9800GX2 serious AA problem :! 8xQAA

[tuteja1986]

http://www.computerbase.de/art.../#abschnitt_einleitung

8xQAA problem for 9800GX2 ?

http://translate.google.com/tr...de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
UT2007 example
-------------------------------------------
1600x1200 4xAA/16xAF:

Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2
145,6
ATi Radeon HD 3870 X2
86,4
Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra
80,0
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX
69,1
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 512
64,4
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
59,7
Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT
55,5
ATi Radeon HD 3870
49,0
ATi Radeon HD 3850 512
42,9
ATi Radeon HD 3850
37,4
ATi Radeon HD 3650
19,5
Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS
6,5
Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT
6,5

-------------------------------------------
1600x1200 8xAA/16xAF:

ATi Radeon HD 3870 X2
73,8
ATi Radeon HD 3870
43,6
Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra
40,2
ATi Radeon HD 3850 512
38,1
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2 << 8xAA huge performance lose
36,6
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX
35,1
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 512
29,4
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
27,6
Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT
27,1
ATi Radeon HD 3850
20,0



-------------------------------------------
Quantitative performance of all the games benchmarked.
{
* Call of Duty 4
* Clive Barker's Jericho
* F.E.A.R.
* Gothic 3
* Rainbow Six Vegas
* Stalker
* Unreal Tournament 3
}

-------------------------------------------
http://translate.google.com/tr...de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Rating ? 1600x1200 4xAA/16xAF (COD4 , CBJ , FEAR, Gothic 3 , RSV , Stalker , UT3 ) in percentage form %

Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2
100,0
ATi Radeon HD 3870 X2
84,2
Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra
81,5
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX
73,1
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 512
71,3
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
64,4
Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT
54,5
ATi Radeon HD 3870
50,0
ATi Radeon HD 3850 512
43,6
ATi Radeon HD 3850
36,9
ATi Radeon HD 3650
18,6
Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS
18,1
Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT
14,6
-------------------------------------------
Rating ? 1600x1200 8xAA/16xAF :

ATi Radeon HD 3870 X2
181,5
Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra
157,8
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX
140,2
ATi Radeon HD 3870
114,5
ATi Radeon HD 3850 512
100,8
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2
100,0
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 512
97,2
Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT
95,8
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
92,7
ATi Radeon HD 3850
56,6

-------------------------------------------
Rating ? 2560x1600 4xAA/16xAF :

Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2
100,0
ATi Radeon HD 3870 X2
84,8
Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra
82,7
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX
74,1
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 512
55,5
ATi Radeon HD 3870
50,9
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
50,0

-------------------------------------------
Rating ? 2560x1600 8xAA/16xAF :

Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra
376,8
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX
364,7
ATi Radeon HD 3870 X2
290,2
ATi Radeon HD 3870
261,6
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2
100,0
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 512
93,7
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
87,0


http://translate.google.com/tr...de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

 

[apoppin]

GX2 chokes at high resolution with 8xAA enabled

looks like a problem with its profiles .... a later driver will probably address it

is this the only review site that compares 8xAA?

 

[BFG10K]

G80 and G9x cards have always had a larger % hit with 8xMSAA than ATi's cards; of course they're still usually faster so it?s a moot point.

With the GX2's excessively low performance (i.e. less than the 8800 Ultra sometimes) it's likely good ol' SLI issues popping up again.

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
G80 and G9x cards have always had a larger % hit with 8xMSAA than ATi's cards; of course they're still usually faster so it?s a moot point.

With the GX2's excessively low performance (i.e. less than the 8800 Ultra sometimes) it's likely good ol' SLI issues popping up again.

Yup , but the sad bit is that nvidia will sell these like hot pancake, and i do blame some of the western editor, for not doing proper testing as they make 9800GX2 look like, its the king of the hill without a problem.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

Originally posted by: BFG10K
G80 and G9x cards have always had a larger % hit with 8xMSAA than ATi's cards; of course they're still usually faster so it?s a moot point.

With the GX2's excessively low performance (i.e. less than the 8800 Ultra sometimes) it's likely good ol' SLI issues popping up again.

Yup , but said bit is that nvidia will sell these like hot pancake and i do blame some western editor for not doing proper testing as they make 9800GX2 look like its the king of the hill without a problem.

*some* ?

is there *any* other site that is benching at 8xMSAA?


it is still the king of the hill, even if you don't like sandwich solutions

i need to get Tri-FrankenFire just to keep up -2900xt + 3870x2 ... --and not many DX10 games will run well with 8xMSAA

:roll:

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

Originally posted by: BFG10K
G80 and G9x cards have always had a larger % hit with 8xMSAA than ATi's cards; of course they're still usually faster so it?s a moot point.

With the GX2's excessively low performance (i.e. less than the 8800 Ultra sometimes) it's likely good ol' SLI issues popping up again.

Yup , but said bit is that nvidia will sell these like hot pancake and i do blame some western editor for not doing proper testing as they make 9800GX2 look like its the king of the hill without a problem.

