Come on Bitboys isn't it time for your entrance?
- Thread starter phynicle
- Start date
midnight creature
Newcomer
I think most people would be safe betting on eating little (insert name here), chianti, fava beans and such that bit boys will not be delivering a damn thing till the Kyro 28 is shipping en masse to the martian colonies.
BB are close to getting the reference Avalance cards out to reviewers. However, they have to change the manufacturer of chipset and re-design their product for different process. Also DX9 is coming, so they have to take another year before hitting the shops with their cards. On the other hand their product cannot be much better than Ndivia's. On http://www.bitboys.com/xba.html they tell XBA enables 1.4 GigaTexel/sec vs. 1 GigaTexel of GF3 and 1.2 of Radeon8500. Now GF4 must be close to that 1.4 of XBA anyway. With two chips XBA can go close to 3 GT/sec. Point is (isn't it?) that internal graphics processing with XBA architechture is much faster, so FSAA and other features won't drop frame rate as much as with GF4. Also XBA will be more economical for buyers.
If Bitboys go through yet another redesign-cycle just to make their chip DX9 compliant then the whole lot of them ought to get their ears boxed, IMO.
With Nvidia (GF4 MX) and ATI (7500) flooding the market with DX7 hardware for another year, just how long do you think it'll take before you need a DX9 compliant video card? To release a good DX8 card would be a totally valid option throughout this and probably the first half of next year, even if DX9 were released today.
Chris
With Nvidia (GF4 MX) and ATI (7500) flooding the market with DX7 hardware for another year, just how long do you think it'll take before you need a DX9 compliant video card? To release a good DX8 card would be a totally valid option throughout this and probably the first half of next year, even if DX9 were released today.
Chris
i rekon that bitboys should just sell their XBA architecture to some graphic card business rather than try and get it on silicon themselves since they don't seem to be anywhere near successful at it , if they did do that i think we would have extreme bandwidth graphic cards by the next cycle
mHelin: that was pretty good sum about things. But I want to make couple more things clear:
first they have now 3rd generation goin. (if we say that Tritech chip Pyramid3D was theirs...)
1. Pyramid3D -series: Tritech losed 30 million patent lawsuit was declared to bankcrupt few weeks before production was starting. Never came out.
2. Glaze3D -series: AFAIK, problems on 0.20 eDRAM process and amount of produced heat caused only few working dev. boards to be manufactured. Never came out.
3. Avalanche -series: AFAIK, financial troubles at Infineon caused them not to continue developing some lines and they decided put some projects on the ice. This caused that Bitboys just got only Press Samples/ demo boards out. These board will be sent to reviewers, but no one knows exactly when.
4. so what's next? I don't know much about their next gen. but at least it is much better secured project than Avalanche was. Also some interesting point is that in last year Assembly, BB didn't talked much about Infineon, but they stated many times that they have important co-operational partner at northern England and because of that they have found a small office at Bristol. Everyone long enough following graphics market knows exactly what small company had/have HQ at Bristol. yes we are talking about PixelFuzion. and we also know that PF 150 got to silicon and it came out from UMC eDRAM lines. Still, no one knows if there is any real connection between these companies but it is more than like to be. Also Still, no one knows how long Bitboys really has known that Infineon isn't ready for massproduction in situation like this and no one knows, how long Bitboys next gen has been on the works.
I have heard some rumours about plans about possible releases, but I think it is too early even thinking about talking them. So better watch and see.
and oh yes... Let's see if have some new info about next gen before Assembly 2002 and I definately going there this year too. :smile:
While waiting news about STM/PowerVR, I am still pretty sure that we will see 3rd competitor on High end before year ends.
first they have now 3rd generation goin. (if we say that Tritech chip Pyramid3D was theirs...)
1. Pyramid3D -series: Tritech losed 30 million patent lawsuit was declared to bankcrupt few weeks before production was starting. Never came out.
2. Glaze3D -series: AFAIK, problems on 0.20 eDRAM process and amount of produced heat caused only few working dev. boards to be manufactured. Never came out.
3. Avalanche -series: AFAIK, financial troubles at Infineon caused them not to continue developing some lines and they decided put some projects on the ice. This caused that Bitboys just got only Press Samples/ demo boards out. These board will be sent to reviewers, but no one knows exactly when.
4. so what's next? I don't know much about their next gen. but at least it is much better secured project than Avalanche was. Also some interesting point is that in last year Assembly, BB didn't talked much about Infineon, but they stated many times that they have important co-operational partner at northern England and because of that they have found a small office at Bristol. Everyone long enough following graphics market knows exactly what small company had/have HQ at Bristol. yes we are talking about PixelFuzion. and we also know that PF 150 got to silicon and it came out from UMC eDRAM lines. Still, no one knows if there is any real connection between these companies but it is more than like to be. Also Still, no one knows how long Bitboys really has known that Infineon isn't ready for massproduction in situation like this and no one knows, how long Bitboys next gen has been on the works.
