8800 - wait and see...

Just some FYI for anyone who is considering an 8800 purchase. I picked up an 8800GTS on an eVGA trade-up for my 7900GTO, since the trade-up window was going to close soon. First off, you can crank some unbelievable levels of AA and AF at high res on this thing. The Anandtech article was not understating what a big jump forward this is (on par with the ATI 9700 release). Unfortunately this is at huge cost in compatibility. Not unexpected, but there are some major issues with fairly popular games. Some brand cards cannot even load the latest drivers. My eVGA could use the 97.44's direct from nVidia, but the stupid nTune app refuses to install. I haven't tested on all my games, but Halo is the first one with game-killing artifacts I've run into. I may do some extensive testing as I've got a ton of different games. I just got the card, so all I've played is Prey, COD2, rFactor, GTR2, RBR, F.E.A.R., Quake 4, and Halo. Only spent any length of time in GTR2, and Halo was the only one with immediate, unplayable bugs. Lots of little annoying quirks in the driver and control panel, too. Could only get the old CP through a registry hack, and I had to use the reforce util to get refresh rates to work properly in OpenGL. I'm trying to find good forum info - nZone has a thread tracking the current bugs. Luckily if I have anything I'm desperate to play I have an ATI1600 in my "office tasks" PC, and a 6800Ultra in my media box hooked to the TV. If people are genuinely interested I'll update this thread with anything I run into compatibility-wise. Kendt

* [email hidden]: > Just some FYI for anyone who is considering an 8800 purchase. [snipped description of experience with GF8800GTS] > If people are genuinely interested I'll update this thread with > anything I run into compatibility-wise. That would be great. I was thinking about replacing my two Quadro FX4500s with a 8800GTX but the fact that the card is not supported by the standard ForceWare drivers made my curious about the compatibility. Looks like waiting for the unified drivers to support the 8800 series isn't a bad idea at all. BTW: what are your system specs and OS version? Benjamin

Benjamin Gawert wrote: [snip] > > BTW: what are your system specs and OS version? > > Benjamin WinXP 32bit, AMD Opteron 165 @2.5Ghz, 2gb RAM on Asrock Dual-SATA m/b. I've OC'd the 8800GTS to 600/900 w/o a problem so far. I'll set AA/AF to app controlled and do a quick run-through of my games. Kendt

>>>"If people are genuinely interested I'll update this thread withanything I run into compatibility-wise">>> Yes please and thanks.. I have my eye on the 8800 and this makes for usefull warning. In the UK the Albatron brand model GTS is the lowest price at just under �300 ($580 USD) with other same spec. brands up to �350. Any different between the brands ??...GTX can be got for just over �400 . I'd be very surpised if there are any unsolvable problems with any existing games..I mean if it runs one DX9 (or 8) prog it will run another ? Wonder how it copes with (say) DAGGERFALL or DESCENT Dos game things. Does it offer all the standed Text DOS modes ? Mouse @@@

> I have my eye on the 8800 and this makes for usefull warning. Also be aware that AMD/ATI are not too far away from releasing the R600, and have stated in their PR/hype that it should easily match the 8800. Who knows when it'll be out, within a few months I'd imagine. rms

On 19 Dec 2006 11:20:18 -0800, "[email hidden]" <[email hidden]> wrote:

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>Just some FYI for anyone who is considering an 8800 purchase. > >I picked up an 8800GTS on an eVGA trade-up for my 7900GTO, since the >trade-up window was going to close soon. > >First off, you can crank some unbelievable levels of AA and AF at high >res on this thing. The Anandtech article was not understating what a >big jump forward this is (on par with the ATI 9700 release). > >Unfortunately this is at huge cost in compatibility. Not unexpected, >but there are some major issues with fairly popular games. Some brand >cards cannot even load the latest drivers. My eVGA could use the >97.44's direct from nVidia, but the stupid nTune app refuses to >install. I haven't tested on all my games, but Halo is the first one >with game-killing artifacts I've run into. I may do some extensive >testing as I've got a ton of different games. I just got the card, so >all I've played is Prey, COD2, rFactor, GTR2, RBR, F.E.A.R., Quake 4, >and Halo. Only spent any length of time in GTR2, and Halo was the only >one with immediate, unplayable bugs. > >Lots of little annoying quirks in the driver and control panel, too. >Could only get the old CP through a registry hack, and I had to use the >reforce util to get refresh rates to work properly in OpenGL. > >I'm trying to find good forum info - nZone has a thread tracking the >current bugs. Luckily if I have anything I'm desperate to play I have >an ATI1600 in my "office tasks" PC, and a 6800Ultra in my media box >hooked to the TV. > >If people are genuinely interested I'll update this thread with >anything I run into compatibility-wise. > >Kendt >

