Valve sucks

[Glyphic]

wow um, this thread is still open?

 

[fallguy]

You mean facts like "18.93% of the Steam Userbase have NVidia GeForce FX Video Cards?"

Or perhaps facts like "Of the Steam Userbase, 18.93% have NVidia GeForce FX Video Cards?"

Then again there's also the fact that 18.93% of the frelling Steam Userbase have NVidia GeForce FX slagging Video Cards, you pile of steaming Bantha Poudoo!

If any of the previously stated "curse" words are unrecognized... then your lack of nerdiness disturbs me...

Except the number that Valve that they would not treat as DX8 is less than 3%.

 

[toddw]

You all have it wrong...

FP16 - FP24 / 32bit pipe * SM2.0 =

ISSUE #1:
Steam is adware/malware/spyware they force you to load AND remind you it's loaded by showing it in the bottom right hand corner of your computer. How would you all react if FarCry/Painkiller/Doom3/whatever forced you to install gamespy?

ISSUE #2:
First off it should be DVD only, period. 5 cds is excessive, period. For those of you saying it may affect sales, limit audience, what-have-you... no. You cannot on one hand say Steam is the future to ensure no pirating, and that Valve is "an industry leader" here, and then have them put out a 5 cd game. If they were an industry leader it would be DVD only, I wouldn't have to pay $10 more for a DVD version.

ISSUE #3:
Ok, so you show your true colors and put the game out on cds. Fine then... but... PAPER SLEEVES!!?!? Is this a cruel joke? $55 and I get paper sleeves? I don't care if it was Vivendi Universal... you signed a contract with them, try reading it next time. Maybe then we can get a manual too, or is that going crazy talk? Pathetic.

Thats three strikes. Ok the "game" is great, but reviewers need to start looking at the whole concept here... force me to load bloatware? Ok minus 10%, paper sleeves, minus 10%, 5 cds instead of DVD after you feed me lies about how you are an industry leader, minus 5%. The game, 100% Total review of full product = 100% - 25% = SCORE 75%.

 

[ApaThy_NeXT2]

ISSUE #3:
Ok, so you show your true colors and put the game out on cds. Fine then... but... PAPER SLEEVES!!?!? Is this a cruel joke? $55 and I get paper sleeves? I don't care if it was Vivendi Universal... you signed a contract with them, try reading it next time. Maybe then we can get a manual too, or is that going crazy talk? Pathetic.

I have this grudge aganist them too. $55 bucks and paper sleeves? Okay I guess I can live with that, but no manual? Just a damn piece of paper with the controls on it.
Thanks for the $20 of a new ATI card though
It sucks when you have to depend on a company for a great game and they rape you from all directions.

 

[R1ckCa1n]

You mean facts like "18.93% of the Steam Userbase have NVidia GeForce FX Video Cards?"

Or perhaps facts like "Of the Steam Userbase, 18.93% have NVidia GeForce FX Video Cards?"

Then again there's also the fact that 18.93% of the frelling Steam Userbase have NVidia GeForce FX slagging Video Cards, you pile of steaming Bantha Poudoo!

If any of the previously stated "curse" words are unrecognized... then your lack of nerdiness disturbs me...

Yes but what you fail to realize is of the 18.93% of FX cards in the survey, only 2.55% are actual DX9 parts. This is what we are talking about........

 

[Jbirney]

Then again there's also the fact that 18.93% of the frelling Steam Userbase have NVidia GeForce FX slagging Video Cards, you pile of steaming Bantha Poudoo!

The only problem is that the 5200 and the 5600 make up 15% out of the 18.93% your qouted. A user here had the 5200. He ran it using the 16pp forced path. His framerate when up to LOW DOUBLE DIGITS which is still not even playable. The 5600 was a bit better, but it still fails to provide a playable setting with a complete 16pp path forced upon it. Thus you get only 4% of the over all steam users with the FX cards that have enough power to RUN IT IN MIXED MODE!

 

[pxc]

The only problem is that the 5200 and the 5600 make up 15% out of the 18.93% your qouted. A user here had the 5200. He ran it using the 16pp forced path. His framerate when up to LOW DOUBLE DIGITS which is still not even playable.