*some* ?

is there *any* other site that is benching at 8xMSAA?


it is still the king of the hill, even if you don't like sandwich solutions

i need to get Tri-FrankenFire just to keep up
-2900xt + 3870x2
:roll:

lol , just buy a single a 8800GTS 512MB for $270 which will do every thing you want. Now if someone actually bothered to do some IQ testing these days you would find out that sometimes high vs highest isn't a huge difference in game.

 

[apoppin]

lol , just buy a single a 8800GTS 512MB for $270 which will do every thing you want. Know if some actually bothered to do some IQ testing these days you would find out that sometimes high vs highest is a huge difference in game.

nonsense .. my 2900xt/2900p is faster than that now

and no worries, everything IS "highest" for me
.. except for filtering .. 8xMSAA is for older games

 

[JPB]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

Originally posted by: BFG10K
G80 and G9x cards have always had a larger % hit with 8xMSAA than ATi's cards; of course they're still usually faster so it?s a moot point.

With the GX2's excessively low performance (i.e. less than the 8800 Ultra sometimes) it's likely good ol' SLI issues popping up again.

Yup , but said bit is that nvidia will sell these like hot pancake and i do blame some western editor for not doing proper testing as they make 9800GX2 look like its the king of the hill without a problem.

*some* ?

is there *any* other site that is benching at 8xMSAA?


it is still the king of the hill, even if you don't like sandwich solutions

i need to get Tri-FrankenFire just to keep up
-2900xt + 3870x2
:roll:

lol , just buy a single a 8800GTS 512MB for $270 which will do every thing you want. Know if some actually bothered to do some IQ testing these days you would find out that sometimes high vs highest is a huge difference in game.

$245.00........$215.00 AR :thumbsup:

 

[apoppin]

i had one ... last May
[oops ... i looked ... i had the old g80 one ... 640MB]

i'd still much rather take my frankenfire over any of the single card nvidia solutions - including GX2 - after i upgrade.
. . . and you couldn't give me one of their SLi MBs [to keep]

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986
Yup , but the sad bit is that nvidia will sell these like hot pancake, and i do blame some of the western editor, for not doing proper testing as they make 9800GX2 look like, its the king of the hill without a problem.

There is no sign of NV selling GX2 like hot cakes yet. None in the Egg's inventory went OOS and they're all firmly sitting @$599. I expect the price to drop fairly quickly.

 

[nitromullet]

Yep, I noticed a similar trend in performance with my 8800GT SLI rig. G92 isn't as strong with AA above 4x as G80 in my experience. Throw in a little super sampling transparency AA and the difference becomes more noticeable. Makes sense from NV's standpoint though to make the gpu smaller, cheaper, and have it perform well at settings most people will use. This makes the 8800GT and GTS good values, but something like the 9800GX2 somewhat of a disappointment considering the price point.

 

[undeclared]

They better get this fixed..

But what is going on with the 9800 GTX?

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: xtwells
They better get this fixed..

But what is going on with the 9800 GTX?

It might not be 'fixable'. Remember when the 8800GT launched, and there were a few people saying that the 256-bit memory bus would ultimately hurt the chip's performance? This might be an effect of the narrower memory bus compared to G80.

 

[Cookie Monster]

This could be poor memory management, but maybe more of a driver issue than hardware. Or its the lack of bandwidth that seems to be really evident on G80/G9x architecture. (something thats ironic seeing as R600 isnt as bandwidth starved)

I guess this kind of kills the AA options. Like for example in the FS review, they used 16xCSAA for all their benchmark settings. Unlike the 8xQAA, this mode doesn't tank and still provide similiar IQ if not better. TRSSAA may tank performance, but G9x have a new TRAA algorithm that improves TRMSAA to almost super sampling like result with maybe 1% performance hit.

But its still disappointing seeing as most nVIDIA cards tank at 2560x1600, or when 8xAA and above are enabled unlike AMD/ATi cards.

 

[BFG10K]

Or its the lack of bandwidth that seems to be really evident on G80/G9x architecture.

It could be, but the G80 series has plenty of it (and ROPs too) and they experience a similar performance hit.

Quite honestly? I think it's nVidia's shitty drivers again and because most reviewers don?t bench at higher than 4xAA they don?t bother fixing it.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Or its the lack of bandwidth that seems to be really evident on G80/G9x architecture.

It could be, but the G80 series has plenty of it (and ROPs too) and they experience a similar performance hit.

Quite honestly? I think it's nVidia's shitty drivers again and because most reviewers don?t bench at higher than 4xAA they don?t bother fixing it.

That's one theory, but another is most reviewers don't bench it because of greatly diminishing returns moving from 4X AA to 8X AA. Derek (of AT) himself told me that's why he doesn't care much for 8X AA when we were discussing 3 Way SLi's pros and cons.

That said, Firing Squad used either 16X CSAA or 16X AA in most of their benches.

As far as this being a "serious problem", depends on your perspective I guess.

50 vs 33fps on COH at 16 X 12 4X > 8X

So how many people would pick the diminishing returns of 8XAA and a low 33fps average over 4X AA and a 50fps average? Not me, that's for sure.

Of course the other aspect is, how many people think the low framerates and diminshing IQ returns associated t=with the 3870X2 are worth having a card that gets stomped flat in all the 4X16X benches?

