You can feel the tension....it's palpable

[Zak33]

Cos we can all see the vid cards plummeting in price...and we all know the new generation is close....so near...

but what will it really yield...? Will it be akin to the first time we all saw how god a 9700PRo was...or even as fundemental as the intro of 3dfx acceleration....

My trusty 9800Pro...sitting quietly awaiting the new competiton......is still quietly confident.....and yet.....even as the owner...

I want it blown away....I want to LUST after a card again...to dream and to try to achieve....

you all know what I mean.....what does the future hold for us gamers and benchmarkers....

should we build in excitement or should be expect to be let down ?

God it's exciting just wondering

[Allen]

I reckon we're not too far from being able to tell the difference (visually) between real life and games. Mad when you think about it really.....

How far have graphics gone in the past 10 years?

[streetster]

well, i'm waiting for the graphics in games to be of the quality in the final fantasy: spirits within film, or the last flight of the osiris on the animatrix cd... heck even toy story! except you would need a monster pc to render that all in realtime let alone think about the ai and physics heh

mark

[Allen]

except you would need a monster pc to render that all in realtime let alone think about the ai and physics heh

Well, we've already broken the 5GHz barrier in CPU's (ok it was with liquid nitrogen, but still), look how 'real' LO:MAC plays on a 9800PRO/XT and memory is becoming faster and larger. Won't be too long before our home PC's can render those sort of quality graphics!

Ack, been playing NFSU too much! It was with Liquid Nitrogen, not NOS!

[Stewart]

Well, we've already broken the 5GHz barrier in CPU's (ok it was with nitrous oxide, but still), look how 'real' LO:MAC plays on a 9800PRO/XT and memory is becoming faster and larger. Won't be too long before our home PC's can render those sort of quality graphics!

Yeah, but on the other side of the coin, we have Halo.

Looked good when it was released for the Xbox in 1804, at the 3rd Annual Victorian 'Wonders of Science and other Oddities' festival, and looked exactly the same, and lost half of its frames-per-second, when it came to the PC, 199 years later.

That's progress for you. Just goes to show, that in the wrong hands, anything (and I do mean anything) can be cocked right up the wall.

Also, a lot of the games we are playing now, are just better looking versions of games we were playing back in the day. Call of Duty looks good on my 9800pro, and sounds good on my 5.1 system, but its still, under all that bling, a flashy version of Doom, that I was playing when I was knee high to a creature that has its knees very low to the ground.

Breaking the 5ghz barrier is not breaking the light-barrier, and we are not going to go boldly (infinities unspilt) where no man (in an unconvincing purple forehead extension) has gone before, with or without the aid of nitrous oxide.

I think we have to fend off the 'What a book written in 1954 says we will be doing in the year 2000' syndrome. Do you go to work on a personal hover jet-pack, covered in silver foil, asleep (due to the auto-nav system, of course), waking up 10 minutes before you arrive, to consume your breakfast, which is, need I mention, in pill form. (A sort of cliché on toast, if you will.)

Do you? Do you bollocks.

You go to work in a clapped out Ford Cortina (or a Ford Model-T for those of you living up North), covered in baby-food and toast crumbs, trying not to wake up in a ditch, because you fell asleep, and the ‘auto-nav’ function seems to be missing from Fords entry-level machines at the moment.

So, the next generation of games, will be like this generation of games, but they will look a bit better, as will the next gen, and the 3 ‘gens’ after that. They will all, however, contain the little changes, that a good few years from now, we will be able to look back on, and notice the first few uses of basic ‘super-ninja virtual reality sub-net contrasting’ or whatever is all the rage at the time.

Now I shall return to my book…

Did you know that by the year 2002, there won’t be any real people in shops… just holograms! How cool will that be?

<Goes to local shop>

Oh, hello Mrs Baker. 20 Benson and Hedges and packet of Polo's please. Are your feet still playing you up?

[Zak33]

good post Vaul.....very very very good indeed.

I still fallover in amazement at the difference in graphics on the sam emachine just from different programmers....look at the difference in effects on PS2.....just so far apart, same machine...

No, for me its gonnabe down to the VED CARD MANUFACTURERS to do it on behalf of the programmers.....

let me take you by the hand and walk you around Zak's virtual dream heaven

[dream mode]

Imagine if Direct X and Open GL were gone...imagine if a game even as old as 5 years could look like heaven on a recent card.....imagine taking the beauty of recent Anti Aliasing and Anisotropic power, but going about 3 stages further....to improve the current crop of games to a new level....of beauty and perfection....

so Q2 would just SPRING into life, with wall textures and floor patterns thrusting themselves into your face....even tho the programmer didn't code them...

then and only then could a game designer work on the vital essence of the game...the play, feel and Artificial Intelligence...and we would all be better off....

