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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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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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Yea, I'm not saying 3dfx is faultless, I don't even notice the fillrate and pixels and whatnot, just since the numbers have gotten so huge that I can't relate to them, or get any idea of scale. And stuff like fillrate doesn't seem to matter as much anymore, from what I remember the geforce2 has twice or three times the fillrate of the geforce1, but doesn't come close to that much of a perf. increase...in any case, the core thing remains, just cause 3dfx did it too, it doesn't make what nvidia did any better... I can already imagine thousands of computer users wandering into their local Best Buys, hopelessly looking for the GPU section, so they can compare how many texels each one can pump out in wireframe mode...it shouldn't require extensive research to buy a video card, if a heart surgeon wants to buy a video card I'd rather he/she spend time researching a cure for heart disease, or resting so they're not so worn out when operating on a relative of mine or something, not trying to see if texels or GPUs mean anything. Well before I start going into my anti-elitist spiel, lets just say I'm not a fan of deceptive advertising... And I disagree somewhat about the voodoo3, I think it was a pretty decent buy, still do. I liked the idea you could get v2 sli performance for $129 (what I bought my v3 2000 for two weeks after release), was the fastest card out at the time (TNT2 would come out 3-5 months later, can't remember), and had good 2d. I think the v2 sli killed the v3 for hardcore vid card people, because if they had just had the v2, with no sli ability they would see the v3 with an almost 100% perf. improvment over the previous gen, and would turn a lot more heads... |
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BabiG (#78): I can already imagine thousands of computer users wandering into their local Best Buys, hopelessly looking for the GPU section, so they can compare how many texels each one can pump out in wireframe mode...it shouldn't require extensive research to buy a video card, if a heart surgeon wants to buy a video card I'd rather he/she spend time researching a cure for heart disease, or resting so they're not so worn out when operating on a relative of mine or something, not trying to see if texels or GPUs mean anything. Well before I start going into my anti-elitist spiel, lets just say I'm not a fan of deceptive advertising... Well, it's like anything else ... If CompanyA says their card goes fast, and CompanyB says the same thing, there's no way to tell them apart. So now they have to come up with ways to get your attention. GPU, gigapixel and fillrate are how they do it ... *shrug* Do you understand everything that car companies throw at you in their commercials? With the guy talking a mile a minute throwing financing options at you? I doubt anyone does ... "Uhh ... I just want an affordable car." --- Warren Marshall Level Designer/Programmer/Corporate Shill Epic Games (www.epicgames.com)<i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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#78, Yea, I'm not saying 3dfx is faultless, I don't even notice the fillrate and pixels and whatnot, just since the numbers have gotten so huge that I can't relate to them, or get any idea of scale. That is a convenient excuse. If one says 9 quadtrillion and the other says two quadtrillion, it does not take an Einstein to figure out which claims to be faster. "Idea of scale" is irrelevant. Speed sells. This means that the bigger number sells the card. "GPU" does not have a number to it just in case you didn't notice that either. And stuff like fillrate doesn't seem to matter as much anymore, from what I remember the geforce2 has twice or three times the fillrate of the geforce1, but doesn't come close to that much of a perf. The GF2 was reported to have a fill rate that is less than two times the fill rate of the GeForce256 (what you call the GeForce1). It actually has a fill rate that is 66% faster (i.e. 1.667 times faster). Where you get this two to three times figure, I do not know. In reality, the performance of a typical GF2 card (i.e. not including the Hercules with its 183MHz DDR memory) is more than 10% faster in 32-bit color than the DDR GeForce256 cards or 100% faster than the SDR GeForce256 cards. This is due to memory bandwidth limitation. I hope you can figure out the rest on what the performance increase would have been in 16-bit color. I give you a hint, it would be greater than the 10% figure I just mentioned. in any case, the core thing remains, just cause 3dfx did it too, it doesn't make what nvidia did any better... This is another excuse. Not all propaganda is the same. One is used to make it appear that they were first (NVIDIA) while the other