GeForce FX 5800 Ultra review - The Technology Demo's and Games

On these pages we'll show you photo's taken from the NVIDIA technology demo's. These demo's are of course especially created for this new silicon to demonstrate the awesome power of this GPU and I must say, still images don't do justice to seeing the demo's in realtime.

Dawn - The above image shows Pixie a creature from the enchanted forest, a place where virtual meets reality. This is the domain of the prettiest pixie to ever grace the computer screen. While her existence may only be virtual, the life-like effects made possible with GeForce FX will make it seem that she's looking close to real. She is brought to life through the magic of complex vertex shaders that provide for both skeletal (body) animation, and blend shape (facial) animation. But, what truly sets her apart from those cyborg computer characters that once passed for living creatures is skin beautiful human skin. She is covered with an intricate skin shader that accounts for all the subtleties of human skin. This includes consideration of the oilyness of the skin surface, the amount of blood that runs just beneath the surface, and surface highlights as light hits her skin at glancing angles. In her enchanted world, it's unclear where fantasy ends and reality begins. In the technology demo she walks and flies around in a forest and all you can do is sit there, watch it and say nothing ..

Key Features:

• Vertex Shaders - Two key vertex shaders drive her motion: a branching skeletal shader where the body mesh is driven by several different combinations of internal bones, and a blend shape shader that deforms her face based on control parameters.

• Skin Shader - This uses a complex combination of color maps, specular maps, and blood characteristic maps to produce very realistic skin. In addition, lighting subtleties are accomplished with a series of cube maps for diffuse specular and "highlight" skin lighting.

• Wing Shader - A translucent shader is used for the wings. This modifies both the reflected color off the wings as well as the amount of light passing through the wings based on viewing and light angles.

Ogre - NVIDIA Ogre Demo, the GeForceFX GPU further closes the gap between what's possible in off-line movie rendering and real-time, interactive rendering. This "Dancing Ogre" is a real-time rendition of a movie originally created by Spellcraft Studios titled "Yeah! the movie". The fidelity of the characters in the scene (polygon counts, materials, and complexity of motion) are nearly indistinguishable from that of the original off-line rendered composition.

I have seen a part of this techdemo live, imagine a full 3D scened background and the Ogre dancing and doing wild things, it is absolutely amazing to see.

Key Features:

• Real-time adaptive subdivision surfaces - The Ogre model uses a surface mesh that varies in complexity based on proximity to the camera. You can see this subdivision easily in wire-frame mode.

• Advanced Skin Shader - Using true Blinn bump mapping with a combination of color, bump, and specular texture maps.

• Advanced lighting - Using shadow map shadows and object self occlusion.

• Motion Blur - Using a velocity buffer to add a blur effect to the faster moving objects.

Toys - In the introduction I told you the GeForce FX is rendering at the same level of precision as the movie Toystory  .. The NVIDIA Toys Demo Enters a world of imagination as two young boys stage their own "War of the Worlds" with props from their toy box. As budding young movie producers, they struggle to get their stage, props and camera settings just right. Cinematography brings on a whole new definition as they experiment with a lagging auto-focus and depth of field on their video camera. Heck, even Orson Welles had to start somewhere ..

Key Features:

• Cinematic Camera Effects - Pixel shaders are used to simulate camera effects like depth of field and full-scene blurring from an auto-focus lens.

• Realistic Material Shaders - Special pixel shaders add realism to the toy models in the scene. There is a special plastic shader for the tank, robot and other plastic models. A painted wood shader is used for the wood blocks, and a brushed metal shader for the flying saucer.

Time Machine - The Time Machine demo goes through a portal at the passage of time as this 1950's era pickup truck shows the ill effects of decades of neglect. Moving from its pristine condition in 1950 to an old rust bucket of today, the power of the programmable GeForce FX pixel engine blends a variety of material surface effects into a single shader program. The combination of procedural and high-resolution texture data creates a series of realistic surface treatments on the paint, chrome, wood, and interior components of this old workhorse.

Key Feature:

• Time-based Shaders - Each of the aging materials has a single pixel shader associated with it. These shaders use a variety of texture map inputs (color, bump, specular, reflection, surface reflectivity, and reveal maps) to produce a seamless transition of surface material effects over time.

So far the technology demo's, let's move onto some games.

Of course we have some footage of GeForce FX in action also. The following screenshots are taken with the help of the GeForce FX, once again you can click on all images to see a high-resolution screenshot.

RalliSport Challenge - Detailed textures and realistic cars and landscape are made possible by with the help of the GeForce FX. RalliSport from Microsoft achieves a new level of realism with self-shadows, incredible reflections, extremely high-polygon cars, and very high detail scenery.

Iritor Online - Complex game scenes such as this one from Wootsoft’s upcoming Online adventure game, Iritor Online, are brought to life thanks to the muscle of the new GeForce FX. Techniques used in this game are self-shadowing, bump mapping and full-scene antialiasing.

Command & Conquer Generals - Boy, do I know a lot of people who want to play this game. Fire and water, all that combined with true 128-bit studio-quality color processing technology. The screenshot likely does not do justice to what you'll be able to whiteness realtime.

AquaNox 2: Revelation Screenshot Captions - By utilizing true 128-bit studio color processing technology, the new GeForce FX recreates this scene from AquaNox 2: Revelation combining complex geometry, advanced lighting techniques and high-resolution textures. I've seen it run in 128-bit colors and let me state .. It runs flawless in realtime.