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nVidia to buy 3dfx
December 17th 2000, 00:56 MSK by Needle Earlier today, 3dfx Interactive released their fiscal 3rd quarter results. In it, the company details its plans for yet another round of cost-cutting measures, which now include selling its graphics chip business to rival NVIDIA Corporation. The deal, worth a reported $70 million in cash and $42 million in NVIDIA common stock, will see NVIDIA aquire all assets related to 3dfx's graphics chip business, including all trademarks, brand names, patents and current chip inventory. 3dfx's graphic board business is not part of the deal. Expected to be completed by early 2002, 3dfx's board of directors are recommending that shareholders approve the sale to NVIDIA. Upon completion of the deal, the patent infringement lawsuits will be abandoned and 3dfx will be dissolved. With the number of graphics card companies getting smaller every day, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. But what does this mean for consumers? NVIDIA, the now undisputed king of the 3D accellerated hardware war stands virtually unopposed as the only major chip-maker with a strong reputation for serious gaming. With their biggest rival out of the way, how do you think the lack of competition will affect the price and quality of NVIDIA's chipsets, if it does at all? |
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BloodKnight (#27): The day V5 no longer runs 60 FPS in high detail on a p3 600, soon 850, is the day I get Nvidia Well, since nvidia bought 3dfx ... I would say you already have an nvidia card. :) --- Warren Marshall Level Designer/Programmer/Corporate Shill Epic Games (www.epicgames.com)<i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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<b>WarrenMarshall</b> (#28): <quote><B>BloodKnight</B> (#27): <quote>The day V5 no longer runs 60 FPS in high detail on a p3 600, soon 850, is the day I get Nvidia</quote> Well, since nvidia bought 3dfx ... I would say you already have an nvidia card. :) --- Warren Marshall Level Designer/Programmer/Corporate Shill Epic Games (www.epicgames.com)</quote> So damn true :) But I meant a real nvidia with GeForce labelled onto it. With the cheap drivers and numerous problems <i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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Yea, I hope some of the 3dfx QA Team goes to nvidia or something...I've bought 2 nvidia based cards and two 3dfx based ones, but I've had to return both of the nvidia ones. My system isn't the most standard system I know (I have 96 megs of generic ram for example among other things), but the two 3dfx cards installed perfectly, the two nvidia cards I've had many many problems with. The TNT I couldn't get out of 640x480x16 (colors, not bits), and returned after 2 weeks of fiddling with suggestions from every hardware related msg board/usenet group on the planet. When I bought a voodoo3 later, I could hardly believe it when it was done, it just installed and worked. Geforce SDR also had problems (if you noticed, I always buy behind the curve...I'm not too hardcore as far as performance goes, the v3, what I have now, does decently in all games, I don't feel the need for anything yet. And I want something at least 150% faster before I get a new card, none of this $400 for a 15% increase crap...), it really despised my WinTV TV Tuner Card...which is really weird cause other people have it working. I didn't want to do the driver shuffle though, so I returned it the next day. I know, chances are its just me, people have problems with 3dfx cards too, my hardware sucks get what everyone else has, etc., but based only on my experience, 3dfx cards work and nvidia cards don't. =) Nvidia's tech support didn't help my opinion much either...3dfx's tech support may have sucked too, but I never had to call them. =) Andy (#24): Here ya go: http://web.superb.net/cardtric/ Thanks..seems like its still around, but hasn't been updated in a long time. Sucks that he passworded the 'Hard' section, that's where my two tricks were. =( Oh heh, my force is still there, if you look at the terminology page...when you click on 'force' the one I submitted comes up first, along with my now heavily spammed old email address...man, my writing skills bite. =) |
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I don't get it. I hear about their "cheap" drivers and "numerous" problems, but I've never had a problem running a game with a TNT2, now a GeForce 2. Ever. In fact, I can't even remember a game that wouldn't work with my computer in the last, I dunno, 5-6 years. And I do play a lot of different games (like most of them). Also, Creative hasn't improved soundcards... um, how exactly should they be improved? Should they give you a sucker-punch to the kidneys? I dunno if people are like me, but I can't even detect 3D sound... I even have problems detecting some stereo imaging, whether it's A3D on an Aureal card or DirectSound3D or whatever. I bought a Live Value about four years ago and I can't figure out why I'd want to upgrade it. The side benefit of this purchase may be that technology development will SLOW down, which might be a very good thing(tm). People bitch and moan about having to upgrade all the time, so maybe now you won't have 3dfx and Nvidia in a pissing match to push things on the market first, meaning half-assed incremental hardware improvements with spotty drivers. And with hardware slowing down, you might see developers not chasing tech and focusing on gameplay, which is why console games are often more refined, especially later generation versions. Once DX8 enchancements hit all video cards, you'll have a lot of graphic power. Maybe it'll be nice to wait a couple of years for DX9 for whatever major changes may happen. |
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Nvidia's tech support didn't help my opinion much either... It's not fair to compare 3dfx and Nvidia tech support since Nvidia doesn't offer support for cards; they're merely a chipset vendor. You rely on the tech support of the Diamonds, Hercules and Elsas of the world. |
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Can't say I'm very happy about the news. Don't get me wrong the latest card I bought was nVidia. But 3dfx have always tried to innovate and focus on the 3d gaming markets needs/desires. nVidia have run a very good business model on simply incorporating all the key features that are as fast as possible but haven’t done near as much to get new ideas out onto the shelves. Yes there are other chip/card manufacturers but not as many as there were and most have been around for ages and are still stumbling around like blind fools (sorry ATI has never impressed me). So that makes nVidia the new, undisputed, king. Lets hope he stays a nice one or we'll be praying for an assassination. |
