GeForce FX Review

It’s been known for a while that the latest hardware offering from nVidia was on the way, but rather then wait for the glamour of E3 or the strength of the CES show, the company chose to announce the GeForce FX at this years COMDEX event.<br><br>After many delays, the GeForce FX is the results of nVidia’s purchase of 3DFX, and designed to put the Radeon 9700 Pro well and truly in its place after stealing some of nVidia’s recent limelight.<br><br>Before we get on to the specifications, please note that although the design has been finalised, don’t expect the GeForce FX to begin hitting shop shelves until February/March 2003. <br><br>Now onto the fun, claimed to ‘usher in a new era of graphics and gaming’, the GeForce FX does take a number of BIG steps forward in the world of GPU. For starters a change in the manufacturing process to 0.13 micron manufacturing has allowed the team to develop and build smaller, faster transistors for use on the card; this has been blamed for the numerous delays that the GeForce FX has seen, but ultimately well worth it.<br><br>Besides the manufacturing change, the GeForce FX features a combination of new innovations and impressive specifications.<br><br><b>Features</b><br><ul><br><li>125 million transistors<br><li>8 Pipelines<br><li>128 Mbit DDRII RAM (1GHz)<br><li>AGP X8<br><li>DX9 Support<br></ul><br><br>The cards memory is the first feature to stand out, the GeForce FX is the first time that a graphics card has used the DDR2 RAM; running at such a fast rate and essentially doubling the bandwidth, from a power point of view the GeForce FX is a very strong GPU. It’s worth noticing, that like the Radeon 9700 Pro, the FX is an AGP 8X card, so there’s no point in thinking about upgrading unless you’ve got a recent machine with an AGP X8 motherboard.<br><br>However it’s the DirectX 9 support that should wield the most noticeable improvements. DX8 brought with it support for shaders, the support for the latest version breaks down the barriers of how long these can be, resulting in images that will be virtually identical to those witnessed in the likes of Shrek and Toy Story! Allowing for vertex shaders that are up to 65,000 instructions long, in comparison the Radeon 9700 Pro form ATI can only handle up to 1024 instructions per shader. The GeForce FX also features advanced pixel-shader technology, dubbed Pixel Shader 2.0+ because it exceeds the specifications set out in DX9, resulting in 1024 instructions to be run, up form the 32 set out in the GeForce 4 range.<br><br>However specifications are great on paper, but it’s the games that people want to see. Unfortunately nVidia chose not to release any benchmark specifications or game demonstrations, however the company released some information on the hotly anticipated Doom3 running on the card.<br>On a 3GHz machine with 512MB RAM, the GeForce FX could push the game at 46.5fps at a resolution of 1280x1024, the Radeon 9700 Pro managed 33.1fps, whilst a GeForce Ti 4600 could only manage a meagre 18.9fps; looks like it’s time to upgrade.<br><br>nVidida chose a number of technical demonstrations to show off the FX power in particular with regards to the improved vertex-shader support, firstly the animators who created Aki for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, were enlisted to create a fairy character named Dawn. Dawn represented a fantastic level of subtle details, whilst exhibiting a range of facial expressions that equalled anything shown in Square’s aforementioned movie. <br><br>The demo was created to show off the primary use of shaders to create a realistic character; two key vertex shaders were used to drive her motion: a branching skeletal shader where the body mesh is driven by several different combinations of internal bones, and a blend shape shader that deforms her face based on control parameters. A complex combination of colour maps, specular maps and blood characteristics maps, was used to create the most realistic looking skin we’ve seen on a real-time character to date.<br><br>Another demonstration showed the use of the vertex-shaders to give the impression of rust appearing on a car over time, the effect was striking and certainly showed what the future of videogame visuals.<br><br>Whilst the technical demonstrations impressed everyone who saw them, as we all painfully know it will take some time before actual games incorporate these features to good effect. In particular it’s unlikely we’ll see developers making use of the extra features that the GeForce FX allows over DirectX 9 standard features until late 2003 at the earliest.<br><br>Despite this a number of leading names in the industry committed themselves to the card, companies such as Electronic Arts, id Software, Epic Games, Sony Online Entertainment, Ubi Soft Entertainment and Konami Corporation were all keen to show their support.<br><br>The GeForce FX GPU is incredibly fast," said Gabe Newell, founder and president of Valve Software. "Over the last few years, NVIDIA has spoiled us with regular performance leaps, but this time we're talking ridiculously fast. Game developers are going to have to look to movie quality production values just to absorb all of the horsepower that NVIDIA is giving us."<br><br>"With Command & Conquer Generals we wanted to bring a Hollywood action experience to the real-time strategy genre," said Mark Skaggs, general manager at EA Pacific. "NVIDIA's GeForce FX GPU couldn't have come along at a better time. We're looking forward to leveraging the power and features of the GeForce FX GPU to deliver the best possible experience to gamers."<br><br>"The strengths of the GeForce FX GPU will allow gamers to experience Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell exactly the way the designers intended," said Jay Cohen, vice president of publishing at Ubi Soft Entertainment. "Gamers will be able to participate in the stealth action by crouching in dynamic, soft shadows and they can use glow effects and thermal vision to carry out their missions undetected. This kind of technology allows players to become immersed in the gaming experience like never before."<br>"With the GeForce FX GPU we now have very, very accurate lighting," said Tim Sweeney of Epic Games, makers of the renowned Unreal Engine. "You'll be able to see the shadow of the character's nose sweep across his face as the light moves around and it'll be very smooth and realistic."