Three Chips in One

Given that the R300 chip is based on the same silicon process as their previous high end chip, R200, last year and that R300 is coming up for twice the silicon die size of R200 I asked how ATI could be making a profit on these products; the response I received was that pricing was purely down yield rates of the chip. I asked for clarification as to whether ATI would be using a redundancy technique for Radeon 9500 whereby pixel pipelines had failed in some R300 chips could then still be utilised in for Radeon 9500 boards and they declined to comment, however the hint was that if you know the ASIC then you know that this type of thing occurs frequently. Some cost reductions can be had from the fact that the chip packaging for the 9500 products will be cheaper, as less pins will be required, and the boards themselves will be simpler, because of less traces, and hence they will be cheaper to manufacture.

Update: There still appears to be some confusion over whether or not Radeon 9500 based boards will physically utilise the same core, with suggestions that there are different chip variants available rather than a single R300 core spanning the entire product range. We've recently received confirmation that all the there is (currently) only one R300 core that will span from Radeon 9700 PRO down to Radeon 9500, however logically there are 3 different chip variants. This is what we have been told:

"The silicon die used in the 9500 is the same as the 9700 (At least right now), but the effective transistor count of the 9500 is lower than the 9700, since the extra transistors in question are not part of the design. The extra transistors are not used, not verified and not part of the design (they could be powered down or scratched off without any effect -- they are just "glass")."

Effectivly R300 has been designed to cater for several different configurations and the 9500 product was part of its design, just as much as 9700 was.

Radeon 9500 products will indeed have different packaging from Radeon 9700 products, to facilitate the lower bus requirements, so it will be impossible to 'turn' a Radeon 9500 into a Radeon 9700 equivalent product.

DX9 and Developer Support

One of the issues we've seen with previous generations of hardware is that it takes a long time for the features of that hardware to be adopted within games. Its often been the case that initially only the high end product features the support of a new DirectX API version and, as ATI have demonstrated, the high end product has small sales numbers in comparison to other ends of the market -- if there are only a handful of cards sold that are capable of the features of the new API then its not in the developers interest to support the full set of features for these boards until those features are moved into the mainstream and significant numbers are sold. By moving the features in the R300 chip into lower segments of the market ensures a wider adoption of cards capable of DirectX9 features and hence developer adoption and game introduction could occur sooner.

"We're very excited to see next generation DX9 graphics hardware brought into the mainstream. Bringing DX9 hardware into the mainstream means that more people will be able to experience the full visual impact of our games as we push the envelope of current hardware capabilities. This is awesome news, to see progress into the mainstream so quickly." -- John Talley, Director of Technology, Ion Storm

With the release of Radeon 9700 PRO its possibly the first time where hardware has been available prior to the DirectX API being released that supports those features. The R300 chip has all the functionality required of the Pixel and Vertex Shader's version 2.0 as specified within DirectX9, however it still seems that the final release candidate for DirectX9 may still be some months off. However, since the introduction of Radeon 9700 PRO Microsoft have released two beta revisions of the API and ATI have had suitable DirectX9 Beta driver available, thus enabling developers to experience DirectX9 development even prior to the final release of the API.

Another issue for the widespread adoption of new API/hardware features is that of increasing complexity. As more features a packed into the silicon of the 3D chips so does the complexity of the programs that need to be written increase making it harder and longer for developers to get full use of these features. However, both the hardware vendors and API developers have realised this and are increasingly producing productivity tools and new High Level Shading Languages to make it easier for developers to fully utilise these new features.

Cinematic Rendering

As appears  to be the current vogue with the new class of 3D graphics hardware, ATI were keen to stress the cinematic abilities of their range of hardware. The high level of support for shader programs and the floating point pipelines allow for a greater range an accuracy required for effective cinematic effects. As consumer oriented scales further into Digital Content Creation realms the convergence of cinematic quality and gaming environments begins to occur, bringing the prospect of ever more real gaming environments to hand.

ATI point out that their hardware has been used in the following productions:

  • Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
  • Spiderman
  • Scooby- Doo
  • Sum of All Fears

And the following production / effect studios are currently utilising ATI hardware:

  • Disney Feature Animation
  • Digital Domain
  • DreamWorks
  • Sony Picture Imageworks
  • Blur Digital
  • Rhythm & Hues
  • Weta Digital

When asked what type of hardware was being utilised ATI were reluctant to answer, however the intimation was that some kind of scaled product is available - given that its been said that R300 can scale up to 256 processors its possible that some multichip systems may already be utilised.

Conclusion

So, there we have it, ATI's full range of graphics offerings over the Christmas period consists of no less then 5 DirectX9 capable hardware versions, including All-In-Wonder 9700, and all this before DX9 is actually in sight.