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To me it was sad news. 3dfx and John Carmack brought pioneered tha biggest change in gaming when glQuake was released with the 3dfx mini-driver. I still remember , and have, my first Monster 3D. I bought ii a week after it hit the market. That whole time was magic. The game, the community.... damn. Until then what did we have DX3..argh. That whole symbiotic relationship made OpenGL a viable API and forced Microsoft to finally improve DX to a point of being a decent product. I guess my only worry now is that with only one major player in the market what is going to happen to the prices. When 3dfx was the only player there boards where 300$ a pop for the current generation board. Lately I haven't minded upgrading every 6 months when you can get a brand new board for 90-120$. Wonder how much the NV20 is gonna cost now without the competition provided by Rampage. Competition is vital. Without Aureal to light a fire under Creative's but we would still be using SB16/32/64. Creative is still in the mind set that everyone wants to create and listen to MIDI files. I loved my MX300 and still use it. Playing Theif and Half-Life with a SBLive is like sticking your head in a trash can when you play. Occlusion sucks, it is just massive reverb and chorus effects. The loss of pioneering talent in gaming hardware has been staggering lately. Aureal, 3dfx, Thrustmaster, SpaceOrb, and Sega...we are Borg you will be assimilated |
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Steve, I think the lack of real innovation in PC audio has left us kind of blinkered to what *could* be done. I agree on the 3D sound -- I often find it hard to discern, even with headphones on. This is one area alone that could stand dramatic improvement and it has the opportunity to truly add a new dimension to gaming. Think about it -- how many games make audio cues a vital part of the experience? Very few, really. How many rely on 3D sound, where knowing where the sound is coming from is as important as hearing it? None, that I can think of. Thief and games like it rely on sound cues, yes, but is it 3D? If it is, my ears can't tell the difference. We could see further improvements to CPU usage. Sound cards today typically don't eat up too many cycles, but less is always better. There are many ways to improve the design. It's just that what we've seen so far has been pretty timid and there doesn't seem to be a drive to really make PC sound any better. Is it because CL is the de facto standard? Maybe. And I actually kind of agree on the video card issue. Cards have been getting faster, but not by magnitudes. Prices, however, have been climbing rapidly, due to the use of DDR ram and such. It'd be nice to hit a plateau and see what designers could do with some of the top-end stuff, without having to worry that their work will be undermined by even faster hardware with more features six months down the road. This is similar to what happens with console development now. Any given platform has a shelf life of, say, three to five years. During that time, the hardware is set. Every developer knows exactly what they're dealing with. With a fixed target, they can optimize for it and ring every drop of performance out of the hardware. Hence, we see remarkable things being down in the second or third generation of any console's titles. With an established base that won't change, developers don't have to constantly chase a target. And maybe that's a good thing. On the other hand, none of this makes much difference if all you want to play is Rollercoaster Tycoon. Although even there, better graphics would never hurt. |
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CreoleNed (#35): We could see further improvements to CPU usage. Sound cards today typically don't eat up too many cycles, but less is always better. There are many ways to improve the design. It's just that what we've seen so far has been pretty timid and there doesn't seem to be a drive to really make PC sound any better. Is it because CL is the de facto standard? Maybe. Right, this is what I'm saying ... I think they could do SOMETHING other than write yet another application to put on the CD they include with the card. --- Warren Marshall Level Designer/Programmer/Corporate Shill Epic Games (www.epicgames.com)<i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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<b>WarrenMarshall</b> (#36): <quote>Right, this is what I'm saying ... I think they could do SOMETHING other than write yet another application to put on the CD they include with the card.</quote> Not only that take a look at the Platinum 5.1, the only good new features is Dolby Digital (and it's not like that's going to be of much use for games, or even movies since a good decoder card will do the same thing) the rest is simply more audio inputs and outputs then any sane person needs. All this pointless overkill cost you an extra $100 over a simple Live card (which is getting harder and harder to find). <i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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This is one area alone that could stand dramatic improvement and it has the opportunity to truly add a new dimension to gaming. Think about it -- how many games make audio cues a vital part of the experience? God, I hope there won't be many games that go too far with audio. The vast majority of people don't have proper speakers, and I suspect a fair amount of people are like me and just have their PCs in a room and play games with the TV and/or stereo on. I'm a hardcore gamer, and audio is obviously important, but I hope it never becomes so important that I'm forced to play with headphones on or isolate myself from my house or something. Then there's the hearing impaired, or the people like me who've been to too many concerts growing up... (also known as the "soon to be hearing impaired"). We could see further improvements to CPU usage. Sound cards today typically don't eat up too many cycles, but less is always better. There are many ways to improve the design. It's just that what we've seen so far has been pretty timid and there doesn't seem to be a drive to really make PC sound any better. Is it because CL is the de facto standard? Maybe. Ah, the CPU utilization is good, but you'll never see major upgrades in sound because people see no compelling reason TO upgrade their sound card. Sound is sound, right? I've had two sound cards in the last eight years or so; a Sound Blaster 16 and a Live. And that's it. And I have no intentions of swapping out the Live anytime in the near future because, while I like good audio, I'd rather spend money on other things. |
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Right, this is what I'm saying ... I think they could do SOMETHING other than write yet another application to put on the CD they include with the card. I suspect there's not, nor has there ever been, much of a market for sound card upgrades, and all of those dumb apps are for newbie users (though the 5.1 Live Platinum comes with over well $100 worth of full games, and not dogs, A-list stuff). So long as their machines make noise, I suspect most people aren't keen on upgrading. Graphics make a greater impact to more people... |
