ATI Radeon HD 4890 vs. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on April 2, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Mirror’s Edge: Do we have a winner?
And now we get to the final test. Something truly different: Mirror’s Edge.
This is an EA game. Ben had to leave before we got to this part of the test, he does have a wife and kid after all, so I went at this one alone.
I’d never played Mirror’s Edge. I’d seen the videos, it looked interesting. You play as a girl, Faith, a runner. You run across rooftops, through buildings, it’s all very parkour-like. You’re often being pursued by “blues”, police offers, as you run through the game. I won’t give away any plot details here but this game, I liked.
The GPU accelerated PhysX impacted things like how glass shatters and the presence of destructible cloth. We posted a video of what the game looks like with NVIDIA GPU accelerated PhysX enabled late last year:
"Here is the side by side video showing better what DICE has added to Mirror's Edge for the PC with PhysX. Please note that the makers of the video (not us) slowed down the game during some effects to better show them off. The slow downs are not performance related issues. Also, the video is best viewed in full screen mode (the button in the bottom right corner)."
In Derek’s blog about the game he said the following:
“We still want to really get our hands on the game to see if it feels worth it, but from this video, we can at least say that there is more positive visual impact in Mirror's Edge than any major title that has used PhysX to date. NVIDIA is really trying to get developers to build something compelling out of PhysX, and Mirror's Edge has potential. We are anxious to see if the follow through is there.”
Well, we have had our hands on the game and I’ve played it quite a bit. I started with PhysX enabled. I was looking for the SSD-effect. I wanted to play with it on then take it away and see if I missed it. I played through the first couple of chapters with PhysX enabled, fell in lust with the game and then turned off PhysX.
I missed it.
I actually missed it. What did it for me was the way the glass shattered. When I was being pursued by blues and they were firing at me as I ran through a hallway full of windows, the hardware accelerated PhysX version was more believable. I felt more like I was in a movie than in a video game. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t hyper realistic, but the effect was noticeable.
I replayed a couple of chapters and then played some new ones with PhysX disabled now before turning it back on and repeating the test.
The impact of GPU accelerated PhysX was noticeable. EA had done it right.
The Verdict?
So am I sold? Would I gladly choose a slower NVIDIA part because of PhysX support? Of course not.
The reason why I enjoyed GPU accelerated PhysX in Mirror’s Edge was because it’s a good game to begin with. The implementation is subtle, but it augments an already visually interesting title. It makes the gameplay experience slightly more engrossing.
It’s a nice bonus if I already own a NVIDIA GPU, it’s not a reason for buying one.
The fact of the matter is that Mirror’s Edge should be the bare minimum requirement for GPU accelerated PhysX in games. The game has to be good to begin with and the effects should be the cherry on top. Crappy titles and gimmicky physics aren’t going to convince anyone. Aggressive marketing on top of that is merely going to push people like us to call GPU accelerated PhysX out for what it is. I can’t even call the overall implementations I’ve seen in games half baked, the oven isn’t even preheated yet. Mirror’s Edge so far is an outlier. You can pick a string of cheese off of a casserole and like it, but without some serious time in the oven it’s not going to be a good meal.
Then there’s the OpenCL argument. NVIDIA won’t port PhysX to OpenCL, at least not anytime soon. But Havok is being ported to OpenCL, that means by the end of this year all games that use OpenCL Havok can use GPU accelerated physics on any OpenCL compliant video card (NVIDIA, ATI and Intel when Larrabee comes out).
While I do believe that NVIDIA and EA were on to something with the implementation of PhysX in Mirror’s Edge, I do not believe NVIDIA is strong enough to drive the entire market on its own. Cross platform APIs like OpenCL will be the future of GPU accelerated physics, they have to be, simply because NVIDIA isn’t the only game in town. The majority of PhysX titles aren’t accelerated on NVIDIA GPUs, I would suspect that it won’t take too long for OpenCL accelerated Havok titles to equal that number once it’s ready.
