" Rollo, how do you mean based on Carmack's past? from what i have seen, every game from id sense the advent of 3d-rendering with the original voodoo have you been able to stay very reasonably at 30fps+ with recommended system requirements and default settings. what are you referring to anyway?"
When GLQuake came out, you needed the best VGA of the time to run it well. (V1) When Quake 2 came out , you wanted to have the best card of the time to run it. (V2 sli) Etc. What I'm referring to is Carmacks game engines usually inspire upgrades for a lot of people, because he pushes the limits of the hardware available.
"also, dismissing benchmarks directly from the suit of one of the most respected 3d hardware sites on the net seems unjustifiable to me."
How's this for justification? I don't care if "Dungeon Siege" (or any other RPG/flight sim/war strategy game) exists at all, or if the GF FX Ultra transforms all their code into re-runs of Barney. In any case, whenever you see benchmarks of "games" of this ilk, they are all the same. LooK:
ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Woohoo! 45-50fps no matter what card you use, what res!
ZZZZZZzzzzzzzz
Looks like Commance run at 45-50fps with some FSAA and aniso too! Wow, this is educational!
The Faeries will look the same at 70 or 80fps, so who cares?
"Dungeon Siege is quite a CPU intensive title in the first place, and not so much limited by a boards fill-rate, and here we can see that the GeForce4 Ti is outperforming the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra again, presumably due to a more stable and optimal driver code base or there may be some additional load that from something that GeForce4 handles better in hardware where the 5800 needs some CPU support."
Obviously Dave and crew don't have their finger on why the 4600 is faster here, since they make a couple presumptions after admitting this game isn't a great test of a VGA in the first place. Wow, look! R9700s run this game at 70 fps too! I can see why you're bashing the FX.......
For this stupid benchmark you dis one of the two best VGAs available?!
"i figure that if you are posting here you must give some respect to Anand's ability to access the situation. you have noticed how blatantly indifferent Anand and his staff are about the product, haven't you?"
Yes, and I think they are wrong, like you. I think the fact they ran all their benchmarks with FSAA/Aniso enabled, for the first time ever I might add, is biased and unfair to the reader. Like I said, to a FPS player, these features have FAR less import than they would to a Dungeon Siege player. I also think they are suffering from the same bizarre misconception that a lot of people seem to be suffering from:
That because the FX came out later, it should be a lot faster than the R300 for some unknown reason. I say NO. Here's why:
1. I think it need s to be a lot faster than nVidia's previous design, which it is. (and no, I still don't give a rat's a$$ about Dungeon Siege. I can buy a 9500Pro, a FX Ultra, a 4600, or a 9700 and it going to play about the same)
2. I think it need to offer parity with the ATI card it was made to compete with, which it does. Was the Rage Fury out/as fast when the TNT2 came out? No. Was the Radeon VIVO out/as fast as the GF2s that were available? No. Was the R8500 out/as fast as the Ti 500? No. Did ATI have anything to compete with the 4600 AT ALL for months and months? No.
Yet you and people like you harp away on how the GF FX gets beat at a few benchmarks here, isn't a whole lot faster there, WHEN IN GENERAL, THAT'S JUST NOT HOW IT WORKS. EVERY VGA CHIP RELEASE CAN'T BLOW AWAY IT'S COMPETITOR. It's never been the case.
I think people are revelling in this largely due to how boring it's been in this industry, with nVidia always the fastest and best, year after year after year.
"all your comments of comments of the fabrication process, length of instruction set, and clockspeed do do nothing to disprove it is only marginally better that it's cheaper competition in some respects and severely worse in plenty of others."
Sigh. If the FX Non -Ultra offers within 10 percent of the R300s performance with shipping drivers, and costs the same, you will probably say," So what? It's late! And...and...it's late!"
I'm not going to convince you of anything, so I'll stop trying. The things you consider "huge" (Dungeon Siege and FSAA performance) mean nothing to me, but you seem to be convinced they are the deciding factors. Ask an ex 3dfxer if it's smart to make FSAA performance your main selling point.