3dfx and damnation

[DayUSeX]

Rember when the voodoo 3/5 were out, and they wernt as fast but they kept saying ohh wait TBUFFER, TBUFFER will make evyerhitng ok becuase it will make evyerhing look so pretty if the game developers program their games to work in TBUFFER which only our card supports. World hunger will end if planters plant with TBUFFER. On and on and on, and they simply ignored that their cards were slower/worse image quality. Well look at the nvidia cores the fx series that were the first to impliment the 3dfx assests that were attainted. Their cards are slower, image quality is *arguably* worse, and they keep pusing their cinefx thingie mabober. They have all these cool videos of how games will look if developers would program in their special cinefx, just like 3dfx did. Does anyone else think the whole 3dfx staff is just damned to ruin products. Dont get me worng i loved my voodoo 2 SLI, and my voodoo 3 is STILL in my p133 linux box, but lets face it, what they have worked on hasnt exactly *torn up the field* as their voodooI/II era.

 

[Alacritan]

The Voodoo 2 (as much as I loved it) only kicked *** because it was the only out there to kick ***. There were no 3D accelerator cards prior the the Voodoo 2. It was the first, but everything after it totally owned it.

 

[pkrew]

Not that it really matters, but it was ATI that came out with the first card that could do 3d rendering. It was painfully slow at it however. 3Dfx took it to the next level and left ATI in the dust. I think that its actually ironic that the card maker that is given credit for inventing the 3d graphic cards is now finally, after so many years of being at the bottom, on top

 

[cV]

There have been rumors that the 3dfx staff has ruined nVidia's fervor, I mean - look at the cards made before nVidia acquired 3dfx - they were small, nimble, and fast. Then the cards became tremendously power-consuming and, eventually, behemoths.

I think nVidia bit off a bit more than it could chew with the FX architecture. But it didn't even start there.

The GF2, 3, and 4 were all relatively bruteforce compared to ATi's archicitectures - the only reason they performed well was because they were clocked high or had extra this/that. The FX 5800u was almost a pinnacle representation of this ideology - a card that needed to run at 500/500 to almost perform like a competitor's card running at 324/311. They stuck to old ideals (128-bit memory bus, high clocks, etc.) but the efficiency of ATi's architecture was finally realized and surpassed the bruteforce behemoth.

Any of you who've owned both 7500s and GF2-class cards, did you notice that while they performed similarly, the GF2s ran remarkably hotter? Something to think about.

 

[Overclocker550]

looks like the 3dfx curse has bitten nvidia now. I did like their ti4200s to give them credit cause they are so fast for so cheap but it looks like many years before I get a new card anyway

 

[Vertical_Zer0]

There were no 3D accelerator cards prior the the Voodoo 2. It was the first, but everything after it totally owned it.

What was the Voodoo 1, then? I havn't been around long enough to know, but do you mean to say it was just a 2d card?

 

[Sentential]

Nah, I dont 3DFX is what is gonna do NV in. NV has relied on clockspeeds to win over ATi. Now that the silicon is reaching its maximum clock speeds, it was only a matter of time before thing deteroited.

(example: Neandertalls)
Brain(ATi) will always win over brawn(NV) in the grand scheme of things

 

[Overclocker550]

thats why amd is winning over Intel likewise. Nvidia used to be ahead till ati got their 9700 pro then nvidia got a breakdown

 

[Sentential]

absolutly right, like I said, it was only a matter of time

 

[TUK101]

I still have my Voodoo 3 and it still works great on older games. It could be that 3dfx's staff is to blaime, but they could also save the day if they can implement the same technology that they used on the Voodoo 5 to a modern day card running dual 500mhz gpu's with ddr memory. That would be one powerful card. But then again we are back to what cV was talking about with the problems of heat and humoungous pcb's. Nvidia will be back, I believe that they are here to stay. This time last year I remember seeing the same threads being brought up about AMD gonna fold up and how they where nothing but a flop since they where pushed back so far on their 64bit cpu.

 

[CrystalMethod]

You guys need to quit thinkg about performance when you start talking about who's "ahead". Strat checking in to the pricing of CPU's and Vid cards at the distribution level from Ingram-Micro, Tech-Data, Supercom, and others, then you'll see where the money is being spent. I make about $8 per Vanta I sell. It's cheaper that the Rage128/Xpert2000, and the profit margin is higher. Multiply that by 1000 systems. Now sell that to a few co-operations, and we're talking a sizable chunk of cash. Now compare that to the $7 I make selling a Radeon 9800 or FX-5800 Ultra, to every what, 50th person that comes into the store (profit on both cards is about the same)? Hmmm... lemme see...

$8 X 1000 in a single order = $8000

$7 X (1000/50) in multiple orders = $140

I think you guys can figure it out from there. The money is in the low end desktop stuff. Not the high end 3D cards we use. We're a tiny percentage of the market. Not that I wouldn't like to have a Radeon 9800 PRO in my tech system at work, I just don't think the company is going to give me more than the Vanta that's in there.

 

[snyper1982]

thats why amd is winning over Intel likewise. Nvidia used to be ahead till ati got their 9700 pro then nvidia got a breakdown

i dont know where you get your info, but last i checked, the 3.2 EE outperformed the 64fx. anyways, amd is in no way shape or form winning. intel is comepletely dominating amd. you have the biggest fanboyism i have ever seen. you follow like a leming, if you have it, then it must be the best. your cpu is the best, hence amd is "winning". your vidcard is the best, so ti4200s, ar the best cards ever made, lol. get a grip man, start doing a little research before pulling facts out of your ***.

