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RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

GameTraveler — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 23:11:20 GMT

Tytus (8/10/2006)

painangel, abr, and dotK,

Thanks for posting.

Game data and Performance Data is coming. Our beta testers are playing games constantly... in several sets of identical PCs and configurations.

The data is coming, and here is a 'sneak peak'.... but tons more.
http://www.killernic.com/KillerNic/PDFs/KillerSneakPeek.pdf

The data will show which games we improve more over others.

As for how many we sold: none yet: it's only on pre-order. But the pre-order is going strong, and ironically, is avaialbe in LIMITED QUANTITIES... so i am weirdly worried about running out temporarily (manufacturing constraints) before all our friends can get it.

Tytus

Hmmmm,

My only quibble with that sneak peek, would be if the Marvell NIC was on-board or was it a standalone network card? Why? Oranges to oranges, where both are add-in cards.

On-board devices may incur additional CPU cycle penalties since some of the arbitration will go through the south/north bridge chips and may require direct CPU direction. Many on-board NICs may be PCIe, but are not as independent as a stand alone card.... Just a thought....

RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

jeepdave — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 11:33:02 GMT

Hey guys,

Thought I would chime in here. I'm currently one of the beta-testers for Tytus' company. They set me up with two identical PC's and me and some buddies are playing some of the top titles out there...WoW, BF2, Call of Duty 2, just to name a few.

I can tell you that this thing works. The performance improvement differs depending on the title, and often the improvement is a lot. I don't think I can say the exact numbers, as I think Bigfoot has plans to release numbers soon.

I was pretty skeptical until I've I saw it actually work. FRAPS doesn't lie. I'm getting more FPS with the Killer than without, plain and simple. My ping is lower. My games play smoother.

When it is released, I'm buying one. Guess it's up to each person to decide if it's worth it to them, personally.

RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

Tytus — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 10:18:21 GMT

painangel, abr, and dotK,

Thanks for posting.

Game data and Performance Data is coming. Our beta testers are playing games constantly... in several sets of identical PCs and configurations.

The data is coming, and here is a 'sneak peak'.... but tons more is coming.
http://www.killernic.com/KillerNic/PDFs/KillerSneakPeek.pdf

The data will show which games we improve more over others.

As for how many we sold: none yet: it's only on pre-order. But the pre-order is going strong, and ironically, is avaialbe in LIMITED QUANTITIES... so i am weirdly worried about running out temporarily (manufacturing constraints) before all our friends can get it.

Tytus

RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

dotK — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 09:24:33 GMT

When can we expect to see benchmarks of it? When it's officially released?

RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

abr — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 08:56:17 GMT

How many have you actually sold?

RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

painangel — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 08:24:51 GMT

You mention that your product will only work at its best in certain games. Specifically games that have poor coding in terms of socket ussage.

I would like to know which games you've found that experience this problem and some measurement of the improvement you've gained from those games.

RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

Tytus — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 05:58:29 GMT

[quote]rogue_jedi I just think you'd gain so much more from getting better internet, using a different game server, defragging your hard drive, and buying a better router than spending $280 on an ethernet card. Actually, I think that most effective across-the-board upgrade you could get would be better internet. Different game server might help, but the bottom line is that a slight improvement on your end is nothing compared to that you can gain from a better internet connection. [/qoute]

rogue_jedi: you are wise my friend. but you will also be SHOCKED at the improvements that Killer can provide (depending on the game of course). Again, we are literally bypassing windows here: making the hardware device literally hardware interrupt your game... directly... it's absolutely the fastest way to get data from a NIC to the game: and what is wild, is how some games will Ask for data either a.) constantly (wasting CPU time), or b.) at LONG intervals, such that if data is 'missed' when it asks for data, you get a lag spike. We see this in testing all the time: and my testers routinely 'feel' like it's better (as well as getting performance data proving it).

To your point: Better Internet is always a good investment: but in many many cases: people already have the best.

And if you're not defragging your hard drive regularly, you might not be a hard-core gamer (although i know you do/and are).

Tytus

RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

Tytus — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 05:50:02 GMT

at what point will the KNic surpass the SysKonnect PCIe x1 server NIC and by how much?

I will do my best to try to make that analysis for you!

RE: PCI vs PCI-E: again, the only difference I will concede is if your motherboard doesn't have any available PCI slots.... but many people don't have any available PCI-E slots (it's a wash).

