|
The nfiniteFX Engine
  
"With the nfiniteFX engine's programmability, games and other graphics-intensive applications can offer more exciting and stylized visual effects. Vertex and Pixel Shaders are two patented architectural advancements that allow for a multitude of effects."
What the nfiniteFX Engine does is that now developers can code various special effects however they want since the new GPU is fully programmable. They're no longer limited by a set of coding rules imposed by the GPU, and what this will mean is there will be photorealistic games, especially those coded withen the specifications of Direct X 8, which the GeForce 3 is fully compliant. There are two main components that make up the nfiniteFX Engine, vertex and pixal shaders. According to nVidia's description, a vertex is the corner where two edges of a triangle meet. Because polygons are made up of triangles, being able to change their values will create a more realistic scene. The is a great example of vertex shaders in action. Pixal shaders is used to create textures and surfaces. Rather than placing a bitmap on an object, pixal shaders can modify values on a per pixal basis. This makes for, again, more realistic images. The shows this feature off.
Lightspeed Memory Architecture
"The Lightspeed Memory Architecture brings power to the GeForce3. That's why the NVIDIA GeForce3 is the platform of choice for the Microsoft® DirectX® 8 application program interface (API), and the technology foundation for the Microsoft next generation game console, Xbox"."
Memory performance has always been an issue with previous GeForce video cards, as well as most other manufacturers as well. If the GPU is pumping out more information than the video ram can take in, a bottleneck occurs. The Lightspeed Memory Architecture is designed to address this issue. According to nVidia, by means of a crossbar-based memory controller, the GeForce 3 avoids bombarding the AGP bus with texture information and makes it much more efficient, by using twice the available memory bandwidth. Previous GeForce cards wasted bandwidth by not using all of the available bandwidth. Think of it like Fat16 and Fat32, where Fat32 is more efficient. Ok, that was a poor comparison, but that's the general idea.
Back earlier in the review, I mention that at 1024x768 resolutions and lower, the GF2 Ultra tends to be faster than the GF3. The reason for this is that these low resolutions don't tax the memory of the GeForce cards. Therefore, the GF2 raw core speed is pumping out the data, and it is 50mhz faster than stock GF3s. At higher resolutions though, the memory will start choking at the amount of data flooding in. This is where you'll see the immediate benefits of the Lightspeed Memory Architecture, as it handles the extra data with aplomb.
High-resolution Antialiasing (HRAA)
NVIDIA's patented high-resolution antialiasing (HRAA) generates high-performance samples at nearly four times the rate of GeForce2 Ultra, while delivering the industry's best visual quality.
3dfx pimped antialiasing (AA) with their last Voodoo cards, and nVidia has taken it a step further with the GeForce 3. AA gaming is becoming more of a reality now, since previous AA implementations were slow. Image quality wise, I don't notice nVidia's HRAA to be any better than their standard 2x FSAA. Speed was close, as the difference between the two was hardly noticable.
Unlike previous GF2 cards, I feel that FSAA is very playable right now, but I still wouldn't use it at 1280 x 1024 resolution and up. Sure, the bechmarks look ok, but in reality, there will be too many peaks and valleys in terms of framerates when playing an intense action game. Although I didn't benchmark it, I was surprised Max Payne ran great at 1600 x 1200, with HRAA on. Don't ask me why I did that, I just wanted to see. It was completely playable, even in the big gun fights, and looked fantastic. I did run into a problem though, but I'll explain at the end of the review.
Personally, I prefer playing at a higher resolution, with any anti-aliasing turned off. Max Payne is a slower game (movement that is) so it wasn't an issue with AA on, but since my gaming preferences revolves around Quake engines, framerates are more important than pretty, blurry pixels.
If you want more information on these topics, I fully recommend reading the GeForce 3 technology guides at , and at . Those sites will be able to explain it a lot better than I will.
Previous Page - Introduction
Next Page - The Card
|
