HL2: ATI or nVidia...ATI !!! - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

jujueye · 09-12-2003, 11:37 AM

Looks like ATI will be the way to go. The news yesterday and today is that even an ATI 9600 will kick major nVidia ass with the almost-released game. Apparently ATI has fully allowed DirectX9 code, where nVidia has not. Valve had to spend a lot of time creating a mixed-mode code path just to get some basic performance from nVidia cards.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1863

Lots of other sites with similar news online today.

Lasereth · 09-22-2003, 12:21 PM

Well, the reply from NVIDIA has also been released all over the Internet, and as Tom's Hardware put it, Valve basically fucked NVIDIA over in the driver department. Valve suggested that NVIDIA begin working on the Detonator 50 drivers instead of the current 45 drivers (45.23) for Half-Life 2, so they did. Well, what do you know? When it's press-time, Valve decides to present the benchmark tests with the 45 Detonator drivers which NVIDIA STOPPED work on 2 months prior to the test.

During the entire development of Half Life 2, NVIDIA has had close technical contact with Valve regarding the game. However, Valve has not made us aware of the issues Gabe discussed.

We're confused as to why Valve chose to use Release. 45 (Rel. 45) - because up to two weeks prior to the Shader Day we had been working closely with Valve to ensure that Release 50 (Rel. 50) provides the best experience possible on NVIDIA hardware.

Regarding the Half Life2 performance numbers that were published on the web, we believe these performance numbers are invalid because they do not use our Rel. 50 drivers. Engineering efforts on our Rel. 45 drivers stopped months ago in anticipation of Rel. 50. NVIDIA's optimizations for Half-Life 2 and other new games are included in our Rel.50 drivers - which reviewers currently have a beta version of today. Rel. 50 is the best driver we've ever built - it includes significant optimizations for the highly-programmable GeForce FX architecture and includes feature and performance benefits for over 100 million NVIDIA GPU customers.

Pending detailed information from Valve, we are unaware of any issues with Rel. 50 and the drop of Half-Life 2 that we have. The drop of Half-Life 2 that we currently have is more than 2 weeks old. It is not a cheat or an over optimization. Our current drop of Half-Life 2 is more than 2 weeks old. NVIDIA's Rel. 50 driver will be public before the game is available. Since we know that obtaining the best pixel shader performance from the GeForce FX GPUs currently requires some specialized work, our developer technology team works very closely with game developers. Part of this is understanding that in many cases promoting PS 1.4 (DirectX 8) to PS 2.0 (DirectX 9) provides no image quality benefit. Sometimes this involves converting 32-bit floating point precision shader operations into 16-bit floating point precision shaders in order to obtain the performance benefit of this mode with no image quality degradation. Our goal is to provide our consumers the best experience possible, and that means games must both look and run great.

The optimal code path for ATI and NVIDIA GPUs is different - so trying to test them with the same code path will always disadvantage one or the other. The default settings for each game have been chosen by both the developers and NVIDIA in order to produce the best results for our consumers.

In addition to the developer efforts, our driver team has developed a next-generation automatic shader optimizer that vastly improves GeForce FX pixel shader performance across the board. The fruits of these efforts will be seen in our Rel.50 driver release. Many other improvements have also been included in Rel.50, and these were all created either in response to, or in anticipation of the first wave of shipping DirectX 9 titles, such as Half-Life 2.

We are committed to working with Gabe to fully understand.

NVIDIA's reply seems to point towards major driver issues that will be fixed with the Detonator 50 drivers.

-Lasereth

Mr.Deflok · 09-22-2003, 01:19 PM

How many threads do we really need on this topic? The answer is clear, Valve are fucking nVidia around because ATi has given them a big fat wad of cash. Wait until the Det50's are out then we'll talk about benchmarks, hell, let's just wait until the god damn game is actually finished and released for retail!

With that said I've got nothing against ATi cards, they are very good, no denying that.

Xirax · 09-22-2003, 02:39 PM

I'm glued to Nvidia because of their linux support...Half-Life2's gonna be the only thing having me boot into windows.

Hanabal · 09-22-2003, 03:29 PM

whats wrong with ATI's linux support?

