So in the end what was the Fallout from the FX disaster?

[swanlee]

Been out of the scene for about 4-6 months or so and have not followed Nvidia to closely after the whole FX/3d mark debacle. Looking around it seems that Nvidia did get away with murder and a lot of people are just sweeeping the FX disaster under the rug. Is this a correct view or did I miss some details in the last 4-6 months?

Can anyone give me some highlights as to what ios going on now?

 

[cthellis42]

Collective snore from the general consumer and OEMs, since they don't know what's going on anyway (or don't care in pursuit of the bottom line). Much forgiveness from complainants for nVidia followed with better refreshes, and mainly because they stuck the 5900NU/XT/SE in a price area to make people very happy. It was like bribing the enthusiast community! Hehe...

 

[swanlee]

That's pretty sad considering I honestly thought the whole issue was complete and blatant consumer fraud. I guess nothing should sruprise me anymore.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

This biggest "disappointment" to me, was that nvidia seems to have been largely successfuly in discrediting 3DMark. This was accomplished initially through outright public policy, and then later by their driver hacks which made the whole situation so downright confusing and casting "enough doubt" to "joe average web reviewer", that in many cases they just don't know what to think...so they ignore 3DMark "just in case."

This is really a damn shame, not only for Futuremark as a company, but because when used properly, 3DMark is a damn good tool.

I'm just waiting for the whole thing to come full circle with NV40....where nVidia starts to promote their hardware by utilizing "synthetic 3DMark" scores.

 

[Natoma]

swanlee,

The fallout will occur imo if the NV40 doesn't at least match the R420. If the NV40 comes back strong and erases the NV30's mistakes (image quality tricks, driver tricks, awful heat maintanence, etc), then at least to the buying public at large and OEMs, it'll be as if NV30 never happened. However, if R420 trounces NV40, then I think you'll really see the shit hit the fan for nvidia. Remember, things didn't really start going bad for 3dfx after Banshee/V3 (roughly same time frame). It took the V5 gen for 3dfx to really get the crap kicked out of them in the public mindshare. Not that nvidia is anywhere close to 3dfx in terms of falling apart, but they really need the NV40 to be a success above and beyond the R420 imo.

That to me is the "fallout" from the FX debacle. Nvidia no longer has a "cushion" in the videocard space.

 

[StealthHawk]

NVIDIA did lose overall market share this generation to ATI.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

NVIDIA did lose overall market share this generation to ATI.

ATI superceded Nvidia's market valuation, got the XBox2 contract, and broke many of the Nvidia exclusive OEM deals. While Nvidia hasn't been dealt a mortal blow, they have been hurt, and what was once a market that Nvidia held tightly in their iron fist has now been broken open.

The really interesting period will be over the next 18 months. Everything that has happened in the last 18 months has set the scene for an epic corporate battle, which we are about to see commencing with the launch of NV40/R420.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Actually I haven't seen any end to the FX fiasco yet so I think it's too soon to judge what the fall-out is, doesn't nVidia have to change their ways before it's over? :|

I think the most serious ramifications of the last year and a half for nVidia still have yet to be felt.

 

[zsouthboy]

The next year and a half will be VERY interesting, either way.

I can't wait! *gets popcorn, comfy seat, credit card*

 

[Tagrineth]

This is really a damn shame, not only for Futuremark as a company, but because when used properly, 3DMark is a damn good tool.

IMO 3DMark should dispense with the whole "Game Tests" methodology and stick with the technical aspect in future 3DMarks.

 

[StealthHawk]

ATI superceded Nvidia's market valuation, got the XBox2 contract,

I think that has more to do with issues between NVIDIA and Microsoft regarding Xbox1 than anything due to NV3x.

 

[Tim Murray]

ATI superceded Nvidia's market valuation, got the XBox2 contract,

I think that has more to do with issues between NVIDIA and Microsoft regarding Xbox1 than anything due to NV3x.

Indeed.

