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Original Link: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2745
ATI Radeon HD 4890 vs. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on April 2, 2009 12:00 AM EST
- Posted in
- GPUs
I'm not really sure why we have NDAs on these products anymore. Before we even got our Radeon HD 4890, before we were even briefed on it, NVIDIA contacted us and told us that if we were working on a review to wait. NVIDIA wanted to send us something special.
Then in the middle of our Radeon HD 4890 briefing what do we see but a reference to a GeForce GTX 275 in the slides. We hadn't even laid hands on the 275, but AMD knew what it was and where it was going to be priced.
If you asked NVIDIA what the Radeon HD 4890 was, you'd probably hear something like "an overclocked 4870". If you asked AMD what the GeForce GTX 275 was, you'd probably get "half of a GTX 295".
The truth of the matter is that neither one of these cards is particularly new, they are both a balance of processors, memory, and clock speeds at a new price point.
As the prices on the cards that already offered a very good value fell, higher end and dual GPU cards remained priced significantly higher. This created a gap in pricing between about $190 and $300. AMD and NVIDIA saw this as an opportunity to release cards that fell within this spectrum, and they are battling intensely over price. Both companies withheld final pricing information until the very last minute. In fact, when I started writing this intro (Wednesday morning) I still had no idea what the prices for these parts would actually be.
Now we know that both the Radeon HD 4890 and the GeForce GTX 275 will be priced at $250. This has historically been a pricing sweet spot, offering a very good balance of performance and cost before we start to see hugely diminishing returns on our investments. What we hope for here is a significant performance bump from the GTX 260 core 216 and Radeon HD 4870 1GB class of performance. We'll wait till we get to the benchmarks to reveal if that's what we actually get and whether we should just stick with what's good enough.
At a high level, here's what we're looking at:
|GTX 260 Core 216
|Stream Processors
|Texture Address / Filtering
|80 / 80
|80 / 80
|64 / 64
|Core Clock
|Shader Clock
|Memory Clock
|Memory Bus Width
|Frame Buffer
|Transistor Count
|Manufacturing Process
|TSMC 55nm
|TSMC 55nm
|TSMC 65nm
|TSMC 55nm
|Price Point
|ATI Radeon HD 4890
|ATI Radeon HD 4870
|ATI Radeon HD 4850
|Stream Processors
|Texture Units
|Core Clock
|Memory Clock
|975MHz (3900MHz data rate) GDDR5
|900MHz (3600MHz data rate) GDDR5
|993MHz (1986MHz data rate) GDDR3
|Memory Bus Width
|Frame Buffer
|Transistor Count
|Manufacturing Process
|TSMC 55nm
|TSMC 55nm
|TSMC 55nm
|Price Point
We suspect that this will be quite an interesting battle and we might have some surprises on our hands. NVIDIA has been talking about their new drivers which will be released to the public early Thursday morning. These new drivers offer some performance improvements across the board as well as some cool new features. Because it's been a while since we talked about it, we will also explore PhysX and CUDA in a bit more depth than we usually do in GPU reviews.
We do want to bring up availability. This will be a hard launch for AMD but not for NVIDIA (though some European retailers should have the GTX 275 on sale this week). As for AMD, we've seen plenty of retail samples from AMD partners and we expect good availability starting today. If this ends up not being the case, we will certainly update the article to reflect that later. NVIDIA won't have availability until the middle of the month (we are hearing April 14th).
NVIDIA hasn't been hitting their launches as hard lately, and we've gotten on them about that in past reviews. This time, we're not going to be as hard on them for it. The fact of the matter is that they've got a competitive part coming out in a time frame that is very near the launch of an AMD part at the same price point. We are very interested in not getting back to the "old days" where we had paper launched parts that only ended up being seen in the pages of hardware review sites, but we certainly understand the need for companies to get their side of the story out there when launches are sufficiently close to one another. And we're certainly not going to fault anyone for that. Not being available for purchase is it's own problem.
From the summer of 2008 to today we've seen one of most heated and exciting battles in the history of the GPU. NVIDIA and AMD have been pushing back and forth with differing features, good baseline performance with strengths in different areas, and incredible pricing battles in the most popular market segments. While AMD and NVIDIA fight with all their strength to win customers, the real beneficiary has consistently been the end user. And we certainly feel this launch is no exception. If you've got $250 to spend on graphics and were wondering whether you should save up for the GTX 285 or save money and grab a sub-$200 part, your worries are over. There is now a card for you. And it is good.
New Drivers From NVIDIA Change The Landscape
Today, NVIDIA will release it's new 185 series driver. This driver not only enables support for the GTX 275, but affects performance in parts across NVIDIA's lineup in a good number of games. We retested our NVIDIA cards with the 185 driver and saw some very interesting results. For example, take a look at before and after performance with Race Driver: GRID.
As we can clearly see, in the cards we tested, performance decreased at lower resolutions and increased at 2560x1600. This seemed to be the biggest example, but we saw flattened resolution scaling in most of the games we tested. This definitely could affect the competitiveness of the part depending on whether we are looking at low or high resolutions.
Some trade off was made to improve performance at ultra high resolutions at the expense of performance at lower resolutions. It could be a simple thing like creating more driver overhead (and more CPU limitation) to something much more complex. We haven't been told exactly what creates this situation though. With higher end hardware, this decision makes sense as resolutions lower than 2560x1600 tend to perform fine. 2560x1600 is more GPU limited and could benefit from a boost in most games.
Significantly different resolution scaling characteristics can be appealing to different users. An AMD card might look better at one resolution, while the NVIDIA card could come out on top with another. In general, we think these changes make sense, but it might be nicer if the driver automatically figured out what approach was best based on the hardware and resolution running (and thus didn't degrade performance at lower resolutions).
In addition to the performance changes, we see the addition of a new feature. In the past we've seen the addition of filtering techniques, optimizations, and even dynamic manipulation of geometry to the driver. Some features have stuck and some just faded away. One of the most popular additions to the driver was the ability to force Full Screen Antialiasing (FSAA) enabling smoother edges in games. This features was more important at a time when most games didn't have an in-game way to enable AA. The driver took over and implemented AA even on games that didn't offer an option to adjust it. Today the opposite is true and most games allow us to enable and adjust AA.
Now we have the ability to enable a feature, which isn't available natively in many games, that could either be loved or hated. You tell us which.
Introducing driver enabled Ambient Occlusion.
What is Ambient Occlusion you ask? Well, look into a corner or around trim or anywhere that looks concave in general. These areas will be a bit darker than the surrounding areas (depending on the depth and other factors), and NVIDIA has included a way to simulate this effect in it's 185 series driver. Here is an example of what AO can do:
Here's an example of what AO generally looks like in games:
This, as with other driver enabled features, significantly impacts performance and might not be able to run on all games or at all resolutions. Ambient Occlusion may be something some gamers like and some do not depending on the visual impact it has on a specific game or if performance remains acceptable. There are already games that make use of ambient occlusion, and some games that NVIDIA hasn't been able to implement AO on.
There are different methods to enable the rendering of an ambient occlusion effect, and NVIDIA implements a technique called Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion (HBAO for short). The advantage is that this method is likely very highly optimized to run well on NVIDIA hardware, but on the down side, developers limit the ultimate quality and technique used for AO if they leave it to NVIDIA to handle. On top of that, if a developer wants to guarantee that the feature work for everyone, they would need implement it themselves as AMD doesn't offer a parallel solution in their drivers (in spite of the fact that they are easily capable of running AO shaders).
We haven't done extensive testing with this feature yet, either looking for quality or performance. Only time will tell if this addition ends up being gimmicky or really hits home with gamers. And if more developers create games that natively support the feature we wouldn't even need the option. But it is always nice to have something new and unique to play around with, and we are happy to see NVIDIA pushing effects in games forward by all means possible even to the point of including effects like this in their driver.
In our opinion, lighting effects like this belong in engine and game code rather than the driver, but until that happens it's always great to have an alternative. We wouldn't think it a bad idea if AMD picked up on this and did it too, but whether it is more worth it to do this or spend that energy encouraging developers to adopt this and comparable techniques for more complex writing is totally up to AMD. And we wouldn't fault them either way.
The Cards and The Test
In the AMD department, we received two cards. One was an overclocked part from HIS and the other was a stock clocked part from ASUS. Guess which one AMD sent us for the review. No, it's no problem, we're used to it. This is what happens when we get cards from NVIDIA all the time. They argue and argue for the inclusion of overclocked numbers in GPU reviews when it's their GPU we're looking at. Of course when the tables are turned so are the opinions. We sincerely appreciate ASUS sending us this card and we used it for our tests in this article. The original intent of trying to get a hold of two cards was to run CrossFire numbers, but we only have one GTX 275 and we would prefer to wait until we can compare the two to get into that angle.
The ASUS card also includes a utility called Voltage Tweaker that allows gamers to increase some voltages on their hardware to help improve overclocking. We didn't have the chance to play with the feature ourselves, but more control is always a nice feature to have.
