Now that that's over with

by Anand Lal Shimpi on 7/14/2005 2:30 PM EST
Comments Locked

55 Comments

Back to Article

  • Dave Cason - Friday, July 22, 2005 - link

    iRam suggestions:
    I would like to see some RAID tests if you receive three or more cards. If youu could run raid 0 and raid 5 performance benchmarks with various SATA Raid cards including SATA, SATA II 150, SATA II 300 on cards that are PCI, PCI-X, PCIe socketed (I'd especially like to see a controller that claims deadicated bandwidth to each drive) . The point of these tests would be the following:
    1. Test the effects of ultra-high-speed, sata drives on CPU utilization.
    2. Test the actual vs. theoretical throughput of various RAID cards and buses. I'd like to see how much performance you can squeeze out of a nforce4 Pro board with both a 2200 and 2050 chip that has a lot of bandwidth to offer (such as the Thunder K8WE-S2895 or the SuperMicro board that Monarch is selling under their own name). Also, if you can duplex two or more RAID cards running through each chip (2200 & 2050) it might expose something different than we've seen anywhere else on the Web.
    3. Test to see if the card's presence can affect some of the numbers in the multiprocessor and dual-core benchmarks you've already run. Especially those that use a database or include a compression utility or video editing.
  • nevermind4711 - Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - link

    Freedom of speech is relative.

    In Russia they have the secret police which makes your life miserable if you say something they don´t like.

    In the US we have Microsoft.

    To bad it was an interesting article. I am looking forward to read the follow-up article. I hope it will be as crisp a and specific as the original one without giving out your source to the secret pol.. Microsoft I mean.
  • TheChefO - Tuesday, July 19, 2005 - link

    Developing code that is multithreaded is not the issue. Making sure that this code is running in tandem to meet results at roughly the same time is difficult. Remember, this isn't 3d max. Everything must be running smoothly and in sync (preferably 60 completed frames (audio, physics, ai, control input, & draw all in 1/60th of a second).

    Anand -

    You haven't responded to my question posted above. Is this not a relavent idea/question? Or is it not the appropriate place to post?

    Thanks Anand!
  • A - Monday, July 18, 2005 - link

    Censorship sucks. It really would have been nice to know for sure what was going on earlier. I think you owe it to your readers, Anand.
  • Joe - Monday, July 18, 2005 - link

    I have to agree. There's a huge push in the market for multithreading (read: Hyperthreading and dual core processors, not to mention the long existing supercomputers). To deal with this, most institutions have been pushing the learning of multithreaded coding.

    Even if the current developers can't wrap themselves around it, the coming generation will. It may seem like the coming games will only be single threaded for a good deal of time, but I think that, with the pushing being done by Microsoft and Sony, multithreaded games will be coming much sooner than people think.

    Particularly, I know for a fact that one of the early games for Xbox360 (Dead or Alive) will certainly be multithreaded. The lead developer has stated several times that the entire team has been playing with the multiple cores to get the best possible performance. I get the feeling that the multicore revolution will be arriving sooner than many people think.
  • Dmitheon - Monday, July 18, 2005 - link

    Somehow I doubt it was the Sony & MS suits that were calling Anand, but rather some of his anonymous sources. If they felt that comments that were in the article could only be attribued to him/her or their organzation they may have asked for a retraction fearing retrobution. Anand, I did get a chance to read the article, and I think it's unforunate that it was pulled, because while I found it interesting, I didn't take it as hard fact. The majorty of it was speculation based on current trends. To me is was a stirring of the pot and I was hoping it would get a discussion going. I'd love to see another analysis in 6 and 12 month to see if the development tools that MS & Sony provided allows programmer to take advantage of the various cores easily. Also, I don't understand why game developers are so intimidated by multi-threaded programming. I've been working as a software engineer for over 9 years and have written multi-threaded code nearly the entire time. Sure it's not as simple as the single threaded event driven model, but it's hardly the enigma some of your sources made it seem.
  • Ajay Desai - Sunday, July 17, 2005 - link

    Today companies are very touchy about people dogging publicly on their products. And even more touchy on their own people giving away information.

    It sucks that it came to the point where an editor has to pull an article like that. But as far as editor's go, Anand has outshined almost every other review site. So I respect his decision, and that includes whatever information he does or does not give out.

    Thanks Anand for sticking with it over all these years!
  • reactor - Saturday, July 16, 2005 - link

    For BF2: the one thing i would like to see, how does the different map sizes(16,32,64)affect performance on both cpu and gpu. as for what gpus, on ati side: 9800pro, x800xl and x850xtpe on nvidia side: 6600gt, 6800gt/U and 7800gtx. try to use what most people would have(by most people i mean gamers/enthusiasts that read this site).