used their marketing department to make it appear that they have a screaming fast card (3dfx). I find it amazing that people insist on equalizing all bogus marketing. Burgulary and robbery are both crimes but they are not the same. Using same simple reasoning, not all propaganda is the same. I can already imagine thousands of computer users wandering into their local Best Buys, hopelessly looking for the GPU section, so they can compare how many texels each one can pump out in wireframe mode... You must have a big imagination since that didn't happen. People heads towards the video card section like they always did. it shouldn't require extensive research to buy a video card, Since when is it difficult to compare numbers on the box cover? Duh! People saw that fill rate number and made a comparison. That is what they did, and they did not care if the units did not match. They simply compared numbers. They also compared memory sizes (32MB for the TNT2 versus 16MB for the Voodoo3). They also looked at what was available. A card that is not on the shelf does not get sold. Period. None of this requires a degree. lets just say I'm not a fan of deceptive advertising... 1) You must hate McDonalds then. The food they advertise on the TV does not look like the food that is actually provided. That is, they do not look that good. 2) You must hate 3dfx as their card is only 1/2 as fast the competition (TNT2 versus Voodoo3) in single-textured games and two-pass dual-textured games. I'm sure the list is a long longer than the two items I just mentioned. And I disagree somewhat about the voodoo3, I think it was a pretty decent buy, still do. Like I said, marketing won. The TNT2 (non-Ultra) was roughly in the same price range, maybe $10-$20 more. The TNT2 Ultra came in at $199 for the Guillemot and up to $249 for the 175MHz TNT2 Ultra from Hercules. The Voodoo3 3000 was around $179 when it first came out. None of this includes retail specials that the store might be running or any rebates. For roughly the same price, the consumer can get far more stuff. Yet, today, we still see people claiming that the 3dfx card was a good buy. I have the Voodoo3 2000 by the way. So I've seen it in action. was the fastest card out at the time (TNT2 would come out 3-5 months later, can't remember), and had good 2d. Again, I do not know where you get your facts from. The TNT2 came in April of 1999. The TNT2 Ultra came out in May of 1999. The Voodoo3 2000 came out in April of 1999 (although I believe I read that some stores in last week of March had them in stock). The Voodoo3 3000 came out in late April or early May of 1999. There is no three to five months difference here, not even close. I think the v2 sli killed the v3 for hardcore vid card people, because if they had just had the v2, with no sli ability they would see the v3 with an almost 100% perf. improvment over the previous gen, and would turn a lot more heads... If they had only a single V2, they can get "SLI" performance from the TNT2 Ultras as well for about $20 more than the Voodoo3 3000. The Voodoo3 3500TV came out in August of 1999. |
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The term GPU was given to GeForce family of chips because of the T&L unit.. So why wasn't the graphics card a GPU in the past? And what about other cards? Part of the 3D pipeline to create the image on screen are the transform and lighting stages. In the past, this load was purely put on the processor. With the introduction of the GPU, these tasks could now be proformed on the graphics card. So now you can see why the GeForce series was dubbed a GPU. Because it didn't need the CPU to perform these calulations, thus being a Graphical Processing Unit, rather than an expensive texturing unit --- MaverickUK Hardware Central |
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Well, looks like my hopes for catching a low priced stock pre rebound before the release of the next product cycle is out. If they could have lasted a little longer, assuming the rampage chip was functional and heading toward silicon, this could have been a hell of a opportunity to double, tripleor quadruple your investment short term. I suppose I will have to look elsewhere. It is also too bad competition wise, I'm sure it will effect overall price to some degree of future Nidia products. From the development perspective though I would imagine that the lack of yet another piece of hardware to be compatable with should make development somewhat easier. |
