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Frame Rating Dissected: Full Details on Capture-based Graphics Performance Testing
How Games Work
Because of the complexity and sheer amount of data we have gathered using our Frame Rating performance methodology, we are breaking it up into several articles that each feature different GPU comparisons. Here is the schedule:
- 3/27: Frame Rating Dissected: Full Details on Capture-based Graphics Performance Testing
- 3/27: Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition vs GeForce GTX 680 (Single and Dual GPU)
- 3/30: AMD Radeon HD 7990 vs GeForce GTX 690 vs GeForce GTX Titan
- 4/2: Radeon HD 7950 vs GeForce GTX 660 Ti (Single and Dual GPU)
- 4/5: Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition vs GeForce GTX 660 (Single and Dual GPU)
- 4/16: Frame Rating: Visual Effects of Vsync on Gaming Animation
The process of testing games and graphics has been evolving even longer than I have been a part of the industry: 14+ years at this point. That transformation in benchmarking has been accelerating for the last 12 months. Typical benchmarks test some hardware against some software and look at the average frame rate which can be achieved. While access to frame time has been around for nearly the full life of FRAPS, it took an article from Scott Wasson at the Tech Report to really get the ball moving and investigate how each frame contributes to the actual user experience. I immediately began research into testing actual performance perceived by the user, including the "microstutter" reported by many in PC gaming, and pondered how we might be able to test for this criteria even more accurately.
The result of that research is being fully unveiled today in what we are calling Frame Rating – a completely new way of measuring and validating gaming performance.
The release of this story for me is like the final stop on a journey that has lasted nearly a complete calendar year. I began to release bits and pieces of this methodology starting on January 3rd with a video and short article that described our capture hardware and the benefits that directly capturing the output from a graphics card would bring to GPU evaluation. After returning from CES later in January, I posted another short video and article that showcased some of the captured video and stepping through a recorded file frame by frame to show readers how capture could help us detect and measure stutter and frame time variance.
Finally, during the launch of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan graphics card, I released the first results from our Frame Rating system and discussed how certain card combinations, in this case CrossFire against SLI, could drastically differ in perceived frame rates and performance while giving very similar average frame rates. This article got a lot more attention than the previous entries and that was expected – this method doesn't attempt to dismiss other testing options but it is going to be pretty disruptive. I think the remainder of this article will prove that.
Today we are finally giving you all the details on Frame Rating; how we do it, what we learned and how you should interpret the results that we are providing. I warn you up front though that this is not an easy discussion and while I am doing my best to explain things completely, there are going to be more questions going forward and I want to see them all! There is still much to do regarding graphics performance testing, even after Frame Rating becomes more common. We feel that the continued dialogue with readers, game developers and hardware designers is necessary to get it right.
Below is our full video that features the Frame Rating process, some example results and some discussion on what it all means going forward. I encourage everyone to watch it but you will definitely need the written portion here to fully understand this transition in testing methods. Subscribe to your YouTube channel if you haven't already!
Continue reading our analysis of the new Frame Rating performance testing methodology!!
How Games Work
Before we dive into why I feel that our new Frame Rating testing method is the best for the gamer, there is some necessary background information that you must understand. While we all play games on a near daily basis, most of us don't fully grasp the complexity and detail that goes into producing an image that makes its way from code a developer writes to the pixels on your monitor. The below diagram attempts to simplify the entire process from the game engine to the display.
In the image above we have defined a few important variables based on time that will help us explain graphics anomalies. The first is t_game and it refers the internal time that the game engine is using to keep track of its internal simulations and interactions. This is where processes like the physics simulations, user interface, artificial intelligence and more are handled. Different game engines keep time in different ways, but they usually fall into two categories: fixed or variable time steps. In a fixed time method the game engine cycles the environment in its internal simulation on a regular, fixed iteration. This is more predictable but it also forces other systems to sync up to it (drivers, GPU rendering) which may cause some issues. The variable time step method allows a lot more flexibility, but it can be more complicated for developers to maintain a fluid feeling simulation because of simply not knowing when the next simulation update will take place.
Following that is t_present, the point at which the game engine and graphics card communicate to say that they are ready to pass information for the next frame to be rendered and displayed. What is important about this time location is that this is where FRAPS gets its time stamps and data and also where the overlay that we use for our Frame Rating method is inserted. What you should notice right away though is that there is quite a bit more work that occurs AFTER the t_present command is sent and before the user actually sees any result. This in particular is where capture method's advantages stem from.
After DirectX calls the game engine to recieve its time, the graphics driver gets its hands on it for the first time. The driver maps the DX calls to its own specific hardware and then starts the rendering process on a GPU. Once the frame is rendered, we will define another variable, t_render, which is reported when the image is ready to be sent to a display. Finally, t_display will be defined as the time in which data from the frame is on the display, whether that be a complete frame (Vsync enabled for example) or a partial frame.
You can likely already see where the differences between FRAPS data measurement and Frame Rating measurement start to develop. Using capture hardware and analysis tools that we'll detail later, we are recording the output from the graphics card directly as if it were a monitor. We are essentially measuring frames at the t_display level rather than the t_present point, giving us data that has been filtered through the entire game engine, DirectX, driver, rendering and display process.
It is also useful to discuss stutter and how it relates to these time definitions. Despite some readers opinions, stutter in game play is related to the smoothness of animation and not hard wired to low frame rate. If you have a steady frame rate of 25 FPS you can still have an enjoyable experience (as evident by the 24 FPS movies we all watch at the theater). Instead, we should view stutter as a variance level between t_game and t_display; if the total display time runs at 50ms (20 FPS) you won't have stuttering in animation (in most cases) but if total display time shifts between 20ms and 50ms you definitely will.
In our second video on Frame Rating, we looked at a capture from Dishonored in a frame by frame analysis and saw a rather large stutter. I think a better term for that is a hitch, a large single frame rate issue that isn't indicative of a microstutter smoothness problem. Using the above variables, a hitch would be a single large instance of t_game – t_display. As you'll see in our results analysis pages (including games like Skyrim) this happens fairly often, even in some games that are smooth otherwise.
Our 2nd video on Frame Rating from a couple months ago...
There is also a completely different discussion on the advantages and differences of capturing data from FRAPS versus capturing data with our Frame Rating methodology. I believe that the advantages of hardware capture outweigh the concerns currently, but in reality the data that FRAPS generates isn't that important, it just happens to be the closest data point to another metric we would love to know more about: game time.
Game time is the internal game clock that the software engine uses to keep track of the physical world. This clock could be based on a fixed time span for each tick or it could be variable or timed off of another source (like the OS or GPU driver). An Intel GPU engineer, Andrew Lauritzen, recently made a great post over on the Beyond3D.com forums about game time, back pressure on the game pipeline and much more. Here is a short portion of that post, but I would encourage everyone to read the entirety completely:
1) Smooth motion is achieved by having a consistent throughput of frames all the way from the game to the display.
2) Games measure the throughput of the pipeline via timing the back-pressure on the submission queue. The number they use to update their simulations is effectively what FRAPS measures as well.
3) A spike anywhere in the pipeline will cause the game to adjust the simulation time, which is pretty much guaranteed to produce jittery output. This is true even if frame delivery to the display (i.e. rendering pipeline output) remains buffered and consistent. i.e. it is never okay to see spikey output in frame latency graphs.
4) The converse is actually not true: seeing smooth FRAPS numbers does not guarantee you will see smooth display, as the pipeline could be producing output to the display at jittery intervals even if the input is consistent. This is far less likely though since GPUs typically do relatively simple, predictable work.
Clearly the best case for evaluating overall gaming performance will be to have access to the internal game and measure it in comparison the output from Frame Rating, the actual frames on your display. Differences there could be analyzed to find exact bottlenecks in the pipeline from game code to display. The problem is no game engine developers allow access to the information currently and the number of different engines in use today makes it difficult for even the likes of NVIDIA and AMD to gather data reliably. There is opportunity for change here if an API were to exist (in DirectX for example) that would give all game engines reliable time iterations that we would then have access to.
NVIDIA's Involvement
You may notice that there is a lot of "my" and "our" in this story while also seeing similar results from other websites being released today. While we have done more than a year's worth of the testing and development on our own tools to help expedite a lot of this time consuming testing, some of the code base and applications were developed with NVIDIA and thus were distributed to other editors recently.
NVIDIA was responsible for developing the color overlay that sits between the game and DirectX (in the same location of the pipeline as FRAPS essentially) as well as the software extractor that reads the captured video file to generate raw information about the lengths of those bars in an XLS file. Obviously, NVIDIA has a lot to gain from this particular testing methodology: its SLI technology looks much better than AMD's CrossFire when viewed in this light, highlighting the advantages that SLI's hardware frame metering bring to the table.
The next question from our readers should then be: are there questions about the programs used for this purpose? After having access to the source code and applications for more than 12 months I can only say that I have parsed through it all innumerable times and I have found nothing that NVIDIA has done that is disingenuous. Even better, we are going to be sharing all of our code from the Perl-based parsing scripts (that generate the data in the graphs you'll see later from the source XLS file) as well as a couple of examples of the output XLS files.
Not only do we NEED to have these tools vetted by other editors, but we also depend on the community to keep us on our toes as well. When we originally talked with NVIDIA about this project the mindset from the beginning was merely to get the ball rolling and let the open source community and enthusiast gamers look at every aspect of the performance measurement. That is still the goal – with only one minor exception: NVIDIA doesn't want the source code of the overlay to leak out simply because of some potential patent/liability concerns. Instead, we are hoping to have ANOTHER application built to act as the overlay; it may be something that Beepa and the FRAPS team can help us with.
Video News
Hey Ryan, is the variable "t_ready" that the text refers to "t_present" in the diagram two paragraphs above?