Usual "early-adopter" joys. No news here. The 8800 is a revolutionary departure from previous nVidia GPU architectures. Takes a while to mature the drivers. ATi have had similar driver maturity issues in the past with their various architecture changes. Initially poor support for xcurrent and legacy games. Thanks for being a beta -tester and for helping to defray the development-cost. John Lewis

John Lewis wrote: > Usual "early-adopter" joys. No news here. The 8800 is a revolutionary > departure from previous nVidia GPU architectures. Takes a while to > mature the drivers. ATi have had similar driver maturity issues in the > past with their various architecture changes. Initially poor support > for xcurrent and legacy games. Thanks for being a beta -tester and for > helping to defray the development-cost. You're welcome ;)... Honestly, if it wasn't for the trade-up program, and I had something faster than a 7900GTO before hand I wouldn't have touched either an ATI or nVidia card so soon after launch. Kendt

"[email hidden]" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > > If people are genuinely interested I'll update this thread with > anything I run into compatibility-wise. > > Kendt > Thanks for posting, it is appreciated. This info, while not surprising, still provides welcome feedback. I'll give things a year before buying a DirectX 10 card of any sort.

I wanted all the GPU power I could get because I'm using TH2G. (3840x1024 resolution) so I bought a EVGA8800GTX. ATI is not an option here because it doesn't support these resolution for reasons unknown to me. The upgrade was surprisingly mostly flawless. I had some Control Panel quirks at the beginning but I changed card without re-installing drivers. After a re-install, nTune and the CP are working great. (Without the Classic CP but I can live with that) For racing sim this has been a great upgrade (specially for GTL which I can now run at 3840x1024 even on night races with great fps). GTL, GTR, GTR2, Netkar, rFactor, RACE all run flawlessly. On my older games, some DOS, some Win95, some newer ones, no problem either. Reading the release note from the latest drivers, I'm lucky enough not to play the games that have some problems, some being subtle. People looking for a 8800 upgrade should read it before making a move. Vista and DX10 will tell me, in a year or so, if I made a good move but for the time being it's a pricey but great upgrade for my sim racing "needs"!

Claude Leclerc wrote:

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> I wanted all the GPU power I could get because I'm using TH2G. (3840x1024 > resolution) so I bought a EVGA8800GTX. > ATI is not an option here because it doesn't support these resolution for > reasons unknown to me. > > The upgrade was surprisingly mostly flawless. I had some Control Panel > quirks at the beginning but I changed card without re-installing drivers. > After a re-install, nTune and the CP are working great. (Without the Classic > CP but I can live with that) > > For racing sim this has been a great upgrade (specially for GTL which I can > now run at 3840x1024 even on night races with great fps). GTL, GTR, GTR2, > Netkar, rFactor, RACE all run flawlessly. > On my older games, some DOS, some Win95, some newer ones, no problem either.

[snip] What level of AA/AF are you able to run? I've got a 21" CRT now at 1600x1200 (max res) and I can comfortably run 8xQAA/16xAF (although back of the grid at night in GTR2 is slow). I'm considering getting a large LCD or small 1080p TV to game on. Also, so far I haven't found the need to drop the D3D "frames rendered ahead" from 3 to 0 to get rid of that annoying stutter ISI sims seem to get. Are you seeing the same thing? Thanks, Kendt.

I want fairly high fps, especially online, so I don't go over 4x/4x in most sims. (For GTR2/GTL with night racing I use 2xAA or none) I would need a 2nd GTX in SLI to be able to raise AA/AF at the resolution I use. That's a lot of $$$ (Another GTX and a 850W+ P/S). I luckily don't have any stutters in rFactor and other ISI based sims. I use nVidia drivers default except for AA/AF, no OC. "[email hidden]" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> What level of AA/AF are you able to run? I've got a 21" CRT now at > 1600x1200 (max res) and I can comfortably run 8xQAA/16xAF (although > back of the grid at night in GTR2 is slow). > I'm considering getting a large LCD or small 1080p TV to game on. > > Also, so far I haven't found the need to drop the D3D "frames rendered > ahead" from 3 to 0 to get rid of that annoying stutter ISI sims seem to > get. Are you seeing the same thing? > > Thanks, > Kendt. >

I run 4AA, 16AF in everything on my 21" widescreen Gateway. 1680X1050X32. I have everything maxed out in all the racing games I run. Oh, that's on a 4800x2 and a GeForce 7800GTX. 8x AA is quite runable, but the fps drops to around 50 in NR2003, and I prefer to keep it up over 100. Personally, I think the controls are more responsive at uber-high fps. -Larry "Claude Leclerc" <benquinAThotmail.com> wrote in message news:458960c6$[email hidden]...

