Series 5, Parhelia 2...guys where are they?

[Nappe1]

A good thing IMO would be to have PowerVR based Matrox boards, just like the m3D

IMHO, that is not gonna happen.
reason why Matrox did m3D was NEC. (they still have some sized stock of m3D's around. you can order a one from Matrox online store.)

NEC was about discontinue G-series manufacturing deal if Matrox would not make PCX2 based m3D. Matrox had to make the card because otherwise they would have losed upcoming G200 and G400 fab. (I don't know if there was really problem, or if Matrox did it just to please NEC, but nowadays they are more NIH thinking company than never before.)

 

[PVR_Extremist]

The best thing that can happen to PowerVR is that one of the big boys licenses one of their design. The likelihood of that happening is remote. NV and ATI have invested far far too much in R&D to swallow their pride and license a technically superior competitive design......unless, one or the other got so far behind in the market that they took a gamble......like I said....remote-tissimo.


T

 

[Joe DeFuria]

NV and ATI have invested far far too much in R&D to swallow their pride and license a technically superior competitive design.....

Assuming the competitive deisgn is in fact, technically superior.

 

[PVR_Extremist]

Cmon Joe, we all know it is

Efficiency Efficiency Efficiency.....

mmmm what about pipe/clock/memory speeds .....

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Cmon Joe, we all know it is

Not until I see PowerVR 5/6/7 crush the competitors in the high end.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Why hasn't Baron posted yet? Someone mentioned tile-based defered rendering... :?

 

[Tim Murray]

Why hasn't Baron posted yet? Someone mentioned tile-based defered rendering... :?

meh, we'll see if Series 5 ever comes out. with Hercules gone, my hope for any sort of a US release is fading.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Why hasn't Baron posted yet? Someone mentioned tile-based defered rendering... :?

meh, we'll see if Series 5 ever comes out. with Hercules gone, my hope for any sort of a US release is fading.

Dude, cheer up! You might be able to make tile-defered phone calls soon!

 

[Arun]

You send me a NV40 and R420, I send you a Series 5, since I'm in Europe. Deal?

Uttar

 

[vb]

IMG problem is not to find an AIB to make the board (BTW Hercules didn't made their own, GigaByte and Powercolor come to mind), they have to find a partner to fab it. As long as the chip is made, there are a lot of Taiwan makers to jump in, because:

1 Board cost will likely be very reduced.
2 They no longer have exclusive contracts.

 

[Tim Murray]

has the chip even been taped out?

 

[Snyder]

The best thing that can happen to PowerVR is that one of the big boys licenses one of their design. The likelihood of that happening is remote. NV and ATI have invested far far too much in R&D to swallow their pride and license a technically superior competitive design......unless, one or the other got so far behind in the market that they took a gamble......like I said....remote-tissimo.
T

What about Intel? Some form of Series 5 as part of a (Longhorn-capable...) chipset surely looks interesting to me...

 

[arjan de lumens]

What about Intel? Some form of Series 5 as part of a (Longhorn-capable...) chipset surely looks interesting to me...

Intel already has Longhorn capable 3d acceleration in their upcoming Grantsdale chipset, called Extreme Graphics 3; selling Series5 to Intel is as easy/hard as convincing them that the Extreme Graphics 3 (which AFAIK is a 4-pipeline tiler, albeit a bit less efficient than those of ImgTec) is not good enough for the markets they are trying to push the Grantsdale chipset into. Considering the past successes Intel has had with previous integrated 3d decelerators, I find that very unlikely.

 

[Johnathan256]

I was kinda hoping one of these under dog companies like XGI or even S3 might pick up a PowerVR license. I mean what to they have to lose right? A dual chip board sporting XGI/PowerVR chips could be awesome indeed.

 

[Nappe1]

I was kinda hoping one of these under dog companies like XGI or even S3 might pick up a PowerVR license. I mean what to they have to lose right? A dual chip board sporting XGI/PowerVR chips could be awesome indeed.