Yes, fixed, thanks.
I was just wondering.. since the capture and analysis system relies on the left bar only, why doesn't it trunckate the rendered frame it self and keep only 1-3 pixels from the left side of the frame?
For some tests if you want to show off the specific "runts" "stutters" then you can keep it the entire frame captured.
But for most tests, you can record only the left colour bar and do analysis on that bar only, therefore you will not have to save the 600GB per second of uncompressed frames.
Just a thought.
We have that option (notice the crop capture option in our software) but we often like to reference recorded video down the road.
If you write a piece of software with that "colored" portion only in mind you dont need any of the additional hardware and any user could use it just like Fraps.
LOL - AMD you are soooo freaking BUSTED !
Runt frames and zero time ghost frames is an AMD specialty.
AMD is 33% slower than nVidia, so amd pumped in ghosts and runts !!
Their crossfire BF3 is a HUGE CHEAT.
ROFL - man there are going to be some really pissed off amd owners whose $1,000 dual gpu frame rate purchases have here been exposed as LIES.
Shame on you amd, runts and ghosts, and all those fanboys screaming bang for the buck ... little did they know it was all a big fat lie.
Run the benchmarks like any sane gamer would do so!
Running v-sync disabled benches with 60+ fps is dumb!
Running v-sync enabled benches with 60- fps is way more dumb!
Don't forget that V-sync also sometimes fucks shit up.
The best solution is to limit the frames on the game end, or using a 3rd party frame limiter.
And sometimes disabling it fucks physics like in Skyrim.
Your point?
Read the whole article before commenting- there is an entire page that focuses on your argument (surprise- you're not the first to suggest this!!)
And if you have actually watched one of his streams, you'd have seen that he INDEED IS doing it "wrong".
When he was testing Tomb Raider, the card was artifacting and flickering and shimmering. It was complete and totally obvious that he didn't know what he's doing.
To the guy who says "you're doing it wrong".
Not true. He's doing it right. Many hardcore gamers run v-sync disabled over 60 fps, and only a few of the scenarios tested are consistently over 60fps.
And read the story to see the OBSERVED FPS is much less in many cases, not just the FRAPs FPS (which does not give proper info at the end of the pipeline (at the display) what users actually see).
There's absolutely nothing "hardcore" about running an old ass game at 1000 FPS with a modern card.
All it does is to waste resources and make the card work at it's hardest for no reason. It's no different than swapping a gear at a say, maximum, 6500 RPM on a car that revs 7000 per gear. You should keep it lower so that the hardware doesn't get excessively get stressed.
If the card is obviously way beyond the generation of the game you're playing, then you're best off, if possible, LIMITING frames/putting a frame lock on your end.
Vsync does cause a ton of other issues including input latency.
You've said this already in both the article and comments but you only talked about input latency.
What are those other issues?
It makes the entire game laggy an unplayable depending on condition.
You can read up over that TweakGuides guy's site on Vsync.
Some pretty fascinating implications about the entire game/rendering pipeline. There are so many problems throughout, and the tradeoffs tend to impact each other in varyingly negative ways. Seems like frames are essentially our biggest issue, but how do you get around that? I had previously theorized that per pixel change in an asynchronous manner would solve a lot of these issues, but the performance needed for such a procedure is insane. Essentially it becomes a massive particle model with a robust physics engine being the base of changes (movement, creation, destruction, etc.).
research voxels... the technology exists but is pretty far off.
Regarding per-pixel-updates: Check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pXZ33YoKu9w
It's obvious the result must be delivered in frames (no way around it with current monitor technology), but the engine in the vid clearly works differently from the usual by just putting the newly calculated pixels into the framebuffer that are ready by the time.
Due to many frames being forced to wait for the next vertical retrace mode, while others do not, it will result in some time metering issues. This can result in a form of stuttering.
hardcore gamer here play BF3 v-sync ON!
1. My monitor (as 90% of us) is 60hz!
don't need the extra stress/heat/electric juice on card/system.
2. Fed up with frame tearing every time i turn around.
With regards to the Nvidia settings of v-sync, it seems that Addaptive (half refresh rate) was selected capping it at 30fps vs Addaptive which would cap at 60fps.
Was that on purpose?
I'm still interested to see what type of results you come up with when using amd crossfire with a program like afterburner's riva tuner to limit the fps to 60, which would seems to be everyone's preference for this situation.
I think you'll find the same problems that crop up with Vsync enabled.
I have to admit observed FPS graphs are DAMNING to AMD, and I own 2 7970s and 7950s so I'm not remotely biased against them in any way. One thing i did notice is that dropped frames don't effect every game so hopefully this is something AMD may be able to potentially mitigate through driver tweaks.
I have to admit, crysis 3 can be a sloppy affair in AMD crossfire and now I can see exactly what I'm experiencing without trying to make guesswork out of it.
Regardless, the bottom line EVERYONE should take away from this, is that crossfire DOES NOT function as intended whatsoever, and we can now actually say AMD is deceptive in their marketing as well, this is taken directly from AMD's website advertising crossfire:
"Tired of dropping frames instead of opponents? Find a CrossFire™-certified graphics configuration that's right for you."
They have built their business on a faulty product and every crossfire owner should speak up so that AMD makes the changes they have control over to FIX a BROKEN system.
Just think how bad a X1900 CrossFire Edition setup would do here... I think Ryan should dig up those cards and test them!
I wonder if that one of the reasons why AMD never really released the 7990,
also if this was already a obvious problem with the 3870 X2...
or the previous gens card, like HD5000, 6000.
anyway, is there any input lag difference from NV to AMD (SLI-CF) without vsync?
also I would be curious to see some CPU comparison.
I had both a dual 3870 and a dual 2900 setup, both were more or less the same thing.
Both has driven a CRT at 160HZ for Cube and both were silk smooth.
This is a recent issue. It has nothing to do with cards of that age. The major problem with those old cards was the lack of CrossFire application profiles. Before the beginning of 2010, you had absolutely no application profiles like you have with nVidia. So CF either worked or you had to change the game ".exe" names, which either worked or, made the game mess up or just kick you out of Steam servers due to VAC.
I agree. I have 2x 6970 and the Crossfire results here are just embarrassing for AMD. It clearly don't work well and i've noticed myself with certain games, because you don't need graphs and stuff, as often you can see it with your own eyes. It's just BAD.
I used to build hundreds of PC's with both Nvidia and AMD, and from that experience i also noticed that 1) NV's drivers are generally better and less problematic and 2) Crossfire don't work as well as SLI.
The only reason i use AMD is for image quality. Not 3D/gaming stuff but general image output on the desktop. Colours and whites look better and more intense with AMD cards on my high-end monitors (but without being saturated), and no amount of tweaking on NV hardware will get this stuff to look as good. I've tried it with multiply different monitors and AMD just looks better. NV hardware is washed out in comparison. Most people wont be able to tell the difference and you need a good IPS diplay to properly notice but it's always bothered me because i'm a graphics designer and image quality freak. If NV sort this out i'll switch to them instantly.
I agree. I have 2x 6970 and the Crossfire results here are just embarrassing for AMD. It clearly don't work well and i've noticed myself with certain games, because you don't need graphs and stuff, as often you can see it with your own eyes. It's just BAD.
I used to build hundreds of PC's with both Nvidia and AMD, and from that experience i also noticed that 1) NV's drivers are generally better and less problematic and 2) Crossfire don't work as well as SLI.
The only reason i use AMD is for image quality. Not 3D/gaming stuff but general image output on the desktop. Colours and whites look better and more intense with AMD cards on my high-end monitors (but without being saturated), and no amount of tweaking on NV hardware will get this stuff to look as good. I've tried it with multiply different monitors and AMD just looks better. NV hardware is washed out in comparison. Most people wont be able to tell the difference and you need a good IPS diplay to properly notice but it's always bothered me because i'm a graphics designer and image quality freak. If NV sort this out i'll switch to them instantly.
Dont know if you read the patch notes for Radeon, But they stated that they have improved crysis 3 and more performance with their latest releases AND that they are working on GREATLY increasing CROSSFIRE performance. Keep an eye open PCPER!
lol - it's just amazing isn't it. We'll have the same excuse the politicians always give us...
" "Tired of dropping frames instead of opponents? Find a CrossFire™-certified graphics configuration that's right for you."
" We had no idea!!!! "
I want to know how many YEARS this has been going on.
These tools need to be used on 3870 Cf on up - 4850 4870 5850 5860 6850 6870 6950 6970 and so on....
So for many years we have been fed a complete freaking lie across the board, and from every "scientific unbiased tester website"....
Just wow. If there are conspiracy theorists here, you missed this one, because right now full blown conspiracy (if amd seemed it knew what it was and is doing) would be the conclusion. (instead amd marketing lies and incompetence and pure luck at the massive cover up over many years looks correct)
I also have to say, PALMFACE !
This also SHAMES EVERY REVIEW SITE OUT THERE. lol How stupid they have been - they should have spent far less time attacking nVidia looking and hunting for every tiny chink in their armor they could dream up and squared off at AMD since these COMPLAINTS about Crossfire have been present since DAY ONE.
Just think, all those reviewers, all those tests, all those years, and complete obliviousness till now... and a CONSTANT HAMMERING on people like me who tried in vain to point out the CF issues.
"it's your imagination"
"you're crazy"
"nVidia shill"
"paid operative"
"I don't see anything wrong ! "
Just W O W.
You're a moron and have some real issues.
I ran that HD 2900 CF setup up to 200 HZ and haven't had a SINGLE frametime issue with it.
I was playing Cube on it at 160 HZ on a Diamondtron SB2070 and it didn't skip a SINGLE beat.
