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ATI's R500 to be vertex shader & pixel shader 3.0 or 3.0+ capable?

R600 to be shader 4.0 capable?

keep in mind, this very much affects the next Xbox as well as the
Nintendo N5, in terms of hardware.


from Beyond3D.com's Technology and Hardware forum:


_______________________________________________________________________________
quote DaveBaumann:

"I'm currently trying to establish when R500 will appear. I'd actually
previously pinned it as a Longhorn / DX Next product, but that appears
to have been very wide of the mark - seems that it will be here much
earlier than I'd expected."


quote Bjorn:

"Definitely. And i wonder what that means with regards to the X-Box 2
chip, R600 based ?"

quote Evildeus:

"Well, i don't know, but i would say that there's some stuff to
clarify with Ati's roadmap (i would say the XBOX 2 seems have some
consequences on this roadmap)"

quote DaveBaumann:

"Latest estimate I'd heard was that MS wanted the XBox2 ready in in
2005 - I'd estimate that finished XB2 chips need to be ready many
months before. As I said though, I'd highly doubt that PC and XBox2
will be very similar in configuration (although they probably will
share ALU structure and capabilities)."

quote Bjorn:

"So i guess that the X-Box 2 will SM3.0 based then, since DX Next
won't be available by that time, or ?"

quote epicstruggle:

"Since this seems to be the case, does that mean we can start
speculating what might or might not be in the r600 chip? I mean r500
has got to be pretty far down the design phase, that much wont be
added anymore. It might be fun to start speculating what could be
added to the r600/nv60 that will be released closer to longhorn/dx
next."

quote Quitch:

"Wouldn't this lend credence to the rumour that the R500 was
originally going to be the R400? I mean, something coming out that
early would suggest it isn't a DX Next part, but rather a high
performing SM 3 part, perhaps with a view to laying the ground for DX
Next?

That's my first ever industry guess. I feel so proud... and
inaccurate"


quote Joe DeFuria:


"I said it in an earlier thread: it wouldn't surprise me if the R500
is "only 1 year" behind the R420, since there's probably a lot of R&D
work already behind the chip, since it's supposedly a re-worked R400.

So, a SM 3.0+ (but not DX10) part in Spring '05 seems perfectly
reasonably to me.

That being said: I have my increasingin suspicions now that X-Box Next
is also built primarily on SM 3.0+ variant, and not DX10. I still
think the chip will be markedly different than whatever PC parts are
on the market at the same time, but I'm guessing that either it won't
be full-bown DX10...or that DX10's scope will be reduced from what we
currently know it as.

Perhaps we'll even get a "real" DX 9.1 interim release between DX 9 /
SM 3.0 and DX 10?"


quote jvd:

"Who is to say that dx 10 wont be sm 3.0+?

3.0+ may be the baseline for it as 2.0 was for dx 9.

I don't have enough info on dx 10 to comment."


quote Joe DeFuria:

"Conventional wisdom is that it's expected that DX10 will be well
beyond SM 3.0/3.0+. But as I just said, it's possible that DX10 might
be "changed" to not be quite as ambitious as it's thought to be.

Quote:
"I don't have enough info on dx 10 to comment. Question is do you ?"


Nothing other than past threads on this board which had links to
Meltdown / DX10 presentations.

My overriding point is that I'm not expecting the X-Box Next GPU to be
much beyond PS 3.0+ capabilities in terms of feature set.

I would, however, expect more PS operations per second per pixel.
(Moreso than the analogous PC part)."

quote PaulS:

"Makes sense based on the original goals of R420, although it does
raise some interesting questions about the (up to now) reasonably
parallel nature of release dates of new architectures from both IHVs.
Would throw it completely out of whack, because NV50 isn't due Q4.

I still don't expect R500 to surface this year though, despite what
the internal roadmap says. I suspect it will be delayed to the next
spring (and even that is pretty early, really - a mere 12 months after
R420, which represents the standard new architecture speed boost, if
not the technological boost).

Perhaps R500 will be considerably cut back from what you'd expect of
an x5xx generation card? As in, I'd suspect it to be mostly new
features, and not another 2x-3x speed boost (especially if it's before
Spring 05)."


quote digitalwanderer:

"Yeah, but it would also nicely explain why ATi apparently isn't too
worried about how it's going to be a close call for the next gen
graphics king title rather nicely too...don't you think?

nVidia is coming out with a nice card this round, I know that; but the
R420 is nice too. nVidia must have busted their freaking balls to get
the nV40 out by the time they plan to and with the advances it's
purporting to have, while ATi cut back their initial plans for it's
competition by changing from the R500 to the R420...but they didn't
stop developing the R500.

ATi will be ready with it a lot sooner than most think."