    The Gigabyte iram, sounds interesting. as others have said, do we know how long data will stay stored on it? would using ecc be better? other than that tests like boot time, level load times for games, stuff on start up and amount of disk swaping, or pagefiling on apps like PS or 3DSMax (or in general windows use). Also is it easy to use, can you move files around like a hard drive? and info on transfer speeds and other hard drive tests.

    and as to what ppl have mentioned, the 'dev corner' sounds like a interesting idea if it were to be put into place. i would be more intested in how they find working with the hardware what they like/dont, what obstacles have they ran into with technology, what they would like to see. nothing really to do with the games specifically, just how they use the tech and what they think about it.

    there ya go my 2 cents worth.
  • Pete - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    I was not saying he is trying to cover his own rear end by pulling the article but that it will not help the anonymous source by doing so since the article is already public. Once the information is in the public domain there is no benefit to the source to having it pulled.

    IMHO the only possible reason for such behavior is heavy handed pressure from the console vendors themselves.

    I stand by my original comments and wish Anand was not being so elusive about it. Certainly filling in everyone on the actual reasons in detail would not harm the source any more.
  • NuroMancer - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    #44 -
    First: The correct place to post this is the hardware forum, or technical support not a blog :D
    Second: Read the manual for how the Dims must be put into the board. It's possible that you are not loading them into the slots correctly and then you crash. Anyway post over in the forums
  • xtknight - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    I use x264 for H264 encoding. I find it gives the best results...much better than MainConcept's H264 encoder.
  • Mike - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    New system that I just received the parts and put together has a problem.

    Any suggestions on a DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-DR and Corsair TWINX1024-3200XLPT 1GB Kit DDR400 XMS3200 Dual-Channel Xtra-Low Latency Memory w/Platinum Heat Spreader problem? The problem is when both DIMMs are in the motherboard it reboots about the time Windows XP is ready to display the account screen. Each DIMM works fine when in one at a time. The mem86 test fails on Test #8 when both DIMMs are in, but passes when one at a time is put on the motherboard. I have tried the recommended 2.75V setting and less, but same problem occurs. Do you think I have a setting problem or a motherboard problem or a memory problem? Please let me know if you think it is a settings problem that I can try as soon as possible. Thank you.
  • TheChefO - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    Joe-

    I see your point. However, I'm sugesting a regularly updated piece which tracks the progress of developers and their findings. Including their work on prerelrease hardware. Many devs have code up and running on this hardware and are merely tweaking their code for release on the dev kits. MS released devkits this month which are based on the same hardware as the final x360 but which run at lower clock speed. AFAIK Sony has done the same recently. This info from Devs would not be a representation of what to expect come launch time for either console, it would be more of a journal of the progress and accomplishments of these developers.
  • Joe - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    TheChef0-

    While it's true the GPUs could be more easily disected at the current point, the CPUs will take a good deal of time for the "hundreds/thousands of devs out there that are busting their butt" to approach the point of full control.

    I'm not trying to say there should neve rbe such a discussion with various devs, but merely that at the current time, with beta kits out for one system and possibly alpha kits out for the other, few to no devs will have any real information on what truely can be done. Almost all of it will be hearsay and speculation.

    Once we get to the point that games enter the gold state, or very close to that point, we can possibly start getting honest information from them. Until that point, however, most of what devs will give will be based on speculation.

    I'd rather wait on such an article and get worthwhile information than have it come out now and be based on possibilities. Once Xbox360 hits the point where the hardware is 100% nailed down and developers have used final state dev kits, I'll start taking their word for more than I do now. Similarly, I will take any comparsion between Xbox360 and PS3 with a grain of salt until the PS3 has its hardware specs nailed down. Already some of the touted features of PS3 have been dropped, and it's easily possible more will follow, even some of the "important" ones.

    I say wait it out. Wait until there's the 100% correct information out there, then compare. Anything beforehand, even from "inside sources," will still be biased.
  • TheChefO - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    Joe-

    True most devs have said they are not attempting to release games within the next 12mos or so that are multithreaded, but this does not touch on the developers that are looking to implement multithreading for a release further down the road.

    Also any dev that is looking to deliver a game within the next 12mos is still using the gpus in the ps3 and x360 and therefore is able to answer questions regarding poly throughput, fill rate, etc. I would love to have an insiders look into these devs and I think Anand has the connections, know-how and means to get that info to his readership.

