few Pictures... (no one interested though...)

[MuFu]

Ah, cool. Me too... although I'm a few years behind you. As I said, no offence.

I don't know what they are emulating on that board though (gotta be the PDA ASIC due to the hints though, hehe!); it doesn't need much RAM because I think the Altera software can buffer frame information on main system memory. The FPGA can emulate almost the entire ASIC (including I/O - mem controller etc). Whatever it is, it's a long way from production, lol; the other board looks more interesting.

 

[Basic]

Heh, I downloaded the images in numerical order. And when I watched the first one I went , what are they using configuration memory for. Next image showed the FPGA.

If I could chose one of those two boards including the software to make use of them (lets assume both works as intended), then I'd definitely chose the FPGA board. I had of course prefered one with a VGA output and more RAM.

 

[Fuz]

Hehe.........I guess they shall not be known as vaporware from now on.

Hehe, as some people here are still calling the R300 "vapourware", I am sure many will disagree with you.

Is there any solid info on what the bitboys are planning to release? Any reported specs? Estimated release time? Anything at all?

Bitboys releasing an actual card! My god, whats this world coming to.... what next? Nvidia missing a product cylce?

You will have to excuse my lack of confidence in thier ability to release an actual product.

 

[WaltC]

The thing that intrigues me is the board-in-plasticene (like bugs in amber) pictures here. Since the card obviously isn't functional in that condition it has to be a mockup which is being circulated to various parties for various reasons (for investors, maybe?)

But whatever the reason for this presentation, it reminds me of someone wanting to preserve something for sentimental value--against the ages, etc. It also reminds me of the old "paperweight" joke--products which aren't any good achieve their highest value as a paperweight, etc.

I think the board-in-plasticene is definitely a give away as to something--but as to precisely what--I'm not sure...

 

[dmitriylm]

How the hell did BitBoys continue to recieve funding for their "experiments" without ever actually selling anything? What company is stupid enough to continue backing something that shows no sign of being released? What the hell kind of business strategy is that? Anyone want to give me money if i promise to try and produce a 2Ghz cpu with only qtips?

 

[Kristof]

How the hell did BitBoys continue to recieve funding for their "experiments" without ever actually selling anything? What company is stupid enough to continue backing something that shows no sign of being released? What the hell kind of business strategy is that? Anyone want to give me money if i promise to try and produce a 2Ghz cpu with only qtips?

Well Bitboys did manage to create some sort of proof of concept twice. They created glaze3d which was working silicon but never went into mass production. Now it again looks like they have some proof of concept but it once again looks dountful it will go into mass production. Having something to show is often enough to find investors. Also IIRC they managed to license something to microsoft, didn't Glaze3d introduce EMBM ? Anyway point is they are not completely unproven, so its not completely unthinkable for them to find extra funding.

Oh and dmitriylm I am not overly impressed by your sig, please change it.

 

[OpenGL guy]

Hmm...

Can someone tell me the purpose of the 12 MB eDRAM? A couple years ago, I remember BitBoys saying it would be used for backbuffer and Z buffer. Now, though, I don't see it's purpose. First, you can't fit much data into 12 MB! 1600x1200 at 32-bits per pixel with 32-bit Z/stencil is 16 MB...

What about AA? If you want to just store the Z values in the eDRAM, then you can't AA 1600x1200 32-bit Z/stencil.

Anyway, I think the design was interesting a couple years ago, but it's less so now.

P.S. How much bandwidth are they claiming for the eDRAM these days?

 

[Dave]

Actually Glaze never had silicon.

I've been telling you guys Bitboys are for real for a long time. They've got some REALLY cool tech that would surprise a lot of you. And as I said before, Hercules should invest heavily in them.

 

[Dave]

Re: Hmm...

Can someone tell me the purpose of the 12 MB eDRAM? A couple years ago, I remember BitBoys saying it would be used for backbuffer and Z buffer. Now, though, I don't see it's purpose. First, you can't fit much data into 12 MB! 1600x1200 at 32-bits per pixel with 32-bit Z/stencil is 16 MB...

What about AA? If you want to just store the Z values in the eDRAM, then you can't AA 1600x1200 32-bit Z/stencil.

Anyway, I think the design was interesting a couple years ago, but it's less so now.

P.S. How much bandwidth are they claiming for the eDRAM these days?

Well a couple of points to keep in mind:

1) This isn't going to be in production, so the 12 meg thing isn't a big deal. Future generations don't automatically mean massive amounts of EDRAM or SRAM. Efficiency and brute force together are a better combination that either one alone.
2) Nobody said they had to store 4x the Z values (or whatever level you use) for AA.

 

[Nappe1]

Pictures at Tronic's site are same ones I had except Tronic has them on original size.

as for a knowledge: you got the pictures. I am now not going to tell any of details just because I don't want cause missunderstandings.

if you want more information, contact BITBOYS THEMSELVES. Then you are surely getting info like things officially are.


Keep bashing, hyping or what ever you are doing. I am too busy meeting living legends of demo scene.

 

[eSa]

Re: Hmm...