I ran that. In the same post I also wrote about an oddity with the ATI path. I call it an "ATI path" because the freakiness happens when the 5200 is forced to be recognized as a 9800 Pro.

How the oddity works:
1. change the card ID (mine was the entry for 322) to 9800 Pro as described on the first page. this is not done to only affect the water clip plane.
2. install 3D Analyze forced FP16 (copies DLLs) to HL2 as described on the first page
3. force -dxlevel 90 in HL2 and set reflect world and other options high
4. force -dxlevel 81 in HL2 and run again

The world reflections persist and instead of only a 15% improvement from steps 1-3, the framerate doubles (100% improvement). The game is easily playable on even a PCI FX 5200 (what I tested) with world reflections on the ATI 9800 "DX8.1 path".

 

[Optimus]

4. force -dxlevel 81 in HL2 and run again

The world reflections persist and instead of only a 15% improvement from steps 1-3, the framerate doubles (100% improvement). The game is easily playable on even a PCI FX 5200 (what I tested) with world reflections on the ATI 9800 "DX8.1 path".

I didn't realize that you were getting an improvement on the dx81 path as well. But I still question whether it is indeed treating the video card as an ATI card or as an unknown NVidia card. If it searches by the video card's Product ID, then it is treating it as an unknown NVidia card. If it searches by the video card's name, then it is treating it like the specified ATI Product ID.

The twist is that "MakeMeLast" boolean value (technically an integer but clearly treated as a boolean) in the "Unknown NVidia" setting. This value may indeed tell HL2 to ignore the "Unknown NVidia" setting and choose the modified setting because the video card driver's name matches the modified setting.

Yes but what you fail to realize is of the 18.93% of FX cards in the survey, only 2.55% are actual DX9 parts. This is what we are talking about........

First of all, thanks be to all of you for finally responding to this issue. Thus far, I had only receive acknowledgement of this point in agreement. It's nice to be listened to by those who disagree once in a while.

Now, R1ckCa1n, I must respectfully disagree with your statement. Unlike ATI's naming scheme, when an NVidia card is designed based around a previous generation's core, it is given a separate designation which signifies this difference. In the case of NVidia, this has in the past been the MX and sometimes the Go branding. (I certainly remember ATI's 9000 fiasco as a friend of mine got burned by it.)

This means that the 5200, 5600, 5700, 5800, 5900, and 5950 are all dx9 parts. The 5200Go and the 5600Go are quite possibly dx81 parts, though I have personally seen the 5600Go in action and believe it to be a dx9 part.

The only problem is that the 5200 and the 5600 make up 15% out of the 18.93% your qouted. A user here had the 5200. He ran it using the 16pp forced path. His framerate when up to LOW DOUBLE DIGITS which is still not even playable. The 5600 was a bit better, but it still fails to provide a playable setting with a complete 16pp path forced upon it. Thus you get only 4% of the over all steam users with the FX cards that have enough power to RUN IT IN MIXED MODE!

Jbirney, I completely agree with your statement whole-heartedly, and without one shadow of a doubt. However, there are a great many who believe that Image Quality is worth sacrificing framerate. Clearly, most of the editors at HardOCP do, as their method of benchmarking uses gameplay settings that my systems might dream of in their worst nightmares.

Thus I believe that if even a small portion of 5200 users... say 10%... want the option of dx9, then all of what's left would like to have that option. This number would come out to roughly 10.88% of the Steam Userbase that want the option. That's more than 1 out of every 10 users. Now, I'm not saying that the default shouldn't be dx81 for these cards. I'm saying that if it can be done, then it should be done and should be done right as soon as they finish any currently planned bug fixes or upgrades.

 

[rcolbert]

Now, R1ckCa1n, I must respectfully disagree with your statement. Unlike ATI's naming scheme, when an NVidia card is designed based around a previous generation's core, it is given a separate designation which signifies this difference. In the case of NVidia, this has in the past been the MX and sometimes the Go branding. (I certainly remember ATI's 9000 fiasco as a friend of mine got burned by it.)

To clarify, I believe what is being referenced are the percentage of FX5xxx cards that will actually choose to use DX9 in HL2 by default. I think everyone agrees that all the FX5xxx cards are DX9 compatible.

