STM pulls the plug on Kyro

[roninja]

For Hercules to make the 4000XT and 4500 brand leaders, they will have to have major OEMs onboard, and offer the cards at dirt chea prices, maybe thats what we'll see.
Now it looks highlikely we'll see Hossein Yassie eating Nvidia for lunch this year!! The so called much hyped Kyro3 strangled at birth.

 

[Judas]

Am I the only one who can't see Hercules Kyro I and II cards becoming "industry leaders" in "coming months"?

That's not a bad way of putting it....

 

[Mephisto]

http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/020208/80/crxoa.html

Chief Executive Hossein Yassaie said the sale could turn out to be positive because ST had not seen its PC Graphics division as a core business, and a purchaser would concentrate on it more fully, and generate more sales.

"If we get a major PC player on board, things would be positive," he said. "When, assuming, the deal goes through things could be reversed very quickly."

For me, it looks a bit like ST underestimated the task of fabbing 'complex' graphics chips. With their own process in their Malta fab, they didn't even get KYRO 1 up to specs. It seemed very odd to me when I read that KYRO II was fabbed at TSMC, one of their competitors!

Shame on ST. I'm quite disappointed by europeans biggest semiconductor company.

What do you think, can this all have to do with the fact that ST would not have been able to fab Series 4 and 5 in their own fabs?

 

[Hellbinder]

Honestly, other that Those who just want to support the PowerVR technology "no matter what", I cant see any reason to get a Kyro3 even in June (before Unreal 2 ships). (ok if its only 100$ thats a reason )

ATi is Pricing its parts pretty competatively, and offers High performance OEM products even cheaper. The R300 will offer 8 pixel pipelines and 4 vertes shaders. Combined with what will undoubtedly be Hyperz III. If they offer an OEM version for 199$ I just cant see any justification for a Kyro3 board at that time. It will be totally outclassed by Nearly Nvidia and ATi's entire product line. (If it follows the stats of the manyfold rumors).

They need to skip the Kyro3 entireley and go for the next generation. Aim at a Q1 2003 release and offer something really special. Not necessarilly the fastest, just a nice complete product with good numbers.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Hellbinder[CE] on 2002-02-09 23:19 ]</font>

 

[Teasy]

ok if its only 100$ thats a reason

I wouldn't be at all suprised if it was. Going by the rumoured specs it would be about 25 million (or less) transistors, 250mhz DDR ram on a normal 128bit bus, thats around the same spec as a Geforce 2 TI, but its on a 0.13 micron process (which would make the chip quite a bit cheaper then the Geforce 2 TI chip). What's the TI selling for now?.. $80?

The R300 will offer 8 pixel pipelines

And it'll end up effectively using 4 of them, and only then if it has a 256bit segmented DDR bus (thats 512bit) and a decent improvement in bandwidth saving tech. It'll be quite a bit more advanced as far as pixel shaders ect but it may not be much faster even if Kyro III is only a 250mhz core with 4 pixel pipes and HW T&amp;L. Obviously the R300 would likely still be the better buy (unless Kyro III has something great like free anti aliasing) but that wouldn't automatically make Kyro III a bad card, especially at the right price. I hear what your saying though about getting something out ASAP that supports DX8. But I don't think they'd want to forget Kyro III if its in a very advanced state and has almost finished drivers now would they? Surely it'd be better to release Kyro III and still get out the DX8 card, which a big company focused on the PC space easily could do. Lets just hope STM sell there graphics division to a big company thats focused on the PC market and so will aggressively focus on being right up there with Nvidia and ATI in the graphics card market (or at least close to Nvidia and ATI).

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Teasy on 2002-02-10 00:42 ]</font>

 

[zborgerd]

"The development and subsequent release of products based on PowerVR Technology is slow, relative to the rest of the industry."

Joe, you took the words right out of my mouth.

I think that all of us PowerVR "fans" are fairly confident in the technology. We are aware of what the current hardware is capable of, and that it has proven to be an excellent (perhaps perfect to some of us) alternative from the ATi and nVidia based products, yet still costs a fraction of the price. Others are not conviced. To them, Kyro 2 is basically bottom of the pile, "TNT2 class" (to quote) if you will.