For the Radeon HD 4890 our hardware specs are pretty simple. Take a 4870 1GB and overclock it. Crank the core up 100 MHz to 850 MHz and the memory clock up 75 MHz to 975 MHz. That's the Radeon HD 4890 in a nutshell. However, to reach these clock levels, AMD revised the core by adding decoupling capacitors, new timing algorithms, and altered the ASIC power distribution for enhanced operation. These slight changes increased the transistor count from 956M to 959M. Otherwise, the core features/specifications (texture units, ROPs, z/stencil) remain the same as the HD4850/HD4870 series.
Most vendors will also be selling overclocked variants that run the core at 900 MHz. AMD would like to treat these overclocked parts like they are a separate entity altogether. But we will continue to treat these parts as enhancements of the stock version whether they come from NVIDIA or AMD. In our eyes, the difference between, say, an XFX GTX 275 and an XFX GTX 275 XXX is XFX's call; the latter is their part enhancing the stock version. We aren't going to look at the XFX 4890 and the XFX 4890 XXX any differently. In doing reviews of vendor's cards, we'll consider overclocked performance closely, but for a GPU launch, we will be focusing on the baseline version of the card.
On the NVIDIA side, we received a reference version of the GTX 275. It looks similar to the design of the other GT200 based hardware.
Under the hood here is the same setup as half of a GTX 295 but with higher clock speeds. That means that the GTX 275 has the memory amount and bandwidth of the GTX 260 (448-bit wide bus), but the shader count of the GTX 280 (240 SPs). On top of that, the GTX 275 posts clock speeds closer to the GTX 285 than the GTX 280. Core clock is up 31 MHz from a GTX 280 to 633 MHz, shader clock is up 108 MHz to 1404 MHz, and memory clock is also up 108 MHz to 2322. Which means that in shader limited cases we should see performance closer to the GTX 285 and in bandwicth limited cases we'll still be faster than the GTX 216 because of the clock speed boost across the board.
Rather than just an overclock of a pre-existing card, this is a blending of two configurations combined with an overclock from the two configurations from which it was born. And sure, it's also half a GTX 295, and that is convenient for NVIDIA. It's not just that it's different, it's that this setup should have a lot to offer especially in games that aren't bandwidth limited.
That wraps it up for the cards we're focusing on today. Here's our test system, which is the same as for our GTS 250 article except for the addition of a couple drivers.
The Test
|Test Setup
|Intel Core i7-965 3.2GHz
|ASUS Rampage II Extreme X58
|Video Cards
|ATI Radeon HD 4890
ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
ATI Radeon HD 4850
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 core 216
|Video Drivers
|Catalyst 8.12 hotfix, 9.4 Beta for HD 4890
ForceWare 185.65
|Hard Drive
|Intel X25-M 80GB SSD
|6 x 1GB DDR3-1066 7-7-7-20
|Operating System
|Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1
|PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 1200W
The New $250 Price Point: Radeon HD 4890 vs. GeForce GTX 275
Here it is, what you've all been waiting for. And it's a tie. Pretty much. These cards stay pretty close in performance across the board.
Looking at Age of Conan, we see something we didn't expect. NVIDIA is actually performing on par with AMD in this benchmark. NVIDIA's come a long way to closing the gap in this one, and for this comparison it's paid off a bit. Despite the fact that this one is essentially a tie, NVIDIA gets props for being competitive here.
While NVIDIA usually owns Call of Duty benchmarks, the 4890 outpaces the GTX 275 at 16x10 and 19x12 while the GTX 275 leads at the 30" panel resolution. As long as its still playable, then this isn't a huge deal, but the fact that most people have lower resolution monitors who might want one of these GPUs isn't in NVIDIA's favor.
Crysis Warhead is really close in performance again.
AMD leads Fallout 3, and this is the first game we've seen any consistent significant difference favoring one card over another.
FarCry 2 takes us back to the norm with both cards performing essentially the same.
The 4890 does have a pretty hefty lead under Race Driver GRID. The gap does close at higher resolution, but it's still a gap in AMD's favor.
Left4Dead is also pretty much a tie with the card you would want changing depending on the resolution of your monitor.
Overall, this is really a wash. These parts are very close in performance and very competitive.
What will an Extra $70 Get You? Radeon HD 4890 vs. Radeon HD 4870 1GB
The short answer is more performance. We see across the board improvement in performance from the highly clocked 4890. In some games the improvement is large while in others it is just a nice perk. But moving up to this price point we do still have diminishing returns. This isn't as significant as it is up above $300, but it's still a big price gap to cover for the gain. Only individual gamers can really decided whether they would benefit from the added performance enough.
Another Look at the $180 Price Point: 260 core 216 vs. 4870 1GB
With the change in performance with the 185 drivers from NVIDIA, we wanted to breakout one of the other most important price points. With lower resolution performance sometimes showing degraded performance and higher resolutions popping up with improvements, this price point is worth exploring.
Overall, it looks like the 4870 1GB is just a little bit faster in one or two games, but these cards are still pretty well matched after the new driver. the scaling differences really wouldn't change our minds either way. Both of these cards are good options.
Putting this PhysX Business to Rest
Let me put things in perspective. Remember our Radeon HD 4870/4850 article that went up last year? It was a straight crown-robbing on ATI's part, NVIDIA had no competitively priced response at the time.
About two hours before the NDA lifted on the Radeon HD 4800 series we got an urgent call from NVIDIA. The purpose of the call? To attempt to persuade us to weigh PhysX and CUDA support as major benefits of GeForce GPUs. A performance win by ATI shouldn't matter, ATI can't accelerate PhysX in hardware and can't run CUDA applications.
The argument NVIDIA gave us was preposterous. The global economy was weakening and NVIDIA cautioned us against recommending a card that in 12 months would not be the right choice because new titles supporting PhysX and new CUDA applications would be coming right around the corner.
The tactics didn't work obviously, and history showed us that despite NVIDIA's doomsday warnings - Radeon HD 4800 series owners didn't live to regret their purchases. Yes, the global economy did take a turn for the worst, but no - NVIDIA's PhysX and CUDA support hadn't done anything to incite buyer's remorse for anyone who has purchased a 4800 series card. The only thing those users got were higher frame rates. (Note that if you did buy a Radeon HD 4870/4850 and severely regretted your purchase due to a lack of PhysX/CUDA support, please post in the comments).
This wasn't a one time thing. NVIDIA has delivered the same tired message at every single opportunity. NVIDIA's latest attempt was to punish those reviewers who haven't been sold on the PhysX/CUDA messages by not sending them GeForce GTS 250 cards for review. The plan seemed to backfire thanks to one vigilant Inquirer reporter.
More recently we had our briefing for the GeForce GTX 275. The presentation for the briefing was 53 slides long, now the length wasn't bothersome, but let's look at the content of the slides:
|Slides About...
|Number of Slides in NVIDIA's GTX 275 Presentation
|The GeForce GTX 275
|Miscellaneous (DX11, Title Slides, etc...)
You could argue that NVIDIA truly believes that PhysX and CUDA support are the strongest features of its GPUs. You could also argue that NVIDIA is trying to justify a premium for its much larger GPUs rather than having to sell them as cheap as possible to stand up to an unusually competitive ATI.
NVIDIA's stance is that when you buy a GeForce GPU, it's more than just how well it runs games. It's about everything else you can run on it, whether that means in-game GPU accelerated PhysX or CUDA applications.
Maybe we've been wrong this entire time. Maybe instead of just presenting you with bar charts of which GPU is faster we should be penalizing ATI GPUs for not being able to run CUDA code or accelerate PhysX. Self reflection is a very important human trait, let's see if NVIDIA is truly right about the value of PhysX and CUDA today.
The Widespread Support Fallacy
NVIDIA acquired Ageia, they were the guys who wanted to sell you another card to put in your system to accelerate game physics - the PPU. That idea didn't go over too well. For starters, no one wanted another *PU in their machine. And secondly, there were no compelling titles that required it. At best we saw mediocre games with mildly interesting physics support, or decent games with uninteresting physics enhancements.
Ageia's true strength wasn't in its PPU chip design, many companies could do that. What Ageia did that was quite smart was it acquired an up and coming game physics API, polished it up, and gave it away for free to developers. The physics engine was called PhysX.
Developers can use PhysX, for free, in their games. There are no strings attached, no licensing fees, nothing. Now if the developer wants support, there are fees of course but it's a great way of cutting down development costs. The physics engine in a game is responsible for all modeling of newtonian forces within the game; the engine determines how objects collide, how gravity works, etc...
If developers wanted to, they could enable PPU accelerated physics in their games and do some cool effects. Very few developers wanted to because there was no real install base of Ageia cards and Ageia wasn't large enough to convince the major players to do anything.
PhysX, being free, was of course widely adopted. When NVIDIA purchased Ageia what they really bought was the PhysX business.
NVIDIA continued offering PhysX for free, but it killed off the PPU business. Instead, NVIDIA worked to port PhysX to CUDA so that it could run on its GPUs. The same catch 22 from before existed: developers didn't have to include GPU accelerated physics and most don't because they don't like alienating their non-NVIDIA users. It's all about hitting the largest audience and not everyone can run GPU accelerated PhysX, so most developers don't use that aspect of the engine.
