Nvidia GTX 460 Discussion

[tkin]

no, mass effect 2 does use physx
check it on the net! (wikipedia)


does havok run on AMD processors,
or is it bound with Intel processors only, like the case of PHYSX?


i heard that GTX 460 has better tessellation capability than HD5850!!
isn't the tesselator in GTX460 strong enough to run metro?

Well, mass effect physx run on cpu not on gpu and hence does not limit ati users, also the game has limited physics, bfbc2 has some nice physics.

Havok run on all cpus but intel might have tried to optimize it more for intel cpus(look in the intel compiler bias fiasco a few months back).

GTX460 like all other fermis lack a fixed tessallator in their card, they use the shaders to compute the tessallation data, whereas AMD has a fixed tessallator in their cards, so fermi does better because the shaders are more powerful than any tessallator chip can ever be, its a very good innovation on nVidias part but also note that turning on tessallation affects the fermi framerate more than HD5xxx series framerate as AMD has a dedicated tessallator.

PS: Tessallation has yet to show any big improvements in games because most game engines like unreal engine do not use tessallation by default and hence it is added like a add-on in game and runs like crap, until the engine is build from ground up to use tessallation it won't happen, and that's not until the next consoles come out @ 2012 earliest.

 

[asingh]

^^
Tessellation is not driven via an engine. It is part of the Dx11 API. Developers can make the API call in the game code, and it will get harnessed to the GPU hardware for processing and rendering.

 

[Piyush]

@funkysaurav
u must be talkin about these results

*media.bestofmicro.com/3/D/226921/original/Batman PhysX Off.png

*media.bestofmicro.com/3/E/226922/original/Batman PhysX On.png

 

[tkin]

^^
Tessellation is not driven via an engine. It is part of the Dx11 API. Developers can make the API call in the game code, and it will get harnessed to the GPU hardware for processing and rendering.

But there's a built in tessellator for amd cards(had it since HD2900 series)

Wikipedia(R600, ie HD29xx):

Hardware tessellation
The GPU is equipped with an extra feature which is not part of the current DirectX 10.0 specification. It contains programmable tessellation units, similar to those within the Xenos GPU (codenamed C1) also developed by ATI. This unit allows a developer to take a simple polygon mesh and subdivide it based on a curved surface evaluation function, with different tessellation forms as Bézier surfaces with N-patches, B-splines and NURBS, and even some subdivision surface techniques, which usually comes with a displacement map texture.[4] Essentially, this allows a simple, low-polygon model to be increased dramatically in polygon density in real-time with minimized performance loss. Scott Wasson of Tech Report noted during an AMD demo of the technology that the resulting model was so dense with millions of polygons that it appeared to be solid.

This unit is reminiscent of ATI's earlier TruForm technology, used initially in the Radeon 8500, which performed a similar function in hardware. While this tessellation hardware is not part of the current OpenGL or Direct3D requirements, and competitors such as the GeForce 8 series lack similar hardware, Microsoft has included Tessellation as part of their D3D10.1 future plans.

The TruForm technology from the past received little attention from software developers and was only utilized in a few game titles (such as Madden NFL 2004, Serious Sam, Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004, and unofficially Morrowind), because it was not a feature shared with NVIDIA GPUs which had a competing tessellation solution using Quintic-RT patches which met with even less support from developers. Since the Xenos contains similar hardware, and Microsoft sees hardware surface tessellation as a major GPU feature with proposed implementation of hardware tessellation support in future DirectX releases (presumably DirectX 11), dedicated hardware tessellation units may receive increased developer awareness in future titles. It remains to be seen whether ATI's implementation will be compatible with the eventual DirectX standard

The tessellator was modified and put in HD4xxx(useless) and HD5xxx(used) series, while nVidia uses their shaders to compute the polygons. Its basically same, think of is as AMD has a bunch of shaders separated in HD5xxx series to do tessellation while nVidia uses their CUDA cores(shaders in the GPU) dynamically to compute tessellation data, so while on a pure tessellation performance basis HD5870 is not any more faster than HD5450 as both have same tessellator in them(clock speeds may vary) but in nVidia's case GTX480 is significantly faster in tessellation than GTX460 due to the extra shaders present in it.

More jargon here: Nvidia's form of Tessellation compared to AMD/ATI's form of Tessellation

 

[asingh]

^^
Yes, I know that Tkin. What I meant was that there is no such engine within the game which enables Tessellation. I was referring to the software part of the rendering mechanism. The hardware details you mentioned make sense, nice link by the way..!

By the way, bot of us have discussed this before. So for the group, I will posts the links. Both our posts are back to back. The team will enjoy reading them...!

Tkin's writeup on Tessellation.
Asingh's writup on Tesselation.

And the original thread page is here, if you want to see the context of the conversation.

 

[mukherjee]

new gpuz v0.4.5 screenie

*gpuz.techpowerup.com/10/08/19/54g.png

 

[mukherjee]

Here are the updated temps after I set up the new CM 430 cabby.

1. Gpu after 15mins idling

*img294.imageshack.us/img294/6342/newrest.gif



2. After a run of Kombustor

*img718.imageshack.us/img718/9168/newstrs.jpg


3. Stressing the CPU

*img508.imageshack.us/img508/7153/newcpu.png

Uploaded with ImageShack.us


Comments please

 

[asingh]

^^
Its cooling well. Expect 10C less using games..!

 

[funkysourav]

very cool temps!!
you have nothing to worry!
but i wouldn't stress test the card so often,
maybe once in 2 months or so,
at max

 

[mukherjee]

^^
Its cooling well. Expect 10C less using games..!

Thanks! Hmmm...that wud be good.

very cool temps!!
you have nothing to worry!
but i wouldn't stress test the card so often,
maybe once in 2 months or so,
at max

U are absolutely right. i jus went thru a vrm article yesterdayhere

No further stress for me,neither my gpu!

 

[mukherjee]

Msi GTX 460 1GB HAWX launched!

Techpowerup

Guru3D

 

[DigitalDude]

^^^^ read the reviews, not that convincing decision over the cyclone. and not that clear choice like MSI 5770 hawk.

I decided to purchase the cyclone.

tweaktown review is also very good.


p.s dude playing too much H.A.W.X eh??

_

 

[mukherjee]

^^^^ read the reviews, not that convincing decision over the cyclone. and not that clear choice like MSI 5770 hawk.

I decided to purchase the cyclone.

tweaktown review is also very good.


p.s dude playing too much H.A.W.X eh??

_

HAWX....yess...like it verrry much!
Waiting eagerly for HAWX 2!!!!!

 

[karthikunleashed]

can u guys pls say where to buy a gtx 460 in chennai... and if so pls mention the price










thanks in advance