Ive got the latest ATI linux drivers all of 9 days old

09-12-2003, 11:37 AM	#1 (permalink)
jujueye alpaca lunch for the trip Location: in my computer	HL2: ATI or nVidia...ATI !!! Looks like ATI will be the way to go. The news yesterday and today is that even an ATI 9600 will kick major nVidia ass with the almost-released game. Apparently ATI has fully allowed DirectX9 code, where nVidia has not. Valve had to spend a lot of time creating a mixed-mode code path just to get some basic performance from nVidia cards. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1863 Lots of other sites with similar news online today.

09-22-2003, 12:21 PM	#2 (permalink)
Lasereth Knight of the Old Republic Location: Winston-Salem, NC	Well, the reply from NVIDIA has also been released all over the Internet, and as Tom's Hardware put it, Valve basically fucked NVIDIA over in the driver department. Valve suggested that NVIDIA begin working on the Detonator 50 drivers instead of the current 45 drivers (45.23) for Half-Life 2, so they did. Well, what do you know? When it's press-time, Valve decides to present the benchmark tests with the 45 Detonator drivers which NVIDIA STOPPED work on 2 months prior to the test. During the entire development of Half Life 2, NVIDIA has had close technical contact with Valve regarding the game. However, Valve has not made us aware of the issues Gabe discussed. We're confused as to why Valve chose to use Release. 45 (Rel. 45) - because up to two weeks prior to the Shader Day we had been working closely with Valve to ensure that Release 50 (Rel. 50) provides the best experience possible on NVIDIA hardware. Regarding the Half Life2 performance numbers that were published on the web, we believe these performance numbers are invalid because they do not use our Rel. 50 drivers. Engineering efforts on our Rel. 45 drivers stopped months ago in anticipation of Rel. 50. NVIDIA's optimizations for Half-Life 2 and other new games are included in our Rel.50 drivers - which reviewers currently have a beta version of today. Rel. 50 is the best driver we've ever built - it includes significant optimizations for the highly-programmable GeForce FX architecture and includes feature and performance benefits for over 100 million NVIDIA GPU customers. Pending detailed information from Valve, we are unaware of any issues with Rel. 50 and the drop of Half-Life 2 that we have. The drop of Half-Life 2 that we currently have is more than 2 weeks old. It is not a cheat or an over optimization. Our current drop of Half-Life 2 is more than 2 weeks old. NVIDIA's Rel. 50 driver will be public before the game is available. Since we know that obtaining the best pixel shader performance from the GeForce FX GPUs currently requires some specialized work, our developer technology team works very closely with game developers. Part of this is understanding that in many cases promoting PS 1.4 (DirectX 8) to PS 2.0 (DirectX 9) provides no image quality benefit. Sometimes this involves converting 32-bit floating point precision shader operations into 16-bit floating point precision shaders in order to obtain the performance benefit of this mode with no image quality degradation. Our goal is to provide our consumers the best experience possible, and that means games must both look and run great. The optimal code path for ATI and NVIDIA GPUs is different - so trying to test them with the same code path will always disadvantage one or the other. The default settings for each game have been chosen by both the developers and NVIDIA in order to produce the best results for our consumers. In addition to the developer efforts, our driver team has developed a next-generation automatic shader optimizer that vastly improves GeForce FX pixel shader performance across the board. The fruits of these efforts will be seen in our Rel.50 driver release. Many other improvements have also been included in Rel.50, and these were all created either in response to, or in anticipation of the first wave of shipping DirectX 9 titles, such as Half-Life 2. We are committed to working with Gabe to fully understand. NVIDIA's reply seems to point towards major driver issues that will be fixed with the Detonator 50 drivers. -Lasereth __________________ "A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

09-22-2003, 02:39 PM	#4 (permalink)
Xirax Psycho Location: Toronto	I'm glued to Nvidia because of their linux support...Half-Life2's gonna be the only thing having me boot into windows. __________________ perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);'

09-22-2003, 03:29 PM	#5 (permalink)
Hanabal Insane Location: Auckland	whats wrong with ATI's linux support? Ive got the latest ATI linux drivers all of 9 days old __________________ I am Hanabal, Phear my elephants

09-22-2003, 01:19 PM	#3 (permalink)
Mr.Deflok Blood + Fire Location: New Zealand	How many threads do we really need on this topic? The answer is clear, Valve are fucking nVidia around because ATi has given them a big fat wad of cash. Wait until the Det50's are out then we'll talk about benchmarks, hell, let's just wait until the god damn game is actually finished and released for retail! With that said I've got nothing against ATi cards, they are very good, no denying that.