It makes total sense that all parties involved in the design/fab/distribution of PowerVR based PC hardware need to be tight-lipped about what they are working on, but it doesn't do the consumers who aren't convinced of PowerVR's benefits any good, when they are seeing new nVidia and ATi based products every few months.

I am not saying that nVidia and ATi don't have good products (though I woulnd't dream of paying those prices for their current gaming cards,) but I think that PowerVR technology is a better model than what we have seen so far from these companies. If we don't start seeing some competition with the big boys' high end cards, then it is all in vein.

I feel that Kyro 2 is still a high end board at a value price. It can't compete in all areas with most GeForce 3-4, but it also doesn't cost you your firstborn. Always being a step behind the big boys with each new product is not going to help PowerVR/IMG. We need something that is still a value (compared to a GeForce 3-4, of course) but just blows the competition away with it's performanace. We know it can be done, but it's just a matter of "when". Only then will it really start to get the attention of card manufacturers and consumers.

 

[zborgerd]

On 2002-02-09 00:54, Sonic wrote:
Maybe SEGA can get another deal with IMG, because that darned Xbox arcade is looking obsolete really soon...

In my opinion, it is going to take a lot for X-Box arcade hardware to do what Naomi 2 can do. Naomi 2 is pretty much the end all, be all of arcade hardware in my opion. What is it? Dual Kyro 2 with a hardware T+L unit? How does a Geforce 3 even compare? They must really be tweeking X-Box arcade hardware to out-do that stuff.

 

[zborgerd]

On 2002-02-09 14:31, roninja wrote:
IMG need to either go it alone or go with a company that needs its technology and can use it aggresively...

It would indeed be neat to see that this whole hubub is only a result of IMG/PowerVR deciding to fab the chips themselves from now on, wouldn't it?

 

[JavaJones]

zborgerd, you mean allot like say a Geforce 4 Ti4600 (equivalent XGPU version, so including north bridge, etc.) with 256MB's (or even 512) of 400Mhz DDR (800Mhz "equivalent") serving the UMA, a 1.2Ghz PIII (or a 2Ghz P4, I have no idea how close to the actual Xbox they're sticking), etc, etc? Running at arcade resolutions and being programmed like an arcade machine, I think that would give Naomi 2 a run for its money, and with more versatility and functionality to boot.

There was rumor the GF4 was potentially multi-chip capable, but I'm assuming that's not the case as there's been no mention whatsoever of it recently. However if it was...

The thing in the arcade market is that money, heat, and allot of other stuff are so much less of a concern. Granted there are others like reliability, durability, what have you, but the point is that given a good chunk of change you could build some kick ass hardware with an evolved version of the XBox architecture. And I find it hard to believe that at least in most situations it couldn't compete with and surpass Naomi 2. Hell, they're making the damn thing after all. Surely there's a good reason?

Maybe Sonic has info on what the *actual* specs are? I'm totally speculating, based on a "cost no object" kind of situation (which to a degree the arcade market is, at least compared to the console market).

- JavaJones

 

[Hellbinder]

zborgerd,

""I am not saying that nVidia and ATi don't have good products (though I woulnd't dream of paying those prices for their current gaming cards,)""

Thats pretty unjustified in my opinion.

You can get a 250MHZ OEM Radeon 8500 for less than the price of Kyro2 when it launched. You can get a full 275mhz 8500 for about the launch price as the T.V out version of the Kyro2. Even the OEM version completely crushes the kyro2 in performance and has vastly better features like Hydravision and DVi out.

Nvidia is the only company out to rape everyones wallet.

Ati has a far superior product at a very affordable price. There is simply no Price justification for Kyro products over ATi. The Radeon 7500 is only 85$ and also completely crushes the Kyro2 in features and performance.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Hellbinder[CE] on 2002-02-10 08:43 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Hellbinder[CE] on 2002-02-10 08:44 ]</font>

 

[MfA]

Ti200 is substantially cheaper as 8500's, doubly so this side of the pond.

