Nvidia 6800 GT Coming Soon?

[Converted2Truth]

Others with GTs, please help Rob!

I sent him an email, and he wrote back saying he would have some tests for me, but he never got back. Maybe it's cause I've got the dual 1.8 and all you guys have 2.5

Sometimes in WOW my FPS drops below 10. This is pathetic. I've posted on the apple support forums, on WOW forums, everything i can do. Nobody cares and it sucks. I'd bet my life that apple hacked the 5200 driver for this card. 5200 with 4 pixel pipes pushing one monitor ---->>>> 4 *(4 pixel pipes pushing one monitor) = nvidia 6800 (16 pixel pipes) pushing 4 monitors (or two 30"). Damn I'm mad. X800 is mine when it comes out. ebay gets this 30" pushin 5200 piece of shhitt.

 

[invaLPsion]

I sent him an email, and he wrote back saying he would have some tests for me, but he never got back. Maybe it's cause I've got the dual 1.8 and all you guys have 2.5

Sometimes in WOW my FPS drops below 10. This is pathetic. I've posted on the apple support forums, on WOW forums, everything i can do. Nobody cares and it sucks. I'd bet my life that apple hacked the 5200 driver for this card. 5200 with 4 pixel pipes pushing one monitor ---->>>> 4 *(4 pixel pipes pushing one monitor) = nvidia 6800 (16 pixel pipes) pushing 4 monitors (or two 30"). Damn I'm mad. X800 is mine when it comes out. ebay gets this 30" pushin 5200 piece of shhitt.

Yep, piss poor WoW performance for me, too. I'll have to see what I want to do...

 

[Little Endian]

The difference can be seen in Half Life2 at high resolutions with eye candy enabled. The differences can be almost ten percent in the levels that are gpu limited. On the cpu limited areas they perform about the same. I can't think of a game on a mac that really stresses the graphics card like Far Cry/Doom3/HL2 can.
By the way, why the hell is the GT a 2 slot card? It looks like it has the same cooler as the Ultra when it doesn't need it. Bad enough the G5 only has 3 pci slots and the GT takes it down to 2.

No one seems to know the answer as to why the GT for the mac is a two slot card while all the GTs in the PC world are single slot. Same with the Radeon 9800XT for mac it's a two Slot card though all the 9800XT cards in the PC world are single slot. The only thing that I can think of is that Apple is either too paranoid about Heat in the PCI bay or the cooling in the PCI bays for the PowerMac actually does not provide sufficient ventillation. If you notice all of the Mac twin slot Cards have the second adjacent PCI slot plate covered however in the PC world there are cards or at least cooling solutions that provide exhaust via the enroached PCI slot. The heat from the GPU in the PowerMac is simply cycled through the PCI bay and the PowerMacs Fan systems are there for cooling. This would be the most plausible explanation and would also explain why the original single slot 9800Pro for mac was underclocked so as not too need a twin slot cooling system.

An X800 series DDL capable card will be coming to the Mac in a month or so and that is said to be a single slot option. However I doubt the card will be an X800Pro or PT version.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

An X800 series DDL capable card will be coming to the Mac in a month or so and that is said to be a single slot option. However I doubt the card will be an X800Pro or PT version.

PT? Don't you mean XT, as in ATI X800XT? I don't know about any PT versions of ATI's cards.

 

[Converted2Truth]

PT? Don't you mean XT, as in ATI X800XT? I don't know about any PT versions of ATI's cards.

He meant to type PE (platinum edition) which is alot better than the XT which is a heck-of-a-lot better than the standard x800.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

He meant to type PE (platinum edition) which is alot better than the XT which is a heck-of-a-lot better than the standard x800.

Shows how up-to-date I am when it comes to graphics cards. I didn't even know that PE editions existed.

 

[UnixMac]

The difference can be seen in Half Life2 at high resolutions with eye candy enabled. The differences can be almost ten percent in the levels that are gpu limited. On the cpu limited areas they perform about the same. I can't think of a game on a mac that really stresses the graphics card like Far Cry/Doom3/HL2 can.
By the way, why the hell is the GT a 2 slot card? It looks like it has the same cooler as the Ultra when it doesn't need it. Bad enough the G5 only has 3 pci slots and the GT takes it down to 2.

HL2 and Far Cry aren't on the Mac? are they?

Or are you just talking about the cards on a PC?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

HL2 and Far Cry aren't on the Mac? are they?