 

[Optimus]

Why was the dx81 path chosen for those cards which do not fall under this fabled 2.55%?

Because they could not run the currently available dx9 path at a framrate of roughly 45 or more frames per second. Now if Valve modified the currently available dx9 path to include all speed optimizations available in the current dx9 spec, then many more of the 18.93% of the Steam Userbase with FX based video cards would be able to play HL2 at dx9 with a framerate of 45 or more frames per second.

Limitting the benefit of this enhancement to this fabled 2.55% is simply one of the 12(I think it's 12) Fallacies of Logic. The fallacy in question being the assumption that if a change does not benefit a minority then it is not beneficial to the majority.

If this fabled 2.55% is the only portion that would be affected assuming this change ignored the other 16.38%, it does not necessarily follow that this change is required to ignore the other 16.38%.

And of course, this all assumes that all Steam users agree with Valve's assessment that less than 45 fps is not worth the increase in Image Quality, which is not the case.

In order to provide a small amount of tangability to this issue, my video card is among that 16.38% and with a standard dx9 path with partial precision hints it would definitely be playable. If it included optimized instruction order, I have no doubt that my average fps would break the 60 mark.

 

[rcolbert]

And the fallacy there could easily be "false premise." No one has proven with any authority that:

1) Partial precision provides the same quality as Full precision
2) Adding conditional root hints by any means througout the engine for the FX5xxx cards would not have a negative performance or quality impact on the game for everyone else
3) That Valve did not weigh the possible solutions for this problem and simply come up with the best overall solution for everyone concerned.

But what has been (or can easily be) proven is this:

1) Nvidia FX5xxx cards don't calculate precision according to the DX specification
2) The DX8.1 path for the FX5xxx works just fine
3) The fact that NO ONE will ever admit the video card they bought sucks so long as they still own it.


And finally, "optomized instruction order" ONLY means optomized for the bad architecture of the FX5xxx series cards which will kick a pixel back to the beginning of the pipeline when it receives shader instructions in a sequence that it can't digest properly. All other cards can handle multiple shaders in a single pass through the pipeline in whatever sequence they happen to arrive. THAT is the way it's meant to be played, mon frere.

 

[ThreeDee]

I think the problem is that the FX series was just hardware that was too advanced for current set of drivers that nVidia is puting out for these cards ...ala ATi's Radeon 8500 series .. in due time these FX marvels will show its true glory and ...**BARFF!!* ....errr ...yeah ..

 

[pxc]

But what has been (or can easily be) proven is this:

1) Nvidia FX5xxx cards don't calculate precision according to the DX specification
2) The DX8.1 path for the FX5xxx works just fine
3) The fact that NO ONE will ever admit the video card they bought sucks so long as they still own it.

1. see page 1. DX9 precision is at least 24 bits for temporary storage and _pp hints allow for 16 bit precision. Both are part of the DX9 spec and both are supported by DX9. The only reason partial precision is not in HL2 is because Valve dropped the mixed mode path in the spring.

2. True, and it's a lesser image quality path. But the DX9 mixed mode path was also working fine for the FX59x0 cards before valve dropped it. The 5900 (DX9 mixed mode) had matched the performance of the 9800 (DX9 mode) with very little IQ difference. See the many reviews that used the stolen beta code.

3. When every other game, including DX9 games, plays fine the problem is pretty clear. I offered my own guess already why Valve dropped the mixed mode path (due to the extra work it was taking and the fact that the game was eventually over a year late). The sad thing is that the _pp hints would be ignored by the ATI driver since it's meaningless on their hardware.

After playing about 1/2 way through HL2, the rush job to get the game out in it's final state is pretty clear. I would rant about that, but this isn't the games forum.

 

[rcolbert]

Sorry, but all remedies suggested still equate to Valve polishing Nvidia's turd for them. Comparing HL2 to all other games overlooks the fact that Source does not have a great deal of company at their level. There are only a few games out there that are in the same league in terms of a rendering engine, and one of the more notable ones isn't even a DX title.