Then we have NVIDIA publishing slides like this:
Indeed, PhysX is one of the world's most popular physics APIs - but that does not mean that developers choose to accelerate PhysX on the GPU. Most don't. The next slide paints a clearer picture:
These are the biggest titles NVIDIA has with GPU accelerated PhysX support today. That's 12 titles, three of which are big ones, most of the rest, well, I won't go there.
A free physics API is great, and all indicators point to PhysX being liked by developers.
The next several slides in NVIDIA's presentation go into detail about how GPU accelerated PhysX is used in these titles and how poorly ATI performs when GPU accelerated PhysX is enabled (because ATI can't run CUDA code on its GPUs, the GPU-friendly code must run on the CPU instead).
We normally hold manufacturers accountable to their performance claims, well it was about time we did something about these other claims - shall we?
Our goal was simple: we wanted to know if GPU accelerated PhysX effects in these titles was useful. And if it was, would it be enough to make us pick a NVIDIA GPU over an ATI one if the ATI GPU was faster.
To accomplish this I had to bring in an outsider. Someone who hadn't been subjected to the same NVIDIA marketing that Derek and I had. I wanted someone impartial.
Meet Ben:
I met Ben in middle school and we've been friends ever since. He's a gamer of the truest form. He generally just wants to come over to my office and game while I work. The relationship is rarely harmful; I have access to lots of hardware (both PC and console) and games, and he likes to play them. He plays while I work and isn't very distracting (except when he's hungry).
These past few weeks I've been far too busy for even Ben's quiet gaming in the office. First there were SSDs, then GDC and then this article. But when I needed someone to play a bunch of games and tell me if he noticed GPU accelerated PhysX, Ben was the right guy for the job.
I grabbed a Dell Studio XPS I'd been working on for a while. It's a good little system, the first sub-$1000 Core i7 machine in fact ($799 gets you a Core i7-920 and 3GB of memory). It performs similarly to my Core i7 testbeds so if you're looking to jump on the i7 bandwagon but don't feel like building a machine, the Dell is an alternative.
I also setup its bigger brother, the Studio XPS 435. Personally I prefer this machine, it's larger than the regular Studio XPS, albeit more expensive. The larger chassis makes working inside the case and upgrading the graphics card a bit more pleasant.
My machine of choice, I couldn't let Ben have the faster computer.
Both of these systems shipped with ATI graphics, obviously that wasn't going to work. I decided to pick midrange cards to work with: a GeForce GTS 250 and a GeForce GTX 260.
PhysX in Sacred 2: There, but not tremendously valuable
The first title on the chopping block? Sacred 2.
This was Ben's type of game. It's a Diablo-style RPG. It's got a Metacritic score of 71 out of 100, which indicates "mixed or average reviews".
I let ben play Sacred 2 for a while, first with PhysX disabled and then with it enabled. His response after it was enabled? "The game feels a little choppier but I don't really notice anything."
Derek and I were hovering over his shoulder at times and eventually Derek pointed out the leaves blowing in the wind. "Did they do that before?", Derek asked. "I didn't even notice them", was Ben's reply.
Sacred 2 without GPU accelerated PhysX
Sacred 2 with GPU accelerated PhysX - It's more noticeable here than in the game itself
We left Ben alone for him to play for a while. His verdict mirrored ours. The GPU accelerated PhysX effects in Sacred 2 were hardly noticeable, and when they were, they didn't really do anything for the game at all. To NVIDIA's credit, a Diablo-style RPG isn't really the best place for showing off GPU accelerated physics.
Ben wanted a different style of game, something more actiony. He needed explosions, perhaps that would convince him (and all of us) of the value of GPU-accelerated PhysX. We moved to the next game on the list.
PhysX in Warmonger: Fail
Cryostasis is a title due out this year, unfortunately there is no playable demo. Just a tech demo. Next.
Metal Knight Zero, MKZ for short, was another game on NVIDIA's list. Once more, no playable demo, just a tech demo. We need real games here people, real titles, if you're trying to convince someone to buy NVIDIA on the merits of PhysX.
Warmonger, ah yes, now we have a playable game. Warmonger is a first person shooter that uses GPU accelerated PhysX to enable destructible environments. Allow me to quote NVIDIA:
The first thing about Warmonger is that it runs horribly slow on ATI hardware, even with GPU accelerated PhysX disabled. I'm guessing ATI's developer relations team hasn't done much to optimize the shaders for Radeon HD hardware. Go figure.
The verdict here (aside from: I don't want to play Warmonger), was that the GPU accelerated PhysX effects were not very, well, impressive. You could destroy walls, but the game itself wasn't exactly fun so it didn't matter. The realistic cloth that you could shoot holes through? Yeah, not terribly realistic looking.
Look at the hyper realistic cloth! Yeah, it looks like a highly advanced game from 6 years ago.
Warmonger itself wasn't a triple A first person shooter, and the GPU accelerated PhysX effects on top of it weren't going to make the game any better. Sorry guys, none of us liked this one. PC Gamer gave it a 55/100. Looks like we weren't alone. Next.
The Unreal Tournament 3 PhysX Mod Pack: Finally, a Major Title
Unreal Tournament 3. Metacritic gives it an 83 for "Generally favorable reviews" and NVIDIA released a PhysX mod pack for it last year. Now we're getting somewhere.
The mod pack consists of three levels that use GPU accelerated PhysX. The rest of the game is left unchanged. You can run these levels without GPU acceleration, but they're much slower.
The three levels are HeatRay, Lighthouse and Tornado. Guess what the PhysX does in Tornado?
Ben and I played HeatRay together (aw, cute). First the PhysX enabled level with GPU acceleration turned off, then with it turned on and then the standard level that doesn't use any GPU accelerated PhysX at all.
Turning the PhysX acceleration on made a huge difference, we both agreed. The game was much faster, much more playable. The most noticeable PhysX effect was hail falling from the sky, and lots of it. You could blow up signs in the level but the hail was by far the most noticeable part. Note that I said noticeable, not desirable.
See all of the white pellets? Yeah, that's what PhysX got us in UT3.
Playing the normal version of the HeatRay map was far more fun for both of us. The hail was distracting. Each of the hundreds of pellets hit the ground and bounced off in a physically accurate manner, but in doing so it sounded like I was running through a tunnel full of bead curtains suspended from the ceiling. Not to mention the visual distraction of tons of pellets hitting the ground all of the time. Ben and I both liked the level without the hail. The point of the hail? Not to make the level cooler, but rather to truly stress the PPU/GPU - particles are one of the most difficult things to do on the CPU thanks but work very well on the GPU. This wasn't a fun level, this was a benchmark.
Tornado was the turning point for us. As the name implies, there's a giant tornado flying through this capture the flag level. The tornado is physically accurate, if you shoot rockets at it, they fly around and get sucked into the funnel or redirected depending on their angle of incidence. It's neat.
The tornado sucks up everything around it but if you're looking to relive Wizard of Oz fantasies I've got bad news: you are immune from its sucking power. You just stay on the ground and lose health. Great.
Ben's take on the tornado level? "It was neat". I agreed. Not compelling enough for me to tattoo PhysX on my roided up mousing-arm, but the most impressive thing we'd seen thus far.
Mirror's Edge: Do we have a winner?
And now we get to the final test. Something truly different: Mirror's Edge.
This is an EA game. Ben had to leave before we got to this part of the test, he does have a wife and kid after all, so I went at this one alone.
I'd never played Mirror's Edge. I'd seen the videos, it looked interesting. You play as a girl, Faith, a runner. You run across rooftops, through buildings, it's all very parkour-like. You're often being pursued by "blues", police offers, as you run through the game. I won't give away any plot details here but this game, I liked.
The GPU accelerated PhysX impacted things like how glass shatters and the presence of destructible cloth. We posted a video of what the game looks like with NVIDIA GPU accelerated PhysX enabled late last year:
"Here is the side by side video showing better what DICE has added to Mirror's Edge for the PC with PhysX. Please note that the makers of the video (not us) slowed down the game during some effects to better show them off. The slow downs are not performance related issues. Also, the video is best viewed in full screen mode (the button in the bottom right corner)."
In Derek's blog about the game he said the following:
"We still want to really get our hands on the game to see if it feels worth it, but from this video, we can at least say that there is more positive visual impact in Mirror's Edge than any major title that has used PhysX to date. NVIDIA is really trying to get developers to build something compelling out of PhysX, and Mirror's Edge has potential. We are anxious to see if the follow through is there."
Well, we have had our hands on the game and I've played it quite a bit. I started with PhysX enabled. I was looking for the SSD-effect. I wanted to play with it on then take it away and see if I missed it. I played through the first couple of chapters with PhysX enabled, fell in lust with the game and then turned off PhysX.
I missed it.
I actually missed it. What did it for me was the way the glass shattered. When I was being pursued by blues and they were firing at me as I ran through a hallway full of windows, the hardware accelerated PhysX version was more believable. I felt more like I was in a movie than in a video game. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't hyper realistic, but the effect was noticeable.
I replayed a couple of chapters and then played some new ones with PhysX disabled now before turning it back on and repeating the test.
The impact of GPU accelerated PhysX was noticeable. EA had done it right.
The Verdict?
So am I sold? Would I gladly choose a slower NVIDIA part because of PhysX support? Of course not.
