Zoraptor

Not really, it's a proprietary implementation/ extension. It still uses the raytracing built in to DX12U/ Vulkan. It's clear that CDPR could have at least implemented console raytracing. That they didn't, along with the massive amounts of nVidia branding, is more than suggestive that the 'problem' is an agreement to use nVidia tech exclusively at launch rather than anything else. As a personal note, this sort of thing is exactly why I would not consider buying an nVidia card. My tolerance for co-opting standards is not high. Note, since it is easy to miss: there is added specialist raytracing hardware on the 6000 series (and one benchmark for the RT elements); "New to the AMD RDNA 2 compute unit is the implementation of a high-performance ray tracing acceleration architecture known as the Ray Accelerator. The Ray Accelerator is specialized hardware that handles the intersection of rays providing an order of magnitude increase in intersection performance compared to a software implementation [..] Measured by AMD engineering labs 8/17/2020 on an AMD RDNA 2 based graphics card, using the Procedural Geometry sample application from Microsoft’s DXR SDK, the AMD RDNA 2 based graphics card gets up to 13.8x speedup (471 FPS) using HW based raytracing vs using the Software DXR fallback layer (34 FPS) at the same clocks. Performance may vary." It's just not physically separate hardware like nVidia's RT/ Tensor cores. They're not going to be using the 'GTX solution' unless deliberately nerfed. As Keyrock said it was mentioned briefly, but is not ready for launch.

I'm not all that up to snuff on the console releases, but a quick search confirms Watch Dogs Legion for example is a 3rd party launch title on both consoles, and has raytracing on both as well. IIRC PS5 has at least 6 launch titles with raytracing enabled.

I think anyone who expected an nVidia branded and funded game- specifically intended to drive RTX sales- to ship with the oppositions' raytracing enabled would be dreaming. (The stated reason for not having it is extremely questionable; fundamentally RTX is just DXR with nVidia branding and other devs have had no problem getting raytracing enabled devkits for the nextbox launch- EA, Ubisoft, Namco Bandai; even Bloodlines 2 with all its problems (and delays meaning it isn't anywhere near ready for the nextbox launch) was meant to have raytracing. They'd certainly have allowed CDPR to do the same, so the issue is 100% to do with CDPR)

Goes live in 15 hours, which is 5am NZ time...

Similar to the Aberfeldy I'd say. It's really smooth, almost no peat or smoke, not very strong on the palate but with a very nice finish. It's the sort of scotch I could very easily imagine being turned into Drambuie.

I thought carving pumpkins were rubbish to eat anyway? We don't get red pumpkin for sale here, it's all Crowns/ Butternut/ Buttercup which aren't the right shape for carving anyway. I thought for a moment I actually had that Scotch on the shelf but it's Aberlour, not Aberfeldy. Same bottle style though.

Here it's an estimated 6-8 weeks from order to receipt for 3080/90, and that's with a hefty additional cost above US MSRP/ currency conversion/ GST depressing demand. I suspect that's actually not bad at all, compared to some places. An analysis of the Ampere launch and what went wrong would be an interesting read. Lots of people blaming Samsung; but ultimately the fault has to lie with nVidia and most likely Jensen Huang himself. Not only because ultimately the TSMC/ Samsung decision was his either, there have also been other questionable decisions.

In that case the first 'person' who told would be CDP themselves though, so they'd still potentially be in trouble. For important announcements it has to be need to know, and while there may well have been suspicions of a delay they were just suspicions. It's also complicated because CDPR does not release many games at all so C2077 is expected to be the main money earner for multiple years. (IIRC CDP has been warned for making announcements improperly before, though I cannot remember what it was in respect of, so take with grain of salt)

Yeah that seems pretty much certain. It's unfortunate for the employees, but if they informed them first and then the stock price dropped early because an employee told someone CDP would be in potential trouble for insider trading.

