Widescreen Gaming Forum

[quote]Yea thats what I figured but in that case why not just go all HDMI. The HDMI port looks to be about the same size as Display Port. Why even add the Display Port at all.

The answer isn't as simple as it might appear. BTW I haven't read the entire thread so this may all be addressed by others. I just don't have the time to read every post, so please forgive any duplication of answers...

The whole DVI-HDMI similarity is one thing (I see BH and others understand that).

The other (and I thought I mentioned this somewhere earlier...) thing is that HDMI has some serious issues which makes it much less desirable than DP:

[list]HDMI's resolution is essentially capped at 1920H 1080V 60Hz.
Each HDMI output carries a licensing fee.
We could spec a mini-DP connector, but not a mini HDMI coonector.
HDMI acceptance at EF inception was very, very poor, even in consumer TV.
HDMI cables have been pretty expensive.
HDMI cables are thicker, less flexible than DP's.
HDMI requires independent clocks, which raises the silicon cost noticeably.
HDMI's max cable length is less than DP's.
DP was designed for built-in scaling, something HDMI was not built for.
I probably forgot a few.[/list:u]

It was pretty straightforward HDMI was not going ot be the interface of choice three years ago. Would I have made a different decision knowing what I know now? No. DP is still the best choice for all of us.

What do you mean by HDMI is capped at 1920x1080? Or the idea that HDMI cables are expensive? Explain what you mean by HDMI acceptance was very, very poor in consumer televisions (this statement has me baffled), I don't believe I can go to the store and buy a television with a DP port on it, can I?

You know, I understand the idea behind DP being cost effective, efficient, and [somewhat] forward moving, but for now and over the next 2 to 3 years, I have yet to see a compelling argument as to why a third clock gen wasn't included (at least to have the option there). I can't help feeling that there were private politics behind it that drove ATI into this situation, and for the technology that we already had on our desktops, both at home and in the workplace, your customers are paying the price TODAY.

Is ATI (at the very least) willing to allow folks like Sapphire/XFX/Asus the ability to modify the hardware geometry to add the extra clock gen?

Most of us here at WSGF, not to mention the various simulation forums, are coming from an enthusiast point of view. In one of the sim forums, the mean age of sim enthusiasts is about 37 years old! What exactly does ATI believe the useful life of a video card is in an enthusiast machine?

What do you mean by HDMI is capped at 1920x1080? Or the idea that HDMI cables are expensive? Explain what you mean by HDMI acceptance was very, very poor in consumer televisions (this statement has me baffled), I don't believe I can go to the store and buy a television with a DP port on it, can I?

... I have yet to see a compelling argument as to why a third clock gen wasn't included (at least to have the option there). I can't help feeling that there were private politics behind it that drove ATI into this situation, and for the technology that we already had on our desktops, both at home and in the workplace, your customers are paying the price TODAY.

Is ATI (at the very least) willing to allow folks like Sapphire/XFX/Asus the ability to modify the hardware geometry to add the extra clock gen?

Please try to think back in time three years ago when I made these decisions:

[list]
[*]HDMI was capped at 1920. At the time of the decision I knew the DP path, but the HDMI path wasn't clear. The spec was changed later in response to DP in order to be competitive with DP. A company I will not name for legal reasons pushed for the HDMI change to protect their revenue streams. It wasn't clear that they would succeed.[/*:m]
[*]Cable vendors told us what the cost for HDMI & DP cables was/is. As DP acceptance improves, DP cable will be priced less than HDMI cables.
In 2006 we had data that suggested the 2005 HDMI offering rate (not usage rate) was 15M TVs. We guessed in 2006 it would be anywhere from 2-4x that, which was also a very small fraction of TVs sold in 2006. Component was th epreferred HD interconnect back then (as anyone who has a 2006 HDTV can tell you, such as myself). HDMi wasn't exactly a "done deal" back then.[/*:m]
[*]The whole buy a TV with DP rhetorical question is a non sequitur.[/*:m]
[*]The integrated third clock decision had been addressed elsewhere. The arguement was compelling to the decision-maker (me). External third clocks are supported.[/*:m]
[*]The "private politics" swipe, having been made a second time (by who I wonder), would be insulting if it wasn't so ludicrous and unsupportable by reality.[/*:m]
[*]Any AIB can design their own boards to support different display output configurations. They will of course ask for a premium, which will no doubt lead to additional lamentations about how AMD should have offered it for free on the original designs and how "private politics" must have driven AMD to do what it did.[/*:m][/list:u]