Or are you just talking about the cards on a PC?

It must be the PC cards. HL2 isn't on the Mac because Steam isn't either. Nobody has bothered to port Far Cry.

 

[UnixMac]

It must be the PC cards. HL2 isn't on the Mac because Steam isn't either. Nobody has bothered to port Far Cry.

I wonder what is the big deal with making HL/HL2 and Far Cry for the Mac... I really hate that we are left out of such big hits!

I have a Nv6800 dual 2.5... I think with a well done port... they would both run quite well on my rig.

 

[neverever]

The problem is that the half life engine uses a physics engine called havok. The havok engine is in little-endian, and macs use big endian.

endian has to do with the byte order for number. Since a byte can only store 256 values, usually combinations of 4 are used to produce a integer.

Big endian stores the bytes in opposite order via memory address, little endian stores it as you go.

PC
memory address 0 | byte 0
memory address 1 | byte 1
memory address 2 | byte 2
memory address 3 | byte 3

Mac
memory address 0 | byte 3
memory address 1 | byte 2
memory address 2 | byte 1
memory address 3 | byte 0

It goes like this, little-endian allows us to keep better integer precision when writing code. big-endian lets us test whether its positive/negative really quick, and speeds up type conversions. When you have to convert that much code, plus make sure that it gets the right precision on g4s and g5s, things get bad really fast.

 

[UnixMac]

The problem is that the half life engine uses a physics engine called havok. The havok engine is in little-endian, and macs use big endian.

endian has to do with the byte order for number. Since a byte can only store 256 values, usually combinations of 4 are used to produce a integer.

Big endian stores the bytes in opposite order via memory address, little endian stores it as you go.

PC
memory address 0 | byte 0
memory address 1 | byte 1
memory address 2 | byte 2
memory address 3 | byte 3

Mac
memory address 0 | byte 3
memory address 1 | byte 2
memory address 2 | byte 1
memory address 3 | byte 0

It goes like this, little-endian allows us to keep better integer precision when writing code. big-endian lets us test whether its positive/negative really quick, and speeds up type conversions. When you have to convert that much code, plus make sure that it gets the right precision on g4s and g5s, things get bad really fast.

WOW! And forgive my ignorant question, but there is no "compiler" that can do that? at least most of the way? I never new the PC and MAC were that different with regard to the basic hardware design of the CPU.

 

[neverever]

Special compiler programs can "kindof" help but it really depends. The program needs to know what the data should be... hard to explain but its not as easy as reversing the order, because the data comes in a stream.

Little endian allows you to read as many bytes as you want then quit. Big endian you have to read all, the differences are that fundamental.

This is the weakness of the converter programs, you see they have to swap data, and because the data comes in a stream, you have to recognize the end and start of each number, to make sure that you dont say take two integers totaling 8 bytes, and say get an integer from the middle of those bytes. Lets say a 1 represents a byte.

11][1111][11
^^messed up when it should be

[1111][1111]

You know where endian comes from lol, its from gullivers travels.

Just read the HOLY WARS part lol
http://www.rdrop.com/~cary/html/endian_faq.html

Farcry? I dunno its status, maybe someone will port it

 

[Platform]

Apple should go PCIe, then we will get a greater avability of cards that are compatible and cheaper and faster !

 

[Rod Rod]

Apple should go PCIe, then we will get a greater avability of cards that are compatible and cheaper and faster !

There's still that endianness barrier.

What you're talking about would solve the problem on the supply side, which is good because that would hopefully drive down prices. However, Mac drivers still have to be written for each card and games need to be written differently as well. It would be nice if the "Mac tax" (meaning the premium we pay for Mac video cards) could be eliminated. It takes money to support the drivers-writing endeavors though... but I'm hoping (as I guess you are) that the price gap between Mac and PC cards at least narrows significantly.

 

[Platform]

There's still that endianness barrier.

What you're talking about would solve the problem on the supply side, which is good because that would hopefully drive down prices. However, Mac drivers still have to be written for each card and games need to be written differently as well. It would be nice if the "Mac tax" (meaning the premium we pay for Mac video cards) could be eliminated. It takes money to support the drivers-writing endeavors though... but I'm hoping (as I guess you are) that the price gap between Mac and PC cards at least narrows significantly.

Yes I hope that the supply would be better, and as you said it would proberly take the producers more time to make the new drivers etc, but could the not get some sort of sales increase to compensate for it ?? And i really hope that the gap becomes more and more narrow!