LOL - a single example, untested, swears the amd fanboy, on an obsolete hd2900 said to be the most terrible hd flagship even by amd fanboys, and one game, from the historical mind of the fanboy....
R O F L - and you call me names.
No, we need the entire lineup of amd tested for the YEARS their scam has existed.
I feel a MASSIVE VINDICATION coming.
BTW - hold onto your undies feller, AS THIS SOFTWARE FCAT WITH THE COLOR BANDS IS BEING RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC FIRST ON MSI AFTERBURNER ON MONDAY AND THEN ON EVGA PRESICION X LATER IN THE WEEK !
ROFL - The truth is coming amd fan. NOTHING will stop it now.
I bought those 2900's because they were fucking cheap as hell because I bought them SECOND HAND and had a couple of PULSE Digital PWM's and 512-bit bus with a ton of memory bandwidth and HDCP onboard.
How many words in that text did you had to Google?
Hey I, that's ME, I loved the HD2900, but all the amd fanboys were crying, it lost miserably to the nVidia flagship.
Have a good friend who got a Sapphire hd2900 "pro" version, but it wasn't the pro, as I recall it had an unlisted weird and in between 320 shaders with the 256 bus.
He had EXTENSIVE trouble with it - I spent countless hours hammering out the bugs in every board he ever ran it in - a Dell dimension 4700 for instance kept it locked at 500mhz core and 600mhz memory.
He hammered the crap out of it for years, he broke it three times, I resurrected it three times, then finally against advice he kept the pink rubbery foam strip off the VRMs upon reassembly after cleaning - he was told NOT to but insisted it was just a cushion and not needed - that freaking cooked it for good -
I didn't hate the HD2900 but every amd fanboy did, and said so, it was a crushing blow to their egos, as nVidia stomped it on performance.
yet another fan boy, this time on the nvidia side. (paid?)
i wish you all disappeared.
I've never been paid by anybody in my entire life to speak garbage about a product.
You have absolutely no idea who I am, which just goes to show how much of an ignorant idiot you are.
Have a nice and a long life.
He was replying to me, please be able to follow the threading insets.
Now you were calling whom an idiot ? Uhh, nevermind.
The more you speak to yourself, the more of a retard you'll realise you are.
Well it could just as well be "lazy" game developers not bothering to optimize for AMD and just going with nVidia and then just accepting the faults that comes when using AMD and just hoping no one notices??
Well it could just as well be "lazy" game developers not bothering to optimize for AMD and just going with nVidia and then just accepting the faults that comes when using AMD and just hoping no one notices?
My only concern is that in my country are a bunch of people don't care about this kind of stuff. They think is too boring and the readers don't care.
We are years behind what you are trying to demostrate and bring to light, but definitly I'll follow you like an example.
Thanks for you hard work
Hi Ryan
I was wondering if you could also post the RUN graphs for the 680 sli. I didn't get a clear picture from the article if the 680 sli also dropped any frames, had any runt frames or totally avoided those behaviors.
I'll do that now!
No drops no runts for nVidia 680 SLI - NONE
That's why they were left out... like no news is good news.
I feel so good about myself, so many years, so many attacks on me by so many raging amd lovers.
I sooooo want to see them cover their heads in shame and admit how treasonous they were.
Yes treasonous liars. (lol whatever couldn't think of the word)
I suspect heck would freeze over first.
Oh look at that the river styx has ice skaters on it.
Great job on the article! This is how GPUs should be benched in the future.
What I would also like to see is how the input latencies are affected by things like vsync or nvidia frame metering. Also, digging deeper into how frame rate limits can help alleviate the stutter issues would be welcome. I found that back when I was testing 6950cf that a 3rd party fps limiter was the best solution combating micro stutter.
In the end CF is just not worth it atm, regardless of vsync or fps limiters. AMD has a lot of work to do to get CF sorted out. I doubt a new driver 2-3 months down the line will be the end of it, but hopefully they're good to go when the next gen arrives.
Input latency testing is my next target!
Great work and great review/article!
I do wish you guys had included the effects of a framerate limiter in addition to vsync, though... I've actually had a better experience using a framerate limiter through Afterburner on 7970 CF than I do with vsync; it seems to almost always remove stutter completely while also preserving the scaling.
I'll definitely be giving that shot!
What about older Nvidia cards?
What about Crossfire 6970s?
We played a bit of Natural Selection 2 the other day..meh..silly bunny jumpy game..imbalanced..go Marine..
Crossfire enabled 72 FPS
Crossfire disabled 64 FPS
What a ripoff!
Then we tried it on 2 GTX 580s same room and systems and almost the same results..
Multi GPU setups are just a ripoff unless you get Exactly DOUBLE for performance.
Scaling depends on A TON of factors. GPU's, drivers, applications so on and so forth.
You need to understand the basics of these things before you throw out such pointless and silly statements.
If you want to compare scalability, first compare a pair of single cards in FurMark. Then SLi/CF them and compare again.
CF is failing in half the games across the board, and has been for some time.
TPU for instance is an example where he mentions it if you don't believe me.
That's the other big laugh, shouldn't have been recommended for a long time now.
Maybe AMD will actually do something now, I doubt it though, I suspect apologetics, misdirection, and lies.
What is or isn't a ripoff is completely subjective and will never be an agreed upon issue. However, you can get a great experience moving to multi gpu setups that isn't necessarily double performance. Hi resolution gaming especially, at 2560x most single cards can't quite get you to >40fps avg with everything turned up in most modern games and what we will see in the next year. If i can get 15 more fps at that resolution it really DOES make all the difference.
However, if I buy 2 graphics cards because AMD says that framerate is how i should rate their cards, and their are frames being counted that detract from the quality of the experience, and essentially bloat their test scores up to 300% over what is actually being displayed, then not only have we been deceived, but AMD has really scammed you, since the extra card is actually detracting from the experience in many ways.
Moral of the story, get this before it goes out of stock.
It's a card of limited availibity and is one hell of a damn good, limited custom design.
I'm eagerly waiting for mine to be shipped.
2GB is not enough for 1080p this days.
Horse shit:
Moral of the story, get this before it goes out of stock:
It's a card of very limited availability and is one hell of a damn good card.
Best cooler, only Tantalum caps and no cylindrical caps over VRM area, backplated, best looking. Such a boss. Reminds me of those black 68 Mustang Bosses.
Great Job, Ryan and team. No, Amazing job. I've been following your frame rating articles from the first one and I've been waiting for this full reveal for a long time.
I do hope you show some frame rating benches for the GTX TITAN too (cause I own one now).
I am finding it tough not to conclude that AMD's two GPU system is completely broken although it baffles me that a company of their scale could not detect/think of such issues.
They have been known to take shortcuts on drivers before. http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/567681-should-i-switch-out-m... (I'm only getting this from a reliable NBR forumer).
AMD drivers are put out by a single guy called Catalyst Maker... he has a little team to help him out, but after all, he's just one guy.
That's why they suck.
It's been this way for AGES. The last cards that didn't in one way or another suck, were the X1950's which were made by ATi and not AMD.
Also, dual 7900 setups aren't "completely broken". That's just your pointless assumption.
If there's anything that's "completely broken", it's your wallet for shelling out $1000 for a dumbass card.
AMD/ATI used to have a smaller driver team than NV, but actually when AMD bought ATI and started down the APU path... they hired a lot more folks to support these products. Catalyst Maker was originaly Terry Makedon, but he has moved onto marketing more than software development. There are (iirc) several groups now working on drivers, but their workload is arguably greater than it was before. Supporting several different architectures spanning from GPUs to APUs is certainly no easy task, and I think they continue to hire more people. Reviews like this provide a lot more impetus inside companies to improve their products, and the software drivers certainly are the quick fix are for AMD now.
I think that NV still has a larger driver team, and that massive server room that pretty much only works on nightly builds of drivers from NV is still much bigger than what AMD has. However, AMD is not as far behind as many think. But obviously from what we have seen here, and read about from other sources, their focus was not exactly where it needed to be.
That's nice and all to amd but it looks like half a decade of total screw job right now, and outright fraud.
just leave this website man.
Would you kindly... leave this website man. Thanks.
Would you kindly... leave this website man. Thanks.
Was addressing john doe, not walrath.
Heh, you can address me. It won't offend. As long as I don't offend Ryan, I could be good.
Hey mountainlifter, would you lift my T-Bird if it gets stuck on a mountain?
Lift my cock while you're there as well.
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LOL that's hilarious.
That's all.
Don't tell the truth, the haterz then come forth...
I mean how many times can we give AMD the most gigantic pass ?
Not on this - this new tech with the single card to suck up the actual frames delivered to the end gamer screen with the quad SSD's to take all that in on the fly - this is called PROGRESS, and it has exposed a huge, huge amd flaw.
I feel sorry for all those foolish amd fanboys who screamed at me to buy two amd and crossfire it's a better deal and OC and blah blah blah blah - it's now a big joke.
All those "top crossfire amd gamerz" denying what was right on their screens before them - now the scientific facts show what was before them runts and ghost frames...
I haven't seen a bigger emerging scandal in the video card wars ever.
I am very interested in seeing how it plays out. Of course I will accept NO EXCUSES from amd or their fans. I never have before, but this is an even bigger mess up than even I considered AMD capable of pulling, and that is saying an aweful lot.
You just keep doing your thing and laughing at the haterz, they should be ashamed of themselves honestly.
I want to see if they went with runt and ghost frames after the 69xx series was outed as junk for crossfire by HardOcp with Terry Makedon there in the forums- AMD "became aware" according to that head Cat Maker that there "was a problem" and my guess is the solution was runts and ghosts.
That would keep the DAMAGE to the last 2 major series - but I want data all the way back to 3870/3870X2 to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
so basically what i'm getting from this story and the one at anand is that amd has been reviewed over the years with inflated fraps #s due to more runt and drop frames that are no good to gamers?