    There are a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of interest in this segment which could be a boon for anandtech and supply the readership with honest info striaght from the devs mouths.

    This would obviously also be a resource for the devs who up to this point have been largely muted without a voice to the media in any real measurable way. The majority of the time if you are hearing about a game it is either through an hr person from some publisher with an agenda to sell something or its Tim Sweeny/John Carmack. What about the other hundreds/thousands of devs out there that are busting their but just as much and in their own way have created innovation in specific ways for their specific projects. How about someone talking about proceedural synthesis on x360. Or how some dev has figured out how to get the cell to operate on 20k bones in their latest breakthrough in their physics engine.

    There is a desire to know the innards of this fascinating world which we glimps in small pieces every once in a while and I think Anand could make this a beautiful regularly updated piece which could be called the developers corner which could go over the next generation games not only on console development but also on the pc. With the advent of the ppu, dual core cpus, and knocking on the door of photrealism in gpus we are in a very exciting timeframe which Anand could walk us through.

    Is this possible Anand?
  • Joe - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    I'd have to say, I don't believe that getting information from many of the current developers would help tremendously.

    Look at the suppositions that most, if not all, near-future games for the systems will not come close to taking advantage of either system.

    The only team I've heard of that even attempts to claim they are pushing the system (Xbox360 in particular) to its limits would be Team Ninja doing Dead or Alive. The lead there claimed that his team was spending tremendous amounts of time playing with the multithreading power of the system to make the game as powerful as possible on that end.

    With the idea that so few will be able to push them to the limits at this point in time, I don't see why any developer's word should be taken too highly. It seems like most so far have been vouching for each system based on the theory, rather than the practice. This holds particularly true for the PS3, which as far as I've seen does not have development kits out that even come close to the final result.
  • TheChefO - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    Anand!

    Here I've been stewing with conspiracy theories in my head the past week and you pop up in your blog and throw them all out. Well glad to hear things are ok and in fact we will be privy to more insider info on the next gen machines.

    Personally, heres what I'd like to see...
    A compilation of quotes from anonymous developers giving specific numbers for what they are able to achieve with the hardware they have in house and a loose description on what that hardware is (alpha, beta, etc). The specific numbers would be fill rate, realistic aa levels at playable rates, polygons/sec, texture sizes, new techniques on physics/ai.

    Basicly a large sampling from many dev's working on the hardware and giving their specific input on these categories and preferably contrast with the last generation (xbox, ps2, gamecube).

    This would put things in a much better perspective on what we can expect with this generation and would be even better if you could do this as a series which could be updated on a quarterly basis and give some feedback on progress that these devs are making with this new hardware all while keeping their specific quotes without identifying them specificly.

    This would be a great insight into this magnificint black art of pushing unknown hardware into unproven and exciting directions.

    If this would not be possible, could you be so kind as to explain why? And if not would it be possible to get some semblence of what I described?

    Thanks Anand!
  • Anonymous - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    [emote] haha [/emote]
  • Anonymous - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    [emote] haha [\emote]
  • mariush - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    off-topic : Welcome Back, Anand ... I missed you..
  • Anonymous - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    h.264 tests should be with the high profile of mpeg-4 avc (ie the latest beta of the ateme/nero codec or x264) cuz that is the cutting edge, highest quality, most cpu intensive codec
  • AT - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    I agree - Anand has published a lot of findings that made companies squeel over the period of 8 years, but this was the first time he took down the article. I am sure Anand has gotten threats over these 8 long years and if he was trying to save himself, we should've seen the pattern by now.
  • Anonymous - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    Well said Creathir, that's exactly what Anand is saying.
  • sixpak - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    The I-RAM should have a jumper to split the sockets and SATA-II support. So if you had 4x512 for example, you would have these in raid0 with 300 MB/s -> 600 MB/s. (2x sata2 outputs).

    Or internal BIOS and PCIe 4x support.
  • dodjer42 - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    #17

    The 7800GTX has at least one dual-link DVI. I have two running in SLI on the 30" ACD. Works perfectly. Prior to the 7800GTX the only one I found that really worked was the 6800U 512MB.
  • Eug - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    Here is my H.264 playback performance benchmark table:

    http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee/forums/a/t...

