Colour Compression - 4:1 Z compression techniques have been implemented in prior generations of hardware; however, Intellisample now extends that into colour compression. Again, a 4:1 loss-less compression technique is enabled on the pixel colour information. The process is enabled entirely through hardware and is transparent to the application. The biggest benefits of colour compression will be seen when FSAA is enabled.

NVIDIA's own internal benchmarks reveal that the 8x AGP-compliant GeForce FX has 3x the raw frame rate power of the NV25 (GeForce4 Ti 4xxxx) and 3x the vertex processing. Sporting 125-million transistors and manufactured on a 0.13u process, it's arguably the most technologically advanced GPU available. It's manufactured using the same flip-chip technology as the R300.

Our Big Italian in the field, Marco "Big Wop" Chiappetta, reports in today, live from Comdex, with a world's first official debut of NVIDIA's new GeForce FX !

Today’s introduction of the NV30 core marks the beginning of NVIDIA’s next generation DirectX 9 product. The NV30 is the successor to the NV25 core, the chip running today's GeForce4 Ti cards. For comparison's sake, the R300 and the NV30 can be considered as part of the same generation, although the R300 got its foot out the door much sooner than the NV30. Until now, the Radeon 9700 Pro has had no competitor. The delays of getting the NV30 part to production have set NVIDIA back pretty far. In fact, NVIDIA has basically missed a product cycle.

Why isn't NV30 here now and why won't it be until February 2003? We've discussed this time and time again and it directly relates to NVIDIA's decision to make NV30 a 0.13-micron design from the start, instead of introducing a 0.15-micron part initially and refreshing it 3 - 6 months later with a 0.13-micron die shrink. Whenever you pursue a not-so-mature manufacturing process (TSMC barely shipped any 0.13-micron wafers in 1H02) over a more mature solution, there are bound to be issues getting yields up to par. Unfortunately for NVIDIA those initial problems have forced NV30, now officially known as GeForce FX to slip into 2003.

I have a few bits of info on the NV30 situation for people to skim over.

At the computer exposition Comdex, NVIDIA is unveiling the successor to the GeForce4, the GeForceFX. Let us show you what tricks this chip has up its sleeve and how it fares against ATi's current flagship, the Radeon 9700 PRO.

The name is quite a curious choice, as the absence of a numerical rating (as in GeForce2, 3 and 4) does cause your mind to inadvertently wander back in time to GeForce-256 days, but this consideration is secondary to card features and performance. The basic premise behind the GeForce FX technology is one of bridging the gap between film and real-time rendering capabilities. If you've seen any of the computer animated flicks like Monsters Inc., Final Fantasy or Ice Age, then it's pretty easy to visualize what we're referring to. When transitioning this type of visual detail to a graphics processor, it requires a great deal more horsepower and features.