Are you ready

[flf]

Just a quick recap of the last decade plus a few years, for those obviously newish to the party here:

- Hercules was king, and then fell. (circa 1988-1992)

- ATI was the next king, but fell. (1992-1996?) Their fall was quite slow since they did have a stranglehold on the 2D market for the most part. They less fell than they slid slowly into the general fray thus losing their position of leadership.

- S3 was the next king, and fell. (1994-1996?) S3 outraced ATI in the days of the early VLB and PCI accelerators. Success in retail due to Diamond, Creative Labs, #9, etc. Was on LOTS of no-name boards.

- 3dfx was the next king, and fell. (1996-1998?) Changed the rules of the game from 2D to 3D. Nobody cared about 2D performance after a certain point... it was all about 3D performance.

- nvidia is the current king (199 Ramped up so effectively and won over enough of the OEMs to dethrone 3dfx in the retail sector and ATI in the business/oem sector. I think ATI may still hold the lead in the laptop graphics oem sector.

- ATI is attempting a coup (now) Got their poop in a group and leapfrogged unexpectedly.

I have neglected to mention many players. I have probably dramatically simplified and gotten the dates wrong.

However, for some of you younger folk... keep in mind that ATI was king once before, a long time ago... back when 2MB was a LOT of video ram.

I don't see either nvidia or ATI slipping and falling upon the sword in the same spectacular manner that 3dfx did. They may have ups and downs, but it is extremely unlikely that one will "win" in any real sense of the word. There will always be the next product release.

Note: This assumes both companies avoid extreme fiscal stupidity.

 

[Ailuros]

Shark,

As far as the infamous KYRO.pdf goes, I have to dig it up from some CD where I have it stored, but I doubt there´s anything directly negative in it concerning Tilers in general; rather a direct attack against ST Micro, Hercules and KYRO. (If you should have meant that one too).

For the record and for all fairness someone should mention the past catfights between 3Dfx and Videologic/PowerVR.

None of them seemed to like TBR much until Gigapixel got in their hands one way or another

 

[DadUM]

The point being (and I'll explain slowly so maybe you can grasp it the second time)- is that NVidia has discounted a number of technologies over the years, rather vehemently in fact, so by suddenly embracing such technologies will give the fanboi's ammunition for launching a large scale "hypocrisy" onslaught.

As for nVidia's discounting of technologies, I can recall a lot of comments like "it doesn't make sense right now." Even the infamous "256-bit memory is overkill" had the end no one seems to remember of "for the moment." nVidia has said a lot of technologies were just not what they felt was right for various circumstances. I think I even remember 2 years ago nVidia being asked about tiler architectures and replying with basically "they are an interesting idea and we are looking at them, but our current product isn't one."

My point is this, don't always read into PR statements any kind of absolutes. They are often skillfully crafted to not completly rule things out. PR has an aspect of misdirection without outright lies.

 

[nggalai]

Considering the treatment ATI got in that other thread after showing a R300 with DDR2, is this little flash animation marketing or FUD?

Well, if it IS marketing, some people need to get their asses whopped--for a hype machine, it's not readily available (not even a link on the homepage), and both styling and content really aren't anything that make you crave the "next graphics revolution in silicon form" or something.

I wonder whether an intern had a go?

ta,
-Sascha.rb

 

[nggalai]

I would assume he's talking about tile based deferred rendering.

I can't believe Richard Huddy spent time (when he was at nvidia) telling developers to address overdraw lying the zbuffer in the first pass in a paper on their upcoming GPU, if it's a deferred renderer.It wouldn't make much sense.

I fully agree. Too much indications show that, whatever NV30 will be, a deferred renderer it is not.

ta,
-Sascha.rb

 

[Randell]

Too much indications show that, whatever NV30 will be, a deferred renderer it is not.

NV30 it is you want

patience you shall have, young apprentice

8)

 

[nggalai]

LOL




I think I just found another topic for marketingblubber.ch . . .

ta,
.rb

 

[Philibob]

Sorry to bring this thread back up but check the link now

http://www.nvidia.com/content/areyouready/index.html

 

[Humus]

Has anything changed?

 

[Hyp-X]

There's a spinning chip and some rays.

 

[Philibob]

There's a spinning chip and some rays.

I get excited easily

 

[Nexus]

pin count?

The chip in the flash thingy has 576 pins. Supposed it shows the real thing, how does it compare? Anyone know the pin count of R300 and/or NV25/R200?

 

[Basic]

It's not many pins. But that's rather uninteresting since that's neither the real chip, nor a realistic model of it.

GF2 had around 500, I've heard that R300 is around 1000.

 

[BRiT]

There's a spinning chip and some rays.

Wow! The chip can float and spin in a bubble! If the real chip can't do this, I'll be disappointed. Where's the legal disclaimers at? False advertising!

--|BRiT|

 

[Nexus]

It's not many pins. But that's rather uninteresting since that's neither the real chip, nor a realistic model of it.

Yeah, sadly it is an artistic model.

GF2 had around 500, I've heard that R300 is around 1000.

You are right, according to an site I had nearly forgotten ( http://www.geocities.com/tnaw_xtennis/NV20-12.htm ) GF2 has 492 and Geforce3 has ~700.

 

[Testiculus Giganticus]

You did not catch the meaning of the pin count!In voodoo magic, 576 is a key number

 

[ben6]

A little voice told me to keep checking the site every few days

 

[BRiT]

Any chance they'll show something truely stunning or breathtaking ... like scantily clad femme-hotties?

--|BRiT|

 

[Philibob]

A little voice told me to keep checking the site every few days

Will do

 

[Testiculus Giganticus]

Ben, u hearing voices too- I always thought that those were aliens Damn, I had thought that I had proof of extraterrestrial life 8)