    Includes a bazillion Macs and Windows PCs.
  • Creathir - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link

    Pete:
    I would have to say, Anand is not covering his own rear, but rather that of his source. It is one thing for piraters to continue to provide a bootleg copy of an article, it is another for Anand to CONTINUE to compromise his source.
    Just some thoughts.
    - Creathir
  • Insomniac - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    Daniel: I think that is part of the problem. Everyone wants to compare consoles to PCs. So the CPUs are weaker than their PC counterparts. The bigger question is are they powerful enough for the console. That answer is yes. Sure, everyone would like to have more, but what they have will be enough. Also, keep in mind a lot of the overhead that a PC has does not exist on a console.
  • MDme - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    iRAM - bench it with the swapfile on iRAM vs using the ram as system ram. example: using a system with 1 gb ram and 1 gb with iRAM vs a system with 2gb RAM and no iRAM.

    would've been nice to know if it was sony or ms who stopped you on the article. My thought is it's probably sony (since you are able to cut through the hype) - just a thought.

  • Goosemaster - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    Did I hear something about HD? :P
  • klah - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    Battlefield2: Please include some tests from real 64-player maps online as well as any recorded timedemo or 'single player vs. bot' tests you have planned. Also take a look at this thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...

    i-RAM: bit-tech stated that you may be able to use 2+ in RAID to increase the capacity from 4GB to 8GB+. Make sure you receive 2+ units to test this possibility. Also let us know if the unit(s) you receive has the Xilinx DSP or Gigabyte's DSP.
    http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/05/31/gigabyte_r...

    #17:"And the 7800gtx only has single-link DVI output connectors."
    Check the EVGA forum, they have stated that their 7800gtx card has a functional dual-link connector and can successfully run the 30" display at its native 2560x1600 res.

  • phil holder - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    Some content creation stuff using after effects and photoshop would be good. Also for the Ae tests if you do any would it be possible to do some proper compositing tests. everone who test AE always seems jsut to import something and render it out as media. this isnt how it is used in industry.

    I read the missing article and have to say on some points it is interesting on others it seems just silly to me. Sure the initial performance of these part will be low, the thing about them is there is so MUCH room for optimisations. Looks what the PS2 is doing now, for something so limted in many ways it is crazy. I think it will take a couple of years to get wanywhere near the true grunt of of these boxes, and that even in 5 years people will still be coaxing yet more out of them. And in a sealed system like this that is the more crucial thing.

    Fil
  • Pete - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    I don't get it because the article was already public it is not clear who you are protecting. It is still out there on the web so MS or whoever the "bad guy" is here has all the information they need. I hate the fact that Anand is being censored but it is more disappointing that he is letting it happen instead of writing a tell all taking MS / Sony to task in addition to their poor CPU performance but to their strong arm tactics as well.

    I have been a reader since the very early days and this is very un-Anand like behavior. Is it any co-incidence that War of the Worlds is playing now?
  • ViRGE - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    Perhaps along with CPU results in your H.264 article, you could include a page or so on what the latest info is with H.264 acceleration support for video cards is? A section on tweaking systems for maximum performance(HD H.264 videos kill my 3400+) would also be nice.

    Oh, and for BF2, you can try the Battlefield Recorder - it's not a perfect item since you wouldn't really be benchmarking the physics or similar overhead, but it's close enough.
  • Furen - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    It's better to have more physical memory than to use an iRam as a swap file simply because the iRam artificially limits the ram's speed to the maximum controller speed (I'm guessing it's SATA IO native so 300MB/sec, compared to the 3.2GB/sec of DDR400) but the iRam is great for things that you load up rather often or are very disk intensive(like bf2). Also, you can throw your old ddr at the iRam, while you wouldnt want to use your ddr266 in your brand new system. The one thing that worries me about the iRam, however, is the capacity. Having 4 dimm slots seems rather weak since I'd want to use old 512mb and 256mb modules on it, not brand new 1gb dimms.
  • A5 - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    I'd like to see the CPU test done a Radeon 9800 Pro...not that I have one or anything ;)
  • Mad Nebraskan - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    In regards of Gigabyte's iRAM drive, I'm very curious as to the long term stability of information stored on the drive. Since errors are known to creep into memory (i.e. the need for ECC), how long will my all-RAM WinXP boot disk last before I have to restore it from backup? That might be a tough thing to answer in the limited time you'll probably have for testing the product, but it would help to determine if the product is useful for making a really, really fast swap file drive or a solid-state OS that needs refreshing every 3 months.
  • JAS - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    I've been using QuickTime 7 to encode H.264 movies with wonderful results. Now, I'm going to give Sorenson Media Squeeze 4 a try. Both Macintosh and Microsoft Windows versions are available.
  • anonymous1 - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    hey, I would like to know how you connected the G70 to the 30" Cinema Display. I thought 30" Cinema Display uses a dual-link DVI cable for its native resolution. And the 7800gtx only has single-link DVI output connectors. Do you use both outputs with an adapter or do you happen to have the quadro version (G70-gl)? Maybe you could explain your solution.
    thanks
  • Ian - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    Anand,
    Thank you for your follow up. I am glad you addressed the topic instead of acting like nothing happened. I salute your candor even though it took awhile.
  • Creathir - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    Anand,
    Is it safe to assume the Sony/MS suits gave ya a ring? Would this be FAR from the truth (in that it was more of a personal decision) or had it been "made to your attention"? Sorry for the 20 questions, just extremely curious. You have NEVER pulled an article. (I've been reading your site since 97-98ish) Hopefully all is well, and we soon won't be seeing an Anand v. Sony/Microsoft court case any time soon....
    - Creathir
  • Anonymous - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    Any insider news about a real video card like R520?
  • Houdani - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    "...was threatened him..."