And as to fallout--consumers are fickle. They will buy the best product for the money (assuming they realize which product is the best for the money, which is another issue altogether). If that's NV in the next generation, they'll buy mainly NV. If it's ATI, they'll buy mainly ATI. OEMs are fickle, too, because they want to be seen as having the performance leader in their machines. ATI did extremely well in the last generation and undid a lot of the incredibly negative publicity from the R200 launch, but I wouldn't say that they can sit around like NVIDIA did with the NV3x and maintain a position as a high-end player. NVIDIA got by because of their perceived driver stability (it doesn't matter if they have the best drivers; people think they do, and that's all that matters) and their reputation, but if NVIDIA was a no-name like XGI, they would have died. NV will probably drop out of the video card business if ATI delivers another R300 v. NV30 victory, but we'll see. ATI seems too complacent right now.

 

[cthellis42]

NV will probably drop out of the video card business if ATI delivers another R300 v. NV30 victory, but we'll see.

Not hardly, since R300 caused marketshare decline and all, but without a total blowout. They'd lose more ground, but they'd have to go REALLY far down to give up entirely, and they as yet have far too much sales and existing support and marketshare for that to be the case. They and ATi are really the only players, so unless ATi could provide a blowout of EXTREME proportions...

ATI seems too complacent right now.

Don't think it's "complacency," but I do think that somewhere between their decision to move R400 up to R500 instead, nVidia kicked things into a higher gear than expected, which may cost them this round. (Though they can certainly keep up with aggressive scaling and pricing, as nVidia has done this round.) Likely their decision to make sure R400's tech (plus any new changes they can add on) has a chance to shine at the right processes in R500 will turn out for the better as well, as they must have been detecting some NV30-style problem possibilities to make such a move. (Even though their public statement was braggadocio.) After all, they're hoping to make sure it shines for other machines as well, and do to DX10 what R300 did to DX9.

They might trail this round, but I don't think it would be any worse than nVidia is doing currently, and they would be pacing right alongside without an NV30-style stumble.

 

[StealthHawk]

Well, you should ask yourself how much market share NVIDIA would have lost if it didn't have the gfFX5200. Or, conversely, what would have happened if ATI had had a lowend DX9 part.

R3xx caused a big shift in high end market share, but we all know that high end is not high volume, and thus we didn't see huge changes.

 

[Reverend]

This is really a damn shame, not only for Futuremark as a company, but because when used properly, 3DMark is a damn good tool.

IMO 3DMark should dispense with the whole "Game Tests" methodology and stick with the technical aspect in future 3DMarks.

Interesting timing of your comment, because something just happened (behind the scenes) whereby the Game Tests' importance was stressed and the feature/theoretical tests' importance downplayed. Depends on how you look at it though. Can't/Won't say more.

I personally think both (Game Tests, Feature Tests) are important as the Game Tests, if implemented correctly and according to the prevalent 3D/gaming industry environment and direction, do actually show us which hardware is better (driver manipulation is something FM can't help... but patch as necessary) and the Feature Tests are the tools for finding out why this is so (i.e. why hardware X is faster than hardware Y in the Game Tests).

I think the Game Tests are as necessary as the Feature Tests insofar as the purpose of 3DMark is concerned (and what is that?).

 

[cthellis42]

Well, you should ask yourself how much market share NVIDIA would have lost if it didn't have the gfFX5200. Or, conversely, what would have happened if ATI had had a lowend DX9 part.

R3xx caused a big shift in high end market share, but we all know that high end is not high volume, and thus we didn't see huge changes.

True 'nuff. Then again, ATi retains its dominance in the mobile sector (and improved on it I think?), and there's plenty of shifting around going on. Yet another reason neither company would disappear... they have multiple venues. Even IF at some point nVidia dropped from competing in discrete desktop parts, it might just be to kick more ass in integrated systems, redouble efforts in the mobile sector, claim the professional sector more completely, concentrate on bulk-selling parts... Other video IC companies are still around, after all. ^_^ Just none of them to the scale of ATi or nVidia. (Intel is a bit of a separate case.)

Overall marketshare is a reflection of a great MANY parts.

 

[jb]

On the brighter side, we got to read a few nice Press releases from cthellis42 here (or so I thought it was cthellis42 that did them)

 

[cthellis42]

<laughs> No, not me. Speaking of them, though, where has Corwin been of late?

 

[jb]

<laughs> No, not me. Speaking of them, though, where has Corwin been of late?

Dam sorry...well at least I got the starting letter of the name correct...which is a 1 out of 26 chance (assuming his names starts with a letter) so meh I tried