nvidia

WSGF Episode 12 - 6/4/2014

www.wsgf.org - "Wider is better"

On October 23rd, 2012, both AMD and NVIDIA released new beta drivers that made claims of significant performance gains for their respective GCN and Kepler architectures. AMD released Catalyst 12.11 Beta, which AMD is claiming is its "Never Settle" driver. NVIDIA released ForceWare 310.33 Beta with up to 15% better performance in some games and improvements across the board. Voices cheered across the internet as more performance was unlocked for video cards for free, but we wanted to know whether it was a true game changer or just another press release.

New in Version 310.54:

• new and improved version of TXAA anti-aliasing to Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and Assassin’s Creed III
• new Sparse Grid Supersampling feature for all GeForce GTX users that improves image quality when using the advanced anti-aliasing technique

Microstuttering is a defect in image quality, where small pauses appear, creating less smooth movement in games. The effect is shown in this short article from Extremetech.

Microstuttering has plagued SLI and Crossfire setups for a very long time now. Nvidia has spent much effort in reducing this by introducing hardware based frame metering with Keplar.

A new review from Toms Hardware regarding AMD's 7990 and Nvidia's 690 had some really interesting results in their tests. It seems that when they apply Dynamic V-sync control with the third party app RadeonPro, microstuttering is reduced to almost nothing. The graphs shows that crossfire are even smoother then single card solutions with DVC applied.

Though it's not listed in the change notes for the Oct 1st patch, NCSoft has updated support for NVIDIA Surround. They have fixed the stretched character selection/creation and the stretched cut-scenes. The HUD is also perfectly centered on the triple monitor setup, rather than half on and half off.

Well it appears that this update snuck right past us. Flying Wild Hog's Hard Reset was updated to have a proper, centered HUD in triplehead resolutions.

http://www.wsgf.org/dr/hard-reset/en

Developer deserves recognition, it's not often I get to change a silver to a gold.

Hot on the heels of releasing the GeForce GTX 680, NVIDIA has just announced the imminent release of the dual-GPU GTX 690. The new card will use two full speed GK104 chips. It is being binned with special low-leakage chips to reduce the thermal profile. It also sports a new custom chromium plated aluminum architecture (rather than the usual plastic). The GTX 690 has a lower TDP than the older GTX 590, and is actually 4dB quieter than the recent GTX 680. The back sports 1xMini-DP and 3xDL-DVI connectors.

NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX680 (codenamed "Kepler") was launched today. A number of reviews are up, including one here at HardOCP. The GTX680 looks like it blows past the Radeon HD 7970 at 1080p widescreen, and holds even with the AMD offering at 2560x1600 and multi-monitor.

The new NVIDIA offering also offers much improved efficiency over the GTX580, and betters the AMD Radeon HD 7970 in power consumption. Additionally, it is $50 cheaper than the AMD flagship, so I would expect price drops from AMD soon.

The best new feature on the NVIDIA card is that it can now run NV Surround from a single GPU. The previous requirement of a dual-GPU configuration was a serious roadblock to users embracing the NVIDIA multi-monitor technology. The reference card ships with 1xDP, 1xHDMI and 2xDVI connections. I'm assuming that a single-link DP>DVI adapter would allow you to run with three DVI screens.

We don't have a card here to test, but I did get a call from NVIDIA today and will be talking with them about Kepler tomorrow. So, here's hoping we'll have something to share soon.

Here is my evaluation of Dirt 3 for multi-monitor support.

Surround feature videos talk about any flaws the game has in multi monitor mode, the level of support provided, any hacks needed to manually force support, and also talks about the benefits and joy of playing in surround.

New in Version 285.62

• This is the recommended driver for Battlefield 3. It contains several performance and compatibility enhancements for the final release of the game.
• This is also the recommended and enhanced driver for Batman: Arkham City and RAGE.
• Contains a fix for the driver timeouts reported with the R285 beta drivers.