In 2 years, a 9800XT will be crap

[shockwave203 Profile]

Here's a quote taken from beyond 3d's interview with Tim Sweeney about the Unreal 3 engine which will be used in 2006:

"By DirectX9 minimum spec, we mean we're going to make a game that brings today's GeForce FX's and Radeon 9700+'s to their knees at 640x480! :-) We are targetting next-generation consoles and the kinds of PC's that will be typical on the market in 2006, and today's high end graphics cards are going to be somewhat low end then, similar to a GeForce4MX or a Radeon 7500 for today's games."

http://www.beyond3d.com/interviews/sweeney04/

Graphics are advancing so fast, it's almost unbelievable. In 2 years, a 9800 will be slow when playing at 640 X 480! Some of these next gen video cards being released by Nvidia/ATI are going to have 512 megs of memory on them too.

I was kind of surprised to hear that today's top of the line card (9800XT) will be like a Geforce4mx, in 2 years.

I like the sound of that, yet I dislike it. games are going to look AMAZING, but we're going to have to have super beefy computer systems to be able to use all the new technology in gaming engines. I know that in the world of PC graphics, things are always getting better and better, but it seems to me that things are starting to advance quickly.

2 years and todays top cards will be slow? my 9700 is coming close to 2 years, and it's still playing every game great that I throw at it. That being said, I find it hard to believe a 9800XT will be somewhat slow in 2 years, considering todays cards that are 2 years old are still high end (9700pro)

[shockwave203 Profile]

Originally posted by Pvt. Boisclair
that sounds sweet, but how much of it just the guy blowing his own horn? i dunno, he could be right.

its crazy to look back at how much tech advances every two years. my current video card has twice the amout of ram than that of the system i bought four years ago...

indeed. I remember my first PC had 4 MB of video memory

[Agent-Commando]

Hardware will always advance faster than software than can handle them. It's been the backbone of the industry from the start. It was 3dFX that made the graphic industry the way it is today, God bless their souls.

[RCinator]

Originally posted by Agent-Commando
Hardware will always advance faster than software than can handle them. It's been the backbone of the industry from the start. It was 3dFX that made the graphic industry the way it is today, God bless their souls.

I would argue the other side of the coin - that hardware will advance at a rate which meets the demands of the current crop of software. If ever we hit a point where software just wouldn't get any more complex, people wouldn't need to upgrade computers, and the need to advance hardware would disappear. You wouldn't own an ATI 9800XT if every game in existence ran as well as it possibly could on the 8500.

[JimmyTango Profile]

It is a fact that hardware advances faster than software.

Just because one card can run a game faster does nto mean that software is advancing faster, it actually shows that hardware is advancign faster. That software was made to run on the low card, and anything above it will run it faster.

[Irish]

Screensavers just built the ultimate gaming machine this week. It is version 8.0. Seven years ago when they built the ultimate machine version 1.0 it was a PII @ 400 mhz. That cost more in real time dollars than the machine they put together this week. Look at the difference seven years makes. I think allot of what he is saying in the article is his idea of new technology coming out in future next gen cards. He is either imagining a super video card or ATI/NVIDIA is just bullshitting us with this next run of video cards. Almost sounds like he is saying the 512 cards are sitting on a shelf somewhere jsut waiting to be introduced. As far as the 9800 and such I think allot depends on how PCI express takes off. I do know that PCI express cards allow game devs the comfort of creating a game that a $50.00 or $500.00 card can run. The more expensive the card the more bells and whistles but at a minimum every PC express card will be able to run the game.

Any news on HL2?

[RCglider Profile]

Prior to about mid 1997, it was software that outpaced hardware at a much faster pace. During that period was when you would pay $2000+ for a pc and it was obsolete in 6 months, as the saying went.

I refused to buy my own pc until the PII 266 was released because of that. In the early 90's, it wasn't uncommon to pay over $5000 for a top-of-the-line system which even then I considered to be underpowered for much of the software available and upcoming.

There was the 3" thick Computer Shopper chocked full of pc builders, rave reviews on all the "blazing fast 486" power boxes. Anyone remember when the experts said "this is all the power you'll ever need"?? I can remember people I worked with would justify spending mega dollars on a pc because they wouldn't have to buy another one LOL. I also remember a guy that spent $6000 for a 386 system, with a "fast" dot matrix Okidata printer. He claimed the just brand new 486 was a waste of money because it wasn't needed.

[Xenius]

Originally posted by [ECR]Irish
Any news on HL2?

It will be released tomorrow.

Wait: Make that 3 months from tomorrow.

Wait!: Our code got stolen, make that 9 months from the previous date.

Wait!!: HL 2 was just a good old joke on you, the player base. It's never really coming out. Haha suckers!

[igloo17 Profile]

Yes like the 2 3dfx cards I have that are useless, the tnt2, gf3 ti200, and then the 9700pro will be next to fill my box of old junk. Altho the tnt2 and gf3 cards are still in use and I hope the 9700pro will last awhile longer, the 2 3dfx cards are in the junk box.

[RCinator]

If hardware was really evolving faster than software, we'd be folding protein strands instantaneously instead of refactoring them for months at a time . . . or Hollywood would be doing true real-time renders of CG films . . . or grid computing in general wouldn't be necessary.

It wasn't until the advent of a widespread GUI interface that hardware really had the need to start evolving quickly. Systems architects don't sit around saying "ooo - look at all of this extra hardware power - I have to exploit it by writing all sorts of fun, CPU intensive stuff." They sit around saying "This feature may be a bit too intensive - maybe I should hold it feature back until the next generation of hardware evolves." There's a reason a single CPU isn't enough to run large production RDBMS systems . . . the software is more advanced than the hardware.

[Xenius]

Agreed RC. I think the only reason we have 3.4 Ghz p4's out, and most software is made to run on a 2Ghz, is that people want to get us much market coverage as possible. If 5 ghz machines and graphics cards with 1 Gig of video ram were out now, does anyone really think they woudn't be utilized?

[hightimber Profile ICQ]

Originally posted by shockwave203
indeed. I remember my first PC had 4 MB of video memory

My first PC had 4k of RAM!

[Murgatroyd]

Originally posted by hightimber
My first PC had 4k of RAM!

Here's the specs of my first "PC":

CPU
Motorola 6502 running @ 1Mhz

Video
Powered by the Commodore 6560 Video Interface Chip (VIC)

16 Colors

Hires Graphics (via bitmapped characters)

23x22 character text display

Sound
3 Voices covering 5 octives and 1 White Noise generator covering 3 octives

Memory
5K RAM (expandable to 32K)

8K BASIC ROM

8K Kernal ROM

I/O
(2) 6522 Versitile Interface Adaptors (VIA) which support disk drive, tape player, Joystick, and User port communication

VIC chip supports Composite video, Paddle controllers, and Light Pen

Oh yeah, I used to rock those games on the tape player, baby. Pitfall, Jungle Hunt, Tooth Invaders, Pole Position.. those were the days.

[hightimber Profile ICQ]

Sounds like my Commodore VIC-20. It was advertised at 5K RAM but after overhead, I acutally about 3.5K to write/run programs with.

[Murgatroyd]

Originally posted by hightimber
Sounds like my Commodore VIC-20. It was advertised at 5K RAM but after overhead, I acutally about 3.5K to write/run programs with.

Yes, it was a Vic-20! With my blazing fast 300 baud modem.. man that thing flew...