Where is Revenge ? (3dfx related)

[K.I.L.E.R]

I want to:
Glide my T-buffered foot up Nvidia's bump mapped, pixel shaded ass.

 

[Tagrineth]

Well, for what its worth Nvidia owns both trademarks (M and T buffer).

Firstly, yeah, my mistake on the T-buffer, I'll ask about that later and ask how much I can talk about ;P.

But, well, yeah, they own almost all of 3dfx's trademarked names (including the 3dfx name, LOL). They don't quite own all the tech though.

 

[Ailuros]

Since the demise of 3dfx fanboys have came up with enough 3dfx-related myths and legends to rival the Greek and Roman mythologies combined.

Greek/Roman mythology was based on unexplainable for the time facts/phenomena that where masked under pretty fairy tales.

As far as 3dfx goes the "...and they lived happily ever after" part, was written over 2 years ago.

PS: I don't like warmed soups errrm sequels.

 

[duncan36]

I have a feeling that most of 3dfx's 'super whiz bang tech' that was unreleased have a lot in common with perpeptual motion theories, they look good on paper, but when it comes time to implement them they're not so hot.
From what I've gathered a lot of 3dfx tech was pretty far out there, especially towards the end of the road for the company.

 

[Nagorak]

Since the demise of 3dfx fanboys have came up with enough 3dfx-related myths and legends to rival the Greek and Roman mythologies combined.

Greek/Roman mythology was based on unexplainable for the time facts/phenomena that where masked under pretty fairy tales.

As far as 3dfx goes the "...and they lived happily ever after" part, was written over 2 years ago.

PS: I don't like warmed soups errrm sequels.

What's your point? Such "mythologies" are still alive and well today.

 

[Tahir2]

Since the demise of 3dfx fanboys have came up with enough 3dfx-related myths and legends to rival the Greek and Roman mythologies combined.

Greek/Roman mythology was based on unexplainable for the time facts/phenomena that where masked under pretty fairy tales.

That's not entirely true and a blinkered view of history.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

We all know, Nvidia was the Trojan horse to 3dfx.

 

[Tahir2]

Some might say the analogy works better the other way around..

 

[Tagrineth]

I have a feeling that most of 3dfx's 'super whiz bang tech' that was unreleased have a lot in common with perpeptual motion theories, they look good on paper, but when it comes time to implement them they're not so hot.
From what I've gathered a lot of 3dfx tech was pretty far out there, especially towards the end of the road for the company.

 

[Ailuros]

Since the demise of 3dfx fanboys have came up with enough 3dfx-related myths and legends to rival the Greek and Roman mythologies combined.

Greek/Roman mythology was based on unexplainable for the time facts/phenomena that where masked under pretty fairy tales.

That's not entirely true and a blinkered view of history.

It's not the time and place to elaborate with longwinded explanations, but a greek that can handle fairly well ancient greek should know something about it hm?

 

[Ailuros]

What's your point? Such "mythologies" are still alive and well today.

I think GeeForcer got the message I intended to, that's what it was actually about. Alive depends on perception; Prometheus doesn't impersonate evil like Lucifer/Eosforos would hm?

 

[Sage]

I have a feeling that most of 3dfx's 'super whiz bang tech' that was unreleased have a lot in common with perpeptual motion theories, they look good on paper, but when it comes time to implement them they're not so hot.
From what I've gathered a lot of 3dfx tech was pretty far out there, especially towards the end of the road for the company.

oh trust me, 3Dfx tech is faster than comparable nVidia tech. i would pit an ultra-high-end Rampage / Sage board up against a GF4 and it would probably be a very tough fight for both cards.