Hold my hand further still...walk further with me.....

Imagine playing something like Morrowind on a PC that redefined beauty....that took all the detail put into that game and stretched it to a level defined by the USER...so you could paay the most you had available for a new card, and then know, from reviews and articles on hardware sites, that leaves would sway and bricks would feel, so much more ....real.....and for this kind of thing to occur, and whole and impossible change would have to envelop hardware developers....and it won't happen cos we all ask for new versions of new games with morestuff to stress our PC's with...... [/dream mode]


*shudders*

sorry..lost it for a mo

[Knoxville]

Even though i want something awesome to appear from all this in reality i think we'll be getting a few thousand more 3d marks and a noisier fan

I was quite excited when the 9800 series came out until i saw that it didn't really destroy my 9700pro....

[Skii]

Well I'm kicking myself for buying my 9500Pro truth be known, especially after seeing 9800Pros going for not much over £100

Damn you Lomac - damn you to hell.

[BEANFro Elite]

i'd say in about 6-8 years we have final fantasy's grafics.

but in cpu terms they are nearing their death (silicon is anyway)

so i have reaason to believe that until there is a new medium to build cpus then we can only be expecting cpus to have incresing l1/l2/l3 caches to boost cpu speeds but even that will have its limits

[Zak33]

Well I'm kicking myself for buying my 9500Pro truth be known, especially after seeing 9800Pros going for not much over £100

Damn you Lomac - damn you to hell.

you're wrong there Skii.....very wrong....no one should ever regret something in PC hardware that brings anymore than a month of happyness...and you have enjoyed thatfor longer than that....

my 9800 Pro was way over £200......and I got the review one...that was less than 6 months ago....

and I'm supposed to be "in the trade" kinda thing here.....

dont ever regret that prices are dropping after you have purchased.....it will eat you up inside. Just be pleased that you have had 2 months of LOMAC in its formative weeks...you are one of the first to get to grips with it...you are an early adopter....youNEEDED that 9500Pro...its fate.

[steve threlfall]

Well I'm kicking myself for buying my 9500Pro truth be known, especially after seeing 9800Pros going for not much over £100

Damn you Lomac - damn you to hell.

hehe same here with the 9600xt... worst of it is agent warned me as well at least i have a free copy of half life 2

Yeah, but on the other side of the coin, we have Halo.

Looked good when it was released for the Xbox in 1804, at the 3rd Annual Victorian 'Wonders of Science and other Oddities' festival, and looked exactly the same, and lost half of its frames-per-second, when it came to the PC, 199 years later.

[Skii]

you're wrong there Skii.....very wrong....no one should ever regret something in PC hardware that brings anymore than a month of happyness...and you have enjoyed thatfor longer than that....

my 9800 Pro was way over £200......and I got the review one...that was less than 6 months ago....

and I'm supposed to be "in the trade" kinda thing here.....

dont ever regret that prices are dropping after you have purchased.....it will eat you up inside. Just be pleased that you have had 2 months of LOMAC in its formative weeks...you are one of the first to get to grips with it...you are an early adopter....youNEEDED that 9500Pro...its fate.

Yeah admittedly it HAS given me pleasure, but there's NO WAY I'm gonna be able to sneak a bigger Raddy past my missus, not for a very long time

Damn impulse buying - I couldn't wait, thats me - impatient, gotta have everything tomorrow

[Allen]

Yeah admittedly it HAS given me pleasure, but there's NO WAY I'm gonna be able to sneak a bigger Raddy past my missus, not for a very long time

Damn impulse buying - I couldn't wait, thats me - impatient, gotta have everything tomorrow

I gotta have everything yesterday! But I just can't afford it...

[Zak33]

you lot fret too much....

If you see what you want.....(a 9800 Pro for example....)

then goto eBay and see what the general public numpties are buying and paying for YOUR card...

then go figure

[Allen]

I wonder what people will pay for my 1.4GHz then? I want a Athlon M XP2500+!

[Zak33]

Big Al....you'd be suprised..so long as you advertise it as a T Bird....in AMD Athlon section...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...category=15919

dont beshocked...but with about £1.50 postage and less than a pound commission....

you'll get nearly £20 back.....

as Ikeep telling ya.....the public are not well

(to be fair, most general public will NOT swap mobo's like we will, so if they have a Duron 800 or Athlon 800 ish...you'rs is a BARGAIN )