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>I want fairly high fps, especially online, so I don't go over 4x/4x in most > sims. (For GTR2/GTL with night racing I use 2xAA or none) I would need a > 2nd > GTX in SLI to be able to raise AA/AF at the resolution I use. That's a lot > of $$$ (Another GTX and a 850W+ P/S). > > I luckily don't have any stutters in rFactor and other ISI based sims. I > use > nVidia drivers default except for AA/AF, no OC. > > "[email hidden]" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:[email hidden]... > >> What level of AA/AF are you able to run? I've got a 21" CRT now at >> 1600x1200 (max res) and I can comfortably run 8xQAA/16xAF (although >> back of the grid at night in GTR2 is slow). >> I'm considering getting a large LCD or small 1080p TV to game on. >> >> Also, so far I haven't found the need to drop the D3D "frames rendered >> ahead" from 3 to 0 to get rid of that annoying stutter ISI sims seem to >> get. Are you seeing the same thing? >> >> Thanks, >> Kendt. >> > >

"[email hidden]" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> Just some FYI for anyone who is considering an 8800 purchase. > > I picked up an 8800GTS on an eVGA trade-up for my 7900GTO, since the > trade-up window was going to close soon. > > First off, you can crank some unbelievable levels of AA and AF at high > res on this thing. The Anandtech article was not understating what a > big jump forward this is (on par with the ATI 9700 release). > > Unfortunately this is at huge cost in compatibility. Not unexpected, > but there are some major issues with fairly popular games. Some brand > cards cannot even load the latest drivers. My eVGA could use the > 97.44's direct from nVidia, but the stupid nTune app refuses to > install. I haven't tested on all my games, but Halo is the first one > with game-killing artifacts I've run into. I may do some extensive > testing as I've got a ton of different games. I just got the card, so > all I've played is Prey, COD2, rFactor, GTR2, RBR, F.E.A.R., Quake 4, > and Halo. Only spent any length of time in GTR2, and Halo was the only > one with immediate, unplayable bugs. > > Lots of little annoying quirks in the driver and control panel, too. > Could only get the old CP through a registry hack, and I had to use the > reforce util to get refresh rates to work properly in OpenGL. > > I'm trying to find good forum info - nZone has a thread tracking the > current bugs. Luckily if I have anything I'm desperate to play I have > an ATI1600 in my "office tasks" PC, and a 6800Ultra in my media box > hooked to the TV. > > If people are genuinely interested I'll update this thread with > anything I run into compatibility-wise. > > Kendt >

While there have always been "fixes" and work-arounds to DOS or Win9x games in WinXP , I believe with Vista and DirectX 10 there will turly be a need for a backwards compatible box. Too many significant differences to make a compatible system. I recently built a Shuttle SN41G2 box with Sempron 2400+, 1GB RAM, 6800XT video, 80GB HD to run WinXP and Win98/DOS games. This may just have to work for me through the next many years until I no longer care to play those "older" games any more. Granted my up-to-date gaming box is much more powerful, but usually sell off the PC as a whole, or in parts, every year or two to fund my next gaming PC upgrade. It's unfortunate, but reality that I believe we must face with Windows Vista and DirectX 10, as far as gaming is concerned.

"HockeyTownUSA" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden] [...] > It's unfortunate, but reality that I believe we must face with > Windows Vista and DirectX 10, as far as gaming is concerned. Google DirectX 9L.

"DRS" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:458a804c$0$21917$[email hidden]...

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> "HockeyTownUSA" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:[email hidden] > > [...] > >> It's unfortunate, but reality that I believe we must face with >> Windows Vista and DirectX 10, as far as gaming is concerned. > > Google DirectX 9L. >

I know that DirectX 9L is for "backwards" Vista compatibility with DX9 and prior games, but who knows what compatability issues that will bring?

On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 20:02:05 -0500, "HockeyTownUSA" <[email hidden]> wrote something that piqued my interest enough to reply with:

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> >"DRS" <[email hidden]> wrote in message >news:458a804c$0$21917$[email hidden]... >> "HockeyTownUSA" <[email hidden]> wrote in message >> news:[email hidden] >> >> [...] >> >>> It's unfortunate, but reality that I believe we must face with >>> Windows Vista and DirectX 10, as far as gaming is concerned. >> >> Google DirectX 9L. >> > >I know that DirectX 9L is for "backwards" Vista compatibility with DX9 and >prior games, but who knows what compatability issues that will bring? >

I think that the point that DRS was trying to make is that all games using DX9 up to DX9.0c will run under DX 9L in Vista, the point that was missed is DX9L is a software interpreting layer so they may actually run slower on the same PC under Vista as they did under XP, plus Vista/DX9L offers no assurance of backwards compatibility to DX8 or lower so older games may fail completely. -- Alfie <http://www.delphia.co.uk/> The important things are always simple; the simple things are always hard.

