NVidia just made things kinda interesting (PC Gaming Master Race only :p)

Shiminay

Spotted this on Kotaku.

tl;dr

• Modules built into monitors that allow the graphics card to control monitor refresh rate.
• Game Capture software now being built into nVidia software.
• Streaming from PC to Shield is coming out of beta and seems to be offering a really good package.

I'd been vaguely interested in the Shield but it received the luke warm release and reception I expected. If all this stuff is starting to come together, I'll almost certainly be going nVidia when I next upgrade.

ShadowHearth

I am more impressed these days with AMD, then What green team doing. Looks like more Gimmicks and "please buy" shield!

jaykhunter

What's the Shield?

Overheal

A handheld which has already been out, A video capture feature which ostensibly helps the RopeDrink 1% (<3) that is obsessed with capturing video, and a monitor add-on which is going to add a bunch of extra cost to a monitor. Something that, seems to me, could also be handled by an HDMI revision. For instance, HDMI can already carry ethernet from one device to another attached device (say your wifi-enabled DVD player to your ethernet-only TV) and allow things like an Xbox One to control the powering on/off of attached TVs etc. thanks to revisions in HDMI 1.4

Short version: this isn't anything really special. I'm more interesting in seeing Mantle's mettle.

ShadowHearth

Overheal wrote: »

A handheld which has already been out, A video capture feature which ostensibly helps the RopeDrink 1% that is obsessed with capturing video, and a monitor add-on which is going to add a bunch of extra cost to a monitor. Something that, seems to me, could also be handled by an HDMI revision. For instance, HDMI can already carry ethernet from one device to another attached device (say your wifi-enabled DVD player to your ethernet-only TV) and allow things like an Xbox One to control the powering on/off of attached TVs etc. thanks to revisions in HDMI 1.4

Short version: this isn't anything really special. I'm more interesting in seeing Mantle's mettle.

Hell yeah, Mantle is the thing that I am Super excited about. This is what we need, more advanced GPUs and running away from god damn DirectX.
Nvidia wastes way too much time on gimmicks and stupid stuff, then launches few overpriced GPUs and calls it a day. With all gaming market pretty much powered by AMD, Nvidia needs really to pull out its head out of the ass.

Sonics2k

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Hell yeah, Mantle is the thing that I am Super excited about. This is what we need, more advanced GPUs and running away from god damn DirectX.
Nvidia wastes way too much time on gimmicks and stupid stuff, then launches few overpriced GPUs and calls it a day. With all gaming market pretty much powered by AMD, Nvidia needs really to pull out its head out of the ass.

Absolute, total and utter complete gimmicky toys.

OH GOD I WANT THEM!

ShadowHearth

Sonics2k wrote: »

Absolute, total and utter complete gimmicky toys.

OH GOD I WANT THEM!

Shield could have been something interesting, but for that price, they can shove it up the hole.

cherryghost

TBH they need to do something quick or they will lose their market on the desktop and laptops. AMD have mantle, they have next gen consoles, it's only fair to assume PC games will be more AMD optimized as a result. Either way, I always welcome changes. The game recorder software btw records via processors in the GPU and not the CPU, which makes it so different to other recording games. It should make in-game performance much better than the likes of FRAPS etc

Overheal

For the difference, why not just purchase a decent PVR pass-through, they cost around €150 and ostensibly do a heck of a job. Something you can keep without having to worry about your next upgrade needing the gimmick, or worse, spending money on a card that includes the cost of gimmicks the average person simply does not use.

At Least with AMD, when I'm not gaming the GPU is hardware-accelerating my other programs. Even Internet Explorer in Windows 8 has hardware acceleration on AMD GPUs. Oh and according to their site, Roxio Game Capture Pro offloads work onto the GPU (http://www.amd.com/us/vision/shop/cool-apps/Pages/games.aspx#93). whomp whomp whomp.

Radeon GPUs have also, for years, been the choice for cloud computing projects like F@H. In fact their entire AMD Fusion product line is a testament to AMD's focus on getting GPU cores to do more than just make bullets shinier.

Azza

GSync sounds great, screen tearing is a major pet peeve of mine but the downside of enabling v-sync is too great right now.

This seems to be the magic bullet that solves the problem.

Hopefully AMD's mantle delivers what's promised of it, AMD's inability to compete with Nividia has kept GPU prices high.

Vicxas

Is mantle being supported across all the lines of recent enough lines of AMD or just the R8 and R9?

Cuddlesworth

Vicxas wrote: »

Is mantle being supported across all the lines of recent enough lines of AMD or just the R8 and R9?

7xxx and above.

Vicxas

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

7xxx and above.