For comparison's sake, John Carmack even suggested that folks who had previously been able to overclock their video cards with great success would likely not be able to do so with Doom 3. The reason being that the new engine was going to push the hardware in ways that previous games had not done.

Source is a great engine, and IMO finds a pretty good balance between the other latest, greatest engines (with published games to back them up.) Suggesting that Source is deficient because is doesn't pander to a particularly flawed video card architecture is still ass-backwards, again IMO.

 

[Badger_sly]

........Suggesting that Source is deficient because is doesn't pander to a particularly flawed video card architecture is still ass-backwards, again IMO.

Source is deficient, because it was made deficient, for a reason. A six million dollar + reason.

 

[rcolbert]

Source is deficient, because it was made deficient, for a reason. A six million dollar + reason.

Do you hear that?

Hear what?

Those are the silent black helicopters coming to get us?

 

[Optimus]

And the fallacy there could easily be "false premise."

I didn't mean to offend. I was trying to fall back to my Introduction to Philosophy course, but that was almost 4 years ago so I suppose it came out like ThreeDee's statement did. And on that note, ROFL!

No one has proven with any authority that:

1) Partial precision provides the same quality as Full precision

No one honestly cares if it does. If it is even close then it will make FX users happy.

2) Adding conditional root hints by any means througout the engine for the FX5xxx cards would not have a negative performance or quality impact on the game for everyone else

It will not necessarily affect nv4x users as HL2 already has a dx9 path that does not use partial precision hints. It will definitely not affect ATI users as evryone who follows video card hardware knows that ATI's current offerings are 24bit floating point only.

3) That Valve did not weigh the possible solutions for this problem and simply come up with the best overall solution for everyone concerned.

I think it's pretty evident that they did not weigh the situation fairly if at all in that they were constantly maligning the FX line even after Carmack had ceased.

But what has been (or can easily be) proven is this:

1) Nvidia FX5xxx cards don't calculate precision according to the DX specification

1. see page 1. DX9 precision is at least 24 bits for temporary storage and _pp hints allow for 16 bit precision. Both are part of the DX9 spec and both are supported by DX9. The only reason partial precision is not in HL2 is because Valve dropped the mixed mode path in the spring.

The only thing I can add to pxc's comment is that DirectX9.0c actually specifies that 24bit floating point is partial precision. Thus, if you get down to the nitty gritty, the FX line meets current dx9 spec and the Radeon 9xxx series and up do not meet current dx9 spec.

2) The DX8.1 path for the FX5xxx works just fine

That depends on your preference. If your preference is framerate and resolution only, then yes, dx8.1 is "just fine." However, if your preference is image quality, then dx8.1 is no where near "just fine."

3) The fact that NO ONE will ever admit the video card they bought sucks so long as they still own it.

With this I will have to disagree.

The FX line utterly and totally sux when compared to what came out at the same time. It was cutting edge for it's intended release date, however it did not make it's intended release date. As far as currently, it sux more than a Dyson on a 240 volt power supply.... don't ask.... I personally want to upgrade now, but I'm waiting for the dust to settle on all these interface changes lately. And while all this is true, it doesn't mean it's not capable of better when it is babied.

I'm not saying they did anything wrong or that they should have done anything different. I'm just saying they should devote a little more time to finishing their engine if they hope to sell it to other companies when they can easily opt for doom 3 which can run well on all dx9 compliant hardware with one shader path.

And finally, "optomized instruction order" ONLY means optomized for the bad architecture of the FX5xxx series cards which will kick a pixel back to the beginning of the pipeline when it receives shader instructions in a sequence that it can't digest properly. All other cards can handle multiple shaders in a single pass through the pipeline in whatever sequence they happen to arrive. THAT is the way it's meant to be played, mon frere.

On the nose, mon frere; Completely and totally nail on the head logic.

Do you hear that?

Hear what?

Those are the silent black helicopters coming to get us?

If I pass out and die from how hard I'm laughing then the aliens will come, abduct you, and anal probe you for damaging their test subject.

 

[rcolbert]

I feel somewhat like a frog in formaldahyde with a couple of 14 year olds with X-acto knives, gloves, and goggles staring down at my disgusting innards.

 

[Optimus]

Sorry, but all remedies suggested still equate to Valve polishing Nvidia's turd for them.

