NVIDIA: AMD’s DirectX 11 leadership “insignificant”

Robert Hallock (Thrax) NVIDIA expressed last week at an investor event that their rival's short-term leadership in DirectX 11 was "insignificant" in the broader picture.

December 18, 2009 1:37 PM ET in News, , , , , , , ,

NVIDIA expressed last week at an investor event that their rival’s short-term leadership in DirectX 11 was “insignificant” in the broader picture, according to a report from ComputerWorld.

“To us, being out of sync with the API for a couple of months isn’t as important as what we’re trying to do in the big scheme of things for the next four or five years. We’re just around the corner from preparing our next GeForce and the experience of what you’ll see in 3D, what you’ll feel in physics, and the improvements you get in graphics will be obvious to the market,” said NVIDIA SVP of Investor Relations and Communications Michael Hara.

“This 60-day lag between these events of when our competition has DX11 and when we’re coming to market will absolutely seem insignificant in the big picture,” Hara continued.

The comments come in response to criticism aimed at NVIDIA for the delays which have plagued its next-generation “Fermi” architecture. Despite being up to six months behind AMD in the introduction of DirectX 11 hardware, the firm has maintained that it will not only be competitive, but capture the performance crown.

Related posts:

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  3. NVIDIA intros ForceWare 197.55 for Fermi

16 Comments

  1. 18 Dec '09, 6:51 pm Cliff_Forster

  2. 19 Dec '09, 6:54 am Sledgehammer70

    I find truth in this... I mean what has DX11 delivered that makes the tech beyond awesome for consumers? Nothing of major significance uses the new DX11 outside of a few benchmark programs and 1 or 2 games that are not world wide blockbusters.

    DX10 was the same thing, but in its defense it was tied to an OS so it boosted its need a bit. It is just to bad that OS wasn't the best one published.

  3. 19 Dec '09, 2:43 pm Cliff_Forster
    Quoting Sledgehammer70

    I find truth in this... I mean what has DX11 delivered that makes the tech beyond awesome for consumers? Nothing of major significance uses the new DX11 outside of a few benchmark programs and 1 or 2 games that are not world wide blockbusters.

    DX10 was the same thing, but in its defense it was tied to an OS so it boosted its need a bit. It is just to bad that OS wasn't the best one published.

    Sledge, Direct X is always a big deal. It is "THE API"

    Saying, hey, I don't bother with Direct X on day one is kind of like the President saying he does not bother to read an issue of the NY times for a few months.

  4. 19 Dec '09, 4:43 pm UPSLynx

    DX11 WILL be important. Sure, it's not a big time game changer at the moment, but very soon it will be. We're only now seeing games hit the market that use the API, and games being developed now are being built from the ground up around DX11.

    Tessellation alone makes DX11 gaming completely justified.

    When Fermi hits the market, the market will be ripe for DX11 implementation, that is true. But what is really unfortunate is that while NVIDIA struggles to make the GPU a reality, ATI is selling units like crazy. Those are gamers who probably aren't going to buy Fermi just 'because it's better', they're ready to rock DX11 HD gaming. Money lost to NVIDIA. That is significant.

  5. 19 Dec '09, 9:10 pm lordbean
    Quoting UPSLynx

    DX11 WILL be important. Sure, it's not a big time game changer at the moment, but very soon it will be. We're only now seeing games hit the market that use the API, and games being developed now are being built from the ground up around DX11.

    Tessellation alone makes DX11 gaming completely justified.

    When Fermi hits the market, the market will be ripe for DX11 implementation, that is true. But what is really unfortunate is that while NVIDIA struggles to make the GPU a reality, ATI is selling units like crazy. Those are gamers who probably aren't going to buy Fermi just 'because it's better', they're ready to rock DX11 HD gaming. Money lost to NVIDIA. That is significant.

    Agreed with these points. There may not be very many DX11 titles right now, but the tech is hardly more than a couple of months old. I'm sure there are a lot of games in development for it that will begin to trickle onto the market soon.

    In the strictest context of currently-available titles, NVIDIA is correct - the fact that AMD's hardware can accelerate DirectX 11 is not overly significant. However, no informed consumer in their right mind would buy a Geforce 200 series card now for these 2 reasons. 1, you get a lot more bang from your buck with an HD5000 series card, and 2, the GTX 200 series is near its expiry date. DirectX 11 is very close to becoming the prevailing standard, which means the only future-proof choice at the moment is ATI.