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SteveBauman (#39): So long as their machines make noise, I suspect most people aren't keen on upgrading. Graphics make a greater impact to more people... I agree with you. I just can't help but think they could do something if they really applied themselves ... who knows what though. But yeah, I've only had a few sound cards in my life ... maybe 2 or 3. All SoundBlasters of some sort. As long as I get sound and it's decent, I don't really care. *shrug* --- Warren Marshall Level Designer/Programmer/Corporate Shill Epic Games (www.epicgames.com)<i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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Aww crap! And here I am all ready to buy a new Graphics card for my Craputer (HP 550 Celeron 96Ram Intel 82810 vid card which sucks and no AGI slots, just PCI) and now I have to know: Any GeForces out there that run on PCI slots? |
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#41 I know there are PCI geeforce mxs out there...although a bit rare in retail...might have to order online... |
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<b><u>None1a</u></b>, in the delightfully enlightening post <b>#37</b>, babbled the following: <quote>the rest is simply more audio inputs and outputs then any sane person needs. </quote> Actually, the LiveDrive was one of the principal reasons why I got the Platinum over the other SBLive cards. Not having to root around behind my box, which is in a bad place to begin with, when I want to plug in a set of headphones or a Microphone was worth it to me. Granted, I'll probably never use the other ports, but I have what I want out of it at the moment, it was worth it. <i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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I think this nVidia/3dfx thing makes for rather troubling thinking when you combine this with nVidia/Microsoft's Xbox plans. What does this mean for PC gaming? Nothing good I'm sure. I'm going to miss 3dfx, even if SLI'ing chips is just as silly as Double Data Rate or Quad Data Rate memory is cost/performance-wise for fixing the problem of bandwidth limitations |
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Creative Labs _HAVE_ improved their chips significantly. For instance, SBLive! is full duplex("real" separated simultaneous playback and record, not multiplexing between them), 96 kHz, 24 bit sound, digital SPDIF interface etc. Let's not even mention that SB Live! has the _best_ and _cleanest_ clock of all cards, even better than most professional products in $1000 price range. Great for cheap home recording. Between SB16 and SB 64, that's where nothing happened. SB 128 added EAX(1.0), but wasn't full duplex. |
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God, I hope there won't be many games that go too far with audio. The vast majority of people don't have proper speakers, and I suspect a fair amount of people are like me and just have their PCs in a room and play games with the TV and/or stereo on. I'm a hardcore gamer, and audio is obviously important, but I hope it never becomes so important that I'm forced to play with headphones on or isolate myself from my house or something. I'm not suggesting every game needs "rockin' 3D audio!" That would be silly, of course, but I don't see a downside to soundcards offering the possibility for such games. Right now, we aren't seeing that happening. And I'd imagine playing something like Thief with the TV on in the background might not work that well, even for a hardcore gamer. :) I doubt we'll see any major improvements to PC sound in the near term. It works and people seem content with what they have. I almost think people would say the same about video cards, except new games always find ways to bring the latest iron to its knees. |
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BTW, I guess you understand that I didn't buy SB Live! for gaming. In that case, I'd go with ESS or Philips. The new Philips card is a real monster. You'll forget about Aureal, CL and the others when you hear it. It's not even very expensive. |
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nVidia buying 3dfx is the worst news I've heard in a long time. The prices for the new cards will be cosmic. The old cards won't get cheeper anytime soon. Let's just hope that ATI keeps the competition going. Or Glaze3D, if it shoud really exist... |
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I think nVidia is defenitely the best chip maker out there, but their DirectX-compatibility really sucks. My Geforce DDR (Creative Annihilator Pro) plays non-DirectX games perfectly, but whenever a game uses DirectX, I get these weird lines all over my screen. I've had this since DirectX7.0a and now with DirectX 8.0 i still have it. It's not a hardware problem since I tried another (new) card aswell with the same result. Also several drivers have been installed, and although installation of a new driver improves of the situation, it doesn't get rid of it. That said about nVidia drivers. Now about #DF/X : I wonder what they expect to earn money with... |
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Ye olde godZero wrote in post 45 Between SB16 and SB 64, that's where nothing happened. Well, apart from the SB 32 and SB 64 having a ROM wavetable, which, in my ever-so-humble opinion, really rocked back then ... |
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Hopefully with Creative buying Aureal (sound fimiliar? *cough* NIVIDA buys 3dfx *cough*) They will bring out EAX 3.0 with the power and usefulness which A3D had/has. Why do you think Mr 3D choose OpenGL over Direct3D, and A3D over EAX? |
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<b>MaverickUK</b> (#51): <quote>They will bring out EAX 3.0 with the power and usefulness which A3D had/has.</quote> Unless someone at Creative does some VERY creative work (yeah right, they would actually live up to the name?), it's not likely that current CL sound cards will ever use the complete A3D feature set. They might get parts of A3D 2.0/3.0 to work under software, but most of A3D's power came from the fact that it's done in hardware, which means CL will have to release new cards to support it. Sucks that Creative Labs has such crappy driver support, and that the best sound card I own is no longer very useful to me because CL sued Aureal into oblivion and Diamond got bought up by S3 (therefore Win2k drivers are non-existant and Win98 drivers have not been improved). |
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<b>Speed</b> (#49): <quote>My Geforce DDR (Creative Annihilator Pro) plays non-DirectX games perfectly, but whenever a game uses DirectX, I get these weird lines all over my screen. I've had this since DirectX7.0a and now with DirectX 8.0 i still have it. It's not a hardware problem since I tried another (new) card aswell with the same result. </quote> Have you tried running with v-sync on? I'm not sure exactly what it is you're talking about, but it sounds like tearing, which is usually solved by enabling v-sync (of course this will cap your framerates to your refresh rate, but you should be able to run your monitor at a high enough refresh rate, and stable framerates are better than triple digit framerates anyway). If it's something else, then I'm at a complete loss, because it's nothing I've ever seen as far as I can tell. |
