3dfx Rampage ;)

[Tagrineth]

Nope, sorry... I was almost forced to edit what I already said but oh well, I can't say any more than that I'm afraid. Maybe in the future though...

 

[Nappe1]

actually...
I don't know what to say... this thread made me look for certain document from the web I found it. with a more knowledge than what I had last time when I saw it, really made me yell "WHY!!, OH WHY!!"

well, DaveBaumann and John Reynolds got PM about it so I'll let them investigate first that is there truly something I think I saw, or is it just in my fan boy attitude that I want to see them there...

Anyways, one thing is sure: tomorrow starts a hunt for very own Pyramid3D card. It can be even a broken one, but I want, I NEED, I HAVE TO get one those!

 

[Vince]

Actually four chips - two Rampage, two SAGE (Yes, they ARE scalable, hence the name: Scalable-Architecture Geometry Engine)... and the PCB was no bigger than Ti4600's (actually less than an inch shorter).

Um, yeah... Actually, I knew of no plans for a PCB design with >1 SAGE. Their is no tangible increase once the theoretical T-setup preformance has been eclipsed - which due to SLI limitations was that which could be done on 1 rasterizer. Thus, I call Bullshit.

I find this utterly ridiculous - Why can't this whole damn thing go away?

 

[Tagrineth]

Actually four chips - two Rampage, two SAGE (Yes, they ARE scalable, hence the name: Scalable-Architecture Geometry Engine)... and the PCB was no bigger than Ti4600's (actually less than an inch shorter).

Um, yeah... Actually, I knew of no plans for a PCB design with >1 SAGE. Their is no tangible increase once the theoretical T-setup preformance has been eclipsed - which due to SLI limitations was that which could be done on 1 rasterizer. Thus, I call Bullshit.

I find this utterly ridiculous - Why can't this whole damn thing go away?

Vince, sometimes I'd love to rip your throat out, because you've been called on a lot of bullshit in the past, mostly at x3dfx.

In fact, I do know at least one ex-3dfx engineer who never even knew a Vince (note the at least in there). And I'm not exactly talking about no-names.

Addendum: Side note; granted the setup engine would be a limitation most of the time, but what about in situations with highly taxing and/or long vertex programmes? That'd slow the SAGEs down pretty handily, to the point where two might be needed to max out Rampage's setup. In situations like that a dual-SAGE card could scream right past the competition due to sheer brute force.

 

[Vince]

Vince, sometimes I'd love to rip your throat out, because you've been called on a lot of bullshit in the past, mostly at x3dfx.

In fact, I do know at least one ex-3dfx engineer who never even knew a Vince (note the at least in there). And I'm not exactly talking about no-names.

What are you talking about? I make a comment and your going to rip my throat out?

Lets clear this reoccuring BS up, I've never worked at 3dfx, never claimed to or would want to. I don't know how you got the impression that I have as everyone here knows this - as I've been posting here since early 2000 atleast. And before that, I was at Tom's fighting with GeeForcer. Can you point it out where I even hinted at such a thing? I really haven't even talked about 3dfx since 2000, especially once the Fool board shut down. And I barely talk about 3D graphics nowadays anyways. So what gives.

So, whats your problem? Ohh, and I'd like to see you try and rip my throat out.

EDIT: Noticed x3dfx? I don't even think I've been there, nor do I care to. How about you get your shit strait, because one of these days someone whose not in your phantasy world is going to beat the shit out of you for mouth.

 

[Bonehed316]

 

[Megadrive1988]

Since we're talking about unreleased hardware...why not the Lockheed-Martin Real3D-100? This thing was announced in 1995 around the time of NV1 and the original 3D Blaster. it could have been out well before Rendition Verite,PowerVR PCX1 and 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics.
Real3D-100 had awesome performance, a true graphics processor (chipset actually) with seperate geometry processor, texture processor AND graphics processor. 750,000 polygons/sec with everything going. With image quality far beyond Voodoo2. in 1995. Even if Real3D-100 had been out in 1996 (as a consumer chipset) it would have WIPED THE FLOOR with anything from 3Dfx, PowerVR, Rendition or anyone else. man I really wanted Real3D-100 as a consumer product for PC or console. damn.

Too bad Real3D-100 was confused to be the $180 consumer graphics card that Lockheed was going to introduce.... their consumer card, that came a few years later, would use a single chip design without T&L. The i740 aka Auburn. i740 was used by Intel and in Lockheed's own Starfighter cards.