You are absolutely right, AMD's setups have fraudulently inflated their benchmark numbers for years which have helped them sell products and grow their % of discrete market share. This really is the most groundbreaking reveal I've ever come across in the gaming industry.
It's not like nVidia hasn't done it either:
Yeah, I'm sure AMD's share of the discrete market has grown thanks to inflated Xfire numbers. I mean, so many people have multi-GPU setups in the first place, amirite?
Plus, jumping to the conclusion that there's deliberate "fraud" going on can only be the result of deluded fanboy thought processes. Considering FCAT is the first tool that can really show this behavior, it's rather more reasonable to believe that AMD was simply unaware of it.
Alright, let me get it the easily way for you.
What the hell does the inflated CF performance figures have to do with the frame latencies? NOTHING.
The frame latency is a problem only because AMD has yet to be able to completely man up the GCN architecture.
No, fraps showed the problem, and the extended FCAT has only highlighted it even more.
The other thing that showed the problem - countless end user complaints, many times raging radeon fanboys screaming you cannot see beyond 30fps because "the human eye is incapable of it", something we call fanboy fantasy, apologetics, excuses, denial, brain washed psycho hardcore amd total verdetrol absolutist.
There are a lot of them, and that unfortunately has allowed amd to scam the entire industry for this long.
You see we still have a boatload of deniers here. Total amd fanboys, nothing will ever change their minds, no facts are facts they can accept if the facts prove amd sucks.
Yes it is, but the river in Egypt will start to grow to cover the entire earth for the amd fanboys, oh wait it already has.
BURNED in the extreme, the failure of crossfire, the scam of the decade.
Ghosts and runts, but boy oh boy our fps looks frappalicious !
LOL - so, so pathetic.
nVidia's SLI monsters ? ZERO runts, ZERO ghost frames.
PERFECTION incarnate.
Let's review:
nVidia - perfect execution, no cheating no runts, no ghost frames
amd - lying failure, HALF OF THE FRAMERATE IS A LIE. ghost runt every other frame !
ROFL amd you truly suck as bad as I have been saying for half a decade, wait no, you are worse.
Now we will get treated to endless excuses, denials, it doesn't matter, who cares, and all the rest of the radeon ragers standard operating apologetic procedures they have gang banged on the net for years.
Watch for this development: amd fanboys new spewing propaganda
" using two cards is a hassle, you should buy a single card, and just upgrade when the next best single card comes out like the 7970 with how great it is. Who wants to waste money on two cards, it's like <1% of gamers, so no one really does this at any end user level except fanatics, it's just not needed and is a budget buster. "
LOL - A thousand excuses already coming
How does changing Render Frame Ahead/Pre-Rendering affect Crossfire and SLI? In Battlefield 3, people are saying it gets smoother if you change it to 0 or 1 vs the default value of 3.
Thanks for your great analysis and extremely informative video.
Battlefield 3
Guide: How to Fix Low FPS - Stuttering - Lag
There is a well documented stuttering fix for both Nvidia and AMD users on multiple forums. I've tried this for my HD 4870 Crossfire setup and it works. This particular user from the above link has a NVIDIA GTX 470.
5.Open notepad and paste this into it and save it as "user.cfg" inside your "program files/origingames/battlefield3" folder:
RenderDevice.TripleBufferingEnable 0
RenderDevice.ForceRenderAheadLimit 1
WorldRender.SpotLightShadowmapResolution 256
WorldRender.SpotlightShadowmapEnable 0
Render.DrawFps 1
With this applied to the game, are there any differences? Render Ahead seems to really affect these results and it would be nice if it were tested with FCAT.
Do you like Winger?
They're really a crappy band but they have some decent stuff LOL.
Absolutely fantastic work Ryan. This article really blew me away and gave me a lot of tools to better understand what I've been dealing with at home. One question though: you point out that vsync can solve most of amds problems provided the frame rate doesn't have to drop from 60 to 30, in which case the drastic stutter caused by such a change adversely impacts smoothness. What if instead of using vsync you used a frame rate limit that corresponded with the apps average framerate? This way when the frame rate dips below that threshold it isn't cutting its' self in half as it would with vsync and in theory not introducing nearly as much stutter.
I advised my friend to do this with his dual 6950 setup in far cry 3 and he said it gave excellent subjective performance. I used the same method for my single 7970 and also noticed a nice bump to the smoothness of the game, but again this is all subjective. It would be awesome if you could test this as if proven correct it would give a lot of amd owners the tools to make the best of a bad situation.
Again thanks for the tremendous work you've done here, this is truly awesome work.
Quick question- Could Lucidlogix's Virtual Vsync technology help out with the CrossFire issues?
Not that this would let AMD off the hook as this needs to be taken care of in-house, but could it help?
That's a nice question.
I'll see if we can take a look at that.
The whole time I was reading this article, I was more and more curious how Virtu's technology would effect things. I'm curious about more than just their Virtual V-sync, but their other options as well for both single and multiple GPUs. Virtu has not had the scaling that SLI & Crossfire have had, but perhaps their technology would show well in other areas with this analysis.
I do feel that Frame Rating & the input to display latency are much more interesting metrics.
Great work on the article.
I've read somewhere that this will not be the norm for pcper to do this type of testing with all video card reviews (too labor intensive). Is this true?
If it is true, will pcper at least record the frame data and simply give it a quick look to make sure video cards aren't doing something absolutely crazy (for example, if you were reviewing those 7970's crossfire you might not plan to actually to analyze the frame times, but you would at least look over the recorded frames anyways and catch the crazy runt frames and mention it in your reviews.)
No, my plan is to take this route going forward.
Greatly appreciate the work behind this! And opening up the tools / scripts to everyone, pushing it to other hardware magazines. Huge kudos! Oh, and you should slap Anandtech over the head for not even mentioning your involvment into the new metering method in their introductory article, that only mentions nVidia...
Is there any way to determine latency between t_present and t_display? If not, it should be - maybe some kind of timestamp could be worked into the overlay? Because that would be interesting not only in the context of VSync, but also regarding nVidias frame metering, which must take some time analyzing the frametimes. Supposedly, AMD has some smoothing algorithm coming up for Crossfire as well, so there it would also be valuable information.
Regarding Adaptive / Smooth VSync: They clearly come off too good in this article. They're not the focus of the article of course, still a little more thought should have been put behind this, considering the amount of time taken to create this awe inspiring effort of an article and the tools behind it. Adaptive VSync turns VSync off when tearing is most annoyingly visible, i.e. at framerates below monitor refresh rate - true triple buffering (instead of the queue nowadays called triple buffering) would be the good solution here. Smooth Vsync does not seem to do anything particularly positive judging from what little measurement is available in the article - only time (further tests that is) will tell what it actually does...
We have more research into the different NVIDIA Vsync options coming up, stay tuned.
As for the timestamp different to check for the gaps between t_present and t_display...we are on that same page as well. :)
Have you tried CF using radeonpro? Apparently it offers some kinda of Dynamic V-sync similar to nVidias adaptive if I'm not mistaken.
No, it does not. It's a frame limiter, which eliminates some of the stutter, but causes more lag (increases latency).
Hmmm. I wonder if there is a difference between Double and Triple Buffered VSync. Newer Valve games support both. Would appreciate testing there.
Also, are there driver settings that help/harm frame rating? Nvidia's Maximum Pre-rendered frames setting sounds like something that can have an effect.
AMD has complained on Anandtech for this type of test using fraps ... now anyone know the real situation and it's shocking
this article sets the new stantard of excellence ... congratulations and thanks for the enormous work done... keep it up! :)
Thank you! Help spread the word!
Posted to my facebook page
Ryan, I've a suspicion that you wanted to select Adaptive VSync on NVidia, but have selected Adaptive (half refresh rate) instead in the control panel. Would you please check it out.
Other than that great article. Would also be interested in results with frame limiters.
This site is so awesome that it is one of th eonly ones that I disable Adblock in Chrome for. You deserve the ad $'s.
Rock on, Ryan and crew!
Thank you we appreciate it!
Thanks for the all of the time taken to accurately test and then explain your frame rating methods to us. I wonder if AMD would be willing to have a representative come on and speak on how they will be addressing this issue. I for one will be holding off purchasing an additional 7970 at this time.
They have, with AnandTech, though the person they spoke to was the single GPU driver guy, they did mention they have a plan to offer fixes in July.
Is your capture hardware capable of capturing 1080p @ 120hz? The data rate should be less than 1440p@60hz.
Also, I would like to see some starcraft 2 results. It's frequently CPU limited, and I'm wondering how that impacts the final experience when compared to a gpu limited situation. I'd recommend the "unit preloader" map as a benchmark run, once to pre-load all the assets and again for the capture.
Actually, I think 1080p@120 is a higher pixel clock than 25x14@60; we tried to do basic 120 Hz testing right before publication without luck but we'll be trying again soon.
As for SC2, we'll take a look.
You're right, the pixel clock is higher. I guess I was only thinking about total number of pixels that need to be recorded, but the smaller resolution is more heavily impacted by overscan.
great stuff.
I would be interested in seeing some results with some framerate limit, not from vsync, but another limit, something like FPS max 45 for Crysis 3 (higher than a single card, around the average for the CF), you can easily do that with dxtory
Its nice to see the truth come out. Save the excuses and fix it AMD.
Why did you completely ignore AMD's RadeonPro freeware ?
Which offers and has offered Dynamic V-Sync that's superior to Nvidia's Adaptive V-Sync for years now.
Tom's Hardware seems to be the only site that actually used this utility to make a fair comparison between SLI and Crossfire.