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<b>godZero</b> (#48): <quote>nVidia buying 3dfx is the worst news I've heard in a long time. The prices for the new cards will be cosmic. The old cards won't get cheeper anytime soon. </quote> nVidia's already said that they don't think they can sell their chips for any higher price than what they're selling for right now anyway, and as long as they remain solely a chip maker, the competition between the board makers that sell their products will help keep it down. Hopefully they'll keep thinking the same way, and if not you'll probably see government intervention before long. In any case, if the situation arises where nVidia cards are selling for $600+, the simple solution is to not buy them, as it is right now there aren't a whole lot of games that will really require a GeForce 2 Ultra (though I'd really like to have one of those NV20s when they come along). |
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<b>godZero</b> (#45): <quote>SB 128 added EAX(1.0), but wasn't full duplex.</quote> SB PCI-64 added EAX before the 128, but they phased it out fairly quickly once they got the 128 out there. Then again, neither card was originally built on their own technology anyway. To me, EAX is a nice system for adding effects that seem to fit the surroundings in the game, but overall it's not very good, especially in a 2 speaker (or headphone) environment. I definitely prefer A3D 2 for gaming, but unfortunately CL took care of that by basically destroying Aureal. As far as home recording goes, though, there's not much out there that can beat an SBLive Platinum as far as quality for the price goes (and it's nice having the DIN MIDI in/out connectors right on the front of the computer). |
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<b>VeeSPIKE</b> (#43): <quote>Actually, the LiveDrive was one of the principal reasons why I got the Platinum over the other SBLive cards. </quote> You could ge nearly the same function out of the CPX Multimedia Ports from FrontX for around $25US (it's an option I'm considering for my next upgrade since I'm happy with my fortissimo, which was a $50 card so the full setup will cost me less and even buying a Live X-Gamer). <i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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Does this mean NVidia will be able to use Glide on their new chipsets? If so, w00p! -- My horrendous website - http://vexor.tripod.com/ Support the teenybopper holocaust!<i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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<b>#33</b> "Quicken" inputted the following digitized organization of alphabetical symbols and sent them across a data transporting connection to be recieved by the electronic message database of PlanetCrap... <quote>3dfx have always tried to innovate and focus on the 3d gaming markets needs/desires. nVidia have run a very good business model on simply incorporating all the key features that are as fast as possible but haven’t done near as much to get new ideas out onto the shelves.</quote> Um, weren't 3Dfx the ones who constantly re-hashed the Voodoo name and technology? And wasn't it 3Dfx who introduced the graphics processor (GPU) to the world? I think you have your companies mixed up. -- My horrendous website: http://vexor.tripod.com Support the teenybopper holocaust!<i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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Well, it looks like the corporate demons' monopolies are continuing to destroy innovation and the industry. I have the solution to all this mess: AUSHWITZ, THE MEANING OF PAIN THE WAY THAT I WANT YOU TO DIE SLOW DEATH, IMMENSE DECAY SHOWERS THAT CLEANSE YOU OF YOUR LIFE FORCED IN LIKE CATTLE YOU RUN STRIPPED OF YOUR LIFE'S WORTH HUMAN MICE, FOR THE ANGEL OF DEATH FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE TO DIE ANGEL OF DEATH MONARCH TO THE KINGDOM OF THE DEAD SADISTIC, SURGEON OF DEMISE SADIST OF THE NOBLEST BLOOD DESTROYING, WITHOUT MERCY TO BENIFIT THE INNOCENT CONSUMER SURGERY, WITH NO ANESTHESIA FEEL THE KNIFE PIERCE YOU INTENSELY EVIL, NO USE TO MANKIND STRAPPED DOWN SCREAMING OUT TO DIE ANGEL OF DEATH MONARCH TO THE KINGDOM OF THE DEAD INFAMOUS BUTCHER, ANGEL OF DEATH PUMPED WITH FLUID, INSIDE YOUR BRAIN PRESSURE IN YOUR SKULL BEGINS PUSHING THROUGH YOUR EYES BURNING FLESH, DRIPS AWAY TEST OF HEAT BURNS YOUR SKIN, YOUR MIND STARTS TO BOIL FRIGID COLD, CRACKS YOUR LIMBS HOW LONG CAN YOU LAST IN THIS FROZEN WATER BURIAL? SEWN TOGETHER, JOINING HEADS JUST A MATTER OF TIME 'TILL YOU RIP YOURSELVES APART MILLIONS LAID OUT IN THEIR CROWDED TOMBS SICKENING WAYS TO ACHIEVE THE HOLOCAUST SEAS OF BLOOD, BURY LIFE SMELL YOUR DEATH AS IT BURNS DEEP INSIDE OF YOU ABACINATE, EYES THAT BLEED PRAYING FOR THE END OF YOUR WIDE AWAKE NIGHTMARE WINGS OF PAIN, REACH OUT FOR YOU HIS FACE STARING DOWN, YOUR BLOOD RUNNING COLD INJECTING CELLS, DYING EYES FEEDING ON THE SCREAMS OF THE MUTANTS HE'S CREATING PATHETIC, STUPID VICTIMS LEFT TO DIE RANCID ANGEL OF DEATH FLYING FREE -- My horrendous website: http://vexor.tripod.com Support the teenybopper holocaust!<i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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Check out this quote I found. This is the shit I'm afraid of. Good video cards are already teetering on the edge of consumer afordability in my opinion, expecially, if (you just know I have to say this), you do not live in the US. CAN, and AUS folks are just about completly priced out already, and I find quotes like this, which just might put the squeeze on American buyers as well. If that happens, look for either stagnation in the market as it becomes unprofitable to introduce new competitive equipment, or companies such as Nvidia and ATI themselves find themselves unable to profitably compete in a market they already own. I'm telling ya folks, the downfall of 3dfx, while I believe it to be part self inflicted, is a very, very bad thing for us consumers of high end video products. Now, on with the snip: The near-term success of Nvidia and ATI will depend on how well they can raise the price of their products, Feibus says. They've been successful so far; the average price of the highest performing 3D chips available have doubled over the last 18 months, according to Mercury Research. Nvidia's GeForce 2 Ultra sells for around $400 or higher. <i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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<b>Barneyque</b> (#60): <quote>The near-term success of Nvidia and ATI will depend on how well they can raise the price of their products, Feibus says. They've been successful so far; the average price of the highest performing 3D chips available have doubled over the last 18 months, according to Mercury Research. Nvidia's GeForce 2 Ultra sells for around $400 or higher. </quote> That's total bullshit. An Ordinary GeForce 2 doesn't cost all that much more then a voodoo or V2 card did when first released (the GeForce2 ultra cost about the same as a duel V@ setup did at one point). Where did this quote come from in the first place? I showed earlyer the Nvidia is currently profitable, and ATI is loseing money. <i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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<b>#61</b> "None1a" wrote... <quote><B>Barneyque</B> (#60): <quote>The near-term success of Nvidia and ATI will depend on how well they can raise the