You ignore other points I have made on this topic before, for example the HDMI licensing costs, which either have to be paid for out of my profits or by raising your prices. Or monitor costs - a "direct-drive" DP monitor is cheaper than any HDMI monitor can ever be. This has been said before: EF is built for a bigger future than the existing past of HDMI and DVI. I will not apologize for that. You got EF and you wouldn't have otherwise. Adding new features with no certain market and no certain profitability is a treacherous game. It is easy to say the decisions should have been different after some level of success has been realized. Perhaps Intel or nV will do better than EF now that EF is out there, and someone might be tempted to crow about "how that SunSp*t bozo at AMD should have listened better or been smarter; boy was I right and he was wrong." Hindsight is so 20-20. It won't change the facts that we took the risk and they did not.

Most of us here at WSGF, not to mention the various simulation forums, are coming from an enthusiast point of view. In one of the sim forums, the mean age of sim enthusiasts is about 37 years old! What exactly does ATI believe the useful life of a video card is in an enthusiast machine?

Depending upon how you define enthusiast, anywhere from three months to one year.

DP makes sense to me, not really sure what the big fuss is about since it really comes down to the clock issue anyway and, as has been pointed out, the HDMI/DVI outputs require two to a DP's one.

HDMI has limitations as Sunsp*t has already pointed out and is aimed squarely at the audio/visual entertainment area and tied up with licencing rather than getting expandable, high resolution data to a PC monitor. It's also built off the back of the ageing DVI standard and has already shown limitations (the reason why it's spec's were bumped as a responde to DP) It was developed quickly to solve the requirement for content protection at pre-set specifications, certainly not with the view of providing a high bandwith connection between a PC and monitor.

It could easily develop further down the locked in lines and become a burden for use in PC's - DP is isolated from that area and the big money players behind it. Much better to branch off now and encourage monitor makers to include DP across their ranges rather than fudging a HDMI solution that we are then stuck with.

[quote]What do you mean by HDMI is capped at 1920x1080? Or the idea that HDMI cables are expensive? Explain what you mean by HDMI acceptance was very, very poor in consumer televisions (this statement has me baffled), I don't believe I can go to the store and buy a television with a DP port on it, can I?

... I have yet to see a compelling argument as to why a third clock gen wasn't included (at least to have the option there). I can't help feeling that there were private politics behind it that drove ATI into this situation, and for the technology that we already had on our desktops, both at home and in the workplace, your customers are paying the price TODAY.

Is ATI (at the very least) willing to allow folks like Sapphire/XFX/Asus the ability to modify the hardware geometry to add the extra clock gen?

Please try to think back in time three years ago when I made these decisions:

[list]
[*]HDMI was capped at 1920. At the time of the decision I knew the DP path, but the HDMI path wasn't clear. The spec was changed later in response to DP in order to be competitive with DP. A company I will not name for legal reasons pushed for the HDMI change to protect their revenue streams. It wasn't clear that they would succeed.[/*:m]
[*]Cable vendors told us what the cost for HDMI & DP cables was/is. As DP acceptance improves, DP cable will be priced less than HDMI cables.
In 2006 we had data that suggested the 2005 HDMI offering rate (not usage rate) was 15M TVs. We guessed in 2006 it would be anywhere from 2-4x that, which was also a very small fraction of TVs sold in 2006. Component was th epreferred HD interconnect back then (as anyone who has a 2006 HDTV can tell you, such as myself). HDMi wasn't exactly a "done deal" back then.[/*:m]
[*]The whole buy a TV with DP rhetorical question is a non sequitur.[/*:m]
[*]The integrated third clock decision had been addressed elsewhere. The arguement was compelling to the decision-maker (me). External third clocks are supported.[/*:m]
[*]The "private politics" swipe, having been made a second time (by who I wonder), would be insulting if it wasn't so ludicrous and unsupportable by reality.[/*:m]
[*]Any AIB can design their own boards to support different display output configurations. They will of course ask for a premium, which will no doubt lead to additional lamentations about how AMD should have offered it for free on the original designs and how "private politics" must have driven AMD to do what it did.[/*:m][/list:u]

You ignore other points I have made on this topic before, for example the HDMI licensing costs, which either have to be paid for out of my profits or by raising your prices. Or monitor costs - a "direct-drive" DP monitor is cheaper than any HDMI monitor can ever be. This has been said before: EF is built for a bigger future than the existing past of HDMI and DVI. I will not apologize for that. You got EF and you wouldn't have otherwise. Adding new features with no certain market and no certain profitability is a treacherous game. It is easy to say the decisions should have been different after some level of success has been realized. Perhaps Intel or nV will do better than EF now that EF is out there, and someone might be tempted to crow about "how that SunSp*t bozo at AMD should have listened better or been smarter; boy was I right and he was wrong." Hindsight is so 20-20. It won't change the facts that we took the risk and they did not.