There are lots of pesky questions to be answered here.

Lets assume you're right Tuteja and the 9800GX2 isn't not doing 8X AA well with it's superior paper specs, and it's not because the drivers are 1 day old and this just hasn't been addressed yet.

Can you show us which resolutions and games the 3870X2 offers playable framerates that the 9800GX2 doesn't so we can see why a person looking for the best single slot card would buy a so much slower 3870X2?

 

[apoppin]

Can you show us which resolutions and games the 3870X2 offers playable framerates that the 9800GX2 doesn't so we can see why a person looking for the best single slot card would buy a so much slower 3870X2?

You want us to compare with a card that costs nearly $200 less?


.. and there aren't many modern games that your expensive flagship GX2 offers "playable framerates" at 8xMSAA

how about comparing with 3870x3?

i'll get you 8xMSAA numbers for that combo soon enough

 

[dug777]

Well, if I wanted bulk AA at that high res, I wouldn't be buying the 9800xtxtxtxgxt2 because it's not the best single card solution, according to the numbers the OP has posted...screw semantics about 'playable', that's entirely subjective (as you'd well know haveing hung around these kind of forums for donkey's years)

It's also very expensive...

Did I mention it's expensive?

 

[dino26]

HEH ....so what

obviously this issue will be fixed. Nvidia pretty much owns AMD with AA enabled on their cards and this card will be no different when they fix the issue is my honest opinion.


PS. I am not hating on AMD as my own rig runs (2)hd3870's cf and I love them.

 

[schneiderguy]

Originally posted by: nRollo

So how many people would pick the diminishing returns of 8XAA and a low 33fps average over 4X AA and a 50fps average? Not me, that's for sure.

Diminishing returns? 8xAA looks far better than 4x AA especially at lower resolutions

 

[Wreckage]

Is there a link to a credible site in English. I have not seen this mentioned on any actual tech news sites.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: schneiderguy

Originally posted by: nRollo

So how many people would pick the diminishing returns of 8XAA and a low 33fps average over 4X AA and a 50fps average? Not me, that's for sure.

Diminishing returns? 8xAA looks far better than 4x AA especially at lower resolutions

Therein lies the problem: people who game at low resolutions really wouldn't have $600 video cards.

(or at least they shouldn't)

9800GX2s are high end parts, not meant for people with 12X10 monitors, and really overkill for most games at 16X10 as well.

8X AA is nice, I agree, but I sort of doubt "ComputerBase". If nothing else, Firing Squad's review showed you can run various 16XAA modes pretty well on a 9800GX2, and the Focus Group's resident review champ ChrisRay found AA seems to work better for him on UT3 at 16X than ComputerBase got at 8X.

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Is there a link to a credible site in English. I have not seen this mentioned on any actual tech news sites.

dude , you keep making a fool out your self. Computerbase is hell alot more creditable than your fav Hardocp website. Its one the few site that actually bother to do extensive through review.

The only reason you want to bash it is because its an German website and it not making your card look almighty and awesome. If you think they give ATI cards an awesome review , then you need to read their previous reviews because they ain't intel , AMD , Nvidia ,ATI friendly.

Any ways if you read the whole review , they are actually quite impressed with the card.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: dug777
Well, if I wanted bulk AA at that high res, I wouldn't be buying the 9800xtxtxtxgxt2 because it's not the best single card solution, according to the numbers the OP has posted...screw semantics about 'playable', that's entirely subjective (as you'd well know haveing hung around these kind of forums for donkey's years)

It's also very expensive...

Did I mention it's expensive?

Really? When it can cost me $150-$200 to fill up my truck and boat on the way to a lake, $600 for a video card is a "lot"?

When a good steak dinner is over $50, $600 is a "lot" ?

Dug, as an attorney at law, you think $600 is a "lot"?

When a XBox game like Guitar Hero costs $100, $600 is a "lot"?

When any fishing pole I own costs over $200, $600 is a "lot"?

When any fishing graph with GPS is over $500, $600 is a "lot"?

When almost every portable ice fishing shanty is over $500, $600 is a "lot"?

When a decent shotgun is over $1000, $600 is a "lot"?

When I look up stats on the suburb I live in and find the average price spent on a vacation is $6000., $600 is a "lot"?

Having hobbies, and just living, isn't cheap these days Dug. Buying the best of anything usually isn't either. If AMD had the best performing CPUs and GPUs, they'd be charging the high prices as well.

They don't have the performance to justify higher prices, so they price according to where they're at in the hierarchy and 100s of guys like you post "It's just too much for a video card!"

 

[ddarko]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Is there a link to a credible site in English. I have not seen this mentioned on any actual tech news sites.

Extremetech ran into problems with SLI configs with 512mb of memory per GPU, running at 2560x1600 resolution with AA/AF enabled. This affected single slot and dual slot SLI configs. Extremetech said the problem did NOT occur with SLI configs with 768mb of memory, i.e. SLI with Ultras, which suggests the problem may be traced to a memory limitation and raises the possibility it may not fixable through a driver.

Tech Report reports a similar problem in its review.