The reason why I enjoyed GPU accelerated PhysX in Mirror's Edge was because it's a good game to begin with. The implementation is subtle, but it augments an already visually interesting title. It makes the gameplay experience slightly more engrossing.
It's a nice bonus if I already own a NVIDIA GPU, it's not a reason for buying one.
The fact of the matter is that Mirror's Edge should be the bare minimum requirement for GPU accelerated PhysX in games. The game has to be good to begin with and the effects should be the cherry on top. Crappy titles and gimmicky physics aren't going to convince anyone. Aggressive marketing on top of that is merely going to push people like us to call GPU accelerated PhysX out for what it is. I can't even call the overall implementations I've seen in games half baked, the oven isn't even preheated yet. Mirror's Edge so far is an outlier. You can pick a string of cheese off of a casserole and like it, but without some serious time in the oven it's not going to be a good meal.
Then there's the OpenCL argument. NVIDIA won't port PhysX to OpenCL, at least not anytime soon. But Havok is being ported to OpenCL, that means by the end of this year all games that use OpenCL Havok can use GPU accelerated physics on any OpenCL compliant video card (NVIDIA, ATI and Intel when Larrabee comes out).
While I do believe that NVIDIA and EA were on to something with the implementation of PhysX in Mirror's Edge, I do not believe NVIDIA is strong enough to drive the entire market on its own. Cross platform APIs like OpenCL will be the future of GPU accelerated physics, they have to be, simply because NVIDIA isn't the only game in town. The majority of PhysX titles aren't accelerated on NVIDIA GPUs, I would suspect that it won't take too long for OpenCL accelerated Havok titles to equal that number once it's ready.
Until we get a standard for GPU accelerated physics that all GPU vendors can use or until NVIDIA can somehow convince every major game developer to include compelling features that will only be accelerated on NVIDIA hardware, hardware PhysX will be nothing more than fancy lettering on a cake.
You wanted us to look at PhysX in a review of an ATI GPU, and there you have it.
CUDA - Oh there's More
Oh I'm not done. Other than PhysX, NVIDIA is stressing CUDA as another huge feature that no other GPU maker on the world has.
For those who aren't familiar, CUDA is a programming interface to NVIDIA hardware. Modern day GPUs are quite powerful, easily capable of churning out billions if not a trillion instructions per second when working on the right dataset. The problem is that harnessing such power is a bit difficult. NVIDIA put a lot of effort into developing an easy to use interface to the hardware and eventually it evolved into CUDA.
Now CUDA only works on certain NVIDIA GPUs and certainly won't talk to Larrabee or anything in the ATI camp. Both Intel and ATI have their own alternatives, but let's get back to CUDA for now.
The one area that GPU computing has had a tremendous impact already is the HPC market. The applications there lent themselves very well to GPU programming and thus we see incredible CUDA penetration there. What NVIDIA wants however is CUDA in the consumer market, and that's a little more difficult.
The problem is that you need a compelling application and the first major one we looked at was Elemental's Badaboom. The initial release of Badaboom fell short of the mark but over time it became a nice tool. While it's not the encoder of choice for people looking to rip Blu-ray movies, it's a good, fast way of getting your DVDs and other videos onto your iPod, iPhone or other portable media player. It only works on NVIDIA GPUs and is much faster than doing the same conversion on a CPU if you have a fast enough GPU.
The problem with Badaboom was that, like GPU accelerated PhysX, it only works on NVIDIA hardware and NVIDIA isn't willing to give away NVIDIA GPUs to everyone in the world - thus we have another catch 22 scenario.
Badaboom is nice. If you have a NVIDIA GPU and you want to get DVD quality content onto your iPod, it works very well. But spending $200 - $300 on a GPU to run a single application just doesn't seem like something most users would be willing to do. NVIDIA wants the equation to work like this:
Badaboom -> You buy a NVIDIA GPU
But the equation really works like this:
Games (or clever marketing) -> You buy a NVIDIA GPU -> You can also run Badaboom
Now if the majority of applications in the world required NVIDIA GPUs to run, then we'd be dealing in a very different environment, but that's not reality in this dimension.
The Latest CUDA App: MotionDSP's vReveal
NVIDIA had more slides in its GTX 275 presentation about non-gaming applications than it did about how the 275 performed in games. One such application is MotionDSP's vReveal - a CUDA enabled video post processing application than can clean up poorly recorded video.
The application's interface is simple:
Import your videos (anything with a supported codec on your system pretty much) and then select enhance.
You can auto-enhance with a single click (super useful) or even go in and tweak individual sliders and settings on your own in the advanced mode.
The changes you make to the video are visible on the fly, but the real time preview is faster on a NVIDIA GPU than if you rely on the CPU alone.
When you're all done, simply hit save to disk and the video will be re-encoded with the proper changes. The encoding process takes place entirely on the GPU but it can also work on a CPU.
First let's look at the end results. We took three videos, one recorded using Derek's wife's Blackberry and two from me on a Canon HD cam (but at low res) in my office.
I relied on vReveal's auto tune to fix the videos and I've posted the originals and vReveal versions on YouTube. The videos are below:
In every single instance, the resulting video looks better. While it's not quite the technology you see in shows like 24, it does make your videos look better and it does do it pretty quickly. There's no real support for video editing here and I'm not familiar enough with the post processing software market to say whether or not there are better alternatives, but vReveal does do what it says it does. And it uses the GPU.
Performance is also very good on even a reasonably priced GPU. It took 51 seconds for the GeForce GTX 260 to save the first test video, it took my Dell Studio XPS 435's Core i7 920 just over 3 minutes to do the same task.
It's a neat application. It works as advertised, but it only works on NVIDIA hardware. Will it make me want to buy a NVIDIA GPU over an ATI one? Nope. If all things are equal (price, power and gaming performance) then perhaps. But if ATI provides a better gaming experience, I don't believe it's compelling enough.
First, the software isn't free - it's an added expense. Badaboom costs $30, vReveal costs $50. It's not the most expensive software in the world, but it's not free.
And secondly, what happens if your next GPU isn't from NVIDIA? While vReveal will continue to work, you no longer get GPU acceleration. A vReveal-like app written in OpenCL will work on all three vendors' hardware, as long as they support OpenCL.
If NVIDIA really wants to take care of its customers, it can start by giving away vReveal (and Badaboom) to people who purchase these high end graphics cards. If you want to add value, don't tell users that they should want these things, give it to them. The burden of proof is on NVIDIA to show that these CUDA enabled applications are worth supporting rather than waiting for cross-vendor OpenCL versions.
Do you feel any differently?
The Rest of the Performance Charts
Age of Conan Performance
Call of Duty World at War Performance
Crysis Warhead Performance
Fallout 3 Performance
FarCry 2 Performance
Left 4 Dead Performance
Race Driver GRID Performance
Power Consumption
With both of these competitors built on TSMC's 55nm manufacturing process we get to see how power efficient they are. At idle the GeForce GTX 275 draws the least amount of power, while under load the Radeon HD 4890 is cooler.
Final Words
NVIDIA is competitive at this new price point of $250 depending on what resolution you look at. We also see some improvement from NVIDIA's new 185 series driver and get a new feature to play with in the form of Ambient Occlusion. We did look at PhysX and CUDA again, and, while we may be interested in what is made possible by them, there is still a stark lack of compelling content that takes advantage of these technologies. We can't recommend prioritizing PhysX and CUDA over performance, and performance is where a GPU needs to compete. Luckily for NVIDIA, the GTX 275 does.
The fact that its worst-case performance is still better than the GTX 260 core 216 and in the best case, it can hit that of the GTX 280 was a plus for the GTX 275. It often posted performance more in line with its bigger brothers than a $50+ cheaper part. This is pretty sweet for a $250 card, especially as many games these days rely very heavily on shader performance. The GeForce GTX 275 is a good fit for this price point, and is a good option. But then there's the Radeon HD 4890.
The 4890, basically a tweaked and overclocked 4870, does improve performance over the 4870 1GB and puts up good competition for the GTX 275. On a pure performance level the 4890 and GTX 275 trade blows at different resolutions. The 4890 tends to look better at lower resolutions while the GTX 275 is more competitive at high resolutions. At 1680 x 1050 and 1920 x 1200 the 4890 is nearly undefeated. At 2560 x 1600, it seems to be pretty much a wash between the two cards.
At the same time, there are other questions, like that of availability. With these parts performing so similarly, and price being pretty well equal, the fact that AMD parts can be bought starting today and we have to wait for the NVIDIA parts is an advantage for AMD. However, we have to factor in the fact that AMD driver support doesn't have the best track record as of late for new game titles. Add in the fact that NVIDIA's developer relations seem more effective than AMD's could mean more titles that run better on NVIDIA hardware in the future. So what to go with? Really it depends on what resolutions you're targeting and what the prices end up being. If you've got a 30" display then either card will work, it's just up to your preference and the items we talked about earlier. If you've got a 24" or smaller display (1920x1200 or below), then the Radeon HD 4890 is the card for you.