 

[dksuiko]

Hellbender...

Quite possibly the most objective man on the planet. The man lacks any agenda!

 

[Nexus]

On 2002-02-10 11:45, MfA wrote:
Ti200 is substantially cheaper as 8500's, doubly so this side of the pond.

Hercules' R8500 cards are the cheapest now in Europe, cheaper than a GF3Ti200 where I live (and other brand R8500s will also get cheaper).

And I saw some asked for Naomi2 info:
http://www.segatech.com/arcade/naomi2/index.html

 

[MfA]

Oh? You can actually buy them now? (the 8500LE's that is)

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: MfA on 2002-02-10 13:54 ]</font>

 

[Nexus]

Yes you can buy them now and get them in one or two weeks.

No really, R8500LE's are in very poor supply, but for 275 Euro you can get one now. The cheap Hercules card I was talking about cost 200 Euro.

 

[Teasy]

What is it? Dual Kyro 2 with a hardware T+L unit?

Naomi 2 is two 100mhz Dreamcast chips (Neon 250 derivitive). Each chip has 16mb of ram with 800mbps bandwidth from each ram chip. With a 100mhz T&amp;L unit, again with its own 32mb of ram and 800mbps bandwidth, capable of 10 million polys per second with 6 hardware lights (capable of upto 16 hardware lights). A 200mhz SH-4 128-bit RISC CPU with 32mb system ram and again a 800mbps bandwidth.

In a fixed system thats already very powerful. But the real key to Naomi 2's power is that upto 16 Naomi 2 boards can be conected together in one arcade cabinet. Making 32 100mhz Dreamcast chips (3.2gpixels/s, effective fillrate of 12.8gpixels/s with an overdraw of 4!!.. which is concervative for a fixed system), now work out how many polys per second it could do with 16 Elan T&amp;L units and how much physics and AI it can do with 16 200mhz SH-4 128-bit RISC CPU's!!

You can get a 250MHZ OEM Radeon 8500 for less than the price of Kyro2 when it launched. You can get a full 275mhz 8500 for about the launch price as the T.V out version of the Kyro2. Even the OEM version completely crushes the kyro2 in performance and has vastly better features like Hydravision and DVi out.

You could get a OEM Radeon 8500 for $120 at launch?!

Ati has a far superior product at a very affordable price. There is simply no Price justification for Kyro products over ATi. The Radeon 7500 is only 85$ and also completely crushes the Kyro2 in features and performance

Kyro II is currently $57. 7500 doesn't completely crush it in features, the only feature it has that Kyro II doesn't is Cube Mapping and HW T&amp;L, also it is faster but its not that much faster.

Oh? You can actually buy them now? (the 8500LE's that is

I bought mine months ago here in the U.K, and yes it was a very good price of £165 (but the price has since gone up to £180 for the same model).

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Teasy on 2002-02-10 19:05 ]</font>

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

This is the biggest Topic i ever seen

155 Replies and 8600 Views, cool.

 

[bystander]

Hmm, 160 million polygons with 6 lights with a 12.8 gigapixel fill rate. Sounds OK to me.

Now if someone would just release a 4 chip Kyro2 that would be fine with me too. :smile:. (I presume that's technically possible? Though unrealistic?)

That would give a raw fill rate of about
1.4 gpixels/s. And a 5.6 gpixels/s fill rate with an overdraw of 4. Mmmm...

BTW have I calculated the numbers right?

 

[roninja]

so Hercules are not going to support the Geforce4 range, now this is good news for ATI, but could it also be good news for PowerVR, could they be putting their money on Kyro3 perhaps taking up the mid/high-range alongside the 8500.

 

[Kristof]

On 2002-02-10 16:18, Nebuchadnezzar wrote:
This is the biggest Topic i ever seen

155 Replies and 8600 Views, cool.

I think the religious discussion we had on our previous forum was bigger :smile: