"The purchase gives Nvidia some needed intellectual capital, including about 100 design engineers, whom it expects to retain; and technology, including three future generations of 3dfx graphics chips; and seven patents, among other things.
Nvidia looks to boost its market share with the deal. Thanks to 3dfx's technology and customer base, Nvidia expects to garner between 60 percent and 70 percent of the retail market share for graphics boards. Nvidia also will likely continue 3dfx's Voodoo brand name. Nvidia will control 3dfx's forthcoming Rampage graphics chip, due next year, as well as two generations that are now in development and under evaluation. "
i'd say nvidia did well in this endevour.. considering how small they were before.. (i think it was less than 500 employees).. anyways..
if they continue the release of the Rampage and 2 more 3dfx chips.. what effect will that have on nvidia's next generation chips.. NV20 and onwards.. will they put in less effort since they're only major competitor now is ATI?
I think a lot of people are discounting Matrox from the fray.
While they are currently not in the running, they have produced 2 back-to-back designs that have been hugely popular, only to be hampered by poor drivers.
The hardware is not at fault, and usually offers better image quality and more features than anything else put out by their competitors. If they could get their software division's collective head out of it's ****, they could really be a dark horse.
Yes, nVidia and ATI are now the only major players in the 3d game, but I think Matrox, with some luck, could get in late in the game.
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spidergoolash: "heh, a cup of diesel dan - mwahhha"
me: "heh, a cup of me is like a cup of heaven!"
I currently have an Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2 GTS sitting in an anti-static bag next to me because I'm hesitant to switch out my G400MAX. Aside from the superior image quality, dual-head capability, and superior DVD playback performance, the G400 is more than capable in just about any 3D game I can throw at it.
Despite what everyone says, it's a capable card that can handle any game out there respectably. I think most people's complaints about the card are not that it isn't fast, but rather that due to poor drivers, it's not as fast as it can be.
And to give you an idea of what I'm throwing at it:
NHL 2001
Madden 2001
NFS: High Stakes
NFS: Porche Unleashed
UT
Q3A
Half-Life (and Opposing Force, CS, TF, and other various HL mods)
I play ALL of the above at 1280x1024 or 1600x1200, and performance is acceptable.
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"It's always funny until someone gets hurt, and then it's just hilarious."
Of course, "acceptable" is a relative term, but so is "playable".
Rest assured, I get enough framerates to make all of those games playable for normal folks.
People who try to convince me that 60fps is necessary to make a game playable will instantly lose my respect.
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"It's always funny until someone gets hurt, and then it's just hilarious."
The human eye cannot tell more than around 30 FPS. That's what TV's refresh at. I remember getting my old Voodoo Graphics card and loving every bit of the 33-39 FPS that Quake 1 gave me. Even around 25 FPS for Quake 2 was fine, really.
You start to tell when things slip below that 20 FPS mark. 10 FPS is a bit of a grinder.
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Does driving a car from Saturn make me an alien?
I'm just a quick pee. - liltaz, fastest pee in the West!
That which does not make me barf, makes me stronger - possum37, fugly.net guru.
<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">This message has been edited by JHowse on January 02, 2001 at 03:49 PM</font>
Okay, now we have a baseline for acceptable.
My UT framerates aty 1280x1024 are around 45 with the Matrox G400 MAX.
Would you say that's "acceptable"?
But, this is getting away from the point.
I think a lot of people hear bad PR about Matrox and discount them, but the honest truth is that they're producing good technology. I'm not ready to discount them just yet.
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"It's always funny until someone gets hurt, and then it's just hilarious."
That's acceptable in my book. I'm happy with my Geforce2 MX, though. The image quality on that ain't bad, either. Definitely beats the pants of 3DFX stuff, IMHO.
Matrox has some of the best image quality you could ask for. Always have. If I needed a nice 2D only PCI card I'd DEFINITELY want the Matrox Millenium.
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Does driving a car from Saturn make me an alien?
I'm just a quick pee. - liltaz, fastest pee in the West!
That which does not make me barf, makes me stronger - possum37, fugly.net guru.
<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">This message has been edited by JHowse on January 02, 2001 at 05:51 PM</font>