price of their products, Feibus says. They've been successful so far; the average price of the highest performing 3D chips available have doubled over the last 18 months, according to Mercury Research. Nvidia's GeForce 2 Ultra sells for around $400 or higher. </quote> That's total bullshit. An Ordinary GeForce 2 doesn't cost all that much more then a voodoo or V2 card did when first released (the GeForce2 ultra cost about the same as a duel V@ setup did at one point). Where did this quote come from in the first place? I showed earlyer the Nvidia is currently profitable, and ATI is loseing money. </quote> It's not bullshit, it does not say anything about the ordinary GeForce 2 it's talking about the 'highest performing 3D chips'. And like I posted before in another thread, the top of the line Nvidia based cards take NINE HUNDRED THIRTY EIGHT canadian dollars to get into my house. I'm not making this shit up, here is a real live link to a popular place for Canadians to shop online. (http://www.onvia.ca/canada/products/index.cfm?Task=ViewProduct&IdCatalog=2568383) Check the price of the gladiac 64Mb Ultra AGP DDR GeForce 2, and add 15% TAX. Those are real world fucking numbers for those of us not blessed to live in the U.S. of Bleeping A. As for where I got the link. Heh heh, uhhh, well I was hoping you would not ask me that, but I got it from here : http://macweek.zdnet.com/2000/12/17/12183dfxanalysis.html yeah yeah, it's a macweek site, kill me for taking pleasure watching the Mac Loyal scrambling all over themselves telling the world what's wrong with apple while at the same time calling it the bee's Knees. If at all possible, put more weight on who made the comment than where I found it. :) <i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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To #33 Um, weren't 3Dfx the ones who constantly re-hashed the Voodoo name and technology? And wasn't it 3Dfx who introduced the graphics processor (GPU) to the world? I think you have your companies mixed up. Oh please. GPU is just a fancy name for what's been done since the voodoo1. The biggest improvement I've seen from nVidia (except speed and fairly comprehensive openGL support) has been to pull out a series of chips with new features as the series continued all running off the same drivers (I'm talking TNT to GE-Force). Gives for good support to owners of the older stuff. Now for 3Dfx we can say voodoo1 set the tone. voodoo2 was super fast and introduced SLI (I'm not saying it's good it's just inventive okay). Voodoo3 was an attempt to play "catch up" by putting in 32bit graphics and better support of openGL. Voodoo4/5 introduced some pretty impressive smoothing options. That's just stuff off the top of my head. They've shown greater efforts that nVidia in getting innovative tech onto the shelves and into PCs. That's all I'm saying. |
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<b>Barneyque</b> (#62): <quote>Check the price of the gladiac 64Mb Ultra AGP DDR GeForce 2, and add 15% TAX. Those are real world fucking numbers for those of us not blessed to live in the U.S. of Bleeping A. </quote> Barney that's not exactly what I meant by the rising cost being bullshit. Think back how much would it have cost you to buy a Voodoo2 SLI (or Quantum 3D 3ds Duel V2 card), in the US that setup would have cost you 400-500 when new (exactly the same as the GeForce 2 Ultra cards. Unless the ecomomy up there had taken a rather drastic turn for the worse the situation should be the same. I also can not agree with Feibus claming rising the price would be a good thing, all that would do will allow those like PowerVR or Matrox to gain a lot of ground with cheaper usable solutions. Take a look at the CPU market AMD has been gaining ground on Intel because of their low cost high speed chips. Like I pointed out earlyer Nvidia is makeing money (not a lot, but better then losing it) and really needs to continue the way they are and grab a bit more of the OEM market, not up the price. ATI needs to simple get rid of it's backlog of parts (the infomation I gathered the other day show that most of their losses was because of storing/promotions to get rid of outdated chips/cards and buying out ArtX). <b>Quicken</b> (#63): <quote>Now for 3Dfx we can say voodoo1 set the tone. voodoo2 was super fast and introduced SLI (I'm not saying it's good it's just inventive okay). Voodoo3 was an attempt to play "catch up" by putting in 32bit graphics and better support of openGL</quote> The Voodoo3 never had 32-bit rendering (the chip rendered at 22-bits then output the image at 16). Nor did it have a full set of OpenGL drivers (id kind of forced them to release a full set just to get Quake3 to run correctly). FSAA wasn't a 3dfx first (PowerVR did it back with the PowerVR Series2 chips used in the VideoLogic Neon 250 and Sega Dreamcast). While Nvidia has released the first T&L on chip solutions (two generations of it), and on card Per-Pixel Shaders. 3dfx best hope to be inovative again was gigapixel (but then again PowerVR had been using a tile based render since Series1). <i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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<b>#64</b> "None1a" wrote... <quote><B>Barneyque</B> (#62): <quote>Check the price of the gladiac 64Mb Ultra AGP DDR GeForce 2, and add 15% TAX. Those are real world fucking numbers for those of us not blessed to live in the U.S. of Bleeping A. </quote> Barney that's not exactly what I meant by the rising cost being bullshit. Think back how much would it have cost you to buy a Voodoo2 SLI (or Quantum 3D 3ds Duel V2 card), in the US that setup would have cost you 400-500 when new (exactly the same as the GeForce 2 Ultra cards. Unless the ecomomy up there had taken a rather drastic turn for the worse the situation should be the same. I also can not agree with Feibus claming rising the price would be a good thing, all that would do will allow those like PowerVR or Matrox to gain a lot of ground with cheaper usable solutions. Take a look at the CPU market AMD has been gaining ground on Intel because of their low cost high speed chips. Like I pointed out earlyer Nvidia is makeing money (not a lot, but better then losing it) and really needs to continue the way they are and grab a bit more of the OEM market, not up the price. ATI needs to simple get rid of it's backlog of parts (the infomation I gathered the other day show that most of their losses was because of storing/promotions to get rid of outdated chips/cards and buying out ArtX). </quote> Chances are very good that in the time since the VooDoo2 has come out, the Canadian dollar has become even weaker vs the US Dollar (Actually, I believe the CAD$ has not changed, but the USD has become stronger), which has in fact driven up the real cost of equipment up here. So that does in fact account for some of my misery, but not all of it. As for the push on average selling prices, that's actually a very real thing, and something that manufactures shoot for. It's kind of convenient that you mentioned AMD in your statement because a LARGE part of their current success is due to the fact that they have finally after many years of bottom digging, been able to do just that. They have brought up their average selling price, which