XGI just bought the whole Trident and has stated that they want to be market leader in 2007. So, I don't think so. S3 is owned by VIA that was rumoured to negotiating buying STM PC Graphics division 2 years ago. if that deal didn't happen, why would they be interested buying only license, while they were offered the whole company?

Both companies have road maps years ahead and big companies behind them (SIS for XGI, VIA for S3) spitting money on the fire, so I highly doubt either one buying S5 license.

 

[Simon F]

S3 is owned by VIA that was rumoured to negotiating buying STM PC Graphics division 2 years ago. if that deal didn't happen, why would they be interested buying only license, while they were offered the whole company?

Disclaimer: I don't know anything about any STM/S3/VIA rumours but..

Offered what whole company? IIRC STM only had a licence for PowerVR technology and so, technically, any purchaser would be in the same position except with more technical staff I suppose<shrug>

 

[JohnH]

A good thing IMO would be to have PowerVR based Matrox boards, just like the m3D

IMHO, that is not gonna happen.
reason why Matrox did m3D was NEC. (they still have some sized stock of m3D's around. you can order a one from Matrox online store.)

NEC was about discontinue G-series manufacturing deal if Matrox would not make PCX2 based m3D. Matrox had to make the card because otherwise they would have losed upcoming G200 and G400 fab. (I don't know if there was really problem, or if Matrox did it just to please NEC, but nowadays they are more NIH thinking company than never before.)

Well thats a new one on me. Its safe to say that they bought into PCX2 as it filled a temporary product hole (G200 was some time away), it had nothing to do with retaining fab "access".

John.

 

[MrGaribaldi]

Parhelia2? you can prepare yourself a looooooong wait. at least project that was known as "pitou" and was supposed to be successor of Parhelia, was contemted to death around a year ago. it is certain that Matrox is working on something, but I doubt it being even for so called mainstream. Most likely it will be a bit faster than parhelia and it might have some new features as well, but I really doubt it being full blown DX9 PS2 / VS 2 core. Matrox has stated that it has moved it's focus on niche markets like High definition TFTs, Multidisplay enviroments, Medical and even Military based markets. (they certainly have best foothold on those, which will most likely provide steady income for them. That again fixes steadily the damage they had with Parhelia, but IMO it's gonna take few more years before we see them back with another try.)

Well, Matrox usually has had a 3 year development cycle, so we might see something in 2005, but I'm afraid that you're correct in your assesment that it's not going to be anything we'd be too interested in.

But I do wonder about lack of PS/VS2.0 support considering Longhorns DX9 GUI. It just doesn't make sense to me that they'd throw away the market for multi-panel users who's running windows, even if it isn't their "main" market. Just take stockbrokers as an example. They seem to be one of the keenest multi-panel users, and I doubt they're all running linux.
(This is at least true in Norway where it seems every stockbroker is outnumbered 2 or 3 to 1 when looking at LCD to employee ratios.)


BTW: Do they have much of the parhelia engineers still employed, or did they let them all go a while ago? I remember them letting quite a few go, but can't remember what they were left with.

Reason I ask is that if they've cut way back on "mainstream" engineers, leaving only the engineers working on hw for medical/military, it would (imo) seem much harder for them to get a mainstream part ready for it to have any impact at all on the market.

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

Sage you live in Dallas? I go every month around 2:00AM. There is a 3rd saturday sale too but in the morning starting arounf 7:00 AM near West End under the Sper. Picked up 2 soyo dragons KT266A boards used for $5 each and both work and pasted all tests.

 

[Sage]

mmm kinda near Dallas, just on the Oklahoma side of the border actually. And yeah I got the the third saturday sale once in a while too. However, I think that this time I'm going to end up at the first in the moring.Got 2 or 3 friedns I'm taking and afterwards we are going go eat and spend some time at one of the Gaming Centers.