RadeonPro's Dynamic V-Sync was shown to be clearly superior to Nvidia's Adapative V-Sync Implementation .
Here is the Tom's link
I hope that you learn from your fellow journalist's to include this fantastic solution in your upcoming article.
Thanks for your hard work and good luck.
A frame limiter improves stuttering, but increases lag. You loose some Fps too. So you have to decide between the devil and lucifer in the case of Crossfire.
Exact same thing with Nvidia SLI and Adaptive V-Sync, if you don't want stuttering you have to sacrifice framrates.
I'm going to take a look, but this is NOT "AMD's" software.
Thanks for the eye opener! Which AMD drivers have been used for this review? I have read the article.. but i might have missed it?
For AMD we used 13.2 beta 7 and for NVIDIA we used 314.07.
Ryan: Is it possible to test AMD's CF with older drivers to see if this problem has been around for a long time or if it is a more recent problem with AMD's continuous driver upgrades to improve speeds?
Ryan: Is it possible to test AMD's CF with older drivers to see if this problem has been around for a long time or if it is a more recent problem with AMD's continuous driver upgrades to improve speeds?
First, a very interesting article with lots of information but..
there are some pretty big holes in the conclusions in this article.
First, the conclusion is that you observe smoother graphics if you have lots of GPU frames inside each display frame. This is just not true. If you accept this the following conclusions will also be not true. That runt and dropped frames always affect the perceived frame rate.
I will give you an example that proves this:
Say that the graphics card is able to produce two frames (letters) for each display frame (numbers). So if the the output will look like this to the display:
1A,2C,3E,4G etc.
then you would have an optimal smoothness (as long as the output from the game engine is constant). This even if you in this case drops 1 gpu frame each display frame. If in stead it would be like the following:
then you could perhaps notice some unevenness even though you still have the same number of drops. I doubt it but it could be possible. Someone should do a video and see if this behaviour could be detected by the human eye :)
If you instead have drop frames when the gpu frame is spread across a multiple of display frames, then you would potentially have a serious issue with stuttering. But that is not what you are measuring here. Ex. 1A,2A,3C,4C
One conclusion to this is that you Observed FPS is totally wrong. Both from what I write above and that you are not limiting this figure to the refresh rate of your monitor. Capping the graphs to 60 frames would make it some way better. Alternately give it some other headline for example (and here comes the flame bite):
NVIDIA sponsored measuring technique to make there technology to look good
I don't follow your letters/numbers analogy at all but I can assure we are confident in our results and experiences here.
Very insightful article full of interesting data points, thanks for all the work that went into this!
I wonder if you plan to expand this testing down to AMD's APU and Crossfired APUs, as well as Intel iGPUs in the future, I know it's not as flashy as the 'big guns', but that's where a huge chunk of the market is going and I'm curious if there are skeletons to find in that closet, too.
I do plan on using this method whenever possible going forward. Laptops are a bit more of a pain since we'd have to external displays, but we are going to experiment.
Cool, can't wait for your findings!
btw: Twich is SO much better when you guys are in the same room, really enjoyed this week's episode!
Cool, can't wait for your findings!
btw: Twich is SO much better when you guys are in the same room, really enjoyed this week's episode!
Nice work Ryan. The key is the capture card. Input metering from eg FRAPs to output at the monitor. What you're missing is that games seem to use use single frame timing to determine simulation engine steps. No smoothing to account for any overheads - at all.
This whole AFR caper is just a sham, though. NUMA-esque multi gpu designs are the only way to do it. Simple 3dfx SLI was better at distributing load, but in the days of DX11+, load balancing is tricky. V-Sync with triple buffering is also an option, but input lag is a problem any way you slice it.
I do have concerns over Nvidia's overlay layer & software, though. They do kick an own goal with the GTX68 being slower than a 7970, but that's been known for a while now. They're banking on SLI & Titan. Your comments also spruik Nvidia, rather than just give facts.
Thanks, appreciate it!
I have another version of the overlay from a third party we are testing out as well.
They're not the same code nor are available through the same ways.
But they are the same methods and persue the same results.
SLI and Crossfire are not the same thing...
P.S. Did you get a visit from Tom Petersen, too? ;)
He gets a visit from me everyday.
P.P.S. (Sorry) Haven't you fixed the sampling rate of the capture card at 60Hz?
Thank you very much for testing SLI and crossfire. It confirms my suspicion about my Crossfire and SLI configurations.
To give you some background I have run 8800GTX SLI, 4870x2 + 4870 Trifire, 6870 Crossfire and GTX 680 SLI.
The 4870x2 + 4870 appeared to my eyes to be okay, however 6870 Crossfire never seemed to be quite right while the GTX 680 has always appeared smooth to me. I don't recall any issues with 8800GTX SLI but that was a while ago.
Error in the article:
"Smooth Vsync", "Adaptive VSync", etc, are not exclusive to nVidia.
They are available for everyone and you can use them through console commands.
The names differ due to manufacturers marketing.
But they are available since at least 2005 (rFactor game).
Various names: "double vsync", "vsync", "dynamic vsync", "vsync with double or triple buffering", "vsync with 1~5 frame queue", etc.
If the game lack the option in a menu, you can use console commands or ini files.
Radeonpro is the most famous "ini profile" creator to that use.
These are definitely not the same things...
They're not the same code nor are available through the same ways.
But they are the same methods and persue the same results.
SLI and Crossfire are not the same thing...
They're not the same code nor are available through the same ways.
But they are the same methods and persue the same results.
SLI and Crossfire are not the same thing...
You have created a minimum quality level where the basic requirement is "more than X scan lines displayed" because of "its contribution for the animation observed".
"Animation" is measured in full frames in sequence.
Any corruption in alternating frames is animation corruption.
Thus you have to filtered half of the SLI performance too.
SLI is UNDOUBTLY superior as the data shows.
But "animation" is corrupted by ANY tearing or stutter.
Simracers always use framecap and vsync with triple buffer for that matter.
How would the framerating change on Windows 8 vs. Windows 7? Linus appears to have found FPS improvements in some games in Windows 8. http://youtu.be/YHnsfIJtZ2o . I'm wondering if runt or dropped frames are increasing or there are actual improvements in user experience.
We started this process on Windows 7 before moving to Windows 8 and nothing changed.
I've speculated since 2008 that SLI/CF introduced unacceptable latency into the system, based on all the threads titled "Why do I get 90 FPS and my game is laggy?" in various forums. I'm glad someone is FINALLY really looking into this aspect of the actual rendering chain.
Can you please test other SLI render methodologies such as split frame rendering (SFR).
I know that SFR is not officially supported by nvidia anymore but you can always force it using Nvidia Inspector as some of us sometimes do.
It would be great if you could try other render methods with AMD as well. (such as scissor or supertile methods as far as I know they can be forced using radeon pro tool)
Best Regards
I play with Radeon Pro's Dynamic Vsync Control which eliminates stuttering without introducing any noticeable input lag. Vsync off will run your video cards at 100% full time generating a lot of heat and decreasing their life with minimal benefit. If you're playing for twitch response you're running at 120Hz double buffered, your latency will be 16ms max which isn't bad considering good human response is 226ms. If you're playing for maximum visual quality then screen tearing is unacceptable. Statements like "Crossfire does nothing" just creates unnecessary drama.
I consider it entirely necessary to make sure people see what is going on.
Input latency is our next thing to try and address though and its possible that CrossFire, even with its runt frames, is improving that more.
I bet that's exactly what you'll find. AMD will have reduced input lag at the expense of these "runt" frames, whereas Nvidia's metering will show huge input lag. AMD were just outmanouvered by Nvidia subverting your (& other's) inverstigations on frame latency. I can see AMD introducing a latency/metering control for Xfire in future drivers. Will Nvidia do the same, I wonder? As I said a pox on AFR. SFR is an alternative with Nvidia via hack, but has its own issues.
I bet that's exactly what you'll find. AMD will have reduced input lag at the expense of these "runt" frames, whereas Nvidia's metering will show huge input lag. AMD were just outmanouvered by Nvidia subverting your (& other's) inverstigations on frame latency. I can see AMD introducing a latency/metering control for Xfire in future drivers. Will Nvidia do the same, I wonder? As I said a pox on AFR. SFR is an alternative with Nvidia via hack, but has its own issues.
Given that AFR has every other frame rendered by a different card, the actual time between moving the mouse and it being displayed on the screen would not improve with crossfire/SLI over a single card.
However, how often a move initiates a frame does improve, but if those extra updates are almost at the same exact time as the single cards updates, it won't give you any benefit, so spacing will likely help.
Hopefully when you guys test latency, you realize that there is a polling component to consider.
If you have evenly spaced out times when you initiate a frame, your input is more evenly received. While simply taking an input when each GPU is ready may reduce latency, two in a row at almost the same exact time results redundant frames and input.
However, if those frames evenly distributed and received, more useful mouse inputs are gathered and utilized. The benefit of this may out weigh pure latency readings.
The difference may be the difference between receiving input a max of 33ms intervals, and having up to 66ms intervals with near 0 intervals at other points.
Interesting, hadn't considered the pros/cons of smoother or erratic input polling.


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Gigabyte's new offering of 8 Series motherboards!
Gigabyte Z87 Photos!
Published: 10th May 2013 | Source: Gigabyte |
So, unless you've been backpacking around the wold for a few months, or you've cut yourself off from all forms of the internet, you should know that Intel's new range of processors are soon to be released. With Haswell comes a new chipset and, for the first time since Sandy Bridge, a new socket. Goodbye LGA1155, hello LGA1150!
This does mean that those of us wanting to upgrade to Haswell are required to buy a new motherboard, unlike Ivy Bridge CPUs which could be used on Z68 boards. Motherboard manufactures around the world have been releasing sneak peeks of their soon to be released boards, making our funny parts get excited over what's to come. Most of them have been impressive, some of them have made our jaws drop, and all of them are just waiting to reviewed when the time comes!
