutionary. Games will continue to get better and better, but there isn't going to be an "OMG this card changed everything!" moment.
 
Derangel said:
Don't count on it. Its great to have all this powerful hardware, but the simple fact is that its too bloody expensive to push graphics a lot. You aren't going to see a lot of it because its just not financially feasible for most companies. Why spend 30-40 million dollars on a new engine that can push graphics when such a pathetic amount of people can take advantage of it and its far more viable to make a game cheaper, have it take better advantage of a wide-range of hardware, and having the largest possible buyer's market? Thats not even going into the advantages of multiplatform development.
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Crysis anyone? Still successful, and very much THE game all nerds always push to show off technology. Nerds are STILL trying to max this game. Buying multiple $500 videocards to do so. You think of some game comes along that pushes tessellation and geometry nerds won't eat it up?
 
ShuttleLuv said:
Crysis anyone? Still successful, and very much THE game all nerds always push to show off technology.
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How much 3rd party funding did Crytek get? And mind you, Crysis was designed as show case for CE2 to sell it to developers, which hasn't exactly been going well. Why do you think they're putting so much effort into a multiplatform engine now?
 
ShuttleLuv said:
DX11 does do tesselation (58XX series / 59XX series) as well, but they are purportedly gonna be doing it faster, AND using hardware made specifically for that job. Big difference there.
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Fermi itself will do nothing, because the results you're looking for will run like crap on Fermi.

The generation or two after Fermi might give you what you wanted, but Fermi doesn't bring anything new to the table. ATI was first with DX11 and Eyefinity. Nvidia is literally following suit.

I'm getting a Fermi and selling my 5870 (LOVE XFX) if the benchies are good, but don't kid yourself that Fermi brings anything new to the table.
 
Besides the possibility of being faster, how will Fermi change gaming when ATI already have the features you named?

Oh, because Nvidia is coming out with it. I understand now.
Fermi will only push Devs to make more DX11 games, end of story.
 
No not at all. But you have to admit Nvidia has always had a way with developers....he he he. Usually get em to do what they want. Ati 58XX series is specially built for geometry? News to me.

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I know that. But this is the point I was making before I had even seen that image. And like it or not, nvidia or not, it's true. You cannot deny it.
 
ShuttleLuv said:
I know that. But this is the point I was making before I had even seen that image. And like it or not, nvidia or not, it's true. You cannot deny it.
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The only thing that cannot be denied is that there are people out there that blindly fall for nVidia marketing, proven by the existence of this thread.
 
RamonGTP said:
The only thing that cannot be denied is that there are people out there that blindly fall for nVidia marketing, proven by the existence of this thread.
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They blindly fall for ATI hype as well. Number one rule is: Never, never trust slides from a company who has every reason to fake them.
 
OMFG!!!! I am not falling for marketing hype. I have been through this for many, many years. I'm saying, what nvidia is saying in this slide is TRUE. Whether fermi flops, sucks, or rocks, has nothing to do with that. The games in todays market are very low in geometry and high on shading. Based on what nvidia says and IF they are telling the truth, I think Fermi is the start of something good.
 
ShuttleLuv said:
OMFG!!!! I am not falling for marketing hype. I have been through this for many, many years. I'm saying, what nvidia is saying in this slide is TRUE. Whether fermi flops, sucks, or rocks, has nothing to do with that. The games in todays market are very low in geometry and high on shading. Based on what nvidia says and IF they are telling the truth, I think Fermi is the start of something good.
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Its not the start of something new if it isn't worthwhile for developers to spend the millions and millions of dollars it would cost to push the technology. Do you have any idea how small the high-end market is? Especially compared to the mid-range one.
 
It is up to the game devs to actually use these features... Fermi or 5870 is nothing without the game devs utilizing the features and performance available on the cards. Fermi won't change anything if the game devs don't change anything. Let's hope they do.

For now though, Eyefinity is certainly something that can be used right now on old and new games, without having to wait, and IMO (and many others) does "change gaming forever" It is a feature that can utilize the awesome performance of the GPUs to push higher resolutions and displays right now, giving even old games a whole new experience.