Synthetics don't mean nothing*, but certainly have to be taken with a large grain of salt. You'd have to question whether a benchmark developed for- essentially- a nVidia branded technology is going to reflect reality or whether it has the RT equivalent of 64x tesselation applied. *The classic example is probably Zen2, where the increased cache completely invalidated some benchmarks because the benchmark would literally run from cache. Radeon 7 was a debadged/ non certified Instinct card, so it did incredibly well at benchmarks that relied on compute- or memory bandwidth since it had 4 stacks of HBM2/ ~1TB of bandwidth.

I'd suspect Jason is most upset about not being able to talk about a leak about a delay from the internal email, then the official announcement when it was made. If you're a large (and for CDPR, ludicrously so for the number of games they release) public company you have to do things a certain way or you get smacked for stock manipulation when news leaks before you make an official announcement.

Gee whiz, my crimes are manifest. I use an analogy to describe something, big deal. If that's all you got, you got nothing. And that's literally all you got. Except, as always, the will to go on and on in the hope the other person will simply give up from boredom. Would Biden or Trump have responded well to a question on "What would you do about Artsakh?" out of the blue. Nah, of course not. Good questions intended to get an informative response always supply the context, because in those cases the desired result is an informative response. Firing unrelated questions out with no context is bad interviewing, at least if the idea is to get an informed response instead of confuse the interviewee. See, I use simile to make a point, you baldly and prosaically rewrite things to what you wish happened. You didn't post that prediction with academic disinterest; you posted it, you actively defended it, and you did so consistently because it's what you wanted to happen- and logic be damned. And that's why the litany of your mistakes gets posted every time, stupid assertion you wish was true, followed by doggedly defending said assertion by any means necessary including simply making stuff up, every time. It's only become 'Gromnir just post interesting article'- that just happens, coincidentally, blind luck of the draw, to fit his neocon wet dream US supremacist foreign policy- as some sort of interesting conversation starter since it became manifestly obvious what a load of old todgers it was. And note, I'm not saying the article was literally a load of wrinkly love sausages, it's another figure of speech. FTR, Russia's foreign reserves are higher now than they were in 2014. Even as an interesting conversation starter the article was utterly utterly worthless, and has been proven so. Lol. I complain about you arguing consistently in bad faith and what are your efforts? Chop context off the end of the Johnson transcript exactly as I complained about; the article you posted and supported defended etc wasn't actually your views- because it's now obviously and conclusively wrong- and me pointing out that the report you used to assert that the US Government Did Nothing Wrong in the lead up to Iraq was nowhere as vindicating as you made out. All you do is prove my point that you're incapable of arguing in good faith and are only really interested in shouting your views as loudly and persistently as possible until the other person gives up. The last part of course puts anyone arguing with you in a bit of a dilemma.

Seriously, do you ever actually read what you post? I complained it was a question with no context after completely unrelated ones (that had context, your transcript showed it) and your own cite shows exactly that. Indeed, with the context added at the end- which you omitted, way to validate my complaints- it's clear that Johnson knew what he was talking about, also as I said. You get the snark first and foremost because you're utterly incapable of arguing anything in even the slightest approximation of good faith. Here's what the equivalent would be now. "Mr Trump/ Biden, what's the difference between you and the other candidate? Which 3rd party candidate is more likely to take votes from you? Do you worry about the Clinton Effect in 2020? What's your view on Artsakh?" ... ??? ... 99% chance neither candidate would give an adequate reply. If you phrased it differently- "what's your view on Nagorno Karabakh? (maybe) or the ongoing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan? (definitely)- you'd get a decent answer, if you just throw out 'Artsakh' they're going to be wondering what you mean; some domestic policy acronym, RSAC? artworks being stolen maybe? Art Sacramoni, is he a mafioso related to Johnny Sac' from the Sopranos? unless they've been briefed ludicrously well. That's why, if you're asking in good faith, you say "what's your view on the situation in Syria", or "Aleppo Syria". As your transcript shows they already knew what the general position was, the point was to ask the question in a deliberately unclear way to get a good soundbite, not to get actual information. Johnson is certainly not blameless, better media training or thinking better on his feet would have helped, but questions are asked that way and in that sequence to get a desired result. And that result is not to inform people of what the candidate thinks, otherwise you'd ask the questrion clearly.