Then we get to today, when we have some juicy photos sent straight to us from Gigabyte. We'll let you have a browse through the photos, give you some time, perhaps some lotion, then we'll come back for a conclusion.
Well that's that then. It should be clear that Gigabyte are focusing more and more on their audio implementations, with high quality caps and circuitry already being implemented on the boards as stock, and with the ability to add your own aftermarket OP-AMPs if required. Gigabyte are also showing that the audio section of the motherboards shall be separated from the rest of the circuitry, protecting the high quality and sensitive analogue components from the stray electronic signals that get flung around, which would otherwise impede on the sound that's produced. We have yet to test these boards for ourselves, but it's a definite possibility that third party sound cards won't be as needed for high quality audio reproduction. This should certainly be considered for when the price lists are released, as you may be able to justify the boards more now that sound cards won't need to be purchased on top of everything else.
Aside from that, Gigabyte certainly have some good looking boards coming out. We can see two boards that are being shown with 4 graphics cards in use; the G1 Sniper 5 and the Z87X-OC, which may point towards more PCIe bandwidth being available with Haswell processors. As with a lot of other pictures that we've seen, from a variety of manufacturers, Gigabyte are focusing more on VRM cooling than in the past. Indeed, the G1 Sniper 5 has not only the ability to have the VRM heatsinks watercooled, but there's also an active fan there too. What does this mean for Haswell? We're not entirely sure, but it really is interesting.
It should also be of note that we have yet to see the big picture. One of the images shows snippets of 3 boards- 3 boards that we don't have to show you guys in detail today. The image shows the Sniper's baby brother, the Killer, the UD3's older brother, the UD5, and also a souped up version of the Z87X-OC board with inbuilt watercooling capabilities and another active fan. This brings Gigabyte's current Z87 range up to 6 boards, all of which look extremely promising in their own right. We're certainly intruiged to see how they all perform, as no doubt you all are too.
We'd like to thank Gigabyte for allowing us this exclusive access to these pictures.Fancy discussing these exclusive photos? Want to ask some questions about what this all means? Visit the OC3D Forums and have your input.
Most Recent Comments
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- Published date: June 30, 2016
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text:
Hey I realize this is a blog hop but would anyone object to me posting on my Facebook page instead?
April Blog Train Details
Girls, your previews are awesome! You have, as always, fantastic contributions to this train. I already have some papers and two wordarts. Hope we can finish them all soon.
Hey I realize this is a blog hop but would anyone object to me posting on my Facebook page instead?
Ok, this isn't a criticism, but just my point of view... From the standpoint of a "downloader" (since this is the first blog train where I'm one of the contributors and not a downloader), I personally skipped the one's that asked me to go to facebook simply because you are forced (in most cases) to like their page. I know for me, in the beggining, I didn't like "Liking" people I didn't know. Also, a lot of people still don't use FB. I only have it because of my crafts and starting my own shop, but otherwise I wouldn't touch it. I'm sure there are lots out there that would do it so they can keep track of the designers they see on the blog, but again, my own opinion, most just want to download and go. It might be different with this one since I think most will be people from this site.
Molly, I've personally had troubles on my laptop getting the facebook fan downloads...for some reason. I have to go in through a desktop computer to get something posted on facebook...so it's rare. Don't know what the issues are, but my laptop has a history of not being able to get at everything. I also have found Box.com downloads don't work I can't get at either. sometimes it's that the page doesn't look right in the layout, like I can't do Twitter anymore, cause it all runs down the left of the page.
Please don't think I'm nuts, but when I heard this theme I thought of dr seuss... still trying to figure out why And I got a new script that I thought I would try, so I made a tube of feathers in the train colors, which made me think of the funky birds that hang out in Whoville and with the Lorax... hence the name of my little kit. I'll put a link to the tube for the train as well.
I have never designed anything before - so I made some papers. I might try making some elements but maybe not.
I love the dots!! way to go on your first papers!!
Thanks Denise - I guess the real test will be when everyone downloads them. I will say that I learn TONS of things and I am sure next time they will be even better
way to go Kaleena!
Here is my part!
What a sweet little baby, Jodi - and I love the knitted flower!
Love your part Jodi!! so adorable
I have a question about files. I'm going to have several colors of the same element. Is it acceptable to put them on one png file or should each be a separate file? (example: 4 pieces of different colored washi tape.) Any thoughts?
Same thing with my word art and other elements.
Personally I prefer them separate, because if I don't want or will never use certain colors I can delete them from my PC and not waste valuable storage space. Most people tend to be drawn to certain colors more than others or have colors they just don't like and never use. just my two cents.
Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate it.
I also prefer having separate files, then when I want to use something I don't have to take the extra step of cutting it out of the .PNG file.
Thanks for the input guys!
Question....how long are we to keep our blog train portions available?
Jill!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So happy to see you!
The blog train will go live on April 1 and pieces should be available for the entire month.
Thank you Denise and Dana. The Birds and The Bees are usually discussed because of babies, either preventing them or how they are made, so I thought a baby would fit in this somewhere! lol
What a variety of kits from the same color palate. Very inspiring. I hope to have time to create at least a mini-mini-kit before April 1, but time is running short and I have never done a complete coordinated kit yet. However, all the first time designers who have contributed are giving me hope. Thanks ladies.
(A whole day later) Everything didn't go smoothly but it was a real learning experience and I'm pretty pleased with the results. AND I have a whole new appreciation for designers.
Hey Molly!!!! {{{{hugs}}}}
Really adorable grungy Spring stamp, Hariett.. love it!
I have a question:
I never did a blogtrain ever and I love designing for it, is it that I design a kit with this colors and the theme and then I post it here so you can see what I made?
jessica: that's right! and in April we put it on our blog for the fans to grab it! It is also my first time, isn't this excited? Would love to see what you come up with
Everyone who has posted their design for the April blog train is very beautiful! This will be my first blog train. I started out with just a couple of elements and now I have 40! Is that too much? Should I just make a mini or go for it?
@Sharon I say just go with it! I am the same way, though I haven't done much designing. I tend to go overboard. If it is a theme I am having fun with then I just keep thinking of things to add. I am sure all will appreciate! More is always better than less especially if one wants to make an entire photobook using "one" kit.
I am loving all the sneak previews!!
@Sharon Grant -- that happened to me on my first blog train! I ended up with so much stuff that I broke it up into 5 or so kits, which was kind of nice because for a while I could put up a new kit about once a week.
Okay, here's mine.
@Janet thank you! I am using all of the elements. Here is a preview....


text:
The tranquil 'dry garden' at the Japanese garden area of the Bloedel Reserve reminds me of the famous late15th century Zen garden at Ryoan-ji, The Temple of the Dragon at Peace, in Kyoto, Japan. This dry garden was designed by Koichi Kawana, professor of landscape architecture at the University of California.
The United States is one of the most diverse countries on earth, jam packed full of amazing sights from St. Patrick's cathedral in New York to Mount Hollywood California.The Northeast region is where it all started. Thirteen British colonies fought the American Revolution from here and won their independence in the first successful colonial rebellion in history. Take a look at these rolling hills carpeted with foliage along the Hudson river here, north of New York City.The American south is known for its polite people and slow pace of life. Probably they move slowly because it's so hot. Southerners tend not to trust people from "up north" because they talk too fast. Here's a cemetery in Georgia where you can find graves of soldiers from the Civil War.The West Coast is sort of like another country that exists to make the east coast jealous. California is full of nothing but grizzly old miners digging for gold, a few gangster rappers, and then actors. That is to say, the West Coast functions as the imagination of the US, like a weird little brother who teases everybody then gets famous for making freaky art.The central part of the country is flat farmland all the way over to the Rocky Mountains. Up in the northwest corner you can find creative people in places like Portland and Seattle, along with awesome snowboarding and good beer. Text by Steve Smith.


text:
Solo Bike Rack
Sports Rack. Stores balls, bats and gloves in one convenient location
Bicycle Storage Rack
Fishing Rod Rack. Store 4 fishing rods and reels vertically or horizontally. Can also be hung on ceiling.
