If you're one of the truly lilliputian proportion of PC gamers who actually bought two of either the
GTX 470 or GTX 480 from NVIDIA in the hope of running a tri-monitor
3D gorgefest, we've got bad news for ya. If you're anyone else, enjoy the schadenfreude of knowing that those first guys will have to keep waiting for 3D Vision Surround support until the end of June. As NVIDIA tells it, the driver bringing the tri-dimensional, multi-monitor gaming nirvana was targeted for an April release, but has now slipped a couple of months. It's disappointing to see one of the major selling points of the GTX 400 series coming so much later than the cards' release, but at least ATI's around to console you if you're feeling jilted. The company has set up an
Eyefinity Experience Tool that does a good job illustrating the benefits of gaming on a trifecta of monitors over a single display. Hit the source links for more.
posted May 19th 2010 3:07AM
3D vision on a triple-monitor setup is hardly a 'major selling point' of the GPU, and Eyefinity is nothing but an adventure in trying to shoot people hiding in your bezels.
256 drivers come out monday. That's far more newsworthy than this!
@Celeras Have you not played with the demo tool? It looks freakin' awesome!
@Rohan
It seems like a good idea having a wider view of things, but apparent stretching of the image done to achieve it doesn't look too attractive which probably creates less of an "immersive" experience.
@Celeras
But I'm still looking forward to the Eyfinity review segment on the new ENVY 17 ;)
@Rohan Agreed. I also didn't know Alien Vs Predator actually looked like a game I want to play.
You'd think Nvidia would be getting tired of having it's ass handed to it by ATI.
Oh well, keeps the prices down I guess. Viva la competition!
@Cash9007
That's what high end gamers think...
are there ATi products in Apple Macs?
Does AMD/ATi have anything similar to nVidia's 3xx series with optimus for laptops?
The market is much bigger than just us gamers.
@Beastage Discreet graphics still only account for a very small portion of the mobile market regardless, with integrated graphics pretty much dominating everything from the low to mid level. Coincidentally, those two sectors of the mobile market are the ones that have shown the most growth in the last 4 years, whereas the high end has actually decreased thanks to the global economic downturn. The only exception to this trend is Apple's lineup, which while popular, is nowhere near matching the sales of the PC market.
@Beastage
iMac's and MacPro's both have ATI graphics options I believe, and they will for some time judging by the cooling requirements of Nvidia's latest cards (in the iMacs atleast).
am i the only person who finds 3d to be a cheap ploy to overcharged people for stuff? too bad its actually catching on
@SteveyAyo
Well, you are getting twice the amount of images ;)
@HellFury Lol. If you count images per eye it is the same amount. Or not...
@SteveyAyo gaming is a different story than the movies. You aren't the only one, and perhaps still in the majority even here, but my guess is there will be a day in 2-5 years where a majority of people will want 3D gaming.
@SteveyAyo Well it might be catching on with some geeks. But for wide acceptance, 3D must lose those glasses and have a wide viewing angle.
@mukatuna Your comment IMO, though perhaps I'm incorrect, is more in reference to movies/TV. The viewing angle isn't nearly as important in gaming because more often than in the case of movies you are right in the sweet spot for viewing and solo. The cost is a bigger factor than anything at this point, the glasses are a hindrance but given a choice I'd rather have the glasses than the additional cost (again, talking gaming here).
@juanvaldez I wear prescription glasses for viewing computer screens, but not for distance. Would I be expected to be wearing two pairs of glasses for 3D gaming on a PC? If so, then it's fail.
@SteveyAyo Cheap ploy. It's stereo paralax vision shoved down everyones throat once again. After it failed, again and again. Let's see what happens this time.
@mukatuna Well, actually 3D is supposed to have markets within prescriptions and for those who wear glasses some of the time calling a product line a fail because of their needs is a fail.
It's like if old people with hearing loss were to say that headphones aren't integrated to work with their hearing aids is a fail, no, it's not, it's just not for them. - Again, the prescription thing is being addressed and even without it, I'll be wearing two pairs in the short-term.
pointless with a bezel.
objects would be cut in half
until 3D enhances pr0n enjoyment to the point you can actually grab the b00bs, it won't be worth the premium charge
@LiveFromThe215 Soon. Just after the release of downloadable hardware.
@Atkins
in the near future you'll have your ironman 3d graphics capability where can multitouch, squeeze and flick objects in space
Picture subtlety WIN
@Pearl Jam
That's what he uses during detective mode
lol
ATI ftw
Does it still need those stupid glasses? If so.. fail.
I rather see a focus on high performing GPU that doesn't require its own power plant. These 3D stuff is just gimmicks.
NVIDIA, the way it's meant to be delayed
@poddo:
I bet they're trying to find more woodscrew suppliers.
Nice glasses Batman.
For those of you even remotely thinking of grabbing a 480 or 470, be sure to read all the reviews out there. They will pretty much talk you out of buying.
For instance, I run a dual monitor setup, and about barfed when I read this review
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1258/15/
"After a little more a little more investigation I discovered that the GeForce GTX 480 video card was sitting at 90C in an idle state since I had two monitors installed on my system. I talked with some of the NVIDIA engineers about this 'issue' I was having and found that it wasn't really an issue per say as they do it to prevent screen flickering. This is what NVIDIA said in response to our questions:
"We are currently keeping memory clock high to avoid some screen flicker when changing power states, so for now we are running higher idle power in dual-screen setups. Not sure when/if this will be changed. Also note we're trading off temps for acoustic quality at idle. We could ratchet down the temp, but need to turn up the fan to do so. Our fan control is set to not start increasing fan until we're up near the 80's, so the higher temp is actually by design to keep the acoustics lower." - NVIDIA PR
Regardless what the reasons are behind this, running a two monitor setup will cause your system to literally bake."
I mean, hey, if you live near the Arctic Circle and are in need of a little extra heat, the new Nvidia cards make great space heaters.
@Bamboo Those temps are insane. My last nvidia was a gtx260 and it was an improvement in terms of temps from the previous models I had from them. Then come these solar photon emitters they put out. That's why I went with a 5870. The drivers are kind of sucky but it's a good all rounder and beats the crap out of nvidias models in Watt consumption and heat.
Kind of off topic, but isn't Arkham Asylum a great game???
@jjasper123
Yes, it was.