I have heard some rumours about plans about possible releases, but I think it is too early even thinking about talking them. So better watch and see.
and oh yes... Let's see if have some new info about next gen before Assembly 2002 and I definately going there this year too. :smile:
While waiting news about STM/PowerVR, I am still pretty sure that we will see 3rd competitor on High end before year ends.
Musivarius
Newcomer
Nappe1,
Isn't Pixelfusion now Clearspeed and concentrating on network processors?
STM's GD is based near Bristol too but I wouldn't say Bristol is in northern England -more south-west.
EDIT - reading Clearspeed's website (clearspeed.com) it could be possible that BB are after the high speed switching core that evolved from the PF 150 project - same fundamental problem for network switching and graphics - bandwidth, bandwidth, bandwidth!
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Musivarius on 2002-02-09 17:49 ]</font>
Isn't Pixelfusion now Clearspeed and concentrating on network processors?
STM's GD is based near Bristol too but I wouldn't say Bristol is in northern England -more south-west.
EDIT - reading Clearspeed's website (clearspeed.com) it could be possible that BB are after the high speed switching core that evolved from the PF 150 project - same fundamental problem for network switching and graphics - bandwidth, bandwidth, bandwidth!
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Musivarius on 2002-02-09 17:49 ]</font>
I reckon this is a do-or-die thing for the BB. They'll never get a chip out if they keep wanting to keep up (i.e. feature creep). Maybe they don't think they can be in the business any much longer than this one presumable chip if this chip ain't the latest-and-greatest.
Of course, this is all presumptious thinking. Anyone can make a webpage claiming all sorts of things.
:smile
Of course, this is all presumptious thinking. Anyone can make a webpage claiming all sorts of things.
:smile
Richard999
Newcomer
Bit Boys, are in the wrong business. They should write fantasy novels.
phynicle,
they tried this a long time ago IIRC (i´ve read it in a BB interview). At that time, Bitboys was an IP only company, and the idea was to sell the concept to other vendors. These, however, determined that the fabrication of this chip was not worth the effort for some reasons like: too risky, too expensive to produce, too complicated, you name it. Result was that they decided to get the chip themselves to silicone.
they tried this a long time ago IIRC (i´ve read it in a BB interview). At that time, Bitboys was an IP only company, and the idea was to sell the concept to other vendors. These, however, determined that the fabrication of this chip was not worth the effort for some reasons like: too risky, too expensive to produce, too complicated, you name it. Result was that they decided to get the chip themselves to silicone.
you are right in some parts..
I got unofficial confirmation that when talking about Bitboys Bristol Office, they really have something to do with guys developing PixelFuzion 150 -chip. However, PixelFusion does not exist anymore as same company and ClearSpeed have now cleared all traces between them and PF. I am not saying that BB would be using directly exactly PF tech, but more like to be like this: After Bitboys heard that Infineon wasn't ready, they need to start planning their next chip and especially, they need new founder. so Whose got best eDRAM lines after Infineon? well, IBM but it would be pain to build graphics chips again without any knowledge how Higly clocked eDRAM chips with 12-16 Megabytes would work. So who comes next? UMC has good line up and also experience making eDRAM based GFX chip. who made that? well, Pixelfusion guys. Then, how interested these Graphic genious really are working with Networking devices? After all, they designed PF 150 chip for running high speed 3D graphics and multimedia stuff.
I really don't know exactly how cooperation works, but I am pretty sure that at least PF guys know UMC eDRAM line up better than anyone else when talking about planning GFX chips. And also, one of the best things in PF150 was the programmability. :smile:
[RUMOUR MODE ON]
well, there is some very fancy rumours flying and in your imagination you can build some incredible stuff. For example, in some rumours in september, Matrox Parhelia was coming from UMC and as we know, UMC, IBM and Infineon had contract about developing eDRAM foundaries as a standard. Does I need to say that connections between BB and Matrox are more than hidden. neither side doesn't want to give straight answer. Only Official word is from Bitboys CEO saying on private email sent to someone at MURC that Matrox is not using Bitboys chip.
[RUMOUR MODE OFF]
but oh well, who knows about these Privately owned companies... they can always do what ever they want without saying a word... :smile:
Depends on how you mean of course,but Matrox hasn't really been the kings of speed since the Voodoo chip appeared...
They're not really aiming at the same thing,Matrox is aiming at 2D,IQ,partial pro.
BB is more like 3dfx of old and are aiming at gamers first and foremost AFAIK.(at least was when I heard about 'em way back...)
So a partnership between these two would certainly make sence if both focused on their own strongpoints.
Being a realist I won't believe BB is more than their site 'til I see some HW...but I do hope they are real so I can get more options when I buy graph. cards.
They're not really aiming at the same thing,Matrox is aiming at 2D,IQ,partial pro.
BB is more like 3dfx of old and are aiming at gamers first and foremost AFAIK.(at least was when I heard about 'em way back...)
So a partnership between these two would certainly make sence if both focused on their own strongpoints.
Being a realist I won't believe BB is more than their site 'til I see some HW...but I do hope they are real so I can get more options when I buy graph. cards.