Horizontal Folding Bike Rack
Bike Hanger. Store any style bike on the wall or ceiling
Parking Guide. Park perfectly every time
Ski Storage Rack
Ski Rack. Store up to three pairs of skis and poles


text: Artist: Zigg Zagg f/ Brotha Lynch Hung Album: Through the Eyes of She Song: The Argument (Part 2) Typed by: firstname.lastname@example.com * * send corrections to the typist [Zigg Zagg speaking] Da Argument The Argument number two [Zigg Zagg] And where was you last night You know I hit you 'bout like one o'clock And if you don't know by now, you put me on the spot I'm fed up, shit, tired, sick and I can't even breathe 'Bout to put myself in prison and do you off in yo sleep What was you thinkin? You smell like stank ass bitch right now What was you drankin? Don't apologize, I'm packin up for a while I can't believe it you given away a whole zip for a dub And to the hoe you spent the night wit Hide Cause push comes to shove Blood runs much thicker than water, but don't wash Next time you feelin sad and look over at me, I don't talk Two kids and twelve years, but still I can't get the respect This whole relationship thing to me is like a comedy act You keep complainin at me night after night I'ma leave and you be framin me wit all dis bullshit I just can't breathe And you be blamin me for what you be doin I'm leavin please don't try to call me on my personal time That's what I mean [Brotha Lynch] It's like therapy See you can sit there and stare at me You can even smell me Go 'head you can tell me Only time you see me get jealous is when you fuckin up I trust you 'round the fellas Better toughin up Or get tossed up, this ain't no soap opera This ain't O.J. & Nee-Cole Creep up and pop ya, smashin in the Bronco End up getting locked up Run up to the enemy and he end up getting socked up I ain't got no money for Cochran, no matter what you talkin Don't make come at you with the glocked in like McGlockton I smoke to much weed and they gon' take my kids I'ma have to make you bleed, I can't let you live Makin dem baby mama ribs after all these years You didn't know it, I was a psycho killin wit all these tears Blood type O, cryin when I killin Huggin my babies and now I'm cryin when I'm killin Jeah [Chorus] (Voice of the Bride of Chucky) Um, you don't know me, but a few years ago I killed your husband, and I am so very very sorry (Lady crying) - What is this some kinda of sick joke (Voice of the Bride of Chucky) Oh no, I'm completely serious! (Lady cries) (Voice of the Bride of Chucky) I feel better already! [Zigg Zagg] A damn shame it's been a waist of my lifetime I cry myself to sleep when you come back so late at night I got no feelin for you sometimes Can't lie, but wouldn't mind pullin the chain So just maybe I that I might just shoot one off into the brain 51/50 you made it so likely nothin could matter These bitches hittin you at 3 in the A.M. and what they after I'm vicious and my patience is low, tryin to let you know So don't come lookin for me after the show You heard me beggin, and just this one last time Show you what you about to be missin, I'm on a mission When you hit from behind, you get the vision Baby stickin 'em and thinkin' you fine But just you listen, cause I'm shinin' baby commitin a crime And man you slippin [Brotha Lynch] Everytime I come home, same ole shit You ain't satisfied until I leave ya anal split I know you ain't gon' get it until I ram it down ya throat I know you ain't gon' lick it, I know you ain't gon' choke But I'ma hit the G note, and that's gon' settle thangs And you can leave broke, leave those metal thangs up out that shit Unless somebody come trip, then I'll rock that shit That's on Crip Don't make me act so stiff, I'm a NWA I was in trouble yesterday, and in trouble today And it ain't gon' change, I spray thangs So baby don't say thangs, 'bout to make it bang. [Chorus] (Voice of the Bride of Chucky) Um, you don't know me, but a few years ago I killed your husband, and I am so very very sorry (Lady crying) - What is this some kinda of sick joke (Voice of the Bride of Chucky) Oh no, I'm completely serious! (Lady cries) (Voice of the Bride of Chucky) I feel better already!


text:
(written from a Production point of view)
Picard must undergo a serious medical procedure while the Enterprise-D deals with a Pakled ship, which lures the Enterprise away in hopes of stealing its technology.
The USS Enterprise-D is en route to the Epsilon IX sector for an astronomical survey of the Epsilon pulsar cluster. Captain Picard is having a discussion with his chief medical officer Doctor Pulaski about Picard's artificial heart, which needs to be replaced on Starbase 515. This procedure should have been performed earlier, but Picard has ignored it for far too long. When Doctor Pulaski proposes performing the procedure on board the Enterprise herself, Picard refuses, being concerned with his image, and reluctantly agrees to make the trip to Starbase 515.
Wesley Crusher is also going to Starbase 515 to take Starfleet exams, which Data found quite elementary. Crusher is surprised when Picard tells him that he will be traveling with him, and asks Geordi La Forge and Sonya Gomez what he should talk about while traveling with Picard. First Officer Riker is wondering why Picard is taking this trip, since he knows that Picard was looking forward to seeing the Epsilon pulsar cluster, when the Enterprise receives a distress call from the Rhomboid Dronegar sector 006.
Act One Edit
The distress call was sent by the starship Mondor, which is manned by the Pakleds. When Riker asks what is wrong, the only answer he gets from Grebnedlog is that their ship is broken and that they need help. When he asks what the nature of their mission is, he gets the answer that they "look for things that make them go". When he asks more questions he gets the same answers. Data has scanned their ship, so the crew can determine what is wrong. Riker decides to send chief engineer La Forge to repair the Pakled ship. Worf strongly protests against sending the chief engineer but, since Riker thinks that the Pakleds pose no danger because of their speech impediment and their appearance, he only sends La Forge. Later on Counselor Troi proves him wrong and tells him that La Forge is in grave danger.
Act Two Edit
Wesley tries to make conversation with Captain Picard in the shuttle Einstein, when Picard confides in him that this trip was not his idea and that he hates the prospect of a cardiac replacement. Wesley, not knowing that the captain had a cardiac implant, asks him why it needs to be replaced and why Doctor Pulaski could not perform the procedure.
La Forge fixes the Pakled guidance system but then there is a main power failure. Meanwhile the Pakleds keep asking if he "can make it go". With La Forge forced to stay longer on the Mondor, Riker gets irritated, because it seems that they need more than minor repairs. When he offers to tow them with a tractor beam to the nearest starbase, the Pakleds say that La Forge can make them go. As the Enterprise tries to beam La Forge back, the Pakleds stun him. A quick scan tells Riker that they cannot beam La Forge out and that all systems on the Mondor are working perfectly. Their shields seem to be more advanced than the current state of Pakled technology.
Act Three Edit
Over a coffee and a sandwich Picard and Wesley engage in some small talk on kids, women, discipline and why Picard never married. Picard also tells him how he came about the cardiac implant. When he was at the Bonestell Recreation Facility at Starbase Earhart with some friends, he picked a fight with three Nausicaans. Having one Nausicaan down in a joint lock, Picard was impaled by a Nausicaan stake. The only reason he survived is because a medical facility was nearby. They eventually arrive at Starbase 515, where Wesley escorts Picard to the medical facility. It turns out that Doctor Pulaski asked Wesley to make sure that Picard made it inside, which prompts Picard to say "that woman".
On the Enterprise, Riker is considering their options when Data tells him that the malfunctions on the Pakled ship were programmed. Riker's demands to return La Forge are refused and the Pakled stun him again. For Riker to get La Forge back he has to give them all the information from the Enterprise computer. Of course, this is not an option, since it would violate Starfleet security.
Act Four Edit
While lying on the operating table, the surgeon tells Picard not to worry because they have done this operation a hundred times. After the anesthesiologist administered anesthesia, the surgeon begins the operation, a secondary cardiac procedure with mid-line entry. He anticipates no problems and expects the operation team to be home for dinner.
Riker plans to mislead the Pakled so that he can get La Forge back. They try to lead the Pakled to believe that he is a phaser and photon technology expert. By mentioning specific words during their conversation with the Pakled ship they try to tell La Forge what they are planning to do. Grebnedlog and Reginod tell him that he must make them strong, meaning he has to fix the weaponry of the Mondor so they can attack the Enterprise. Fortunately Geordi understands what Riker wants and he changes the Pakled's weapons configuration so they don't work properly. When the Enterprise detects that the Pakled weapons are on-line they contact the Mondor and demand that Geordi be returned or they will be destroyed. The Pakled respond that "they are strong now" and that they "want respect".
During Picard's operation there were complications, which the surgeon was not qualified to resolve. A biomolecular specialist knows someone who is.
Act Five Edit
During this ruse Lieutenant Worf received a message that Captain Picard is close to death and the Enterprise needs to go to Starbase 515 as soon as possible. Riker starts a countdown of the time the Pakleds have to return La Forge. When the Pakleds try to fire at the Enterprise nothing happens and La Forge tells them that the Enterprise disarmed the Mondor by using a crimson force field; the reality is a cleverly-coordinated ruse comprised of La Forge disabling the torpedoes as the Enterprise vents hydrogen through their Bussard collectors. The Pakleds, convinced that they are "not strong", drop their shields and Riker beams La Forge back to the Enterprise.
When Picard awakens from his anesthesia, he sees Doctor Pulaski standing over him, the surgeon they called in who was qualified to perform the operation. She tells him that she saved his life. Picard is less than thrilled, and is more concerned that the entire Enterprise now knows of his condition.
When Picard returns to the Enterprise bridge to the applause of some of the bridge officers (which he does not appreciate), he is pleased to report that Wesley Crusher's test results permit him to continue to study on board the Enterprise and that any rumors of his brush with death are greatly exaggerated. The Enterprise once more sets course for the Epsilon sector.
Log entriesEdit
Memorable quotesEdit
"It's not the exams I'm worried about. It's Captain Picard."
"Why? He's not taking the exams."
- - Wesley Crusher and Sonya Gomez
"This is Commander William Riker of the USS Enterprise."
"We received a mayday message from your ship."
"What is the nature of your problem?"
"We are far from home."
"Aren't we all. What was the reason for your distress signal?"
"We are Pakleds. Our ship is the Mondor. It is broken."
"What brings you so far from home?"
"We look for things."
"What sort of things?"
"Things we need."
"Can you be more specific?"
"Things to make us go. We need help."
- - Riker and Grebnedlog
"Ah, Captain Picard. Nice day for a little trip."
- - La Forge, to which Picard responds with silence
"Let me guess, their rubber band broke, right?"
- - La Forge, after hearing that the Pakleds' ship is "broken"
"Open your mind to the past. Art, history, philosophy. And all this may mean something..."
- - Picard, giving Wesley Crusher advice
"We are smart. You think we're stupid, but we're smart."
- - Grebnedlog
"Our computer banks are non-negotiable."
"We want them."
"Believe me, they're nothing if not persistent."
"We want to be nothing if not persistent."
"Nobody ever said they were great conversationalists."
- - Riker, Grebnedlog and La Forge
"Wishing for a thing does not make it so."
- - Picard, to Wesley
"Would you care for coffee, Ensign?"
"No, thank you, sir."
"How about a sandwich?"
"No, I don't think so, sir."
"Oh, c'mon. It's been hours. You must be hungry."
"Thank you, sir."