Good to see some self reflection from you for once, as you are indeed spouting BS. Now if only you could recognise it more often you wouldn't think Russia was going bankrupt in 6 months, think you were an expert in earthquakes having never heard of the Mercalli scale, nor complain about how people opine ignorantly on the US while telling me how reality in New Zealand exactly matches your personal experience, in the fricking Dakotas. And then there was your defence of Iraq policy and how the US didn't lie... Still, at least this time you've managed to find a transcript, unless your mythical Hans Blix video, and it's actually relevant. Small improvements, baby steps, but credit where due. It actually does show the three previous questions had nothing to do with foreign policy, with the bit you highlighted was Johnson supplying a difference between the mainstream parties- and yours personally- beloved policy of blowing up random brown people for reasons either malign or so utterly and repeatedly moronic as to be functionally malign though. And you omitted the context at the end where it was clear he did know about Aleppo. Funny that. And reminder, these journalists were all creaming themselves over Trump bombing Syria, and it was the one thing he had near unanimous support over. No wonder war hawks hate someone who doesn't want hundreds of thousands of more dead, millions more refugees and trillions of wasted dollars.

Obviously sent by Vladimir Putin or the Ayatollah Khamenei. You should do the exact opposite of what it suggests, if you're a true patriot. Thing is, the actual answer to the question once he got the clarification was fine. Not particularly enlightening or anything, but you don't go to US politicians for nuanced and balanced views of the ME anyway unless you're a raging neocon/ neolib. Ironically- or not- that is of course what philosophy most US media subscribe to, cue Trump only becoming a 'true President' after bombing Shayrat from otherwise noted Trump fan Bryan Williams... The main reason the Johnson/ Aleppo incident happened was not because of ignorance- though inexperience with interviewer technique was definitely a factor- but because it was clearly intended as a gotcha question; supplied by the interviewer with no context out of the blue. Like asking a series of questions about car mechanics then asking someone what a 'microbe' is. Of course someone might be baffled by that question, the previous ones were about tire pressures and which oil grade to use in an older engine and they're naturally going to be thinking that a 'microbe' is something to do with a car. For Johnson the footage was also, consistently, edited maliciously to omit the (lack of) context to the question and his response after he got the clarification.

Hunter Biden is clearly corrupt- or an abject moron. His only qualification for a position at Burisma was being Joe Biden's son. That's just how Ukrainian business operates, you give directorships or other positions to relatives of powerful people and you get wheels greased in return; that's why Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe. If he weren't Joe Biden's son he wouldn't have been considered in a million years. That equally certainly doesn't mean that Joe Biden himself has to be corrupt though, he can't control what his son does. And it also has to be said that Trump is definitively not in a position to throw many stones when it comes to family corruption.

There's certainly an element of majority bias at play, one of the historic criticisms of Time Spy as a benchmark was that it forced AMD cards that could do proper async compute to use a crappy fallback instead-- because nVidia cards didn't support proper async compute and could only use the crappy fallback. (Though that shouldn't be a reason for a performance difference now, since 2000 series+ do have proper async)

We simply don't know enough to say much at all. Are the leaked benches even all the same chip? And it's not like Engineering Samples are all set up the same, even if they are the same chip we don't know if they're doing full power runs or whatever. Even the official benchmarks from the Ryzen presentation didn't say what chip it was. It's also kind of pointless engaging in speculation with so little time to go before we find out for reelz, but if my arm was twisted and assuming they are for the same general chip and set up... ..if there isn't some sort of semi deliberate chicanery going on like doing a combined CPU/GPU benchmark with a tricked out Zen3 vs a 2080Ti w/ a Celeron it could be the 'infinity cache' at work; CPU side some benchmarks absolutely love the big caches on Zen2/3 so similar could happen with video benchmarks. I'd suspect that would also be a lot more likely on an older benchmark.