While the theoretical throughput advantage of PCI-E over PCI are valid: Gaming IS NOT ABOUT THROUGHPUT! It's about latency... and the worst-case latency of a many device PCI bus (e.g. lots of devices like sound, physics, etc.) is going to be in the LOW 10us range... (which is in the noise compared to the benefits of BYPASSING the Windows stack completely!).

So, in my opinion GameTraveler, your system is ripe for a Killer NIC (if you have an available PCI slot).

How MUCH better it will be over your SysKonnect, and if it's worth it (money-wise) to you: I don't know... but you will be shocked when performance numbers are released.

Bear in mind, we are comparing it to PCI-E NICs as well as PCI NICs, and even some supposed 'packet prioritizing' NICs.... and we are just lightyears ahead!

Tytus

RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

rogue_jedi — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 21:21:52 GMT

Tytus (8/9/2006)

p.s. final note: Nearly EVERY LAN ON MOTHERBOARD NIC, is a PCI nic... (you just don't see the PCI slot... it's wired on the motherboard instead).

No, I realize that. Still, there are boards where it is NOT a PCI NIC, and those are the ones I was talking about.

I just think you'd gain so much more from getting better internet, using a different game server, defragging your hard drive, and buying a better router than spending $280 on an ethernet card.

Actually, I think that most effective across-the-board upgrade you could get would be better internet. Different game server might help, but the bottom line is that a slight improvement on your end is nothing compared to what you can gain from a better internet connection.

RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

GameTraveler — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:15:45 GMT

Tytus (8/9/2006)

Just realized I didn't answer your question about "adding latency with PCI".

First, we have tested Killer versus supposed PCI-E NICs. The results are we are better, in many many metrics.

There are a lot of reasons:
1.) PCI-E NIC designs often use main system memory for their buffering (ick)!!!
2.) PCI-E and PCI are usually VERY equivelant in Latency. In fact, PCI can often be better.... both heartily depend on the number and type of devices on the shared bus.
2.b.) IN OUR LAB: we never see PCI latencies of more than 10us. And it is usually more like 1 or 2us. (not anywhere near ms). The gains from bypassing Windows Stack, and using Linux stack are FAR greater than 1 or 2us.
3.) Believe it or not, usually PCI-E is actually shared with your video card... it may not seem like it... becuase PCI-E is point-to-point... but many northbridge designs actually use a PCI-E HUB, and multiplex any 1-X PCI-E interfaces with the 16x PCI-E interface to your graphics cards!!! (PCI-E was designed this way)... that means YOU COULD BE WAITING FOR YOUR GRAPHICS CARD in PCI-E designs before you get PCI-E bus for your NIC traffic....

Of course, PCI is also waiting for your graphics card in a lot of ways... but my point is PCI is no worse than PCI-E in real-world testing. And in many configurations PCI is actually better.

As for adding ms of latency, quite the opposite. PCI is not capable of adding that much delay as it's arbitration mechanism would never permit it (REQ/GNT are used in mastering modes)... the worst case latency per packet is on the order of 0.5us per PCI device on the bus... so even a PCI bus with like 5 devices you are down in the noise, compared to what Killer is designed to do: which is offload the Network Stack: and implement it in a low-latency hardware interrupting schema.

Hope this helps!

Tytus

p.s. final note: Nearly EVERY LAN ON MOTHERBOARD NIC, is a PCI nic... (you just don't see the PCI slot... it's wired on the motherboard instead).

Hmmm, PCI-E is point-to-point, although I'm not quite sure the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe board I have is quite that way. Your white paper emphasizes the specific of unshared PCI--which would mean that there would be nothing else but the KNic on the PCI bus.

So, for the extreme gamer in me--where my RAID card starts with 256 MB of ECC memory and with plans for 1 GB of memory in an upgrade later; where two Gigabyte iRAM cards sit in the closet waiting to be placed into a RAID 0 on my Areca SATA controller; When I have to possibly reconfigure my 4 Raptors from dual RAID 0 to a single RAID 0 across all 4 drives (it's fast enough that the windows boot screen doesn't even scroll the blue bar across the screen, it just flickers for a second and boots to the desktop); where my 7950GX2 sits in the other slot; against an Opteron 170 which is mildly overclocked to 2.6 Ghz; and the only devices in use from the motherboard are the USB ports, but only a single port from 1 of 3 possible USB controllers (so my mouse and keyboard are on seperate USB controllers)--at what point will the KNic surpass the SysKonnect PCIe x1 server NIC and by how much?

True, I asked this one already, but you've said the KNic is for the gamer looking for the "Edge", the singular holy grail that sets a hardware configuration apart from all others as 'top of the heap'; and is the point that only a person's skill can bring the victory home.