Until we get a standard for GPU accelerated physics that all GPU vendors can use or until NVIDIA can somehow convince every major game developer to include compelling features that will only be accelerated on NVIDIA hardware, hardware PhysX will be nothing more than fancy lettering on a cake.
You wanted us to look at PhysX in a review of an ATI GPU, and there you have it.
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helldrell666 - Wednesday, April 8, 2009 - link
Stick that fudzilla bench up in your.....Fudzilla is the number one nvidia troll site.Put aside, the fugglier nvidia sponored sites, like Hardocp, neoseeker, Driverheaven, Bjorn3d.................And you go on.
Your one ugly fugly creataure.
SiliconDoc - Wednesday, August 5, 2009 - link
helldrell666 - then here's another long set of wins for the GTX275 against the 4890 - you can go tell johnjames on pg. 29 to stick all of them up his... since you're so "red" with embarrassment...http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=7...">http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=7...
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2009/04/...">http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphi...03/radeo...
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1539&pageI...">http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1539&pageI...
http://www.dailytech.com/422009+Daily+Hardware+Rev...">http://www.dailytech.com/422009+Daily+H...adeon+HD...
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-275-revi...">http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-275-revi...
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/944/15/">http://www.legitreviews.com/article/944/15/
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/nvidia_3d_...">http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/nvidia_3d_...
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canu...">http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/ha...a-geforc...
http://hothardware.com/Articles/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX...">http://hothardware.com/Articles/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX...
http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/02/nvidia-gtx-275-...">http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/02/nvid...275-ati-...
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/nvidia_gtx...">http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/nvidia_gtx...
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=684&type=...">http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=684&type=...
----
There you go - now I'm sure every one of those sights is filled with green bias, huh , the worst kind...
ROFLMAO
mav3rick - Wednesday, April 8, 2009 - link
ehehe.. he goes around name calling almost everyone a red rooster.. wonder if he sees himself as the green goblin? :Djokes aside.. seriously, why limit yourselves to just one camp?? why be fanboys? just get whatever card which give the most bang for your budget and also your needs. i started out with a Matrox G200 (eheh.. you can basically guess how 'young' i am). This was followed by the NVidia GeForce2 MX. The next upgrade was the Radeon 9500.. plus.. managed to unlock the 4 pipelines to make it the legendary 9700.. what more can you ask for. next came the X1800GTO, again managing to unlock 4 disabled pipelines and it became X1800XL. and before silicondoc calls me a red rooster.. lolz.. my current card is the 8800GT. real great buy with it oc capabilities and longevity..
currently with the flurry of releases, i'm targeting either the GTX 260+ or the 1GB 4870 as i only have a 22" flat screen. Performance between both cards are comparable. the difference of a few framerates are barely noticeable.. so its down to pricing. Waiting now to see if there are any further reductions :p As for PhysX, it doesnt seem to have really taken off yet.. game developers are not stupid. if they wanna sell more copies, they will have to make sure it works on as many cards as possible.
SiliconDoc - Friday, April 24, 2009 - link
Green Goblin, ahh... many that is ugly...Now, one problem with what you said - you definitely should note I don't call everyone a red rooster - just the liars - there are quite a few posts here that make fine points for ati that aren't steeped in bs up to their necks and over their heads.
You should also note I make the proper POINTS when I post, that prove what is and has been said by this brainwashed crew of red rooster just isn't the truth, period.
See that's the problem -
I certainly don't mind one bit if the truth is told, but if you have to lie so often to keep your favorite looking good, well, that's just stupidity besides being dishonest.
I've made quite a few points the in the box cluckers cannot effectively, fairly, or honestly counter - and the months and months of brainwashing won't unwind right away - but at least it's going into their noggins, and will eat away at the lies, little by little the small voice inside will spank their inner red stepchild into shape.