AMD tells us that most retailers will feature mail in rebates of $20, a program which was apparently underwritten by AMD. Could AMD have worried they weren't coming in at high enough performance late in the game and decided to try and throw an extra incentive in there? Either way, not everyone likes a mail in rebate. I much prefer the instant variety and mail-in-rebate offers do not make decisions for me. We still compare products based on their MSRP (which is likely the price they'll be back at once the rebate goes away). This is true for both AMD and NVIDIA parts.
There will also be overclocked variants of the GTX 275 to compete with the overclocked variants from AMD. The overclock on the AMD hardware is fairly modest, but does make a difference and the same holds true for the GTX 275 products in early testing. We'll have to take a look at how such parts compare in the future along with SLI and CrossFire. In the meantime, we have another interesting battle at the $250 price point.


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Just wanted to say Congrats again on the new article im not sure how old it is i just seen it today on critical bench your getting your name out there though Travis and thats great hopefully some more sponsors will pick you up like inzer or someone your working very hard bro you deserve it.
I have one question for you too just wondering when you do your back do you deadlift and if so what does your deadlift training look like oh also do you squat also i was just wondering what type of exercises you did for your core work any way keep up the good work bro. Here is a link for you all


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I need help choosing a brand and model! I would like to know what works. I am looking to get a decent road/racing shoe for this coming season. I am setting the budget at $130.00 I am about a 13US so I suppose a 48 would be good (about a 13.25 US correct?) I know the majority of the shoes run small... I am looking for recommendations on companies and positive experience with the shoe brand or model. Here are a few I picked out. Any other suggestions are appreciated.
Pearl Izumi http://www.zappos.com/n/p/p/7613269/c/131261.html Trek (Bontrager) http://www.bontrager.com/model/07891 Vittoria http://www.performancebike.com/webap..._20000_1501507 and then these Shimmanos http://www.bikebling.com/ProductDeta...086-R540-Promo
Thanks for the help


text: I'm no racer, just ride (fairly) fast for the fun of it, so I'm not interested in breaking down training zones to 10W/3BPM increments. I've been doing the CTS 8 min tests -- last one was 335W/167 BPM -- and just did a 20 min FTP test (FTP 290W, averaged 161 BPM). Want to simplify it to 3 zones (recovery, aerobic, and anaerobic/threshold/intervals, or whatever it should be called). I've been reading about the "black hole" or "no man's land" zone which is supposed to be avoided. (Best I can tell, this is about what most would call "tempo" or "steady state".) I'm thinking, based on the tests, it would be something like: Z1 <160W, <115BPM; Z2 160-250W, 115-140BPM; Z3 300W+, 150BPM+. Would that sound about right?


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text: This handbag is in overall gently loved condition. The bottom feet have some wear, the bottom exterior is wrinkled from water damage and overall the exterior looks like it has some light wrinkling and wear. Also, there is a section near where the handles attach to the bag were the finish has worn off. It ships with a designer dust bag.


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It is for good reason that virtually every top professional engine builder relies on ARP Pro Series head studs for their all-out competition powerplants. Simply stated, there's not a better stud setup on the market today. ARP uses a premium grade 8740 alloy that is rated far superior to "aircraft" quality. Then, each stud is placed vertically in special racks and precisely heat-treated to 200,000 psi. ARP studs are thread rolled after heat-treat, which gives them about 1000% (that's ten times) better fatigue strength than those studs that are threaded prior to heat-treat (a very common industry practice). You won't find a better quality stud on the market from any other source.
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- Winter 2011
Macalester Today Winter 2011
Kiah: Hard work and hard times
THE FIRST YEAR of college may be exciting, but it's rarely easy. Kiah Zellner-Smith found that out most clearly last fall. For one thing, the difficulty of college classes was a revelation to this A student from Minneapolis South. "Four classes at Macalester is ten times harder than six classes at South," she sighs. "You really have to apply yourself here."
The semester started off tough, when Kiah dropped a confusing math class and replaced with it with newswriting, taught by veteran reporter Howard Sinker '78. Expecting the journalism class to be easy, Kiah was "pushed right out of my comfort zone" when Sinker required students to interview strangers at the Mall of America about their gambling habits.
Kiah gulped but did it, later saying, "It was hard but good experience, and after that the rest of the interviews we did around campus seemed easy!" Her archaeology class was also proving to be a challenge, though luckily French II was a bit of a review.
The most thought-provoking of Kiah's classes, though, is her firstyear course, "The Problem of Race in U.S. Social Thought and Policy."
"It's so different from high school classes because it's about learning opposing viewpoints and forming our own opinions," says Kiah. "It's made me think differently outside the classroom too—there are realworld applications I've never experienced from a class before.
"Of course it's denser material than I'm used to and a lot to take in—it was a jolt at first how much. But the class is really chill because we all live together in Dupre so we connect with each other in a whole different way."
The difficulty of her classes wasn't the only challenge Kiah faced.
The social adjustment to college was also hard, which took her by surprise, given how close to home she lives. Having her best friend from high school also attending Mac probably initially interfered with her meeting new people, Kiah speculates.
Although her parents were sympathetic, they "really pushed me," she says. "They said, 'You can do this, you have to have a positive attitude.'"
However, she admits it has been nice to meet her mom for coffee and to see her younger sisters occasionally. "I didn't think I'd miss them so much," she laughs. "College has made me appreciate my family so much more."
By November, though, things were looking up. Kiah was getting used to her job making sub sandwiches, and was learning to be a campus DJ. She was also planning to take an art class and to join Art Alliance so she could return to the drawing and painting she loves. She's also come to realize she doesn't know her hometown very well. "Kids keep asking me how to get here or there and I don't know! I hardly ever crossed the river before I started college here. Yesterday we had a scavenger hunt that went from Snelling and University down to the capitol and it was cool because I finally got to know more about St. Paul."


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Been TTC for a year. Does Fertility Blend work?
Just started taking it 2 weeks ago. Has anyone had any luck with it?
Posted: 10/16/2011 by a BabyCenter Member
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Been TTC about 6 months- through BBT charting, it appeared I initially was not ovulating. After diet changes (less sugar/carbs), I began seeing a temperatue shift, but appeared to be having a short luteal phase (spotting, bleeding for 15+days after obulation). I started Fertility Blend about 3 weeks ago- this month I haven't ovulated, and am on day 17 (usually happens days 13-14), Anyone else have an anovulatory cycle with fertility blend? How long after stopping the pills did you begin ovulating again?posted 04/23/2012 by apwarlick
I bought the product December 16. I was suppose to get my period December 19th. I took those pills the day I bought it. Today is the 20th. Missed period. I decided to take a pregnancy test because my period ALWAYS comes on time. We'll..I got a POSITIVE!! Going to get blood work to confirm it. I don't know if fertility blend helped me but if it did then the product def works because prior to this I have been trying to conceive for 4 yes and no luck after I had my son. Well good luck to you!!! Did it work for you???posted 12/20/2011 by Mylife1106
My name is Melissa and as a company advocate for FertilityBlend® FertilityBlend® is the only patent-protected nutritional supplement that has been proven in rigorous double-blind, placebo-controlled studies to enhance a couple's chance of conceiving. These published clinical studies conducted at the prestigious Stanford University School of Medicine have shown an increase pregnancy rate by balancing hormones and normalizing menstrual cycles in women, and by improving sperm count, quality and motility in men. See fertilityblend.com and the Stanford study is here: http://fertilityblend.com/fbclinicalstudy2006.pdfposted 10/27/2011 by FertilityBl Advocate
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Believe Me, Goldilocks Rocks! : The Story of the Three Bears As Told by Baby Bear
Capstone Pr Inc
"OF COURSE you think Goldilocks was a brat who broke in and trashed our house. You don't know the other side of the story. Well, let me tell you..."


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Los, Marinus
In recent years the ability of chemical scientists to create new molecules and transform existing ones has greatly contributed to preserving our environment. Since the 1960s chemists have engineered new pesticides that break down more rapidly instead of accumulating in soil and water. Two chemists, Marinus Los (1933– ) of American Cyanamid and John E. Franz (1929– ) of Monsanto, devised new herbicides—necessary for ensuring an abundant food supply for a growing world population—that do not harm the environment.
Los discovered another class of herbicidal compounds that are not toxic to humans and animals—imidazolinones. He was born in the Netherlands but emigrated as a boy with his family to Great Britain, where he received most of his education, including bachelor's and doctoral degrees in chemistry from the University of Edinburgh. After a postdoctoral fellowship in Canada he joined the agricultural division of American Cyanamid, where he worked for his entire career, except for a brief return to the University of Edinburgh as a research professor. In the early 1970s, while screening thousands of existing American Cyanamid chemicals for substances that would regulate plant growth, Los noted that one seemed to have herbicidal potential, so he made modifications in its molecular structure to enhance this capability. The first imidazolinone was actually created later when Los was trying to reproduce a substance that had crystallized out of a solution of the original herbicidal agent prepared for testing on crops. The new herbicides, introduced in 1985, need only be applied in ounces per acre, a property that has drastically reduced the amount of herbicide used. These highly selective and effective compounds allow farmers to increase yields while helping to preserve our land, water, and wildlife.
Further Reading


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Search Swinburne Research Bank
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/92291
|Download PDF (Accepted manuscript) (Adobe Acrobat PDF, 606 KB)
- Title
- Freak waves in crossing seas
- Author(s)
- Onorato, M.; Proment, D.; Toffoli, A.