Igor is out of line with most other estimates there, though not massively so. Around 280W seems to be the general consensus, and the PCB shot that leaked supports that since the VRM set up is robust, but less robust than a 3080. Though as with below that may be for a 6800XT rather than putative Biggest Navi. That graphic is likely wrong. Not the data itself, but the assumption that the benchmarks are for a 80CU unit. The leaks are from AIBs, and the consensus is that AIBs have only got Biggish Navi 6800XT (72CUs and down, most likely) with Biggest Navi(s) being 1st party AMD only, and AMD v2020 in comparison to Intel or nVidia leaks less than someone wearing half a dozen Depends. Guess we find out for sure in 100 odd hours anyway.

I was expecting a Daily Fail link to be honest. Don't see any problem with Subway 'bread' not being bread yet vegie snags or patties still being OK to be called that. Bread is a product where the majority of added sugar gets eaten by yeast (or there is no yeast or sugar). If you have lots of excess sugar then it's a cake. Vegie burgers or sausages are in my experience always labelled as being vegetarian because it's a selling point that they are, so there's no confusion. OTOH, I'm outraged about bananas having to have a certain curvature and cucumbers not being allowed to have any curvature, bureaucracy gone mad I tell you!

I'd say that Jun/Jul 2021 is at least plausible. I certainly find the rumours of bulk production at TSMC in 2021 to be rather unlikely given the sheer volume of wafers bulk production for nVidia implies, but I could see the top SKUs there by the middle of next year if they've moved to get capacity quickly enough- and Jensen hasn't worked his unique interpersonal magic. I'd suspect a lot of work had already been done for a potential TSMC release. GA100 is already there, and as was discussed here fairly extensively at the time nVidia was stating outright that TSMC would be used for some consumer units up until fairly recently. The initial chip lineup for Ampere was supposed to be GA100/2/3/4, we currently have A100 with GA100, 3090/80 with GA102 and 3070/60? will be GA104, so there is a potential 'missing' GA103. Personally, I would not be in the least bit surprised if GA102/3 were TSMC/ Samsung versions of the same basic chip with the TSMC one being shelved due to no capacity being available, or Samsung offering a deal too good to be refused.

That debate was infinitely better than the last one- not exactly glowing praise considering how bad the last one was.

12GB would have been a sensible compromise for the 3080. I hit more than 6GB VRAM used for 1440 ultrawide on games like Metro Exodus (not on the top settings either), and Watch Dogs Legion's top spec calls for 11GB- and it does look a bit bad that there is already a game that the 3080 is, at least technically, below top spec for. That would have required a bigger bus or 970 type compromise though, and the 3080 is already a large chip on quite tight margins with regards to heat. I wouldn't advise it at least yet. The TSMC switch is purely theoretical, and the release would be probably June-ish if they'd made the decision today. Samsung 8nm and TSMC aren't design compatible, the only Ampere chip we know nVidia has that is ready (and already in production) for TSMC is GA100 which isn't consumer and the spare capacity at TSMC from Huawei/ Apple has already been taken up, ironically mostly by AMD but they'd also be likely to be competing for space with Intel too by that time.

The alleged and never announced 16/20 GB versions of the 3070/80 have equally allegedly been cancelled. Cue lots of wags asking if the 10GB version of the 3080 is still due to be released sometime or not... The rumour of the cancellation of a rumoured product is mostly interesting because of the other rumour floating around, that nVidia wants to do a TSMC based refresh of 3000 series already. Not that extra memory made much sense anyway except to increase thermals even more unless you were a content creator type, in which case nVidia would probably prefer you to buy a 3090 or a pro card anyway.

Setting your own winning conditions is great, as it's only limited by your imagination.