Hey, I'm a helpful person. Reality should win.
tamalero - Thursday, April 9, 2009 - link
dont forget the X800GTO2 that could unlock extra pipes to become X850XTJamahl - Tuesday, April 7, 2009 - link
Oh wait lol no they aren't. If they were they wouldn't have a failing chipset side of their business and revenues down from 1.2bn to 480m in the last quarter.They don't have an x86 licence and intel are suing them. How bad do you have to be for intel to sue lol. Oh yeah, on intel - that reminds me, who was it that took the playstation away from Nvidia again? Seeing as we're talking about consoles now, how about we talk about the 50 million wii's sold with ATI graphics inside?
Fusion is the party of the future and Nvidia aren't invited. To sum up, this desperate little company is going down the tubes and taking all of its clueless fanbois with it. It will be great in the near future when you are all forced to game on ATI graphics lol.
SiliconDoc - Tuesday, April 7, 2009 - link
January 2008 - and perhaps as bad or worse since then." Without the charge, AMD came close to breaking even in the quarter, listing an operating loss of $9 million. Revenue for Q4 was $1.77 billion, up 8% sequentially and virtually flat compared to Q4 2006. The ATI write-down resulted in a total loss of $3.38 billion for the year, with total non-cash charges adding up to $2.0 billion. 2007 sales were $6.0 billion, up 6$ from 2006. "
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/35669/118/">http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/35669/118/
.
That looks like ATI writedown was 3.38 billion - gee, 2 billion loss for one year.
Oh well, they can crush nvidia with their tiny core vs nvidia's big core by dropping prices, right ?
LOL
Thanks for nothing but lies, red roosters.
SiliconDoc - Tuesday, April 7, 2009 - link
Oh and let's not forget the Dubai ownership portion of ati/amd.Great.
Not trusted for US ports by the American people, but fanboys love it anyway.
Great.
helldrell666 - Tuesday, April 7, 2009 - link
Yes, whether you believe me or not, it's true.I had had much more driver problems with my 8800gtx than what i have had with my current 4870.As for the arabs, they don't own the company.AMD just bought part of it's manufacturing business to the arabic company,ALMUBSDALA.
And to be more specific, AMD decided to share it's manufacturing business with another "foregin" company because it can't afford the manufacturing costs.
I don't see anything wrong with that.But in case you don't know, i have to give you some informations about who owns what.
Did you know that 2 russian "jewish" billionaires, "Naoom Birizofski and Jacob Trotski", own 79% of INTELs shares.
Did you know that JEWs own all the major technological companies in the WEST. From IBM, Ford, Boeing, Le Stabrolle, Shell..........to ADIDAS, Mercedes, OPEL, NPD Petrochemicals ......
Put aside the US Media, that is totally owned and controled by jewish businessmen..
The whole western civilization in it's all glory is getting purchased by jews.So if you think that those Arabs will/have any kind of effect on anything, then your wrong.
AMD was in big trouble and no other company offered any kind of help.AMD simply wasn't able to keep both it's manufacturing and designing business and make a revenue.
Now, with their manufacturing business is getting fixed and grown, the company is definitely in a better state.As you know, or maybe don't, the global foundaries is expanding now by building two other fabs in NY and Malta.Beside, they fixed and did a lot to AMDs to fabs in Germany. so what AMd has done is establishing a new manufacturing
entity, that will provide thousands of jobs for those great minds in both Europe and USA, and will compete efficiently with those Taiwanese manufacturing companies.
But you, with your stupid little brain, can't recognize all that.you think that your nvidia, that small little company with it's 5000 workers, is more important than anything else.
What about competition?
What about innovation?
what about prices? Are you aware of what the state of the prices of gpu, cpus... or any other products would become without competition?
SiliconDoc - Wednesday, April 8, 2009 - link
Here's the other thing, no matter how much you give your opinion on amd/ati, ati lost them billions, and nvidia, even though you pretend otherwise, actually "puts to work" more people than ati making and selling their gpu's, even if they don't have some holding corporation monster over the top of them, bleeding billions as well.So, you went into your love for amd, and I guess your love for ati, which according to you "saved the loser" called amd. Like I said, you're more fanboy than one could initially have surmised, and your bias is still bleeding out like mad, not to mention the crazy conspiracy talk.