The difference between i740 and Real3D-100 is probably similar to the difference between Banshee and Rampage. just that the single chip Lockheed i740 was newer than Real3D-100. The i740 had really really sh|tty performance, around that of Voodoo1, while the Real3D-100 would have absolutely ROCKED THE HOUSE, with performance somewhere inbetween Sega's Model 2 and Model 3 arcade hardware.

I'll bet that 3Dfx would not have surpassed Real3D-100's image quality with anything in the Voodoo line. only with Rampage.


And what about Pyramid3D, probably one of the first consumer chips that would have had a geometry processor (one version of Pyramid3D had it) I didn't know until recently that Pyramid3D was a BitBoys design, I thought it was from TriTech, but I guess BB were the designers.. supposedly anyway.

As for Rampage... If 3Dfx had it out when it was originally supposed to be out, right after Voodoo or Voodoo2, perhaps they could have offered it to SEGA for the Blackbelt, then BlackBelt might have beaten Katana/PowerVR to become the new Sega console, thus saving 3Dfx, but ah well, that's water under bridge now.

 

[Vince]

you go by the alais "insider" where you claim to have, at one point, worked at 3dfx. though ive never heard you utter the words, you certianly dont seem to argue against the point.

See, this is the thing; (a) I don't have a membership at x3dfx. (b) I've allways posted under Vince, or Vince 1313 when Vince is taken. I like to be known, I purposly choose the same name - so why would I do this? Actually, I had a Vince13131 at one time too - think I was at Tom's back then... early '99? hmm. Where's my stalker... err.. Geeforce.. he'd remember

now you ask "why didnt nvidia make a rampage?" because they dont have the designs. simple as that. they cant. how do we know? because they havent yet. any company who had a risc co processor with programmable coding would put it out asap. nvidia has not. so they dont own it. but they were affraid of it. as im sure vince knows. they were scared to death of it. they were just getting on to their feet, when the vsa was supposed to come out at 183mhz. the vsa could have, with good drivers and no delays, dominated the gf2. the rampage WOULD have dominated the gf3. thats two missed cycles for nvidia. 2 more cycles down the drain. they couldnt have stood that. the cheaper alternative was to invest money in bringing their biggest copetitor down.

you know nvidia plays dirty. they ADVERTISE that they sue more companies than anyone else. theyre PROUD of it. they fight dirty. theyre snakes. all of them. ill wager any amount of money to bet that they paid off some 3dfx employees. paid them to delay the vsa. paid them to cause bugs. but who would do such a thing? well, i said that the rampage was supposed to come out after the voodoo3. well scott decided on the vsa. the rampage would have been more worth the wait. at this point, some of the engineers didnt like scott because of his decisions in this area, and his decisoin to buy STB and make their own boards. made alot of the engineers angry.

Just one question - Is their a "We" to counteract this evil "They" entity. Sounds more like an Oliver Stone, o perhaps a twisted Michael Bay film - just plain suck.

so thats it. thats, id wager, the most accurate account of what REALLY happened to rampge, 3dfx, and nvidia. id wager any amount of money on it. nvidia are evil. dont trust them, dont listen to what they say, they lie, and theyre just horrible people

Ok, I'll start purifying my water and tell my kids to stay away from the evil people...

now that you have lost THAT credibility, lets move on.

You do realise that you sound like a joke: Seriously, this is crazy. You (a) need a life, (b) still haven't shown how I = this guy. My credibility? I've never claimed to be nothign I've not, and been a part of this board for upwards of 3 years - you've made 2 posts, atleast one of which would be enough to send you to therepy in a socialist country

So, what gives?

 

[Vince]

reguardless, you probably worked at nvidia at one point, and thats how you think you know so much. so your never hearing of a dual sage pcb wouldnt be surprising, coming from someone who never had any affiliation with 3dfx.

I think this [Set-up limited] was explained by either Dave Baumann or Dave Baron to the entire board - Are they in on this too? Jackass.

 

[Crusher]

Bonehed316, at least you picked an appropriate nickname.

I suppose next you're going to claim that the reason 3dfx couldn't secure any funding at the end was because NVIDIA was paying banks to stop lending to 3dfx, and paid off investors to ignore 3dfx's proposals. Oh, and lets not forget the bionic monkeys equipped with mini cameras that NVIDIA sent into the air ducts to video tape 3dfx's R&D department. Or the mind-altering drugs NVIDIA inserted into their water supply, which made the management's brains more susceptible to the inaudible conditioning signals that NVIDIA was broadcasting over 3dfx's PA system.

now you ask "why didnt nvidia make a rampage?" because they dont have the designs. simple as that. they cant. how do we know? because they havent yet. any company who had a risc co processor with programmable coding would put it out asap. nvidia has not. so they dont own it.