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Oh jeez... Ok, First of all, I'm not advocating either company either way...nvidia, 3dfx whatever...I guess I'll make my official stance "They all suck". I'm not specifically condemning nvidia...more that "marketing style", which Warren pointed out is in a lot of things. It seems like youre simply make "convienent excuses" for your favorite graphics company. Second don't be patronizing. I've passed the third grade, I'd rather you said "j00 suX0r!", its less insulting. This is the elitist attitude amongst computer people that I'm talking about...they even have a reoccuring SNL skit about it. it does not take an Einstein to figure out which claims to be faster. And the funny thing is, chances are if you gave Einstein two video card boxes with no prior knowledge, he wouldn't be able to decide which is faster. If its so incredibly easy to tell which is faster from the box, how do you explain the diamond stealth 3d 2000 (a s3 virge card) being the top selling video card for a fairly long time, or how bout the graph on the back of the stealth clearly showing how much faster it was compared to those other cards? or the graphs on the other boxes that say the exact opposite? I wish it was that easy to pick video cards, or anything, by just picking the one with a bigger number...but then I'd have a hard drive with a 140ms seek time and a 55% apr on my car, because that's obviously better, 140 is bigger then 10, and 55 is bigger then 1.9...you have to have some knowledge of what the numbers mean, and how they apply to the resulting performance to make an informed buying decision. The GF2 was reported to have a fill rate that is less than two times the fill rate of the GeForce256 (what you call the GeForce1). It actually has a fill rate that is 66% faster (i.e. 1.667 times faster). Where you get this two to three times figure, I do not know. In reality, the performance of a typical GF2 card (i.e. not including the Hercules with its 183MHz DDR memory) is more than 10% faster in 32-bit color than the DDR GeForce256 cards or 100% faster than the SDR GeForce256 cards. This is due to memory bandwidth limitation. I hope you can figure out the rest on what the performance increase would have been in 16-bit color. I give you a hint, it would be greater than the 10% figure I just mentioned. Ugh, again with the patronizing. I know that. I know why the geforce 2 GTS (since we're gonna be snippy about names) gets what it does, I know what fillrate is, I know what memory bandwidth is and why its the limiting factor, I know what the different types of RAM are. However we only know this because we're geeks. At least I'm not pretending I know the exact numbers. Looking at Anand's old reviews of the geforce and geforce 2, he puts the geforce at 480M Pixels per second and the Geforce 2 at 800M Pixels per second, which seems a lot more then 66%. The next time one of my friends calls me up complaining that the card I recommended to them is broken, because its only 10% faster (using your own numbers) then this other card which is $50 cheaper, I'll let you explain memory architechure limitations to them, ok? Lemme put it in simple language Knowing Computers Does Not Make You, Or Me, Smart. There's many, many, many people in my Comp. Sci classes that could explain every transistor in a pentium3, but wouldn't know their ass from a hole in the ground. There's people I know that couldn't make an icon on the desktop if their life depended on it, but run circles around me as far as intelligence is concerned. The practicality of knowing what triple buffering does is almost nil unless you're directly involved with it, if someone doesn't know what that is, or any other "computer word" it doesn't mean they're stupid. I get the feeling most heart surgeons know more about computers then most computer people know about heart surgery, its just that computer people tend to kiss their own ass more. It's this almost total ignorance/distaste for people that don't happen to be into computers that annoys the hell out of me. Almost enough to make me quit Comp. Sci. and go into something more sane...but I still enjoy computers, and programming for them, its only a (seemingly large) fraction of the people that bother me. This is another excuse. Not all propaganda is the same. One is used to make it appear that they were first (NVIDIA) while the other used their marketing department to make it appear that they have a screaming fast card (3dfx). I find it amazing that people insist on equalizing all bogus marketing. Burgulary and robbery are both crimes but they are not the same. Using same simple reasoning, not all propaganda is the same Now this just simply baffles me, the point was completely missed. 3dfx did something wrong. Well that's bad, they should be condemned, but that doesn't affect the morality of what nvidia did whatsoever. I'm not even sure where 3dfx comes in this arguement. Lets make a more extreme example, we have a rapist and a serial murderer. Is what the rapist did OK just cause someone else was doing something worse? Does the rapist get off free and the murderer get life? You wanna explain your "simple reasoning" to the rape victim? You said it yourself, "Burgulary and robbery are both crimes", therfore they're both wrong. The TNT2 (non-Ultra) was roughly in the same price range, maybe $10-$20 more I'd love to see where you got a TNT2 for $139 when it first came out (I bought my voodoo3 for $129, thet TNT2 was only $10-$20 more right?), out the back of a truck from some guy in a trenchcoat and 3 gold teeth? Hope you didn't buy a rolex from him too... And from your dates its seems as if the TNT2 was out within the same week as the v3...and yet I never saw one in the store while I was shopping for a card. If the TNT2 was coming out within the 2 weeks, I definitely would've at least delayed my purchase to see if the TNT2 was worth it. And yet the TNT2 never came out within the time of my return policy. 3-5 months, I was probably wrong there, I don't remember these things exactly...but your dates don't seem quite so legit either. |