  6. 19 Dec '09, 11:43 pm itzme

    nvidia "will capture the performance crown." God i hope so, i need those 5870's to come down in price before i snag a pair.

  7. 20 Dec '09, 11:11 am name

    meh, what do you expect?
    there lagging behind so of course there going to say that.
    how do you think ATI would of responded in the same situation?

    IF he truly believes that though hes 100% wrong.
    no one wants to play the catch up game, its hard and very few times do the latter arrives top the competition.
    look at the PS2 and xbox.
    the ps2 absolutely ANNIHILATED! the xbox.
    and now M$ rushed the 360 to release first and thats helped them big time.

    just have to wonder though what is the point?
    do we really need DX11?

    i mean look at the 360.
    every year theres a new game pushing the console to the limits and raising the bar.

    look at the ps3.
    every year the ps3 is releasing new games pushing the console to its limits and raising the bar.

    PC?
    HA!
    crysis is the best the PC has and thats 2 years old.
    if 2 year old tech can do crysis i want to see what brand spanking new tech can do.

    huh, gigabyte just announced MBs that support up to 3 GPUs via SLI.
    if 1 nvidia 260GTX is enough to run crysis the PCs most demanding game why release anything more powerful?
    let alone release boards supporting 3 of them.

    i understand doing games like crysis cost a hell of a lot of money, and developers dont want to spend the cash because they may not see it back.
    BUT
    if the ps3 can do it, the 360 can do it so can the PC.

  8. 20 Dec '09, 2:47 pm Snarkasm

    Guh, wrong argument to take here, name. I loves me some console gaming, but even I'm not blind enough to realize that the quality of PC gaming with high-end hardware is better than console gaming.

    If the PS3 and the 360 can do it, the PC can do it, but the same is not true in reverse. Some things only the PC can do.

  9. 20 Dec '09, 4:37 pm chrisWhite

    I agree with Snark, I'm a heavy Xbox 360 fan and while I love it, it just doesn't have anything on the PC in terms of quality now that I've got some decent hardware. Crysis was just ahead of it's time and I think it holds up well now because it can now be run on moderately fast machines instead of super high-end ones. But I think we've seen some newer stuff that matches it to some extent, Shattered Horizons for example.

  10. 20 Dec '09, 4:57 pm Ph4i1ur3

    One of the biggest reasons Crysis is so intense is the fact that is uses Voxels, as opposed to Pixels for much of it environment. So you're complaining about how an old game (That was WAY ahead of it time) is the best PC has got? Hell Consoles still can't run Crysis!

    (For those of you that don't know a Voxel is a 3-Dimensional Pixel. Meaning that it is innately rendering in 3d, rather than a hi-res 2-dimensionsal image slapped on a 3-dimensional model.)

  11. 20 Dec '09, 6:34 pm mas0n
    Quoting name

    crysis is the best the PC has and thats 2 years old.
    if 2 year old tech can do crysis i want to see what brand spanking new tech can do.

    huh, gigabyte just announced MBs that support up to 3 GPUs via SLI.
    if 1 nvidia 260GTX is enough to run crysis the PCs most demanding game why release anything more powerful?
    let alone release boards supporting 3 of them.

    You're probably just a troll, but I'll bite.

    -Crysis is not the most demanding game for PC, nor is it the most advanced or even the most visually stunning.

    -Despite this, the GTX260 is not enough to run Crysis at high resolutions with all settings maxed.

    -There are and have been motherboards that support 3 and 4 GPUs for quite awhile. There are games for PC that do require this for high framerates on 30" panels.

    But thanks for playing.

  12. 20 Dec '09, 7:21 pm Thrax

    One GTX 260 is hardly enough to play Crysis maxed. LOL. Not even a 5970 is.

  13. 20 Dec '09, 11:54 pm UPSLynx

    It's funny, because despite Crysis no longer holding the graphics crown, it STILL looks better than ANY console game out there - and it's two years old.

    How's that locked-in to hardware treating you?

  14. 21 Dec '09, 1:20 pm Snarkasm

    Honestly, just fine. The games are still fun as hell, and I don't have to worry about hardware requirements.

  15. 21 Dec '09, 4:25 pm UPSLynx

    Sure, but you don't come into a graphics battle with that argument.

  16. 21 Dec '09, 5:30 pm Snarkasm

    Nor did I. ^5s all around.

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