- Abstract
- We consider the modulational instability in crossing seas as a potential mechanism for the formation of freak waves. The problem is discussed in terms of a system of two coupled Nonlinear Schröedinger equations. The asymptotic validity of such system is discussed. For some specific angles between the two wave trains, the equations reduce to an integrable system. A stability analysis of these equations is discussed. Furthermore, we present an analytical study of the maximum amplification factor for an unstable plane wave solution. Results indicate that angles between 10° and 30° are the most probable for establishing a freak wave sea. We show that the theoretical expectations are consistent with numerical simulations of the Euler equations.
- Publication type
- Journal article
- Research centre
- Swinburne University of Technology
- Source
- European Physical Journal: Special Topics, Vol. 185, no. 1 (Jul 2010), pp. 45-55
- Publication year
- 2010
- FOR Code(s)
- 01 Mathematical Sciences; 02 Physical Sciences
- Keyword(s)
- Crossing seas; Freak waves
- Publisher
- Springer
- 1951-6355
- Publisher URL
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2010 EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag. The accepted manuscript of the paper is reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. The definitive version of the publication is available at www.springer.com.
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Brazos Valley Juniors: My Site News: Top Freshmen in the Country!
Top Freshmen in the Country!
America's premier Volleyball website, PrepVolleyball.com has named their Freshman 59 List for the 2013 High School season. It recognizes the best Varsity playing Freshmen in the country! Congratulations to Blaire Smith, Burton High School and Allison Vaughan, Rudder High School and Brazos Valley 15 National for both being named to this exclusive list! Congratulations also Kaitlyn Robinson, Leon High School and Brazos Valley 16 National that was named as Highest Honorable Mention and to Tamaira Armstrong, Rudder High School and 15 National, as she was recognized as Special Mention. This is an outstanding accomplishment by these four players. Please go to Prepvolleyball.com to read additional information about this honor!


text: Cocinas Solares para el Desarrollo Revision as of 00:36, August 1, 2013 by Katjo.Mencanto (Talk | contribs) (diff) ← Older revision | view current revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) 1,799pages on this wiki Edit History Comments0 This article about a non-governmental organization (NGO) is a stub. You can help the Solar Cookers International Network by expanding it. See José Angel Garrido.José Angel Garrido Retrieved from "http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Cocinas_Solares_para_el_Desarrollo?oldid=61811" Categories: NGO Stubs NGOs Spain Bolivia Ecuador Peru


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Is it okay to give my 9 month old cold water?
My sons drinks water from a sippy cup, but on hot days I want to give him something refreshing, not room temperature water. I've heard giving babies cold water is bad but I hear a lot of things that are right and wrong. What do you think? Thanks
Posted: 06/05/2013 by MammaTags
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Don't give her cold water, but cool water should be ok. Cold water could drop her body temperature too much. We've given our daughter cool water since she was 6 months old. Now that she's older we give her water from the fridge & she's fine.posted 06/05/2013 by BethyBeth83
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So here it is. My ALSA Ice Bucket Challenge. I got called out by half of the Chief On Tap crew, Ryan and Shane from Rosati's Pizza. So, since my beer buddies were calling me out, I decided to replace the ice water with ice beer. And thanks to the folks over at Keystone Light, I filled a bucket with beer and Ryan dumped it on my head. Here's the bucket…
And here's the tower of beer cans that went into the bucket.
And now, my Ice Bucket Challenge.
Since you've just watched my challenge, you are officially challenged. You don't have to dump a bucket over your head, just head over to www.alsa.org and donate. Go on. Do it.


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How much water for 8 week old puppy?
Hi all. My 8 week old puppy drinks water like its going out of style and is peeing about 12-14x a day. I have heard that it might be good to slightly restrict her water since she goes frequently. Is this a good idea? I've also heard that your dog should always have access to water. Thanks for any help.
Daisy May's mommy
I do like to leave access, but that doesn't have to mean a full bowl and unlimited drinking. A lot of times, puppies aren't good at knowing how much water they really need. I like to let them choose when to drink, but I'll stand by and when they hunker down and start drinking like it's going out of style, I'll cut them off.
I restrict before bedtime, too. Or slightly before I know I have to crate them for a couple hours b/c I know I'm going out, etc.
"Saber" (Golden Retriever) Born 5/12/12, Adopted April 2014.
Wordsmith's Winsome Warrior
No titles (I'm too lazy now!), but an awesome hiking partner!
"Quiz" (Golden Retriever) 12/31/03 - 3/20/13
U-CD Tanbark's Number Two Pencil, JH, CDX, Can-CD, AX, AXJ, OF, RS-E, JS-E, GS-E, WCDex.
I loved being this dog's partner! Watch him shine!
"Zoie" (Whippet) 9/8/00 - 3/28/14
Donmar-Valair Second Wind, CD, RE, MC, ASCA-CD, Th.D.
#1 AKC Obedience Whippet for 2004 / AKC and ASFA FCH Pointed
Goldens need extra water so that they will have plenty to dribble out of the holes in their lips while they walk away from their water bowl ha ha only kidding!
No, really, my previous golden and one of the ones that I have now were/are heavy drinkers. My lab and my other golden don't drink as much. I guess it depends on the dog. I don't think I would restrict water but that is just me.
Sasha & Hershey (at the bridge) *** Vanilla 5 yrs***Jack 5 yrs***Biscuit 4 yrs***Nash 3 yrs***Sasha #2~~3 yrs
I did it like Stephanie above. I kept the bowl half full so that she never got too much at one time. But at 8 weeks we were going out quite a bit and you've only had her a week or so. So she's probably hasn't learned to hold it yet. Unless the breeder said she should be, I know some say that they have already started housebreaking. But not sure how well that works sounds kind of like potty training a 6 month old baby.
So I think she's probably doing OK and your doing OK too. Give it another week. They change so fast at this age.
Marsha & Tinkerbell
I have never limited water, Putz drinks quite a bit but he plays hard and he too has those holes in his lips that wets EVERYTHING. He loves getting a big drink out of the bathroom sink.
Thanks for the help!
Hi guys. Thanks for the suggestions. We are going to see the vet today so i will ask him. I will post pics of Daisy as soon as i can figure out how to do it!
It's not good to ever limit water intake, keep in mind how much these pups go all day,they are very active so there need for water is there. They do pee alot, that is why you keep watch of them and get them outside constantly during the day so as too housebreak them.
The only time I pulled water was around 8 or 9 that night, they were calm then so the need for water wasn't there, and helps them through the night till the next morning when you have to get them right out to go potty, unless they get you up earlier and need to go.
Taking an 8 week old pup out to do their business 12 or more times a day is pretty normal from my recent go 'round. Pups don't develop any ability at all to "hold it" until they're about 12 weeks of age & then not for very long. Most say that a pup can "hold it" 1 hour for every month of age & I found that to be very much on track.
I didn't think I'd ever sleep again when we brought Ozzy home. We got him at 6-1/2 weeks of age & he went out AT LEAST every hour until he was 8 weeks old, and then at least every 1-1/2 hours until he was 10 weeks. By 11-12 weeks, we were up to every 2 hours ... I thought I had hit paydirt with every extra 1/2 hour of rest.
At night, I limited water by filling his water bowl with 1/2" of water every time I returned from taking him outside to pee until he was about 16 weeks of age. Most wouldn't call that limiting but I found that he rarely would drink his bowl completely dry if there wasn't a full bowl. If it was full, he'd drink more & play in it.
I've house trained lots of dogs but this time was much harder in some respects but we were 100 times more successful. In total, we had 5 pee accidents & no poop accidents in all of Ozzy's potty training. I didn't get much sleep for a long time and was a complete wreck but I was certainly more successful with this plan.
Proudly owned & loved by my rambunctious Goldens, Ozzy, Jagger & Riot!
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Topic: General Gaming / [Cursed Treasure: Don't Touch My Gems!] Has anyone beat level 12, 14, 15 on excellent???
Kinda easy… actually I got all Brilliants a few days after it was released. (but that was on another site… I came back to play it on this site and got the "Hard/ Brilliant" badge in under 5 days (only played for 30 mins a day ;P)
And yea, all you need is to max meteor study, meteor mastery, mana stock, mana pool, than BAM, ninjas dead.
In fact… you don't really need any other "skills" to beat this game…
LOL, I was so bored one time, I just played through the entire game using only 1 type of tower (sure was fun….)
