Screenshots suggest stingy pixel precision

[Steve]

It was reported earlier in the month that a new benchmark called Rydermark had unmasked shader precision stinginess with Nvidia hardware. According to The Inquirer, it was said that Nvidia forced developers to use 16-bit precision, with no ability to go up to 24- or 32-bit precision. Interestingly, 16-bit precision would make for a non-DX9 compliant process.

The Inq now has screenshots from the benchmark, that seem to back up the Rydermark claims. The two screenshots show an ATI and Nvidia graphics card rendering the same scene but with different image quality, particularly in the water. However, it's not known what driver versions, or in fact what graphics cards, were used for the benchmarks, though they were both taken at 1600x1200.

[Xaneden]

Very little difference as far as I can see, but still, combined with Intel's recent adoption of CrossFire, things aren't looking too good for Nvidia at the moment.

[ca197]

In my opinion someone has just shapened the water using photoshop. If you difference the image you will see that the water is the only pixels on the image that change and that it isn't actually all the water. Infact it looks a lot like a 10 pixel wide brush stroke. which has been badly applied to most of the water (and a little of the dock and some guys legs). The background hasn't changed at all. If as the artical states that one is ATI and one NVidia they you would expect some diffrence in the AA and AF quality of the surrounding image.

If you look under the people on the right you can see some definate brush edge a few pixels in from the right hand side.

Anyways I would elect to take this with a pinch of salt.

[kalniel]

To me the most obvious difference is just that the constrast on the water is higher in the ATI - the whites look whiter as it where. Nothing worth loosing any sleep over

[Arcolite]

In my opinion someone has just shapened the water using photoshop. If you difference the image you will see that the water is the only pixels on the image that change and that it isn't actually all the water. Infact it looks a lot like a 10 pixel wide brush stroke. which has been badly applied to most of the water (and a little of the dock and some guys legs). The background hasn't changed at all. If as the artical states that one is ATI and one NVidia they you would expect some diffrence in the AA and AF quality of the surrounding image.

If you look under the people on the right you can see some definate brush edge a few pixels in from the right hand side.

Anyways I would elect to take this with a pinch of salt.

I agree. The Speedboat has been "sharpened" too.

[kempez]

Whats the bit about that I've highlighted then:

http://upload.overclock3d.net/get.php?id=580

The "Califonian-based" GPU doesn't have that... (zoom in needed)

[Ionix1]

I agree. The Speedboat has been "sharpened" too.

Yeah me too, you can see some bits they've missed out on the far left of the water and by the dock.

[ca197]

Whats the bit about that I've highlighted then:

http://upload.overclock3d.net/get.php?id=580

The "Califonian-based" GPU doesn't have that... (zoom in needed)

Sorry I don't really understand...

I did a difference between the pictures and the water is the only bit that has changed (not just the section you have highlighted). I can upload it if someone tells me where I can bung it.

Anyways the change area is very badly aligned with the edge of the water and looks like a bad photoshop effort.

[chuckskull]

Looks like a fake to me. ATi fanboys driven mad by the heat?

[kempez]

Sorry I don't really understand...

I did a difference between the pictures and the water is the only bit that has changed (not just the section you have highlighted). I can upload it if someone tells me where I can bung it.

Anyways the change area is very badly aligned with the edge of the water and looks like a bad photoshop effort.

There's massive great strips that look cut out when I take a closer look

[m2c4u]

Busted. Why do people waste their time doing job's as bad as this.

[Stoo]

Looking at it, it's an area selection (via quickmask) on most of the water, unsharp mask at about 1px & 150%, then followed by a small levels tweak to lighten..

Other than that it's all identical..

Seems very lame..

[moby_matt]

Yep, something is fishy about the water - and not only below the suface... ;-)

There do appear to have been 'enhancements' made, but what is the point when a high percentage of people buy a card for it's framerate and not how much anti-aliasing it can do (which was my first thought on seeing the nVidia screenie).

Matt.

[ExceededGoku]

I actually saw a huge difference between the images... I thought that the ATI one looked like everything had been outlined or selected... I think it makes very little difference by the looks of it...

[Spud1]

They are different - but like most people here I agree that it looks to have been faked..nothing to do with the cards precision etc

So no reason to avoid the only GPU manufacturer that still supports Stereo vision

[BEANFro Elite]

Even if it wasn't fake, what an ugly, ugly benchmark, I mean honestly, look at the buffness that are the 3D Mark benchmarks and then look at that....YUCK.