Quote:
I still don't expect R500 to surface this year though, despite what
the internal roadmap says. I suspect it will be delayed to the next
spring (and even that is pretty early, really - a mere 12 months after
R420, which represents the standard new architecture speed boost, if
not the technological boost).


Now that I can't quite argue with yet because I don't think ATi has
firmly decided it yet, I think a lot of the decision to release the
R500 is going to be based on how the nV40/R420 match up goes and the
yields/profits they make on the R420. (From some grapevines stuff I'm
getting the impression that the R420 isn't going to be as profitable
for ATi as the R3xx series was, and that the R500 might actually be
more profitable...but again it's a bit too early to call)

It's like the R420 release. Do you think ATi was scrambling to meet
nVidia's release date or holding back?"

quote ninelevn:

"My question is if there will be a refresh to the R420. It seems like
there will be, but if ATI is launching R500 this winter then why
bother?"


quote Evildeus:

"digitalwanderer wrote:
ATi will be ready with it a lot sooner than most think.

Well, it all depends on the capacity to release this so call R500 in
2004 with 0.13 process (0.11 perhaps?)"

quote Joe DeFuria:

"Yeah, I think actually the fundamental question has to be if R500 is
targetted at 0.13 or 0.09 actually.

ATI has a history of getting their "feet wet" with new processes with
less complex chips, so if history is repeated, you're right, ATI would
go with 0.13 (possibly low-k) or 0.11 for the R500.

Though it's of course possible ATI might change its ways and try R500
on 0.09 first.

For 0.13 or 0.11, A Fall or x-mas launch of R500 could be physically
possible. I don't think 0.09 would be possible until spring '05.

I personally have high doubts about a R500 launch this year...but with
the way R420 is (apparently) in many ways a R300 refresh, and R500 has
had some development for quite a time, history might not be a good
guide for ATI over the next year.

One thing that I think both ATI and nVidia could and should consider,
is that the high-end retail parts, from what I can tell, don't need to
fall into some specific "fall" and "spring" cycle. While it's very
important for ATI and nVidia to supply oems and builders with low-end
and mid-range parts for these cycles...I can see both ATI and nVidia
splintering off the high end parts and launching / shipping them at
off-cycle times.

The people who buy these high-end cards don't tie themselves to any
specific cycle."


quote digitalwanderer:

"I thought the R400 was changed to the R500 because it was overly
ambitious for their timeframe and they didn't think they'd need quite
that much to match nVidia or that the new features wouldn't be
used/needed yet and they made the R420 based around the R3xx design
but highly modified/tweak/turbo-charged-with-bells-and-whistles. (The
R420 is sort of like 4 R360s or RV360s on one die with 3 of them
enabled is how I remember it being described to me)"


quote gunblade:

"It seems to me that the R420 is kind of behind in features in term of
a next gen product. They certainly is ahead in R3x0. Even tho it
probably would not be matter to gamers but likely would be for
developers.

First gen video card is always a develper's baby, since they can try
out new stuff to evaluate whether to include in the new game. As a
result, SM3.0 feature may be good to have and I hope Ati can have it
up this year.
If it wasn't R420(all but officially confirmed), then NV40 will have a
bigger show among developers. And certain feature like floating point
blending is seemingly very useful, even though Nvidia is only exposing
the 16bit blending.

Will ati have an full 32 bit float blending part or SM3.0 up this
year?
According to anandtech's report, the refresh part 800XT will be up a
month after the x800 pro. So, it seems unlikely to have the new
feature in the refresh part.

Then, what would be the SM3.0 part from Ati that is hinted at the
GDC's presentation? I certainly see Ati have it up at least by end of
this year.

Again, I know these feature are not particular useful for gamers since
not everyone codes or has the need to. But introducing new feature can
push the technology and let the developer have the new feature to play
with and then incorporate them into the next gen game sooner."

_______________________________________________________________________________


read the entire thread, unedited, here:

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/view [...] sc&start=0

tinyurl ver:

http://www.tinyurl.com/37tcu

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati,alt.games.video.xbox,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video,alt.games.video.nintendo.gamecube,rec.games.video.nintendo (More info?)

"R420" <radeonr420@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:51488ce2.0404071224.288ca0dc@posting.google.com...
> ATI's R500 to be vertex shader & pixel shader 3.0 or 3.0+ capable?
>
> R600 to be shader 4.0 capable?
>
> keep in mind, this very much affects the next Xbox as well as the
> Nintendo N5, in terms of hardware.
>
>
> from Beyond3D.com's Technology and Hardware forum:

Sure it does.

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati,alt.games.video.xbox,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video,alt.games.video.nintendo.gamecube,rec.games.video.nintendo (More info?)

> R600 to be shader 4.0 capable?

Just out of curiosity, what's new in shader 4.0, pixel- or vertex either
will do for starters.