has allowed them the cash required to actually post a profitable quarter or two. Had they not been able to do this, they would be in a very different situation today. If I recall correctly, just two years ago or so, ADM had an ASP of about $65, now with the popularity of the thunderbird, they have been able to push the ASP to over $100.00 USD. This is something they(AMD) desperately wanted to do, and I see no reason to believe Nvidia would not like to do the same, and the removal of a key, but severely wounded competitor is just the ticket to provide for such a scenario. <i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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<b>#63</b> "Quicken" inputted the following digitized organization of alphabetical symbols and sent them across a data transporting connection to be recieved by the electronic message database of PlanetCrap... <quote>To #33 <quote> Um, weren't 3Dfx the ones who constantly re-hashed the Voodoo name and technology? And wasn't it 3Dfx who introduced the graphics processor (GPU) to the world? I think you have your companies mixed up. </quote> Oh please. GPU is just a fancy name for what's been done since the voodoo1. The biggest improvement I've seen from nVidia (except speed and fairly comprehensive openGL support) has been to pull out a series of chips with new features as the series continued all running off the same drivers (I'm talking TNT to GE-Force). Gives for good support to owners of the older stuff.</quote> Um, do you even KNOW what a GPU is? A GPU is a Graphics Processing Unit. Unlike graphics cards, GPUs run completely independent of the CPU, which means infintely more speed, plus there's Transform and Lighting (click hyah to see how it works and what it does), something only possible with the speed of prosseccor-independent rendering hardware. Mind you, most current games don't support the enhanced functions of the GPU, but many developers have taken it into serious consideration. Speaking of developers, a slew of quotes from them on what the GeForce can make possible can be found hyah. Here are some of them: "The sheer power of NVIDIA's next generation GPU gives us greater freedom when designing characters and worlds. The technology not only allows us to incorporate unbelievably detailed visuals, but it also offers the ability to add more robust artificial intelligence, level design, and more. In short, it's the next giant step in gaming." - Darren Falcus, VP and General Manager: Acclaim Studios Teesside "The new graphics processor from NVIDIA will allow us to do the kind of wild and amazing stuff that we have been dreaming about for years. By using the T&L features we free up a ton of the CPU for better AI and more accurate physics. People are going to be blown away by the amazing visuals that are going to be more intense than ever!" - Chris Taylor, President: Gas Powered Games "The difference between no 3D card and a 3D card is the same as between hardware T&L and normal T&L." - Ferry Marcellis, 3D Programmer: Act 3D "Incredible frame rates at high resolutions and awesome frame rates across the board are only the tip of the iceberg." - Sean Fish, Infogrames U.S. You don't see developers getting this excited about the next Voodoo3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 etc. <quote>Now for 3Dfx we can say voodoo1 set the tone.</quote> I have to agree with you there, the Voodoo1 was very revolutionary <quote>voodoo2 was super fast</quote> And how is speeding up a card innovative or revolutionary? <quote>and introduced SLI (I'm not saying it's good it's just inventive okay).</quote> And that became obsolete after 3D-only cards and PCI went out of style. <quote>Voodoo3 was an attempt to play "catch up" by putting in 32bit graphics</quote> Um, last time I checked Voodoo3 didn't have 32-bit graphics. That's some NVidia brought to the table. <quote>and better support of openGL. Voodoo4/5 introduced some pretty impressive smoothing options. That's just stuff off the top of my head.</quote> And HOW are things (basically speeding up and prettying up a four-year-old card) supposed to be innovative or revolutionary compared to the GPU concept and T&L? <quote>They've shown greater efforts that nVidia in getting innovative tech onto the shelves and into PCs. That's all I'm saying.</quote> Innovative, pfft! If you would get your head out of your ass you'd see it's the opposite. -- My horrendous website: http://vexor.tripod.com Support the teenybopper holocaust!<i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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<b>Barneyque</b> (#65): <quote>Had they not been able to do this, they would be in a very different situation today. If I recall correctly, just two years ago or so, ADM had an ASP of about $65, now with the popularity of the thunderbird, they have been able to push the ASP to over $100.00 USD. This is something they(AMD) desperately wanted to do, and I see no reason to believe Nvidia would not like to do the same, and the removal of a key, but severely wounded competitor is just the ticket to provide for such a scenario. </quote> There are still a few key differences, I'd imagin AMD's ASP is still quite a bit lower then Intel's, and Every lowe speed CPU sold generaly means money lost since that chip could have been marked up to the next higher speed and sold for more (the reason AMD no longer makes 600Mhz Durons, or the slower Thunderbirds). Pushing prices up will only allow one of the few other competitors to setup and grab parts of the market. In fact Nvidia's slight drop in gross profit is attributed to the cost of DDR RAM not decressing profits from their products. From the sound of Nvidia's SEC papers (which can be found <a href="http://10kwizard.ccbn.com/fil_submis.asp?iacc=1329267&uid=42819943&CN=&FC=000000&BL=&BK=FFFFFF&BP=&TC=FFFFFF&TC1=FFFFFF&TC2=FFFFFF&LK=0000FF&AL=FF0000&VL=800080&DF=OFF">here</a>) they expect to keep ASP about where it is, meaning the Nv20 should cost the same as the Geforce 2 (and a future hihger end NV20 about the same as the GF2Ultra). What they really need to do is drop the money spent on each chip shiped out. They can do this two way, first stop selling DDR RAM with the chips (from the sounds of the SEC papers they expect to do this in six months), and bring more manufacuters on board to produce the chips. Currently they are dependent on TSMC for most of their chips, the september 99 earthquake drasticly reduced what TSMC could produce and caused a shortage for the last two quarters (which is exactly when the dip in gross profits happened). Personaly I find the almost total dependance on TSMC (wich no requirement to supply a minumim number of chips) far more worrying then what Nvidia ASP is (which seams about right). <i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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wow, nvidia really pulled a fast one on you. Take a look at the words, "Graphics Processing Unit". That suggests oddly enough, a unit that processes graphics. Now I'm curious, before the revolutionary Geforce GPU came out what were video cards processing before? Were video cards (note the word 'video') in the past just sitting there burning electricity? I wonder if my so called 'sound card' processes any sound, I mean it doesn't have an SPU... Really, I can't believe nvidia's marketing managed to pull that off without getting shot down... |