Let's get something straight, sir, I never once asked for anything for free (talk about insulting). In addition, you indicate that I ignore the HDMI licensing fee, I just assumed that I paid for the licensing on the HDMI port that's on my 5800, or am I missing something there? Private politics are what I believe to be some heavy deliberation going on behind closed doors between decision makers, when making decisions that have a substancial affect on your existing customer base, I have no idea what's offensive about that, but if it is, then I apologize.

You definitely must be looking down the road, because there is *nothing* available DP that is cheaper than HDMI at this time, period. I searched high and low to replace one of my $280, 28" screens with a DP screen, but there's nothing to be had. I'm not saying there is right and wrong, what I'm saying is that you could have given us some current option on the card, or at the very least had an optional DP adapter that was proven to work at the time of release (even it was by a second party for heaven's sake).

Now, if you bundle all of this along with the current state of the drivers, and the costs of the cards actually increasing since first release, is it really all that hard to imagine a very frustrated (previously faithful) customer base?

And lastly, I have never once called you a bozo (at least not out loud).

Wow, for a second I thought I was on the senate floor!

DP for a while was tied up with the higher order, and wasn't made official for a little while, while HDMI was not. I see that HDMI will not be the future for PC no matter what other people might say. When you buy a technology you get what you pay for, if you wanted something else you shouldn't have bought it. This is to new to lament about, and we should just wait and see for now, like I have said in 3 other posts... just wait and see, this is new and will be sorted out.

My personal opinion is that DP will go the PC road, and HDMI the TV road, in the future we will see DP/HDMI TV's instead of the current VGA/HDMI or even DVI/HDMI as the technology sees greater light.

_________________
Professional... well I'll figure that out.



"I sense something, a presence I've not felt since......."

[quote]Most of us here at WSGF, not to mention the various simulation forums, are coming from an enthusiast point of view. In one of the sim forums, the mean age of sim enthusiasts is about 37 years old! What exactly does ATI believe the useful life of a video card is in an enthusiast machine?

Depending upon how you define enthusiast, anywhere from three months to one year.

I got a chuckle out of that answer. :twisted:

_________________
Brad Hawthorne
Product Manager
Nthusim Pty. Ltd. | www.nthusim.com

... When you buy a technology you get what you pay for, if you wanted something else you shouldn't have bought it....

That is a truly fantastic point that you make. Let's expand on that kind of thinking. ATI indicates early on that one of the outputs (for 3-screen Eyefinity) would be a DP port. Folks ordered up the 5800 series cards, and promptly grabbed one of those $20 adapters (DP->DVI), planning ahead, so they could use the hardware already on their desk.

While they're waiting for their hardware to arrive, the reviewers who already have their equipment are stuttering ... ah, boy, this didn't work and we can only get two screens running at time. Well, if finally comes out, you need to have an ACTIVE adapter, which really isn't a $20 device, it's more like $100+. Then started coming the reports of how screen with the DP adapter would flash on and off at will, and of course, there's the wonder of which desktop you'll get each time you restart the machine (that's not just with the adapter, folks with true DP screens are also having this problem).

Ah, screw it. This is a dead horse. Good luck with your new hardware, folks, God knows, you'll need it.

So basically, as I understand it, it comes down to a couple things:
-HDMI is less capable than DP
-HDMI is more expensive than DP to implement
-DP has a much brighter future in computer displays than HDMI

Makes sense to me. Even though DP is not that wide spread yet, I'm pretty sure that every recent Dell monitor release (as an example) has a DP connector. So it seems that from here on out DP will be pretty standard, and thats a good thing.

ATI has been pretty clear about the whole situation. EF is obviously an enthusiast feature, and that they can reasonably expect a certain amount of knowledge from users that intend to use it.

If you bought the wrong adapter or monitor, mistakenly expecting EF to work with it, it does suck, but it's also the risk you take as an early adopter. It's not exactly uncommon in technology.

Personally, I've had very few issues with EF, and most of them I expect to be cleared up with a driver update. EF has made me more excited about upgrading and using my computer than I have been in a decade. For a 1.0 product that's so far out of left field, I think they did well.