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<b>BabiG</b> (#83): <quote>Now this just simply baffles me, the point was completely missed. 3dfx did something wrong. Well that's bad, they should be condemned, but that <B>doesn't</B> affect the morality of what nvidia did whatsoever. I'm not even sure where 3dfx comes in this arguement. Lets make a more extreme example, we have a rapist and a serial murderer. Is what the rapist did OK just cause someone else was doing something worse? Does the rapist get off free and the murderer get life? You wanna explain your "simple reasoning" to the rape victim? You said it yourself, "Burgulary and robbery are both crimes", therfore they're <B>both</B> wrong. </quote> There are degrees of wrong, changeing tearms to make your product look after = really wrong, recreating an older tearm to make your product with new features stand out = not as wrong. Lets take the rapist thing, both are wrong. However, they'll both get what they deserve for their crime. The way you sound we should put both the serial murderer and rapist to death because what the did was wrong. <b>WarrenMarshall</b> (#79): <quote>"Uhh ... I just want an affordable car." </quote> Buy a Daewoo, hehe.<i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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The way you sound we should put both the serial murderer and rapist to death because what the did was wrong. Hmm, didn't mean to come off that way...I realize there's different degrees of wrong (although in this case I don't see a very large difference), its just that the previous post made it seem like they were arguing "it's OK, because the competition did it too, and since Company A did this horrible thing, Company B shouldn't be criticized for their horrible thing". It's kinda funny though, nvidia's embraced the whole texel thing...they even called their product the Geforce 2 GTS (GigaTexel Shader). Heh, how things have backfired. =) |
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Wow, I just realized what a long ass post that was up there...I get pissed off over the stupidest things huh? =) Well back on the main topic, nvidia will hold the lead for a while, probably longer then 3dfx did, just because with the complexity of the chips entry into the market will be harder. Now it'll take a company that's much more technically profiecent (sp?) then they had to be in the voodoo1 days. Then again, if Nvidia starts make huge profits, there'll be plenty of companies that'll come in to try and get their piece of the pie. My biggest concern is that nvidia won't have the pressure to push out their products at the same rate...like Intel kinda paused at 450 for a long time, and didn't really increase much till AMD started catching up... arey, I'm going home... |
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Some of you kids either weren't around or don't remember--GPUs were around back in the old Windows 3.x days. Texas Instruments sold one for around $900 or so. Of course, this chip didn't hold a candle to what's available now.<i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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There are indeed companies out there who have the technologies and the knowledge to develop good graphic chips. The problem is that they all have better kind of business than graphics. Siemens, Philips, Samsung, ST, IBM, Motorola and so on could all make consumer level chips. They don't, because they make more money working for the industry market. If, only *if* they smell a lot of money they might, maybe, perhaps, decide to do something. Oh, siemens a.k.a. Infineon should actually produce Glaze3D. It's their embedded RAM tech in Glaze3D plans. They also have a firm contract with BitBoys. But that one will probably never see the light of day anyway... |
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<b>MaverickUK</b> (#81): <quote>So now you can see why the GeForce series was dubbed a GPU. Because it didn't need the CPU to perform these calulations, thus being a Graphical Processing Unit, rather than an expensive texturing unit</quote> Don't be ludicrous. Expensive texturing is far more procesing than geometry ops. GPU is a marketing term coined to fool fools .... just like yourself ;/ <i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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