BTW… not sure if anyone answered this before (but I couldn't find an answer)
Is there going to be a "second" series to this game? (or another game like this?, cause it was fun in the beginning, but now that I've master it… it's too easy to play and boring)


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My husband and I are struggling with decision to move away from the area in order for him to pursue a great work opportunity. We would leave behind some family and great friends. We would be near some important family in the new location. There isn't a job locally right now and probability is low that we could find one for him that will be nearly as satisfying. We have 2 young children. Without the young kids I think I could tell myself I would visit often and make it work, enjoying the chance to be close to the other family in the new place, try some new things etc. However I know I won't be able to travel often and easily and I dread leaving behind the wonderful connections and community I have built here. I want my children to have those rich relationships. But I also want my husband to have opportunities for his work, I don't want to be the breadwinner and I think that less than satisfactory work for him won't be good for our whole family in the long run. How have others reconciled the need for job satisfaction, family connections and the conflicts of geography? Anon
My father was in the military, and we lived in a variety of places while I was growing up, and we remain in contact with many of the people to whom we were close, all over the country. Distance is not the only determining factor in friendship. I find a lot of people here assuming that they need to stay in place for a long time, so they and their kids can have friends, and while that is a nice goal, moving around does not make it impossible to have and keep friends. And it sounds like this would be just one move for your family, so not that disruptive, in the big scheme of things. I know it's a hard decision. Good Luck Donna
I'm a single parent of a 4 year old boy and I need some advice! I moved back to the Bay Area about 16 months ago after my husband and I split up because my family lives here and I felt I needed there support. My ex moved to San Diego and my son sees him about once every 4 to 6 weeks for a few days at a time (definitely not enough time). I'll be leaving my job at the end of March and I don't know what to do. I am sick and tired of being a single, full-time working-outside-the-home, parent! I know others do this successfully but I just feel overwhelmed and frantic all of the time. My question is, do I move to the San Diego area so that I can share custody with my ex (we are in agreement on this) so that I can perhaps have some kind of decent, less stressed filled life (and of course the very added benefit that my son will spend time with his dad on a regular basis), or do I stay in the Bay Area so that I can remain close to my family (who help out when they can, though neither of my parents are very interested in being grandparents and my siblings have there own lives)? If I move to SD I could go back to school, then hopefully get a more fulfilling career, but I won't know anyone (and I find it's rather difficult making friends), but if I stay here I'll be stuck in the same relentless rat race that I'm in now. My poor little boy has to bear the brunt of my discontent and the thought of how this is affecting him makes me want to cry!
At the moment, I never have time alone and all I seem to do is run frantically between work, preschool, grocery store, dr's office, etc, etc, etc. I don't have time to exercise, read a book, stare off into space, do anything remotely creative, or just have fun doing goofy stuff with my son. I know this sounds like one big self-indulged pity party but I truly need some advice. What would you do? Just another stressed out mom!
The reason I'm telling you all this is because I want you to know that I understand completely how you're feeling about your lack of support and time to be you, separate from your son. It doesn't mean you're selfish, it just means that you were a person before you had a baby and you still are! I love my daughter more than I can put into words, but I really could use a break from her company from time to time.
Sooooo, even though you moved here because you thought being close to your family would help with being a single parent, it hasn't, right? If you and your ex get along well and agree that you could come up with a joint custody arrangement, it really may be in your and your son's best interest to move. If you're not getting the support or help you need from your parents or siblings, and your son's father wants to be able to be a hands- on dad, then I think that would be wonderful.
I too have a hard time making new friends, but having a child is an excellent ice breaker. You can join a mother's group, gym, church or chat with and get to know the other parents where your son goes to school. Being new in town should bring some offers of a few casseroles and shown around town.
Incidentally, we honeymooned in San Diego and I thought it was someplace I could live. I bet it would feel much less like a rat race and the people would be warmer than we've experienced here. Good luck! Jennifer
Hello, I am hoping that you all can help me in making a really tough decision...
First, some background... My fiance and I have been together for over 10 years and have a 1 1/2-year old son together. We do not currently live together and our relationship has been rocky, to put it lightly (we've been in counseling for over year). However, we have recently gotten engaged so it seems things are moving towards better times. We are planning on getting married next year sometime in the summer. Both of us live in the bay area and I work on campus with a very good position (stable, good pay, benefits for me and my son - especially important in these trying times). My fiance (he's a physician just out of residency), however, has been job hunting and after months of searching, interviewing, and sending out resumes, he finally landed a position on the east coast - a one- year fellowship. Happy for him, not so for me. I am very unsure of what to do and need advice, especially from those of you in similar situations.
After much thinking through this, I've come up with several
Option 1 - I quit my job, move out to be with him. Positives: keep our family intact, our son doesn't experience the separation. Negatives: lose my job, unsure of job market there, no family, no friends around, question stability of our relationship to withstand a year of living together.
Option 2 - I don't quit my job and do not move. We do a long distance thing for year. Positives: keep the job, the stability. Negatives: family is split up, question stability of our relationship to withstand the stress of long distance.
Option 3? - anything I haven't seen yet.
I don't know what to do. I keep thinking if we were married, I would definitely move, but because we are not, I wonder if moving is worth it for me to totally uproot myself (and our son) into a world of uncertainty. Honestly, I don't think I'll be very happy moving to a new place with no job, no family, and no friends, and most likely not very much help from my fiance with our child (being with a doctor is rough; the on-call thing really sucks!). But, how difficult is it to do a long-distance relationship? I feel equally selfish and guilty for not moving since it means separating my son from his dad (they have a great relationship). Would not moving screw that (and him) up? HELP PLEASE! Anonymous Please
From your writing it sounds like you are future thinking about MAYBE being a family. Ask yourself if you are a family right now or not? (Marriage does not a family make.) Life is happening right now. Your son is living and breathing right now. If you don't have clarity about what is happening now you can't begin to make informed decisions about the future. If you are not a family, then whatever is in the way of being a family, inside of you, is the place to focus. Be willing to tell the truth about it, as hurtful as it may seem.
If you are not a family right now, why would you even consider moving. If you are a family, then you and your son's father need to start thinking and behaving like one. And both of you need to ask what is in your son's best interest. Since you are both working parents, another option to consider would be to have Dad take care of the child for all or part of the time you live separately. Your reaction, not Dad's, to this last suggestion may inform you on the family question I posed earlier. anon
When my husband and I got engaged, I had more friends and support in another town which was where we had agreed we would probably move to after my husband passed the exam for his professional license. He had grown up and lived all his life in the same Bay Area town and he gave me the impression that moving would be a grand adventure for him. I took a job which was supposed to be about a 6 month temporary and then , at the end of 6 months,
I started looking at other jobs where I expected we would move to. But my husband didn't pass the licensing exam. We had to wait 6 more months for him to take it over. At that point he was offered a job in town which paid him more than he would have made where I wanted to move. At the time, the salary seemed quite attractive to him. He told me it meant being able to save up more money for the move and to look for a job and a home. Well, 12 years later we are still in the same place as when we were married. We live in a town where still I have no family and very few friends - essentially no support system and my husband is always off doing his own thing. Meanwhile, we have two young children which I take care of while he is out goofing off with one of his college or high school buddies. My only friends are at a job I have had for a few years but it took several years of living here and working in painful situations before I got that job.
My opinion is that you should ask your fiance to try to find a fellowship closer to this state. I know getting a fellowship is not an easy process and this may be one he particularly wants. So if that is the case - let him go for a year but keep your stable job. I woud not uproot myself to go somewhere where I had no support basis, to possibly have to move at the end of the year again either because things didn' work out between you or because he got a residency somewhere else after his fellowship. Where he ultimately winds up will depend upon his specialty and whether he passes the appropriate licensing where he wants to live. If you think you can move there with the hope that you will both come back here and get jobs when he is done and have a hapy home etc. etc. I would think twice because there are too many unknowns in what will happen in his situation in the next couple of years.
You are worried about separating your some from his father, but truthfully, the father will be so busy with fellowship and residency for the next year or so, I wonder just how much time he would have to spend with his son even if he was there with him. It may be hard on you to stay here and take care of your son by yourself, but it sounds like you may be doing that already and it sounds like you have a job and some friends here who can maybe help you occassionally if you need it. If you move you will lose this and I think you will still be a ''single mom'' even if you are livng in the same home as your fiance. anon
I think many bosses at UC are somewhat flexible with taking some time off per family leave act, etc if you explain your dilemma. You could take 4-6 months off and go east and then come back and spend 6 months apart. That way you would keep your job and lessen the amount of separation between you and fiance and son. It's worth checking with you boss to see if s/he would be amenable to that at all. --Just a thought
My second thought is that having a piece of paper that says you are ''married'' should not be the determining factor in helping you make your decision. You have already made a lifetime commitment to each other...having a son together. If you even consider not going with your fiance, my feeling is you are not completely sure you want to spend your life ''together'' otherwise there would be no question.
Ultimately, you have made a choice already. You have a son together, and if he, your fiance, is a good father, and they have a great relationship, as you claim, I don't think (remember, you asked for this advice) you should deprive either one of them of that because of your need for security/stability. Part of making a marriage and/or a family work is making compromises and sacrifices! I would recommend you make the commitment to your fiance AND your son and go---yes, it will be hard...but life is! Think of the reward... anon
And given how rocky your relationship is, I frankly don't think it makes sense for the two of you to even be engaged -- your relationship is so rocky, that you can't even live together NOW! Marriage won't fix a relationship that's not working any more than having a child together fixed it. You really ought to get to the point where you can stand to live together *before* you get engaged! And if, after 10 years of being together, and a year of counseling, you're still not at that point, I think you should take a long hard look at whether or not it makes sense to be in this relationship at all. And just think how much more of a strain it will put on that relationship to move 3000 miles and live together in a new place where you don't know anyone except each other. My advice is, stay put and rethink the engagement! -- anon
I understand why you would go if you were married, but you are not yet and are still going to counselling. And remember that even if you are married you are still an individual. I am only hoping that the counselling is working and that is the reason for you getting engaged. The status of your relationship on paper is pretty irrelevant really. Even if you were married you should still be asking the same questions based on how your relationship has been with your fiancee and your son. The thing in question is the quality of your relationship with your fiancee and with your son.