Excellent. My 7950 shall have a great time with BF4 now

Skerries

any sign of AMD adding 3d to their cards like Nvidia

Azza

AMD already have 3D tech called HD3D

http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/amd-hd3d/Pages/hd3d.aspx

Its not as good as Nvidia's 3D, but I think 3D is dying off again, less and less games are getting 3D support.

ShadowHearth

Azza wrote: »

GSync sounds great, screen tearing is a major pet peeve of mine but the downside of enabling v-sync is too great right now.

This seems to be the magic bullet that solves the problem.

Hopefully AMD's mantle delivers what's promised of it, AMD's inability to compete with Nividia has kept GPU prices high.

Emmmm I cant really agree with this. AMD had undercut Nvidia for ages and Green boys still did not droped gpu prices for ages. Even now AMD is still a lot better price/performance buy. Nvidia only got Titan and 780 for super rich boys or their super rich mammy or daddy.

jumbobreakfast

Next year is shapping up to be good for PC gaming, new Nvidia features are good for AMD and vice versa because of the competition it creates. I always bought Nvidia but am happy that AMD are releasing what looks to be a beast of a card and Mantle sounds like a great move forward.

If the monitor manufacturers had sense they'd produce a platform independent version of gsync that AMD and Linux/MAC could use too.

Shadowplay is out on the 28th as well:
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/geforce-shadowplay-beta-available-october-28

When you don't have healthy competition you get stagnation like in the high-end CPU market which currently only has one player (Intel) and they are milking it with dissapointingly small improvements in horsepower every year.

Azza

John Cormack, Tim Sweeney, and Johan Andersson where asked a somewhat trollish question about mantle at Nividia's recent press conference.

ShadowHearth

Azza wrote: »

John Cormack, Tim Sweeney, and Johan Andersson where asked a somwhat trollish question about mantle at Nividia's recent press conference.

So yeah. Its pretty much of MS and Nvidia saying: "**** you, we wount use Mantle and you are on your own AMD, that will mean that no one will bother specially coding just for your Mantle setup. We win!"

They are talking about MS,AMD,Nvidia having their own separate API. Wheres Nvidia and AMD should work together to do their own API together and not being dependant on MS DirectX. Its in their own interest.

Azza

Are Nivida being given the option to use Mantle?

ShadowHearth

Azza wrote: »

Are Nivida being given the option to use Mantle?

That is a good question.

Wright

Azza wrote: »

Are Nivida being given the option to use Mantle?

Do you mean, does Mantle run on nVidia GPU's?

As far as I know, AMD have been far more open with their tech, like TressFX, but I think this is only available on AMD hardware. Could be wrong.

gizmo

Azza wrote: »

Are Nivida being given the option to use Mantle?

Going by press statements so far alone, Mantle is as "open" as PhysX. Which is to say, AMD have said it's built around their tech but that they wouldn't immediately dismiss any other hardware manufacturer who came looking to use it.

Until this is point is addressed I just can't really get excited about it because as interesting as it sounds, it would be no better than Glide if it turned out to be another vendor-specific API.

Overheal

jumbobreakfast wrote: »

When you don't have healthy competition you get stagnation like in the high-end CPU market which currently only has one player (Intel) and they are milking it with dissapointingly small improvements in horsepower every year.

Stagnation of Intel's own doing but I've talked about that before. For now Intel is more interested in their iterative approach to CPU upgrades. The reason Haswell seems meh to the gamer scene was more to do with the fact that they focused on Intel HD Graphics, trying to keep AMD off their heel, and their rather substantial boost in energy efficiency - about 30% better energy usage than the Ivy Bridge. This was done to compete with the tablet and smartphone market, that Intel completely slept on. Now ultrabooks have about the same battery life as the average tablet and do a hell of a lot more. It also opens up the playing field to more windows tablet devices and things running Atom processors.

Intel has started aiming at the smartphone market - something Steve Jobs wanted them to do. Years ago. When he first designed the iPhone. Intel laughed at him. Specifically, they laughed at the price Jobs was proposing to pay for the chips, and Intel thought they would lose money on the deal. They've since admitted they were horribly, horribly wrong about that estimate, the actual volume of Apple devices sold since has been 100x their initial projections. Had they had more vision and signed off on the deal, this whole concept of "apps" would probably never have needed to exist because the APIs for x86 would have carried over beautifully to the phone and tablet market already. Its only 8 years later that an iPhone has come out with x86 potential.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/may/20/intel-smartphone-iphone-paul-otellini

dreamers75

Azza wrote: »

John Cormack, Tim Sweeney, and Johan Andersson where asked a somewhat trollish question about mantle at Nividia's recent press conference.

Cormack makes games now?

Wright

I hope you're joking. :P