Look how many new games are still DX9 based.... just sayin, maybe that will change, but not overnight, but right now AMD does offer something that can improve your gameplay experience on those DX9 games
 
I like eyefinity. but what would be more revolutionary to you guys - three displays and a max higher res or a game utilitzing so much geometry it looks life like?
 
ShuttleLuv said:
I like eyefinity. but what would be more revolutionary to you guys - three displays and a max higher res or a game utilitzing so much geometry it looks life like?
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Give me both.

However, right now, I can use Eyefinity, and I cannot use high poly tessellated games, cause they don't exist. Will they exist? Up to game devs, not Fermi.
 
AMD_Gamer said:
How do you know Fermi does what it claims?
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how do you know nvidia isnt going to change gaming forever? isnt nvidia always ontop? i mean look at the 295. it was the top card forever until now. i think nvidia is going to take the lead on this.
 
If anything, this will be an evolutionary jump in PC graphics. Just like the 3dfx Voodoo chipset, the ATI 9700 Pro Series and the 8800 GTX Series. ATI was first to the gates with the DX11 cards, Nvidia is playing catchup this round. Until I see graphics that were used in the movie Avatar on my desktop computer used in a game that I play, it is still a catchup. I think we are still 5 years away from those graphics on an everyday system. That will be a graphics revolution IMHO!!!
 
So, trees in games will look more like trees in forests, faces in games will look more like faces on people, etc. No graphics card, no matter how powerful or expensive, will make a bad game more worthwhile to play. A lousy $60 game won't be any more entertaining if I play it with $1000 worth of Fermi in my PC.
 
The Cobra said:
If anything, this will be an evolutionary jump in PC graphics. Just like the 3dfx Voodoo chipset, the ATI 9700 Pro Series and the 8800 GTX Series. ATI was first to the gates with the DX11 cards, Nvidia is playing catchup this round. Until I see graphics that were used in the movie Avatar on my desktop computer used in a game that I play, it is still a catchup. I think we are still 5 years away from those graphics on an everyday system.
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Much further than 5 years. You do realize it takes many hours to render one single frame of animation for Avatar, right? And that it takes a large rendering farm to do it. In order for that to be playable in a game the hardware needs to render it in real time. Its just now possible to render something like Toy Story in real time. A 15 year old movie.
 
ShuttleLuv said:
And as for the 360 having hardware tessellation, maybe. But does it have the power to effectively use it? NO.
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There's no maybe about it. The 360 uses hardware tessellation. And yes, it uses it effectively. However the performance increase the 360 gains from tessellation does not subjectively show up in the graphics, it is from the increased data density on the DVD, which means less loading and pop-in. I know it sounds pretty incredible but pop-in could have been an even worse issue on the 360.

The point is not that the 360 has tessellation and can therefore use awesome graphics, the point is that the same techniques the 360 uses for data streaming can be scaled up with high-end PC hardware to produce better looking graphics even on console ports. Consoles aren't holding future PC games back in this area, it's up to ATi and Nvidia to bring these techniques from the consoles (well, console) to the PC.
 
The next thing that could change gaming forever is a new generation of consoles. Crysis was one of the last of a dying breed of games made to push PC gaming technology to the limit and beyond. These days the console market is where all the money is, and few are going to invest in taking full advantage of PC graphical capabilities.

I wish I could say Fermi is shaping up nicely, as I hoped to make it my next (long overdue) upgrade, but I'm still not convinced I'll get much return on investment over an older card. My biggest concern is that I'll need to install beefier air conditioning, now that they're saying that Fermi will be the hottest graphics card ever. I had enough trouble with my old 8800 overheating in the summer.
 
Raw power, which I have now doubt Fermi has a lot of, will not start a revolution in the gaming industry. If a 5870 doesn't have enough power for you, thats what Crossfire is for.

What changes developers minds is market penetration. From a profit perspective, why develop a game that only 10% of the gamers have systems that can run it?

The best way to speed up market penetration is to make that affordable. If nVidia wants to revolutionize gaming, they'll have to steal the price/performance show, not fall in line with ATI. I'll go with whoever has the best price/performance ratio in my budget, and I'm sure this is what a lot of others do to.
 
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