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<b>#67</b> "None1a" wrote... <quote><B>Barneyque</B> (#65): <quote>Had they not been able to do this, they would be in a very different situation today. If I recall correctly, just two years ago or so, ADM had an ASP of about $65, now with the popularity of the thunderbird, they have been able to push the ASP to over $100.00 USD. This is something they(AMD) desperately wanted to do, and I see no reason to believe Nvidia would not like to do the same, and the removal of a key, but severely wounded competitor is just the ticket to provide for such a scenario. </quote> There are still a few key differences, I'd imagin AMD's ASP is still quite a bit lower then Intel's, and Every lowe speed CPU sold generaly means money lost since that chip could have been marked up to the next higher speed and sold for more (the reason AMD no longer makes 600Mhz Durons, or the slower Thunderbirds). Pushing prices up will only allow one of the few other competitors to setup and grab parts of the market. In fact Nvidia's slight drop in gross profit is attributed to the cost of DDR RAM not decressing profits from their products. From the sound of Nvidia's SEC papers (which can be found <A href="http://10kwizard.ccbn.com/fil_submis.asp?iacc=1329267&uid=42819943&CN=&FC=000000&BL=&BK=FFFFFF&BP=&TC=FFFFFF&TC1=FFFFFF&TC2=FFFFFF&LK=0000FF&AL=FF0000&VL=800080&DF=OFF">here</A>) they expect to keep ASP about where it is, meaning the Nv20 should cost the same as the Geforce 2 (and a future hihger end NV20 about the same as the GF2Ultra). What they really need to do is drop the money spent on each chip shiped out. They can do this two way, first stop selling DDR RAM with the chips (from the sounds of the SEC papers they expect to do this in six months), and bring more manufacuters on board to produce the chips. Currently they are dependent on TSMC for most of their chips, the september 99 earthquake drasticly reduced what TSMC could produce and caused a shortage for the last two quarters (which is exactly when the dip in gross profits happened). Personaly I find the almost total dependance on TSMC (wich no requirement to supply a minumim number of chips) far more worrying then what Nvidia ASP is (which seams about right). </quote> Great reply. I agree with nearly all of it as you wrote it. I share your concerns about TSMC. From what I can tell, they are a very busy company making chips for just about everyone. This has to be causing supply constraints, therby irritating my price rash. As for removing DDR RAM, this is the first I've seen mention of this. What exactly are they planning to replace it with? I'll have to go read the doc you linked to find out. The only part where I want to niggle a bit is on the price increases opening the door for a competitor to come in and eat there lunch. While theoretically that is true, I don't see anyone on the landscape at the momnent which is in the same technical league as Nvidia is. It would take some serious time before anyone had a product ready to run with. during that window, the potential for higher prices does exist. If someone gets too close, Nvidia can resume the 6 month product cycle to cut off the air supply of anyone making a run at the lunch bucket. <i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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<b>#68</b> "BabiG" wrote... <quote>wow, nvidia really pulled a fast one on you. Take a look at the words, "Graphics Processing Unit". That suggests oddly enough, a unit that processes graphics. Now I'm curious, before the revolutionary Geforce GPU came out what were video cards processing before? Were video cards (note the word 'video') in the past just sitting there burning electricity? I wonder if my so called 'sound card' processes any sound, I mean it doesn't have an SPU... Really, I can't believe nvidia's marketing managed to pull that off without getting shot down...</quote> In the recent past, video cards were just framebuffers, and rasterisers.(sp) They did not really have the ability to do much of anything relying on the CPU for all the heavy lifting. As for the term GPU, it's not new. 15-20 years ago, my Atari 800 had a GPU. Very elegant system too in my opinion.<i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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Barneyque (#70): In the recent past, video cards were just framebuffers, and rasterisers.(sp) They did not really have the ability to do much of anything relying on the CPU for all the heavy lifting. would you say the voodoo1, voodoo2, voodoo3, voodoo4/5, riva 128, TNT, TNT2, TNT2U, Rendition cards, s3 cards, the gpu on your atari, etc. just framebuffers and rasterizers? I think its rediculous for their marketing to call the geforce the first GPU, and even worse that people go along with it...essentially they took a word and made up a definition for it. It's like a car maker adding power locks, and saying they made the first car, cause all those things before it were "horseless carriages" not cars... |
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<b>#71</b> "BabiG" wrote... <quote><B>Barneyque</B> (#70): <quote> In the recent past, video cards were just framebuffers, and rasterisers.(sp) They did not really have the ability to do much of anything relying on the CPU for all the heavy lifting. </quote> would you say the voodoo1, voodoo2, voodoo3, voodoo4/5, riva 128, TNT, TNT2, TNT2U, Rendition cards, s3 cards, the gpu on your atari, etc. just framebuffers and rasterizers? I think its rediculous for their marketing to call the geforce the first GPU, and even worse that people go along with it...essentially they took a word and made up a definition for it. It's like a car maker adding power locks, and saying they made the first car, cause all those things before it were "horseless carriages" not cars...</quote> Honestly, I agree with you, pretty much all the cards you listed could in one way or the other be refered to as a GPU in my books. Had you named anything that preceeded those that you listed except of course the atari piece, then I would have disagreed. PR is fun aint it?<i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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<b>#72</b> "Barneyque" wrote... <quote><B>#71</B> "BabiG" wrote... <quote><B>Barneyque</B> (#70): <quote> In the recent past, video cards were just framebuffers, and rasterisers.(sp) They did not really have the ability to do much of anything relying on the CPU for all the heavy lifting. </quote> would you say the voodoo1, voodoo2, voodoo3, voodoo4/5, riva 128, TNT, TNT2, TNT2U, Rendition cards, s3 cards, the gpu on your atari, etc. just framebuffers and rasterizers? I think its rediculous for their marketing to call the geforce the first GPU, and even worse that people go along with it...essentially they took a word and made up a definition for it. It's like a car maker adding power locks, and saying they made the first car, cause all those things before it were "horseless carriages" not cars...