Or they do own it, they looked at it, decided that it would be a waste of time and money, and chose not to of their own free will. You seem convinced that Rampage was the best thing since sliced bread. That's pretty funny, since pretty much everyone agrees that it wasn't as advanced as things you can buy on the market today, and it hasn't been *that* long since 3dfx went out of business. Also, given what 3dfx had produced in the past, I hardly think it's possible they had something mind-blowing up their sleeves. Let's face it, none of 3dfx's products have been so astonishing, so far ahead of the game, that another company would have dropped what they were working on in exchange for it if given the opportunity (well, except maybe Trident, but they probably wouldn't understand it enough to be able to build it in the first place). Even if 3dfx had the capability to make a preliminary design of something as good as you claim Rampage was, they obviously didn't have the ability to implement it, which makes it about as wonderful and useful as a BitBoys product.

 

[jjayb]

cue's the xfiles them music

Oh my god mulder, bionic monkeys.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Even if 3dfx had the capability to make a preliminary design of something as good as you claim Rampage was, they obviously didn't have the ability to implement it, which makes it about as wonderful and useful as a BitBoys product.

ouch! hehe.

3Dfx Rampage is about as mythical and vaporous as anything BitBoys has dreamed up. Sure Rampage sounded amazing, but it's all about bringing your product to market. A lesson 3dfx never learned, or learned too late to stop Nvidia from swallowing them whole.

 

[Geeforcer]

LOL, this is halarious. Who knew that all this time Vince was actually working at Nvidia and is bloodthursty 3dfx basher?

AFAIK, Vince never used any alias besides Vince, etc. His connetction to 3dfx were his investment. His staunch support for 3dfx earned him quite a few, shell I say "non-friends" over at Tom's old place.

BTW Bonehed, you wouldn't by any chance know Devo of 3dfxU fame? You know, the one who's reflection you see in your monitor right now?

 

[Geeforcer]

Oh, and let me get this staight:

GF3 is "cisk" while Rampage was "risk"? It had no "gates"? Gates were converted to transistors? LMAO.

Do you know what a CMOS gate acutally is?

 

[Althornin]

Oh, and let me get this staight:

GF3 is "cisk" while Rampage was "risk"? It had no "gates"? Gates were converted to transistors? LMAO.

Do you know what a CMOS gate acutally is?

LOL, i was also thinking "it has no gates, huh, this guys has NO CLUE!"

 

[Laa-Yosh]

LOL, i was also thinking "it has no gates, huh, this guys has NO CLUE!"

I have to admit that I was taking it serious for a few minutes and started to think about what I could remember from microcode and such... It's been two long years since I've made my CS degree and I've forgotten a lot

 

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

CISC or RISC, you have to admit, that post was enormously entertaining.

 

[Geeforcer]

Actually four chips - two Rampage, two SAGE (Yes, they ARE scalable, hence the name: Scalable-Architecture Geometry Engine)... and the PCB was no bigger than Ti4600's (actually less than an inch shorter). Keep in mind the SAGE chips didn't have their own RAM, they (ab)used the AGP interface. Sustained performance per SAGE was pretty good, considering they had 2GB/sec or so dedicated... and extra bandwidth could be extended to the Rampage(s).

Oh, and full DX8.0 compliancy is in the Rampage core... SAGE is a geometry accelerator - in the sense that a Rampage on its own does have not-too-great-but-still-there hardware T&L/VS.

I always thought that the plans called for 3 chips: 2 Rampage and 1 SAGE for the high-end boards. But assuming that there would indeed be a 4 chips board, how could it possibly be an inch shorter then Ti 4600. It would have the same amount of RAM, but 4 times more chips. Additionally, how did 3dfx intend this monster to be powered?

 

[John Reynolds]

I always thought that the plans called for 3 chips: 2 Rampage and 1 SAGE for the high-end boards. But assuming that there would indeed be a 4 chips board, how could it possibly be an inch shorter then Ti 4600. It would have the same amount of RAM, but 4 times more chips. Additionally, how did 3dfx intend this monster to be powered?

I was shown the board lineup in fall of '00 and it was:

1 Rampage chip w/64MB $200 USD
1 Rampage/1 Sage w/64MB $300 USD
2 Rampage/1 Sage w/128MB $500 USD

There were no plans for a board with 4 chips (2 rampage/2 sage).

 

[Randell]

Thats what I recall, but then my memories probably came from John & Dave