I don't mean to disagree with you, but what is a diamond, essentially?

Diamonds come from coal. Coal is a fossil fuel (truly a misnomer as fossil fuels do not come from fossils at all). Coal, therefore, comes from dead animals after decomposition. Decomposition is the process by which bacteria and other lifeforms consume the remains of a living creature and leave behind the waste which can eventually become a fossil fuel such as coal or oil.

Thus a diamond is a polished turd.

Deep, huh?

 

[Optimus]

I feel somewhat like a frog in formaldahyde with a couple of 14 year olds with X-acto knives, gloves, and goggles staring down at my disgusting innards.

Sorry for the uncomfortable feeling. I just felt it easier to format my response that way so as not to lose the reader's track of thought.

 

[rcolbert]

I don't mean to disagree with you, but what is a diamond, essentially?

Diamonds come from coal. Coal is a fossil fuel (truly a misnomer as fossil fuels do not come from fossils at all). Coal, therefore, comes from dead animals after decomposition. Decomposition is the process by which bacteria and other lifeforms consume the remains of a living creature and leave behind the waste which can eventually become a fossil fuel such as coal or oil.

Thus a diamond is a polished turd.

Deep, huh?

So if we take a bunch of FX5700's and crush them in my garbage compactor we might end up with a 6800Ultra?

 

[fallguy]

Whomever said NV doesnt confuse customers with their card naming.. Ti4800SE anyone? Yeah.

3. When every other game, including DX9 games, plays fine the problem is pretty clear. I offered my own guess already why Valve dropped the mixed mode path (due to the extra work it was taking and the fact that the game was eventually over a year late). The sad thing is that the _pp hints would be ignored by the ATI driver since it's meaningless on their hardware.

The latest version of Farcry runs much slower on FX cards, than R3xx cards. The latest patch fixes the "bugs" from the last 1.1 patch that just happened to give the FX a huge boost in performance. So to say, every other game "plays fine" is subjective. The FX line is substantially slower.

The facts as I see it are, Gabe said well over a year ago the NV cards at the time (FX cards) run HL2 much slower than the ATi cards. If people still bought the cards with the intent to play HL2, its their fault. From the get-go, the FX cards have been slower at PS2.0, again the buyers fault if they thought it would be as faster, or faster if they didnt listen to reviews.

The decision to not put in the mixed path seems to be a financial one. As mentioned many times before, a very small percenrage of users use 59xx FX cards. People with 5200 and 5600 cards, are budget gamers. Combine those cards, with a slow CPU, and probably 512ram, and you're going to get a slide show in DX9. Probably single digits with some action on the screen. To not make their product look bad, to keep people from posting how crappy the game runes on their system, and to get the game out faster, its my opinion those reasons could have contributed to not put in the mixed mode.

They didnt put in a lot of features that they said were going to be in the game. Hopefully they can patch in the mixed mode for FX users, and hopefully it will be close to the quality and frames of the regular DX9 path. And add the other features that were left out.

 

[rcolbert]

Sorry for the uncomfortable feeling. I just felt it easier to format my response that way so as not to lose the readers track of thought.

It's not uncomfortable so much as unusual. I get a little weird when anyone pays more attention to what I say than my wife does, and she usually only half-listens.

 

[starhawk]

this thread is insane.

all i'm seeing even after three days of having a life (and actually getting schoolwork done, which is a good thing) is some very, very fuzzy logic on both sides.

the same sort of logic that i'm seeing here could be used to say that the golden corral restaurant in my hometown of siler city is getting paid off by the cigarrette companies because the air conditioning and heating system only works well in the smoking section.

i would like to see:
(1) DEFINITIVE PROOF that ANY ATi card will get higher performance in Half Life 2 than its nVIDIA counterpart
(2) DEFINITIVE PROOF that (1) is VALVe's fault

I really think that if we don't see this in about another hour, then the thread should be locked up tight, cuz all i'm seeing right now is mindless bashing.

 

[fallguy]

Then you must not be reading very well. Not everyone is "mindless bashing". Although your post..