as for the "Revenge"...... i don't reallystay current with what remains of 3Dfx these days. I do have theories... This particular one is most likely NOT the rumored "Revenge" but it would be quite possible. I happen to know that there are (were at least) about 10,000 VSA-100's in a certain warehouse... now, we know the 6000 worked and it was FAST... the only problem was the (supposedldy) sabatoged external powersupply. it would be posible, in theory, to get 2 Voodoo5 5500 PCI's to work together OR even build Voodoo5 6000's! OR build 8-/16-way arrays of chips!!! Quantum3d has engineers that know how to do this as they designed them and still sell systems (youre looking at $30k minimum ) with these cards. Would that be nice? Well (from the few things i have heard) I seriously doubt that this is the case. Lets not remember the astounding capabilities Pyramid3D made by, what, 27 BitBoys? Personally I'm hoping that the "Revenge" is actually some sort of small nuclear devise that will be set off underneath nVidia PR headquarters... (late at night, we dont want anyone killed even tho they are pure EVIL!). Hell, give me 12 billion dollars and some enhanced Uranium (U-234? its been so long...) and i could build a very very very small yet functional nuclear device. In fact, a LOT of people could build one. Enough knowlege is either public / easy to coax out of ex-Soviets that really the only HARD part is obtaining the uranium... haha you wouldne believe how difficult that is even if youre W Gates. ok im not talking about that anymore, ill get myself into troubble (again )

 

[Ailuros]

oh trust me, 3Dfx tech is faster than comparable nVidia tech. i would pit an ultra-high-end Rampage / Sage board up against a GF4 and it would probably be a very tough fight for both cards.

Trust you on what? Theoretical or hypothetical assertions don't render anything on screen, nor does any vaporware.

Personally I'm hoping that the "Revenge" is actually some sort of small nuclear devise that will be set off underneath nVidia PR headquarters... (late at night, we dont want anyone killed even tho they are pure EVIL!). Hell, give me 12 billion dollars and some enhanced Uranium (U-234? its been so long...) and i could build a very very very small yet functional nuclear device. In fact, a LOT of people could build one. Enough knowlege is either public / easy to coax out of ex-Soviets that really the only HARD part is obtaining the uranium... haha you wouldne believe how difficult that is even if youre W Gates. ok im not talking about that anymore, ill get myself into troubble.

Ahahmmrightsureyeahok.....

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Trust you on what? Theoretical or hypothetical assertions don't render anything on screen, nor does any vaporware.

Vaporware does render anything on screen. You imagine it does and it will in your head.

 

[Ailuros]

Ok then. Here's what I have in mind:

Dual chip Tiler on 13um
8 pipelines/2TMU's
500MHz core
500MHz DDR II
Geometry processor handling a theoretical max of 400M vertices/sec

Price about 900-1000S US currently. Just about the same pricerange he has in mind, just double everything in efficiency and performance. Hey it does 32x sample Z3 in 1600x1200x32 for free.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

oh trust me, 3Dfx tech is faster than comparable nVidia tech. i would pit an ultra-high-end Rampage / Sage board up against a GF4 and it would probably be a very tough fight for both cards.

I've asked it before and I'll ask it again.

Was there any bandwith saving feature in Rampage, like early Z reject, hierarchical Z buffer, or Z-compression?
The true power of the GF3/4 chips (and Radeons) come from these technologies, and any 3D card without them would waste incredible amounts of memory bandwith . See the Parhelia as an example.

I've seen several Rampage documentations and details leaked on the Web, and none of them pointed to any kind of memory optimizations. The only thing that Spectre boards meant to have was dual 128 bit DDR memory buses. But even such impressive amounts of bandwith are not enough, if you waste it all...

 

[Ailuros]

http://www.digit-life.com/articles/3dfxtribute/

 

[Laa-Yosh]

http://www.digit-life.com/articles/3dfxtribute/

There seems to be no mentioning of any memory optimizations, it covers the texture computer mostly...

 

[Ailuros]

There seems to be no mentioning of any memory optimizations, it covers the texture computer mostly...

It's "bandwidth saving techniques" were mostly based on the texturing computer (ie recursive texturing) AFAIK.

 

[Tagrineth]

oh trust me, 3Dfx tech is faster than comparable nVidia tech. i would pit an ultra-high-end Rampage / Sage board up against a GF4 and it would probably be a very tough fight for both cards.

Trust you on what? Theoretical or hypothetical assertions don't render anything on screen, nor does any vaporware.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, two functional dual Rampage dual SAGE boards do exist.