"Alfie [UK]" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 20:02:05 -0500, "HockeyTownUSA" > <[email hidden]> wrote something that piqued my interest enough to > reply with: > >> >>"DRS" <[email hidden]> wrote in message >>news:458a804c$0$21917$[email hidden]... >>> "HockeyTownUSA" <[email hidden]> wrote in message >>> news:[email hidden] >>> >>> [...] >>> >>>> It's unfortunate, but reality that I believe we must face with >>>> Windows Vista and DirectX 10, as far as gaming is concerned. >>> >>> Google DirectX 9L. >>> >> >>I know that DirectX 9L is for "backwards" Vista compatibility with DX9 and >>prior games, but who knows what compatability issues that will bring? >> > I think that the point that DRS was trying to make is that all games > using DX9 up to DX9.0c will run under DX 9L in Vista, the point that was > missed is DX9L is a software interpreting layer so they may actually run > slower on the same PC under Vista as they did under XP, plus Vista/DX9L > offers no assurance of backwards compatibility to DX8 or lower so older > games may fail completely. > -- > Alfie > <http://www.delphia.co.uk/> > The important things are always simple; the simple things are always hard. >

Gotcha. That was my point. I figured he was trying to say that there's no need to worry since we have DX9L. From experience I say no way in hell. Backwards compatability is always an issue. Hence my discussion about this time the need for a backwards compatible gaming box. At least I plan on keeping mine. Perhaps I will just keep my Athlon64 4800+ X2, 2GB DDR500, 7950GT instead of my Sempron 2400+, 1GB DDR333, 6600GT.

HockeyTownUSA wrote: [snip]

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> > Gotcha. That was my point. I figured he was trying to say that there's no > need to worry since we have DX9L. From experience I say no way in hell. > Backwards compatability is always an issue. Hence my discussion about this > time the need for a backwards compatible gaming box. At least I plan on > keeping mine. Perhaps I will just keep my Athlon64 4800+ X2, 2GB DDR500, > 7950GT instead of my Sempron 2400+, 1GB DDR333, 6600GT.

I'd bet by the time Vista is well established and a must-have, quad-core will be the norm for high-end gaming boxes. Look at what Remedy were demoing for Alan Wake, and claiming they used an entire core just for the physics. I'm hoping the onset of Vista doesn't make nVidia say "the 8800 and up are meant as Dx10 only parts, sorry about the bugs, but they're staying" I don't think they *can* say that with the market the way it is now. I've been playing some other games, and I haven't found many other problems. I never did a comprehensive sweep of my games when I had the 7900GTO, so some of what I'm finding may have been there, too. With a number of big recent titles having problems, I think there will be fixes soon. It does worry me a bit that alot of the issues in the latest driver release notes are blamed on the games themselves, and not the drivers. If we're lucky, the normal driver maturation will take care of the older stuff running under XP, and we can just dual-boot for a while. My gaming rig had a Win98 partition until the last rebuild. Hopefully I can just SLI this 8800GTS on a quad-core motherboard for the next build. Kendt

The future at MS is Virtualization. Thats why Vista comes with MS Virtual PC for free. You can install your older windows version and run it from within Vista, as a virtual PC, with virtually "old" hardware. I find it works great for the really old games (dx 7, dx8). I think the dx9 games will run fine nativly in Vista. You can also install your favorite flavor of linux as a virtual machine. I thought that programs run in virtual machines would run really slow, but so far I have been pleasantly supprised. Kurt "[email hidden]" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> > HockeyTownUSA wrote: > [snip] >> >> Gotcha. That was my point. I figured he was trying to say that there's no >> need to worry since we have DX9L. From experience I say no way in hell. >> Backwards compatability is always an issue. Hence my discussion about >> this >> time the need for a backwards compatible gaming box. At least I plan on >> keeping mine. Perhaps I will just keep my Athlon64 4800+ X2, 2GB DDR500, >> 7950GT instead of my Sempron 2400+, 1GB DDR333, 6600GT. > > I'd bet by the time Vista is well established and a must-have, > quad-core will be the norm for high-end gaming boxes. Look at what > Remedy were demoing for Alan Wake, and claiming they used an entire > core just for the physics. > > I'm hoping the onset of Vista doesn't make nVidia say "the 8800 and up > are meant as Dx10 only parts, sorry about the bugs, but they're > staying" I don't think they *can* say that with the market the way it > is now. I've been playing some other games, and I haven't found many > other problems. I never did a comprehensive sweep of my games when I > had the 7900GTO, so some of what I'm finding may have been there, too. > With a number of big recent titles having problems, I think there will > be fixes soon. It does worry me a bit that alot of the issues in the > latest driver release notes are blamed on the games themselves, and not > the drivers. > > If we're lucky, the normal driver maturation will take care of the > older stuff running under XP, and we can just dual-boot for a while. > My gaming rig had a Win98 partition until the last rebuild. Hopefully > I can just SLI this 8800GTS on a quad-core motherboard for the next > build. > > Kendt >