You say that at the present time you do not live with your fiancee. How does your son deal with this situation already ? If he seems fairly stable it might be that he is now used to that situation and suddenly hurling him into a situation where you are all living together, plus in a strange place, might affect him as much. Also, he is bound to pick up on strains in the relationship between you and your fiancee.
Having said all of this, you might find the new experience a totally energizing one and things may improve in your relationship. My husband and I recently made a similar transition but from a different country and the change has been the best thing that could ever have happened to us. But we needed to escape the stress and move to a more relaxed lifestyle where we spent more quality time together. AND we were both on an even keel - ie. we were both moving for the same reason. I have also moved to a new city and given up a good job etc for a dream job that my husband had wanted to do for years. Immediately the siutation was imbalanced because I didn't really want to go. On top of that, he threw himself into his work and seemed to have very little time for me. This made for a lonely, and painful time and it did cause some serious relationship problems.
It doesn't sound as though the extra time together thing is likely to happen since your fiancee will undoubtedly be working extremely long hours.
Unfortunately you will have to make the decision for both yourself and your son. A year is a short time and maybe the distance will let you both re-assess your need for each other. 10 years is a long time and seems to be the breaking point for a lot of couples. I think it is because people suddenly realise that they have lost their identity. Yet again, sometimes a move can spur you into starting again. It can make you more assertive, more empowered and more enthusiastic about what you want. But it can also cause you to become more introvert. If you are the kind of person who is a go-getter and is very sociable then you might find that a new job, etc will kick you out of the rut you are in. In turn that might give your relationship a whole new energy.
It is hard to tell and only you can make the decision and know what feels right.
Just be wary of what you commit to. If it goes wrong, the worst that will happen is that you will come back here and start again. But, in a year's time your fiancee might decide that he hates it in the East and want to return here.
Have you voiced your concerns to your fiancee ? I think that you MUST do that first. It will be far better being done now than when he has moved and has his head in his job - then there will be no getting through. It seems a little selfish that he went ahead and took the job without consulting you first. Or did you just not voice your concerns from the start ? Whatever you decide, I hope you have luck and sort things out with your fiancee. Remember, if you are miserable then so will your child be since he will be potentially spending more time with you. Good luck Anon
Based on my experience, if I were in your shoes, I would stay here with your son. A long distance relationship is very difficult, and requires much soul-searching. It made me really consider my relationship, and neither of us were sure it would last, but in our case, it got stronger. You sound unsure about the future of your relationship in general. I agree that moving you and your son to an unknown area with no family (except your fiance, who, yes, will be working a lot), no job, etc. would be very difficult and stress- inducing, and I worry that it would cause you to resent your fiance.
If you stayed here, your relationship would be tested fiercely, and the separation may prove to be helpful to you; will the relationship stand the test of time or not? As for your son, hopefully he could see his father often, but even if he can't, I think he's young enough to not remember the separation down the line...and hopefully you will reunite at the end of the year, and their close bond could be reestablished. anonymous
It was very hard on all of us, but we were already married and living together. The kids missed their Dad terribly and I felt quite resentful of my new role as a single mother. It was hardest with my 20 month old because she just didn't understand where Dad had gone and she grieved. I would say that while she certainly loves her Dad today, she never really bonded to him after that experience. Looking back on it I can say that I would do this differently now...emphasizing the importance of family unity over jobs and money.
However, you are not living with your partner now so his absence might not feel quite as acute. Your partner only has a job for a year, then what? Will you all move somewhere else again, or go back to California? I think I would ask some questions of him...does he really have to go? is this such an important career opporunity that it is worth leaving his family for a year?
On the other side, can you take a year's leave of absence from your own job and then return to it? Making plans to return might make a year away an adventure rather than a long-term seperation from friends and family.
If he decides to go and you stay, then I would advise reunions as often as possible.We were able to get together every couple months and that helped. My husband did most of the traveling to see us. We had a difficult time reuniting as a married couple and as a family. I certainly grew up and changed during my time as a single parent.
You have even more pros and cons since you are already feeling uncertain about the relationship. Perhaps the seperation could be a time of figuring out what you both really want...I think I raised more questions than offered advice, but it's a tough one and my heart goes out to you. Good Luck! anonymous
I would like to ask wiser minds out there what they think about what's more important when raising kids: close ties with extended family or the overall culture of the place you raise them in. Let me explain. My husband will be graduating from law school next year and we're trying to decide where we want to finally settle. We have two kids who'll be 6 and 3 when he graduates. Here's the conundrum. I grew up in L.A. and my entire family, with whom I am close, continues to live there. I moved up here in 1983 and until recently, never entertained the idea of moving back down. My entire circle of friends and all my ''social capital'' is here, and I feel completely in my element.
Lately, especially now that my kids are old enough to really be into their grandparents, uncles and cousins, I'm starting to really wrestle with the idea of moving back. My husband and I could both easily get work in LA, and we'd then enjoy all the benefits of having family close by - willing babysitters, lotsa cousins for my kids to grow up with, and the security and connectedness that comes with regular interaction with one's extended family. And heck, even West Hollywood is cheaper than here.
But then I remember what I hated about LA growing up. I don't want to raise my kids in a place where nobody's out on the street, where a pretty face is worth so much more than a sharp mind. Sure, we could live in a funkier, more walkable neighborhood than the one I grew up in, but it would still be LA. I go around and around on this one. Can anyone offer some perspective on this for me' Will I wreck my kids if we move back to LA' Will I be depriving them by staying up here so they only see their grandparents a few times a year' And what about me - will I make new friends and find new daycare, etc. etc.' I'm obsessing about this, obviously. Anyone have words of wisdom for me' Thanks so much, Julie
My impression is that, besides the superior, cheaper bread in Berkeley, you can find everything in LA that you find here. The LA area is as culturally diverse as the Bay Area. There are great restaurants, museums, concerts, lectures, etc. Both areas have similar problems: flight from the public schools, traffic and parking, high housing costs, and many others.
I lived in two different LA area neighborhoods as a child, where kids played together on the street, and the kids on my old block still do. (My parents still live in the house I grew up in.) If you mean people on the street going to restuarants, shopping, etc., there's Melrose, Old Town Pasadena, Santa Monica, to name a few areas. Both here and in LA there are plenty of neighborhoods where there is ''nobody's out on the street.''
The other issues you mention are so personal, it's hard to know. How much will you miss your Bay Area friends compared to how much you will miss your family? If your kids are going to be 3 and 6, you have experienced what raising children here is like. You've know whatever level of babysitting and grandparental visits you get. Depending on the age of your parents, that level will either probably remain constant, or decrease as travel becomes more difficult.
I think as an adult, especially if you have children who take up most of your time outside work, it's harder to make friends than before. This makes keeping your present friends more important. It depends on your personality, and also how many social contacts you have. With so many family members in LA, you might have enough company, and they might make in easier for you to meet other people. It's hard to say.
My parents live in LA. Although they are retired and well enough to travel, they only come up here about 5 times a year, and then only for the weekend; this despite both of their children and all four of their grandchildren living within walking distance here. We go down occasionally, but it's harder because we work. (And my husband doesn't like us to visit because my parents have an unfenced pool, and we have two children under 4.) It makes me sad, when there could be so much more contact if we lived closer.
If I can offer any more insight, feel free to contact me. Karen
My husband and I moved from LA 4 years ago leaving behind family, though joining many friends in the Bay Area. Since moving here and starting our own family, we have been heavily recuiting all family members to move up here.
Short of that working for you, I think growing up amongst family is more important than living in the Bay. Yes, I too enjoy the Bay Area much more than Los Angeles, but like you said there are more desirable parts of LA to live in then say Sherman Oaks or Brentwood. There's a great neighborhood a bit east of the Beverly Center which is located near all parts of LA, I lived on Beverly and Flores for a while and loved it! Some parts of Santa Monica are more laid back, and parts of North Hollywood (yes, the Valley) are fun too. Eventhough I grew up in LA, I grew up alongside all my family and cousins and wouldn't trade that for anything. anonymous
People in the Bay Area love to disparage Los Angeles and presume that there is no intelligent life there. This is pure balderdash. L.A. has a vibrant arts scene, fabulous restaurants, great public radio and some really wonderful neighborhoods in which to live. And sadly, the Bay Area now features many of the same blights that L.A. is renowned for: traffic jams, the astronomical cost of living, and people talking about real estate not social change these days. As someone who attended UC Berkeley over 20 years ago, my impressions are that this area really has NOT changed for the better.
You can create a great life there as well as here, but a relocation of this magnitude takes a few years to bear fruit (aside from what you would gain right away by being close to your family). Two things really helped me to enjoy living in L.A. all those years: live close to work so that the commute is not a killer, and keep your sense of humor about you. I guess the same could be said about living here. Anonymous
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