Bitboys are targeting the PDA/mobile platform at the moment. According the one eye witness the FSAA/whole graphics quality of the PDA demo was very good. They will also have "Avalanche" protypes made with Infineons 0.13 micron process.

Real interesting one is the so called "Axe" follower for the "Avalanche". My personal guess is that it's somekind of tiler+edram hybrid solution. With some rather good FSAA solution Of course, it may never see final consumer level silicon, but it's there.

I would like offer you all a little analogy, just imagine what people would say if someone announced that they are going to build this :

http://www.plustech.fi/Walking1.html

Yes, they would be laught at. But for all the Finnish readers here, whole thing is old news. Some people should remember that world doesn't allways revolve around some big company from USA (or Japan).

 

[Onslaught]

Now THAT is COOL eSa! 8)

But I really have to get back to the spaceship I'm building in my garden.

 

[Reznor007]

What are the markings(chip number/etc.) on the Altera BGA?

 

[WaltC]

Re: Hmm...

Bitboys are targeting the PDA/mobile platform at the moment. According the one eye witness the FSAA/whole graphics quality of the PDA demo was very good. They will also have "Avalanche" protypes made with Infineons 0.13 micron process.

Real interesting one is the so called "Axe" follower for the "Avalanche". My personal guess is that it's somekind of tiler+edram hybrid solution. With some rather good FSAA solution Of course, it may never see final consumer level silicon, but it's there.

I would like offer you all a little analogy, just imagine what people would say if someone announced that they are going to build this :

http://www.plustech.fi/Walking1.html

Yes, they would be laught at. But for all the Finnish readers here, whole thing is old news. Some people should remember that world doesn't allways revolve around some big company from USA (or Japan).

I think that trying to reduce this situation to nationalistic loyalties is only a clever way of evading the lack of any concise information coming from BitBoys--or anywhere else--concerning any imminent product releases based on BitBoy technology. Did I say "concise"? Well, I don't want any confusion, so maybe I should simply say it's the lack of any official information coming from any company about the release of such products that many find hard to overcome. You seem to think that mysterious web pictures, eye-witness testimony, and unofficial rumor and speculation is enough to substantiate the reality of a product. I am sure you can see why others would be less than overwhelmed by these avenues of information.

That it's Finnish has nothing to do with anything. That it's rumor, gossip, and speculation only at this point is the entire issue. Don't worry, if and when such product announcements are made they will be accorded the respect and seriousness they deserve. What bothers me about all of this, however, and I am sure unsettles many others, is that if these products are actually under development as we speak, then the companies developing them are not sufficiently confident of their progress to announce even a 6-months-out shipping date; or else are evaluating the technologies involved to see whether or not they merit further consideration (which would mean the companies aren't very impressed by what their evaluation has so far revealed.) Either way, the total silence given this technology by the corporate world cannot, I think, be reasonably construed as a positive.

But if the BitBoys are indeed working to get something manufactured, they need to take stock of their past mistakes. Obviously, they realized in hindsight the wisdom of keeping one's mouth shut before anything definite is known. Are they simply keeping with that position presently, and refraining from publicizing anything before its production becomes certain? One would certainly hope so. OTOH, if the BitBoys already have certain production in the pipeline scheduled for the latter part of this year, then this stonewall of silence is definitely counterproductive. They went too far to one extreme the first time--they don't want to make a similar mistake and go too far to the other extreme this time--if they've really got something to ship, that is. I think the short of it is that if the BitBoys have anything definite scheduled for production at this time then people expect to either hear from them about it, or else to hear from the companies who will be producing those products. In the absence of those things, there's not much of a case for production to be made, frankly.

 

[Bentarr]

...contact BITBOYS THEMSELVES

Maybe it was only a matter of time until someone had asked this question: What about an interview with Bitboys after Assembly starting from Beyond3D assumed they are willing to give one? It is not very informative if an interview will follow the stlye of the ones published before (only very general information disclosed, as they decided to "shut down PR).

I think that there are some interesting questions in this thread and maybe more.

 

[RussSchultz]

What are the markings(chip number/etc.) on the Altera BGA?

EP20K400CB652c7

It has 400K gates, which doesn't necessarily translate to 400K gates on an ASIC(generally its less). Its fairly high speed, and really really expensive. Certainly just for development.

 

[Tahir2]

I volunteer to do an interview with the Bitboys.

I had the pleasure of speaking to Petri and to Mika for an interview I did for pcparadox.com about 2/3 years ago regarding the Glaze3D.

However I must warn you I am nowhere near as technically competent as some people on this forum.

 

[linthat22]

Please let this mean that they will have product for consumers soon (which means about a year or two from now).

 

[Dave]

Well if y'all want to post any questions here, even though I don't work there any more I'll answer them for you. Of course the NDA stuff still applies, so I can only answer what they'd answer as well.

 

[Kurtnahka]

Chip for mass market

Questions for Dave:
Do they still plan a consumer market chip ala nvidia or do they concentrate to PDA's etc.

Does Infinion make the chips.

Is the design easily transferred to other manufacturers?