 

[rcolbert]

Optimus, all digression aside, I have to call out the 9.0c thingy. Chronologically that doesn't make sense when talking about the previous generation. How can you fault the a core for not being up to a spec that followed it by more than 12 months? Although it does indicate that the new Nvidia cards are much better about being "on spec" than the new ATI cards.

 

[pxc]

The latest version of Farcry runs much slower on FX cards, than R3xx cards. The latest patch fixes the "bugs" from the last 1.1 patch that just happened to give the FX a huge boost in performance. So to say, every other game "plays fine" is subjective. The FX line is substantially slower.

Whoa there. Far Cry runs fine on the FX 5900. That has nothing to do with the relative performance on any other cards. I didn't bring up performance vs anything else.

Everyone knows DX9 runs faster on the R300 than on the NV35. That's not the issue. What is the issue is that HL2 stands alone as the only DX9 game that doesn't run "fine" on the FX 5900.

And don't confuse "fine" with awesome. No one is going to run FC at 1600x1200 at 4xAA on a 5900 at acceptable framerates. But if someone wants to run FC at 1280x1024 at high settings, yes it's playable and pretty smooth.

 

[fallguy]

You said, "When every other game, including DX9 games, plays fine the problem is pretty clear." As I said, "plays fine" is subjective. I dont like frames in the 30's. I brought up Farcry because you said every other game doesnt have the same type of performance difference. I simply said that Farcry is pretty close, the difference is pretty large.

 

[tranCendenZ]

I think the point is that if Valve spent some time they could have made a mixed mode precision path and made playable DX9 (in the 30s) for FX users if they chose to enable it, and give a speed boost for 6800 users as well. This is what most modern intensive DX9 games have; I assume HL2 does not because its ATI sponsored and ATI would not benefit from it. There is no way in hell it is a time issue as the game was delayed a year and adding partial precision (inserting a line of code/pp hint to shaders then testing them) couldn't possibly take that long even with a game that uses a lot of shaders. The longest part would be testing them all to see which require FP32 instead of FP16, but Valve could do that in under a week - heck the shaders requiring FP32 were detected on the net in 2 days using 3danalyze.

 

[Mikey20]

I think the point is that if Valve spent some time they could have made a mixed mode precision path and made playable DX9 (in the 30s) for FX users if they chose to enable it, and give a speed boost for 6800 users as well. This is what most modern intensive DX9 games have; I assume HL2 does not because its ATI sponsored and ATI would not benefit from it. There is no way in hell it is a time issue as the game was delayed a year and adding partial precision (inserting a line of code/pp hint to shaders then testing them) couldn't possibly take that long even with a game that uses a lot of shaders. The longest part would be testing them all to see which require FP32 instead of FP16, but Valve could do that in under a week - heck the shaders requiring FP32 were detected on the net in 2 days using 3danalyze.

I agree!

 

[rcolbert]

I think the point is that if Valve spent some time they could have made a mixed mode precision path and made playable DX9 (in the 30s) for FX users if they chose to enable it, and give a speed boost for 6800 users as well. This is what most modern intensive DX9 games have; I assume HL2 does not because its ATI sponsored and ATI would not benefit from it. There is no way in hell it is a time issue as the game was delayed a year and adding partial precision (inserting a line of code/pp hint to shaders then testing them) couldn't possibly take that long even with a game that uses a lot of shaders. The longest part would be testing them all to see which require FP32 instead of FP16, but Valve could do that in under a week - heck the shaders requiring FP32 were detected on the net in 2 days using 3danalyze.

Anything to improve the older FX cards wouldn't help the 6800 users at all. The new Nvidia cards do almost everything differently from their predecessors. And believe me, that's a good thing.

Here's what really happened:


Circa March, 2004 at valve headquarters

Gabe: How are we doing on those defects?
Quality Manager: The DX9 ones are almost gone, the DX8 are about the same, and we're still having some clipping on the DX7.
Gabe: ...and?
Quality Manager: And what?
Gabe: And how are we doing on that stupid NV3x code-path that is a complete bastardization of my beautiful DX9 engine?
Quality Manager: Well, we found 638 more artifacts, 31 new bluescreen cases, and well, frankly it just plain looks like sh*t in the water levels.
Gabe: F*ck it. Let's just give 'em DX8.