 

[JigPu]

nVidia may well be effected by the sucking in of 3dfx. There definatly has been theory changes (before, fast and innefficent; after, medium and medium efficient), and style changes. Nobody knows if they're for good or bad at this moment, though I doubt one "bad" card generation is going to kill nVidia. Even if video cards go belly up for a while, they've got their nForce they can devote more time to, and come back to video when it's better for them.

i dont know where you get your info, but last i checked, the 3.2 EE outperformed the 64fx. anyways, amd is in no way shape or form winning. intel is comepletely dominating amd.

Who's winning depends highly on what site you read, and what's important to you The site I read showed the FX kicking the EE's pants most of the time, and equaling or loosing in content creation. Though I've heard many people rant about reviews showing the exact opposite. I have no clue why the results are so variable...

As for AMD winning, I don't know if I would call it that, but they ARE (slowly) begining to take a bit of ground back on intel. With the A64/FX, they're diverting a few sales to them for the people who want to experiment. Not winning if the race was finished now, but if the race finished in say 30 years (and nothing changed)
JigPu

 

[DayUSeX]

i still hope hte nv40 goes back to to geforce 4 TI era, of great cards that OC'd well. If not i guess im jumping boards to ATI, after all i held on to my voodoo 5 5500 for how long, pretending that it still was the top card......

 

[snyper1982]

nVidia may well be effected by the sucking in of 3dfx. There definatly has been theory changes (before, fast and innefficent; after, medium and medium efficient), and style changes. Nobody knows if they're for good or bad at this moment, though I doubt one "bad" card generation is going to kill nVidia. Even if video cards go belly up for a while, they've got their nForce they can devote more time to, and come back to video when it's better for them.




Who's winning depends highly on what site you read, and what's important to you The site I read showed the FX kicking the EE's pants most of the time, and equaling or loosing in content creation. Though I've heard many people rant about reviews showing the exact opposite. I have no clue why the results are so variable...

As for AMD winning, I don't know if I would call it that, but they ARE (slowly) begining to take a bit of ground back on intel. With the A64/FX, they're diverting a few sales to them for the people who want to experiment. Not winning if the race was finished now, but if the race finished in say 30 years (and nothing changed)
JigPu

intel held 82% of the market, wile amd had a mere 15%, after a quick google, thats what i came up with. thats what i was refering to when i said intel is dominating.

 

[Matthias99]

And Intel Extreme Graphics probably holds 75% of the desktop GPU market... clearly a "dominating" solution there.

I'm being facetious here, but it's hard to say that AMD isn't seriously approaching Intel in terms of raw CPU performance (having long since surpassed them in terms of price/performance).

Even if the EE is faster, consider that the FX-51 costs, what, about $500, while the Pentium 3.2EE (if you can find one!) is about $1000. And you're not gonna try to tell me that it's *twice* as fast, or even 50% faster. Most benches I've seen give it about a 10-20% edge in content creation (which is Intel's strong suit), and it's similar or a bit slower for gaming.

 

[snyper1982]

i never said that they werent approaching or even surpasing in performance, because it is basicaly back and forth between the ee and the a64. and you cannot honestly tell me that intel isnt dominating the cpu market. but about the price performance, that is a toss up i think now. the 2.4c, is a great cpu, at a reasonable price. and to be honest this is not the place to have a debat about intel and amd.

 

[Matthias99]

i dont know where you get your info, but last i checked, the 3.2 EE outperformed the 64fx.

i never said that they werent approaching or even surpasing in performance, because it is basicaly back and forth between the ee and the a64.

Uh-huh. First they're "outperforming", now they're "back and forth".

In any case, Intel has a much bigger share of the market, mostly due to, well, marketing. They advertise heavily, and they fight very hard to get their processors used by big-shot OEM system builders like Dell, Compaq, etc. It's much more even in the enthusiast market, and AMD has started making inroads at both the bottom (the chips are cheaper, so "value" OEMs have started using them) and the top (the new Opteron line is giving the P4 Xeons a run for their money in the server market). But Intel is definitely still in charge in terms of desktop CPUs.

but about the price performance, that is a toss up i think now. the 2.4c, is a great cpu, at a reasonable price.

The Barton 2500+ is also a great CPU -- at half the price of the 2.4C! Sure, the 2.4C is faster (especially on an 800Mhz FSB motherboard and paired with fast RAM), but again, it's like 10-20% faster in media encoding for twice as much money.

And yes, this isn't really the place for this discussion.

 

[snyper1982]

yes i could say they are outperofrming them, because in the majority of benchmarks they are, but the athlon is also outperforming the ee in certain things, thus the retraction to back and forth. the only reason i posted was because a foolish remark made comparing nvidia, to intel, saying that amd is "winning", when in fact, amd is far from winning, in performance, or market share. i would be willing to bet that nvidia would LOVE to be in intels position, if amd is "winning".

 

[Bailey]

they fight very hard to get their processors used by big-shot OEM system builders like Dell, Compaq, etc

Not a bit of "fighting" invloved, they just pay money. Intel pays a large portion of Dell's avertising budget in return for an "all Intel" line. Intel really ramped up the $$$$ spent when the Athlon came out & they had bubkiss to match.

As for video it's always a tough call who will "win". It doesn't depend only on chips. Not only was 3dfx good with chips, they also had support - the card WORKED with all the good software. The compeition (Nvidia, Rendition, ATI, etc.) had lots of bugs w/ various programs (games). Anyone else remember all the "mini-drivers" we had to install?

I remember Rendition, good product (the V2000K) & nice price. It was very close to 3dfx in performance but they couldn't manage the support & they went belly up.

Nvidia rose to the top by getting the patches out FAST, they had lots of driver cycles. At that time the absolute worst company was ATI, they couldn't get a decent driver made if their life depended on it (plus they liked to place the blame elsewhere). Times have changed & ATI is at the top of the hill, but all that means is they have no where to go but down

Personally I like the "graphics wars", it just means better/cheaper products for us