I think I fall into that category, looking for all ways to hone my weapon of mass destruction on the virtual playing fields. At idle, since there are no on-board devices in use, the most I'll see is 3% usage because of the task manager. During the heat of the battle, there may be spikes of usage, but 20% is a steady average.

(Apologies for all for tooting my horn above, but I take a different direction to building my own box, where it isn't graphics heavy nor storage heavy, but rather a balance somewhere in between far and above what you'll see in *anyone* else's box; I know I could run Quad Sli, but that does me no good if my LCD or CRT can't keep up...that's a waste of power; And I could do water cooling and so many other esoteric designs, but the diminishing returns aren't worth it yet).

And while I'm asking for the comparison again, it would be nice if you added a PCIe variant as well, in addition to the PCI version--and not through a PCIe-to-PCI bridge chip either...that combination sucks.

RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

Tytus — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 17:49:47 GMT

RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

Tytus — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 17:37:27 GMT

rogue_jedi! Welcome to EndLagNow!!! I hope you will find this useful for more than just the discussion on Killer.

You are posing some very good questions: and your skepticism is applauded.

Dual Core ROCKS! The performance results coming out for computers with the latest Dual Core technology is fantastic. I heartily encourage hardcore gamers to consider Dual Core with their next Motherboard.

But realize, that Killer works great with Dual Core as well...

why? Dual core does nothing for the ineffeciency of the MS stack, nor does it somehow magically implement a hardware network stack that interrupts directly to the game space... (these things can't be done with any software).

In general, our customers will be HAPPY to get Dual Core AND Killer... which they get first is up to them!

Another point about Dual Core: it requires that the applications use multi-threaded designs to be fully effective. Not all games do this.

In our testing: even games that do use multithreaded designs see great benefits with Killer.

Tytus

RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

rogue_jedi — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 16:41:14 GMT

See, the problem with the power supply thing you mention is that power supplies are actually *worth* the money. The Supermicro H8DCE, for example, is only stable with a $500 power supply - Dual opteron with SLI and other goodies - simply because it stresses the power supply that much. There are other reasons to buy an expensive power supply - at least because the power supply (as many fail to realize) is THE key component for a stable system.

You put quite a lot of emphasis on the importance of offloading the UDP stack - wouldn't simply using a dual core chip improve this as well as game performance in general (by allowing background applications to run on the second core and freeing more of a CPU for the game)? And also improve every aspect of your computing experience at the same time?

And have you considered the lag introduced inbetween the CPU and the NIC because you place the NIC on the PCI bus instead of the chipset? That could cost you a millisecond or two there. Maybe *gasp* three!

If you hadn't guessed I am... a tad... sceptical about the claims you make for a network card.

RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

Tytus — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 10:21:44 GMT

3ms was not my example: Killer can shave more than 3ms off in many games... (it does vary by game).

The reason is that many games use ineffecient Socket Calls or do weird things with Windows Sockets: that can easily add more latency than 3ms. We've implemented our own Sockets and bypass windows: and fix all the games (underneath) that do weird stuff with socket calls. This can yield even BETTER than 3ms ping improvements.

But, for my part: I've played games where my ping was 3ms better: and it did seem to help. Particularly so (and our Beta testers agree) when the action gets heavy, and you see the guy coming around the corner a split second before the other guy.

As for the $300.... again, we wouldn't recommend the Killer upgrade until you've already got a decent system: then it's up to you if you want to spend $279.99 or not... I've seen people spend way more on power supplies (seriously).

As for me: I like playing with less Lag. I like running little Linux utilities on my Killer NIC... and writing them too... I like having the LOWEST PING I CAN DO ANYTHING ABOUT!

When LAG IS NOT ON THE CLIENT SIDE!!! Is a great question!!!!! WELL SAID!

I wish, wish, wish, we could fix the servers too... so much so that nearly ALL the revenues we have coming in are going towards our next technology (not necessarily a product). It is a server technology (and may later have some synergies with Killer NIC [or may not]). So I agree, I can't fix the servers. I CAN give you the best network card ever designed for games.

If you don't want it (or think it's too expensive): believe me, I understand that!

And I also understand your frustration with Lag! LAG SUX!

If you don't buy a card: I encourage you to stay on at EndLagNow.ORG... and keep griping for more and more technology to fight Lag. Killer is not the end of Lag: but it is a step in acknowledging it's importance!