 

[pxc]

And the fallacy there could easily be "false premise." No one has proven with any authority that:

Here's what really happened:

Circa March, 2004 at valve headquarters
...
Quality Manager: Well, we found 638 more artifacts, 31 new bluescreen cases, and well, frankly it just plain looks like sh*t in the water levels.
Gabe: F*ck it. Let's just give 'em DX8.

Is that an example of what you were talking about?

This thread should be locked because everyone's had their say and it's just getting stupid now.

 

[Ludic]

This thread should be locked because everyone's had their say and it's just getting stupid now.

I haven't had my say. But damn, 32 pages about this? I have a 6800GT, so I'll just play the game in DX 9 goodness.

 

[CleanSlate]

Lock

 

[Jbirney]

That's not the issue. What is the issue is that HL2 stands alone as the only DX9 game that doesn't run "fine" on the FX 5900.

Quiz time.

1) How many games are out there that are DX9 games (and I dont mean require the DX9 runtime, but are using PS/VS2.0 through out the game)? 10 or 15 at most right?

2) How many of these games are NOT on nV TWIMTBP campaign?

So far the only one I can think of is HL2. Do you know of others? (not trying to be a but head).

 

[Jbirney]

I think the point is that if Valve spent some time they could have made a mixed mode precision path and made playable DX9 (in the 30s) for FX users if they chose to enable it, and give a speed boost for 6800 users as well.

Two problems so far we have not see any gains for the 6800 users.

And second only a small precentage would have playable results. Its a cost vrs benifit thing and valve chose not to add it. JohnC did a simular thing when he dropped the NV30 path.

 

[starhawk]

Is that an example of what you were talking about?

This thread should be locked because everyone's had their say and it's just getting stupid now.

it was already at about page ten. i second the call to lock.

 

[Jbirney]

Jbirney, I completely agree with your statement whole-heartedly, and without one shadow of a doubt. However, there are a great many who believe that Image Quality is worth sacrificing framerate. Clearly, most of the editors at HardOCP do, as their method of benchmarking uses gameplay settings that my systems might dream of in their worst nightmares.

Thus I believe that if even a small portion of 5200 users... say 10%... want the option of dx9, then all of what's left would like to have that option. This number would come out to roughly 10.88% of the Steam Userbase that want the option. That's more than 1 out of every 10 users. Now, I'm not saying that the default shouldn't be dx81 for these cards. I'm saying that if it can be done, then it should be done and should be done right as soon as they finish any currently planned bug fixes or upgrades.

Again its a cost vrs benifit anaysis. The FX5200 can not run it in DX9 mode at any playable frame rate. Remember its a budget card and probably has a budget PC powering it. 6800 users are showing no real gain out of it. Thus it can only help 5% of the users. Weiggh the cost of adding it vers the return. Then factor in how many users will actually want to trade frame rate for IQ (even its mixed mode its still slower than DX8.1 mode) or that know about it. Thus you get a lot of extra work for a very small return. Its just not worth it.

 

[rcolbert]

Is that an example of what you were talking about?

This thread should be locked because everyone's had their say and it's just getting stupid now.

Thanks for the personal attack. If you send me your checking account number I'll deposit some money for you to buy a sense of humor. Some of us are still enjoying this thread, thank you.

 

[tranCendenZ]

Again its a cost vrs benifit anaysis. The FX5200 can not run it in DX9 mode at any playable frame rate. Remember its a budget card and probably has a budget PC powering it. 6800 users are showing no real gain out of it. Thus it can only help 5% of the users. Weiggh the cost of adding it vers the return. Then factor in how many users will actually want to trade frame rate for IQ (even its mixed mode its still slower than DX8.1 mode) or that know about it. Thus you get a lot of extra work for a very small return. Its just not worth it.

When ATI comes out with a Shader Model 3.0 card next year, would you advocate developers ditching SM2.0B paths & just supporting SM1.x, SM2.0, and SM3.0 due to the very small percentage of X800 generation owners, the only card series that will ever benefit from SM2.0B? After all, the coding and testing of an SM2.0B path is quite a lot of extra work for a small return (much more work than implementing partial precision, for instance), and just might not be worth it.