I kind of miss the days where you didn't have a video card for every $20 market segment mentality from ATI and NV. I mean literally, you can go to a website like Pricewatch and see 8 variations of X300/X600/X700/X800 listed. That's not so bad, but consider that listed on Pricewatch is a X300 256MB for $124, a X300 LE for 88 a X300 SE for $68, a X600 Pro for $124 and a X600XT for $149. How is anyone supposed to keep track of what card is what (even with B3D's 3d chip chart)? NV is as bad or worse, Albatron has 18 models of 5700 on their website!
Graphics industry now gone to the dogs.
- Thread starter Sabastian
- Start date
You hit the nail right on the head, that IS SONY's true intentions, they are going to release a game console that they hope will end the same game accross all gaming platforms.
That way they can hog the XXXXX popular million selling game series unless the developer can afford to have 3 development teams working with the different game versions, very expensive than today's nearly C++ custom approach.
The other thing is that this time both SONY and MS's consoles will be launched at or around the same with very advanced technology unlike the technical differences between the PS2 and XBox and most 3rd party developers designating the PS2 as the base for graphics and creating XBox and PC games that really look like FSAA PS2 games with little touch ups here and there.
That is definetly far more evil that anything anyone has acused Bill Gate$ of doing with XBox, heck even Windows and will most likely create casualties the likes we have never seen before.[/quote]
err.....Akumajou said:
The only thing that really makes Cell propriatary is that games developed for it are going to need to use algorthims that exploit the parellel nature of the chip. Cell most likely will be using some kind of PowerPC logic (or MIPS perhaps), so from that standpoint, the basic building blocks are fairly straightfoward and "standard". Keep in mind that the xbox2 likely isn't going to be as similar to a PC as the xbox was either. I don't keep up on the rumors very closely, but the last I heard was that it is going to be using multiple PowerPC processors.
The thing that gets me excited about Cell/PS3 is if they end up going the opengl ES route and have linux running on it. The PS3 could be like a PS2 with a relatively standard graphics developement environment. That prospect is really exciting given the state of 3D graphics support under linux right now.
Nite_Hawk
Akumajou said:
What have you been smoking? Cause whatever it is, i want some.
Simon F said:
I'm not totally sure. I haven't been keeping up on things very well, but I could see 1.0 or 1.1 being used on PSP and maybe a later version based on OpenGL 2.0 being used in the PS3. I'm curious how Collada fits into everything too.
Anyway, I'm hoping that the end result will be that there is a linux system with a very fast opengl implementation of some kind running on it. I'm sure sony will only be providing closed source drivers, but I imagine the support for them would be extremely good given how much sony has invested in the architecture. I guess we'll just have to see.
Nite_Hawk
deviantchild
Regular
i have been holding off buying a card for ages
finance issues aside, i really do not have a clue at what i'm looking at these days:
products may be based on similar cores but with all the SE/LE/[vanilla]/Pro/XT versions about, and not knowing whether each suffix relates to crippled pipes/memory or whatever, knowing that some have 128bit bus, some have 256bit, some have DDR/DDR2/etc. [do i get 256MB of slow RAM or 128MB of fast; if the bus can't deal with it?] knowing there are also no real standards to those suffixes (i believe one instance saw the SE and XT type suffix swapped) - and bloody Gainward with their fricken SRiGTiTurboBlahBlahBlahBolloxEtc. Not knowing whether i'll end up with a card with a non-flashable BIOS
it's a nightmare and i haven't even touched on the numbering schemes from both ATi and nV which are totally fucked for the 9xxx and 5xxx series' (especially the lower halves of those two) let alone what's going to happen with the newer parts coming
finance issues aside, i really do not have a clue at what i'm looking at these days:
products may be based on similar cores but with all the SE/LE/[vanilla]/Pro/XT versions about, and not knowing whether each suffix relates to crippled pipes/memory or whatever, knowing that some have 128bit bus, some have 256bit, some have DDR/DDR2/etc. [do i get 256MB of slow RAM or 128MB of fast; if the bus can't deal with it?] knowing there are also no real standards to those suffixes (i believe one instance saw the SE and XT type suffix swapped) - and bloody Gainward with their fricken SRiGTiTurboBlahBlahBlahBolloxEtc. Not knowing whether i'll end up with a card with a non-flashable BIOS
it's a nightmare and i haven't even touched on the numbering schemes from both ATi and nV which are totally fucked for the 9xxx and 5xxx series' (especially the lower halves of those two) let alone what's going to happen with the newer parts coming
In reading some of these comments I'm reminded of the old adage as to how complicated things become when your ultimate goal is to get something for nothing...
Agreed, it's tough...
I disagree, though, with the idea that it's ever been any different. Sure, I can remember buying an 8mb-2d Matrox graphics card for $60--but who wants to go back to 8 megs of slow ram and no 3d support? I can also remember before that paying $475US for a brand-new Matrox Millenium II with 4 megs of onboard ram, and no 3d support--that I thought was a "steal" based on its $599US retail sticker at the time...
The *problem* I think people have in looking at the "low budget" cards offered today is that they are comparing them to the top end in today's cards instead of the low-budget cards of yesterday. Sure, we'd all like to buy brand new HEMI-V8 Chrysler 300's at 4-cylinder Kia prices--but it ain't gonna' happen... Seems much more productive to compare todays' budget line with yesterday's budget cards and *then* decide if you like the deal or not. It's all in your perspective, imo.
Agreed, it's tough... I disagree, though, with the idea that it's ever been any different. Sure, I can remember buying an 8mb-2d Matrox graphics card for $60--but who wants to go back to 8 megs of slow ram and no 3d support? I can also remember before that paying $475US for a brand-new Matrox Millenium II with 4 megs of onboard ram, and no 3d support--that I thought was a "steal" based on its $599US retail sticker at the time...
The *problem* I think people have in looking at the "low budget" cards offered today is that they are comparing them to the top end in today's cards instead of the low-budget cards of yesterday. Sure, we'd all like to buy brand new HEMI-V8 Chrysler 300's at 4-cylinder Kia prices--but it ain't gonna' happen...
Seems much more productive to compare todays' budget line with yesterday's budget cards and *then* decide if you like the deal or not. It's all in your perspective, imo.WaltC said:In reading some of these comments I'm reminded of the old adage as to how complicated things become when your ultimate goal is to get something for nothing...
I disagree, though, with the idea that it's ever been any different. Sure, I can remember buying an 8mb-2d Matrox graphics card for $60--but who wants to go back to 8 megs of slow ram and no 3d support? I can also remember before that paying $475US for a brand-new Matrox Millenium II with 4 megs of onboard ram, and no 3d support--that I thought was a "steal" based on its $599US retail sticker at the time...
The *problem* I think people have in looking at the "low budget" cards offered today is that they are comparing them to the top end in today's cards instead of the low-budget cards of yesterday. Sure, we'd all like to buy brand new HEMI-V8 Chrysler 300's at 4-cylinder Kia prices--but it ain't gonna' happen...
I think it's more that people are comparing today's budget cards with yesterday's top end cards. It used to be that things moved so quickly that you could buy a budget component that was still significantly faster than the top end of what was available a couple of years prior. This isn't really the case anymore though. Take the 9700pro. It's been out for nearly two and a half years now, and the midrange cards have only just caught up with it. Budget solutions aren't even close. I think it's mainly just that the industry as a whole is slowing down. I mean, look at cpus, soundcards, ram. Videocards seem to be some of the last things that are still making fairly significant strides in performance, but I doubt it's going to continue. High end parts are probably going to stay high end for a lot longer than they used to in the coming years unless significant advances start being made.
Nite_Hawk