- - Picard and Wesley, enjoying sandwiches and coffee for lunch
"I stood toe-to-toe with the worst of the three and I told him what I thought of him, his pals, his planet and I possibly made some passing reference to his questionable parentage."
- - Picard, describing the confrontation with the Naussicans
"Any classified weapons knowledge you share with your captors will be considered treason."
"But I may have no choice."
"You will die without honor."
"Thanks a lot Worf."
"You will never attain the 24th level of awareness."
"24, huh? That's... uh... That's quite a challenge."
"Indeed. 24 is the gateway to heroic salvation."
- - Worf and La Forge attempting to deceive the Pakleds
"You're now armed to the teeth."
"Teeth are for chewing."
- - La Forge and Grebnedlog
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"Saving your life."
"Oh, come on. This is a routine procedure: quite commonplace."
"True, but you are not a commonplace man."
- - Picard and Pulaski
Background informationEdit
Production historyEdit
- Third revised final draft script: 8 March 1989 [1]
- Premiere airdate: 15 May 1989
- First UK airdate: 21 August 1991
Story and productionEdit
- According to director Les Landau:
"I dealt with a race of what appeared to be ugly and slow people. They have a need for things, which can be a reflection of our society. That's what Star Trek tries to do, take an almost unbelievable situation in an unbelievable time and somehow make all of us realize that's what's happening today, and what we can do to make the planet and the universe a better place. I think that is the essence of Star Trek and the tradition Roddenberry is trying to carry on." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages)
- The producers were originally intending to use the Captain's yacht in this episode, but budget constraints forced the use of a shuttlecraft instead. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion)
- Stock footage of the Sakharov from "Unnatural Selection" and "Q Who" is used for the appearance of Shuttle 2. This is evident when the shuttlecraft is about to leave, Wesley refers to it as Shuttlecraft 02, but when the shuttlecraft is seen leaving it shows the designation of 01. This was corrected on the Blu-ray Edition.
- One of the props used inside the Pakled ship is an Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon.
- One of the props used inside the Pakled ship is the CANK-23429 remote control unit for WWII military field radios.
- The Custodian console from "When The Bough Breaks" and a bridge console from the Erstwhile are seen on the Mondor bridge.
- The surface of the Starbase 515 planet is the reused matte painting of Angel I from "Angel One".
- The opening stardate for this episode was different from the script. In the script, the date was 42723.8. [2]
Continuity Edit
- The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion notes that Riker's "crimson force field" trick is similar to James T. Kirk's "corbomite" bluff in TOS: "The Corbomite Maneuver" and "The Deadly Years".
- The late Christopher Collins' next Star Trek role is as Durg in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "The Passenger".
- Picard's statement at the end of the episode, "Any rumors of my brush with death are greatly exaggerated" pays homage to Samuel Clemens's famous response to his prematurely-published obituary, "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." He modifies the statement in Star Trek: First Contact when referring to the Borg after being separated from his senior staff during the Borg incursion. More than three years after the events of this episode, Picard would meet Clemens in San Francisco in 1893, as was shown in "Time's Arrow, Part II".
- The events of the sixth season episode, "Tapestry", are based on the events in Picard's youth he related to Wesley in this episode.
- It is mentioned in this episode that Picard laughed when he was stabbed in the heart. In Tapestry, we see that this was a result of Q's interference, making the entirety of Picard's life up to that point a time loop.
- During the scene aboard the shuttle when Wesley and Picard are chatting while the shuttle's autopilot is on, there is an odd exchange of conversation. As Picard begins talking about his fight with the Nausicaans, Wesley asks, "Was this before the Klingons joined the Federation?" to which Picard answers "That's right." This overlooked yet puzzling dialogue has yet to be explained, though Wesley could have been referring to the Klingon-Federation alliance. [3]
- Wesley's Starfleet exams, which he takes in this episode, are most likely the repeat tests of the exams he failed in TNG: "Coming of Age" of which Picard said: "and when you take your exams next year and you will." However, his exams were not shown on screen this time.
- This is the second and final appearance of Sonya Gomez, who was initially intended to be a comedic recurring character, but dropped after this episode.
Reception Edit
- Maurice Hurley remarked
"Very strange but nice. That was very different. It gave Geordi a nice turn, and the more you use LeVar, the happier the show will be, because LeVar is wonderful to work with." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages)
- This episode inspired writers Dennis Russell Bailey, David Bischoff and Lisa Putman White to write the third season episode "Tin Man". According to Bailey:
"The point at which we became serious about trying to write a script for the show was about five minutes after watching 'Samaritan Snare,' which in my personal opinion was the most abysmal piece of Star Trek ever filmed. My objections to it were that it always resorted to idiot plotting to make the story work, and that offended me a great deal worse than some of the awful shows which were done on the original series. I thought the way in which it was plotted and the way it was dealt with was an insult to the intelligence of the people who watched the show and the actors and characters in the show. None of the plot could have happened if all of the characters hadn't suddenly became morons that week."
"Someone must have been aware of how hokey it was, because they wrote obvious questions into the script which they chose not to answer. For instance, before Geordi beams over, Worf says explicitly to Riker, 'Do we have to send them our chief engineer because they have a little problem?' and it's never answered. If you don't want to answer it, don't bring it up. Another thing that is stupid is Deanna Troi comes on the bridge and says to Riker, 'I don't sense fear or confusion. Geordi is in danger. Bring him back,' and no one even responds to that. They simply act as if it wasn't said. On the trip over to the starbase, where Picard and Wesley have this long heart to heart talk, Wesley says why would anyone use a defective heart transplant. That's a minor point. A major piece of stupidity is they send him to a medical facility where it turned out that no one was qualified to handle the operation if it went at all wrong. I can't believe they expect viewers to be so stupid as to not ask about that. The fact that the routine was repeatedly said, throughout the show, to be an absolutely routine procedure and when it went wrong, it went wrong for no reason that was mentioned, except that it had to go wrong to have the climax. Then it turns out they have to call the Enterprise to bring Pulaski over to do the operation because she's more qualified and the people there weren't." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages)
- A mission report for this episode by John Sayers was published in The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine issue 9, pp. 19-22.
Video and DVD releasesEdit
- Original UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 22, catalog number VHR 2505, 7 October 1991
- UK re-release (three-episode tapes, Paramount Home Entertainment): Volume 2.6, catalog number VHR 4742, 21 June 1999
- As part of the TNG Season 2 DVD collection
- As part of the TNG Season 2 Blu-ray collection
Links and references Edit
Starring Edit
Also starringEdit
- LeVar Burton as Lt. Geordi La Forge
- Michael Dorn as Lt. Worf
- Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi
- Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data
- Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher
Special appearance by Edit
Guest stars Edit
- Christopher Collins as Grebnedlog
- Leslie Morris as Reginod
- Daniel Benzali as surgeon
- Lycia Naff as Sonya Gomez
- Tzi Ma as biomolecular specialist
Uncredited co-stars Edit
- Bill Ames as a Pakled officer
- Majel Barrett as USS Enterprise-D computer voice
- Robert J. Feldman as a Pakled officer
- Charles Geschind as Starbase 515 anesthesiologist
- Victor A. Haddox as a Pakled officer
- Tim McCormack as Bennett
- T.J. McGee as a Starbase 515 assistant surgeon
- Unknown performers as
Stunt double Edit
Stand-ins Edit
- James G. Becker – stand-in for Jonathan Frakes
- Darrell Burris – stand-in for LeVar Burton
- Dexter Clay – stand-in for Michael Dorn
- Jeffrey Deacon – stand-in for Patrick Stewart
- Nora Leonhardt – stand-in for Marina Sirtis
- Tim McCormack – stand-in for Brent Spiner
- Guy Vardaman – stand-in for Wil Wheaton
References Edit
archaeology; art; asteroid; astronomical survey; autopilot; back; biomolecular physiologist; Bonestell Recreation Facility; Bussard collector; capillary; cardiac implant; cardiac replacement; chest; coffee; computer banks; crimson force field; Einstein; Epsilon IX sector (aka Epsilon sector); Epsilon Pulsar Cluster; exam; Far Space Starbase Earhart; Federation; forced spectrum communication; green; heart; heterocyclic declination; hydrogen; hydrogen collector; impulse speed; James, William; Jarada; Klingon; Klingon Empire; language skills; literature; mayday; medical facility; metabilation occlusions; metal; Mondor; mortality rate; myocardial enzyme balance; Nausicaan; neural calipers; number one; pain; Pakleds; parthenogenetic implant; photon torpedo; power generator; pulsar; pulsar cluster; reserve power; Rhomboid Dronegar sector 006; Romulans; rubber band; sandwich; semantics; shock; Starbase 515; Starbase 515 planet; Starfleet; Starfleet Academy; sterile field; target path; teeth; thoracic polychromatics; throwback; tissue mitigator; treason; Type 7 shuttlecraft; Van Doren; venturi chamber; warp coil; weapon; weapons specialist
Other references Edit
Starbase 515 Biomedical and Health Care Services Directory: Andor Environment Ward; Biomedical Imaging Services; Conference Room 4; Conference Room 5; DGA; Exobiology Research Division; Faul, Brian; Freedle, Sam; Kei/Yuri Therapy Unit; Landau, Les; Luhrsen, Scott; MD; McCullough, Robert; Metoyer, Robert; Simmons, Adele; Surgical Suite 3; Surgical Suite 4; Surgical Suite 5; Surgical Suite 6; Vulcan Physiology Unit; Zero Gravity Therapy Ward
External links Edit
- "Samaritan Snare" at StarTrek.com, the official Star Trek website
- "Samaritan Snare" at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
- "Samaritan Snare" at Wikipedia
- "Samaritan Snare" at MissionLogPodcast.com, a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
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