theradialangel
Beta member
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Re: ati vs nvidia Stream Processors (are we behind?)
In response to a recent post, honestly I don't think video card companies are holding back to give game developers a chance to keep up. Here's the big reasons why video card companies probably can't release better stuff now and why they wouldn't (my response to ATI vs Nvidia SPs is at the bottom).
1. Most people aren't gaming/graphics designing. Despite how much gamers think the world revolves around them and that graphics card advancement are soley based off of the gaming community, we make up only a percentage of computer users. Catering to us specifically doesn't make them profits. They need to see a significant reason to advance because everyone who's using a computer could benefit from faster GPUs. There just isn't enough people willing to upgrade to a new graphics card after they buy their 8600GT or their HD 4650. They actually budget their money and don't feel like they have to measure success in their core clock speeds. Not to say that they could advance a whole lot more if more people used heavy graphics processing on their home and work PCs.
2. Current Technology. We can't just release better cards. The technology has to come full circle and accomodate every part of a graphics card's operating technology. Nvidia and AMD (ATI) aren't going to throw out GPUs that boast 2GB of video memory with 2000 fast stream processors and Core and Memory clock speeds that surpass 3GHz. Why? Because your card would melt. Cooling needs to be able to keep up with the hotter cards so they don't melt down. Also, these cards need to be small enough to fit in normal ATX cases and sometimes micro ATX cases. Engineering, while coming a long way, still is limited and will stay that way because research and development only go so fast. It's like the first car was invented and people are saying that they want the Ferrari F1 already.
3. Price & Demand. Like in my first point, you just can't make a super fast card and expect people to buy it. Lets say that current GPU engineering techniques allow us to make a card that can run Crysus, WoW, Adobe Premier and Photoshop at the same time (rendering graphics at the same time). How much did you have to spend to get that card? $2,000? At this point in time, you would have to expect to pay big bucks for the GPU-of-all-GPUs. And then the companies would waste money and go big into the negative cause they spent $50 million with R&D, manufacturing, shipping, and advertising the card(s). The return would never be worth the price they paid to develop that killer graphics card. AMD & Nvidia are playing smart. Gaming developers could program games to utilize quad core setups with 1GB of video memory and strong core and memory clocks. But why would you force that? Again your consumer base aren't wearing pants made of $100 bills. And with the economy the way it is, it's foolish to demand anything more.l
GPUs are rapidly advancing. Engineering the cards will continue to advance and smart people will find new ways to pack the most into a card 8" long and deliver stellar performance. But it takes time. Patience just needs to be learned.
With stream processors...it's the same deal. Higher stream processor counts and faster usage is a newer thing. Just a couple years ago we saw what we thought was amazing in Nvidia cards that ran 32 & 64 pixel pipelines. My how far we've come in such a short time. And ATI running more SPs than Nvidia is a smart play (in my opinion). It keeps the cards cooler, more quiet, and allows for a great platform to build on in the future. They may be neck-n-neck right now, but I'd bet that AMD will start pushing those 800 SPs faster with the same efficiency sooner than later. Nvidia would have to play a lot of cathup if that happens.
In response to a recent post, honestly I don't think video card companies are holding back to give game developers a chance to keep up. Here's the big reasons why video card companies probably can't release better stuff now and why they wouldn't (my response to ATI vs Nvidia SPs is at the bottom).
1. Most people aren't gaming/graphics designing. Despite how much gamers think the world revolves around them and that graphics card advancement are soley based off of the gaming community, we make up only a percentage of computer users. Catering to us specifically doesn't make them profits. They need to see a significant reason to advance because everyone who's using a computer could benefit from faster GPUs. There just isn't enough people willing to upgrade to a new graphics card after they buy their 8600GT or their HD 4650. They actually budget their money and don't feel like they have to measure success in their core clock speeds. Not to say that they could advance a whole lot more if more people used heavy graphics processing on their home and work PCs.
2. Current Technology. We can't just release better cards. The technology has to come full circle and accomodate every part of a graphics card's operating technology. Nvidia and AMD (ATI) aren't going to throw out GPUs that boast 2GB of video memory with 2000 fast stream processors and Core and Memory clock speeds that surpass 3GHz. Why? Because your card would melt. Cooling needs to be able to keep up with the hotter cards so they don't melt down. Also, these cards need to be small enough to fit in normal ATX cases and sometimes micro ATX cases. Engineering, while coming a long way, still is limited and will stay that way because research and development only go so fast. It's like the first car was invented and people are saying that they want the Ferrari F1 already.
3. Price & Demand. Like in my first point, you just can't make a super fast card and expect people to buy it. Lets say that current GPU engineering techniques allow us to make a card that can run Crysus, WoW, Adobe Premier and Photoshop at the same time (rendering graphics at the same time). How much did you have to spend to get that card? $2,000? At this point in time, you would have to expect to pay big bucks for the GPU-of-all-GPUs. And then the companies would waste money and go big into the negative cause they spent $50 million with R&D, manufacturing, shipping, and advertising the card(s). The return would never be worth the price they paid to develop that killer graphics card. AMD & Nvidia are playing smart. Gaming developers could program games to utilize quad core setups with 1GB of video memory and strong core and memory clocks. But why would you force that? Again your consumer base aren't wearing pants made of $100 bills. And with the economy the way it is, it's foolish to demand anything more.l
GPUs are rapidly advancing. Engineering the cards will continue to advance and smart people will find new ways to pack the most into a card 8" long and deliver stellar performance. But it takes time. Patience just needs to be learned.
With stream processors...it's the same deal. Higher stream processor counts and faster usage is a newer thing. Just a couple years ago we saw what we thought was amazing in Nvidia cards that ran 32 & 64 pixel pipelines. My how far we've come in such a short time. And ATI running more SPs than Nvidia is a smart play (in my opinion). It keeps the cards cooler, more quiet, and allows for a great platform to build on in the future. They may be neck-n-neck right now, but I'd bet that AMD will start pushing those 800 SPs faster with the same efficiency sooner than later. Nvidia would have to play a lot of cathup if that happens.
No F@H for me.