</quote> Honestly, I agree with you, pretty much all the cards you listed could in one way or the other be refered to as a GPU in my books. Had you named anything that preceeded those that you listed except of course the atari piece, then I would have disagreed. PR is fun aint it?</quote> To add to that, I'd like to qualify why I said 'pretty much', and 'in one way or the other', instead of a full blown agreement. Some of the early cards, had most of their smarts in the drivers as opposed to in the hardware. With the new T&L stuff, more of the muscle was moved from the drivers to the hardware, hence the term GPU. It's all hairsplitting I know.<i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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<b>Barneyque</b> (#69): <quote>As for removing DDR RAM, this is the first I've seen mention of this. What exactly are they planning to replace it with? I'll have to go read the doc you linked to find out.</quote> It doesn't sound like their going to replace it. From the way the SEC filling sounds they've been buying 64MB of DDR RAM then selling it at cost to who ever buys GeForce2 ultra chips. Even selling it at cost cuts into profits just a bit (storage and stuff adds a bit to the cost). They might stop selling the DDR RAM with the chips and simply allow people to find their own supplier. I'd think the supply problems with TSMC would have caused more problems then this thou. <b>Barneyque</b> (#69): <quote>If someone gets too close, Nvidia can resume the 6 month product cycle to cut off the air supply of anyone making a run at the lunch bucket.</quote> I don't see them stoping the 6 month product cycle (again the SEC papers from Nvidia say they aim to release a product to match the product cycle of OEMs). I don't think we'll see a price incress eather rather the same old same old with the price staying about level and the 6 month cycles simply bringing it back up to the normal price. You've also got to remember that PowerVR does sell it's technology to others (they list Matrox as a buyer for the Series2 tech). The Kyro does perform good enough for most computer users and if the prices for Nvidia or ATI tech get to high could grab some of the OEM sales. I also would count out people like bitboys just yet, their is a remote chance they could release Glaze3d, or that another company could have something waiting in the wings and a price that's to high for Nvidia or ATI stuff would be just the time to strike, when even a slightly lower speed or feature level might not be viewed as that bad of a thing. <b>Barneyque</b> (#73): <quote>It's all hairsplitting I know.</quote> It's the whole GPU debate hairsplitting? Who really cares what Nvidia called it? They where the first with a T&L engine on a consumer level card, the fact that they called it a Graphics processing unit rather then a video chip then arguing about it is hairsplitting. <i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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#71, I think its rediculous for their marketing to call the geforce the first GPU, and even worse that people go along with it...essentially they took a word and made up a definition for it. Yes, it is a marketing term (GPU that is). It is an old "word" that was redefined so that the another word--first--would be used with it to describe the GeForce256 chip. Now which is worse? Redefining a word so that it appears you were the "first" or redefining a technical term like texel to make it appear that the card is just as fast or faster than the competition on paper? Unlike 3dfx, NVIDIA was indeed the first company to introduce a hardware T&L capable card to the consumer market. How they went about to convince people that was to redefine "GPU". It is simple as that. On the other hand, 3dfx redefined texel to make their card (their then-upcoming Voodoo3) appear faster than it really is. In single-pass dual-texturing the Voodoo3 and TNT2 were roughly the same speed. In single-texturing, the Voodoo3 is much, much slower at fill rate limiting conditions. You could not tell that fact with this "texel" fill rate that was constantly quoted in the previews, reviews, and commentaries. Many reviewers got away with this by deliberately ignoring single-textured applications or ignoring multi-pass multi-textured applications in their benchmarks. Now some were smart enough to show a little bit of fairness and honesty by including Shogo benchmarks, a game that uses two passes to do dual-texturing. This means that the second texturing unit of the Voodoo3 went unused in this mode. People often associated "multi-texturing" with single-pass multi-texturing and that is not the case much of the time. (A patch was actually released for Shogo that allows the user to enable single-pass dual-texturing.) This is one of the reasons that 3dfx went under (or will go under). 3dfx relied on marketing, not technology, to sell their products. They also relied on inexperience reviewers and reviewers who are sloppy or unfairly biased. This is one of the biggest problems with benchmarks: no attempt to validate the scores. How many reviewers bothered to check up on the Voodoo5 5500 benchmarks in Quake III when trilinear-filtering was selected? All those benchmark scores with trilinear enabled were all bogus. The Voodoo5 5500 can not do trilinear and neither can the Voodoo5 6000. There is an expression that went something like this: fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. The marketing on the Voodoo3 was great, fooled alot of people. To this day, some will "die" claiming that the Voodoo3 was 'da bomb. Now riddle me this: how can a card that offers roughly the same speed as the competition in single-pass dual-texturing, 1/2 the speed in single-texturing, has 1/2 the memory capacity, does not support AGP texturing, does not support 32-bit color/32-bit Z-buffer, does not support texture sizes of 1Kx1K or greater, etc., etc be so great? If you are looking for glide support, then yes, it was at the time the best glide card around. But for OGL and D3D, how can it be so great? And remember the comment about the TNT2? It is too slow. Funny that. A year later they released the Voodoo4 4500 with nearly the same feature set plus 2X FSAA. If the TNT2 was too slow, surely the Voodoo4 4500 would be far too slow for 2X FSAA. That was all marketing. They sold the Voodoo3 on marketing but could not duplicate that same feat with the Voodoo4 4500 and Voodoo5 5500. They ran out of ideas. |
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<b><u>None1a</u></b>, in the delightfully enlightening post <b>#56</b>, babbled the following: <quote>You could ge nearly the same function out of the CPX Multimedia Ports from FrontX for around $25US (it's an option I'm considering for my next upgrade since I'm happy with my fortissimo, which was a $50 card so the full setup will cost me less and even buying a Live X-Gamer). </quote> Never even heard of it. To be honest, I didn't really look all that hard either ... <i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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I would like to go on record by saying that I believe that the earth will fall into the sun before the Bitboys ever release anything other than press releases and ludicrous spec sheets. |
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