    Nice copy editing there! Take out the "him."

    Self.
  • Houdani - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    Generic law question here. Is it considered slander to publish negative information as though it were fact, when the information cannot be proven because the source of the information is anonymous -- and thus unverified / heresay?

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    This whole situation reaks as though Anand was threatened him with legal action unless he substantiated his assertions (i.e. revealed the anonymous source(s)).

    Best of luck to you on this, Anand.

    [emote] wonders if the leaky anonymous source is Karl Rove.[/emote]
  • TY - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    In regards to H.264, its use in iChatAV3 on Tiger seems to be of mixed results. My guess is that while H.264 reduced bandwidth, it increased CPU load, such that some people with older systems are reporting image quality to actually be worse with the new version of iChatAV 3, vs the iChatAV 2, which uses H.263, I believe.

    So not really a benchmark item for H.264, but maybe something for the 'ramifications of H.264' section.

  • DMZ - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    The things I'd like to see for i-RAM:
    1. Database benchmarks
    2. RAID 1 "iRAM with hard drive" benchmarks - this strikes me as an interesting configuration
    3. SATA I vs SATA II benchmarks (or, more specifically, 3gig vs 1.5 gig bandwidth)
    4. Boot-time benchmarks

    -DMZ
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    Daniel

    There will be more coverage of the new consoles, I'm afraid I can't say much beyond that on the issue at this point.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Marlin1975 - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    "DDR200 memory is the fastest that is supported"

    Can the i-ram be overclocked and does it even help to have faster lower lat. ram?
  • Daniel - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    So are you going to get back up a somewhat revised article? i mean, this is important information and you made some pretty hefty claims about how the CPUs just suck. I have to say i wasnt very surprised - you get what you pay for, and when a system costs $300...
    The article has been copied and recopied all over the internet. if MS or sony wants to get at it, thats not exactly a problem. so you should either back up your original claims or take them back, not stand in some sort of weird limbo in between...
  • next101 - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    Anand there was an interesting disscussion on Ars about Windows and its virtual memory subsystem this [url=http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/...]post in particular[/url] is relevant as the i-RAM was mentioned and the poster DriverGuru seems to work for MS or at least knows quite a lot about the team in MS who handle that part of Windows anyway his assertion was that you'd be better off outfitting Windows with 2GB of RAM then using the i-RAM to avoid paging to the hard disk, I'm curious to know if that holds true if you can test something like that.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    Ian

    It wasn't who I mentioned, just some things that were mentioned could have been traced back to those who were anonymous from the start.

    Take care,
    Anand

  • pio!pio! - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    Ooops there's a typo there..I meant check out the mpeg-4 AVC FORUMS on doom9.net
  • Mark Little - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    Freakin' Microsoft and Sony. This is why I like Nintendo. They care more about your gaming experience than who has the bigger Gflop. Xbox and Playstation owners, I envy you not.

    Sorry, you had such a problem with big, corrupt corporations, Anand.
  • pio!pio! - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    What was the article you pulled? I don't even remember.

    Other than quicktime 7 and Nero, there is x264 (and open source encoder in the spirit of xvid), and some other lesser ones..check out the mpeg-4 AVC (another name for h.264) on www.doom9.net they have a great FAQ on what is out there.

    If I were you I would do benchmarks with either x264 or the latest beta of Ateme encoder (the one that goes into Nero..see if you can get on the beta) They are both regarded as the best in that field and are both able to be multithreaded if you want to test that.

    I also suggest if you are to continue with mpeg-4 ASP (h.263..ie divx and xvid) encoder tests to upgrade to the latest divx or even the beta multithreaded one at divxlabs.com
  • Ian - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link

    You could not have replaced any names in the articles with 'anonymous trusted source'? Wasn't Tim from Epic the only name you mentioned?

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now