Thanks for posting: hope this helps,
Tytus

RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

Elios — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 10:13:27 GMT

ok great you now are out 300 bucks have shaved 3ms off your ping
just to let you know i game ALOT and 15ms vs. 30ms i would never know unless i looked
actuly i cant tell till it gets in to the 100ms+

tell me how this thing is going to help me not lag when the lag not on the client side(read MMOs)

or if theres messed up router some were
what if the guy down the hall at school is running BT for bore

there ALOT things that add to lag that the client cant do any thing about and as said the NIC is not the weak link

also as siad lets see real pics of this thing not CG other wise almost ALL of the real hardware guys are going to lump you in with Phantom

also does this NIC even do Gigabit?

and one last note my nic i have right now gets me <1ms pings to my gateway
after the gateway any lag i get is totaly out my control
what is this NIC doing that makes it have lower pings when the packets have been sent to router

all this can do help with LANs it WILL do nothing internet game ill bet money on that

as to FPS dual core so what if my nic use 1% of my PC it tops out at 67% useage on most games any way

RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

Tytus — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:40:16 GMT

Forgot to mention: there are tons of threads here at ELN, where we and other ELN members routinely recommend more memory, better graphics cards, etc....

often ahead of getting a Killer NIC...

So to a point: i agree with you. But for gamers who already have at least a Gig of RAM and a Decent Graphics card (see our system requirements)... then Killer is the next logical step.

We are always the first to say that a user needs to upgrade their other components first...when it is warranted.

so, good point there: a gamer with 512MB of ram, should probably upgrade RAM first, Killer second!

Tytus

RE: Convince me to buy this NIC

Tytus — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:37:17 GMT

dotK,

Thanks for joining the ELN boards. And Thank you for your questions about Killer.

I'm not sure I can convince you to buy Killer just yet... And that is okay: it may not be for you.

Why? Killer was designed for people who would LOVE to have 17ms Ping versus 20ms...

Killer was designed for people who want MORE FPS, especially in heavy action scenes with lots of networking going on.

And FPS and Ping (Latency) are big contributers to Lag.

What I can say is that running programs while gaming is a sure way to Lag. One of the main features of Killer is FNA: which allows Linux applications (like linux versions of VOIP, etc.) to run on the Killer instead of on your CPU. In my experience, and a lot of other ELN members, this would have a dramatic improvement effect.

Hope this helps,
Tytus

P.S. RE: the rendered image... real images will be posted soon!

Convince me to buy this NIC

dotK — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:16:19 GMT

I'm a bit skeptical about the actual performance of this NIC. Actual reviews may or may not change this, but at the present I don't think anyone has reviewed it.

I can play on game servers in my local area and get a 10 - 20 ms ping, sometimes dropping into the single digits. Now, just by the fact that my ping is so low there appears to be very, very little room for your NIC to actually do much. I would venture to guess that a 1 to 3 ms reduction in latency would be the best that it could actually do. I'm sorry to say it, but that's not worth nearly $300. If I play on servers elsewhere in the country where my ping is in the 40-80 ms range or so, shaving a few milliseconds off that is not going to produce meaningful results.

I can run various applications that utilize my internet connection at the same time while gaming with no adverse effects. I will frequently run Skype while gaming in order to chat with people and have some download going in the background. This has no impact on my ping. My CPU is not even that great (A64 3500+ @ 2.6 GHz) and it seems to be more than able to handle to handle this. With new blazing fast multi-core CPUs coming out (and already out), it seems that a little bit of CPU utilization on the part of some file sharing application will be irrelevant (as it already is if you have a decent system). Also, with hardware soon to offload physics calculation to dedicated solutions, there are going to be very powerful CPUs sitting around just not doing very much.

Generally speaking, the whole lag issue is mainly a thing of the past. Broadband has brought it down to acceptable levels and I rarely hear people complain about lag and most people that do have no idea what lag is. They attribute their sub-par PCs not being able to run games well to lag. In reality, it's more likely that they don't have enough memory, have tons of background processes running, or things of that nature. When true network problems do occur, they are usually well outside of the scope of a NIC to be able to fix. If some router at some NOC is on the fritz, which is when you'll see real lag issues, there is nothing you can do to fix it.

Maybe I just haven't been able to find it, but I can only seem to find 3D renders of your product. Is there some place we can see the actual product?

So basically, as I see it:
- Modern CPUs seem to have no problem dealing with the chores your NIC claims to offload and very fast multicore CPUs are available with many more on the horizon
- The amount of lag reduction seems like it would be rather small and while it may have numerical significance (i.e. my ping was reduced by X), I somehow doubt if it will change the actual gameplay