Look at what ATI just released ...

[Gary Hendricks]

ATI has just released the Radeon X1800XT based on the R520 core. Comes
with 512MB of video memory too. This card is set to shake out the
current video graphics king (the Nvidia Geforce 7800GTX) off its crown.

I'm not sure about you guys, but don't you think the computer industry
is getting a little too involved in video cards? That's where all the
R&D money is being poured, it seems. I mean, we can only go so far with
faster motherboards and CPUs.

Best Regards,
Gary Hendricks
http://www.build-your-own-computers.com

 

[John]

ATI has just released the Radeon X1800XT based on the R520 core. Comes
with 512MB of video memory too. This card is set to shake out the
current video graphics king (the Nvidia Geforce 7800GTX) off its crown.

I'm not sure about you guys, but don't you think the computer industry
is getting a little too involved in video cards? That's where all the
R&D money is being poured, it seems. I mean, we can only go so far with
faster motherboards and CPUs.

Best Regards,
Gary Hendricks
http://www.build-your-own-computers.com

Thats why theres so much concentration there and the move to dual core
instead just speed. There were articles about INTEL having problems
trying to just boost the hertz ratings and people have for a while
said they dont really need more speed to surf the net and do word
processing. So the only real areas of impact are dual cores for
allowing better multitasking which may have a real impact for some and
games/graphics.

The entire industry obviously is built on quick obsolesence to force
people to buy a whole new wave of products every year or two. The big
problem in the PC area is , its really dependant on a new OS to bog
their older systems down to force everyone to move en masse to new
systems because of the old argument that even old systems can surf the
web etc. But MS is really slow with numerous delays with new OS
versions. When you move to a new OS then all the drivers and support
moves with it so it forces everybody to move even if they were fine
with an older system except for a few who still want to maintain old
WIN ME and WIN98 systems.

Games are cool cause theres still big room for improvement so its like
the old days where new games completely bog things down unless you buy
new vid cards etc. They are going to be in big trouble when they hot a
plateau where improvements arent that great.

I think movies are getting there too. There was this big jump in
effects - no CG and CG in the 80s and they applied it to old formulas
all the way up to the 2000s and now its getting to be old hat.

Theyve got to do something cause the savior for the developed
economies was that the cheaper manufacturing countries can take over
more and more of the basic manufacturing which was opposed from the
60s-80s but accepted as a complimentary scheme - they make that stuff
more and more and we make high tech etc which was booming in the 90s
but its already getting saturated in a lot of fields slower growth and
a lot of hyped areas of high tech didnt pan out.

I think Ive read ATI was losing money right now. Its kind of like that
phrase they used a lot in the 90s profitless prosperity. A lof of
firms under the high tech bubble delusion were hiring and spending
like crazy eventhough they were losing money creating a climate where
there was a feeling of great prosperity unitl the high tech bubble
crashed. They are doing the Xbox I think now arent they? Maybe losing
money on that one or hardly making a profit and planning on making
improving profit with a higher profit margin new set of CPU cards that
sell for some ridiculous prices again as the old ones continue to drop
in price.

Im kind of surprised they didnt make more of a difference with the
800XL line which I thought was the start of a $150-200 800XL and
similar cheap ATI cards that would quicklydecimate nvidia 6600GT and
6800 sales.

 

[Gary Hendricks]

Excellent comments John.

I remember back when ATI dominated the market with their AT
All-in-Wonder 9800 Pro. All it took was just one or two years before
nVidia overtook them. PC technology moves frightfully fast indeed.

Best Regards,
Gary Hendricks
www.build-your-own-computers.com

 

[John]

Excellent comments John.

I remember back when ATI dominated the market with their AT
All-in-Wonder 9800 Pro. All it took was just one or two years before
nVidia overtook them. PC technology moves frightfully fast indeed.

You can tell im posting real late at night rambling around and making
mistakes.

Anyway --- you have to wonder with the net getting to be old hat are
sales going to really flatten out on PCs. They keep saying its bad
then OK , then bad , then OK again. Kind of limping along the last few
years.

Im really wondering about the PS3 and XBOX --- is that going to siphon
tons of money away from the PC mkt next year? And games too.

Seems like after DOOM 3 and Halflife2 and a flurry of big games its
pretty dead recently , as if a lot of the gaming industry talent is
furiously working on new XBOX and PS3 games.

Or maybe Im wrong since Im not a fanatical gamer. Maybe they can make
the case that its pretty lively - with BF2 and other games which have
been trickling out throughout the year.

 

[Ken Maltby]

Excellent comments John.

I remember back when ATI dominated the market with their AT
All-in-Wonder 9800 Pro. All it took was just one or two years before
nVidia overtook them. PC technology moves frightfully fast indeed.

Best Regards,
Gary Hendricks
www.build-your-own-computers.com

Almost all the "advancements" in video cards relate only
to games. Don't get me wrong I like games & "Eye Candy".
I have had the latest and greatest 3D cards since before my
first two Voodoo 2 cards; and currently have an ATI Radeon
X850 XT Platinum (R480).

When the first X850 failed, I temporarily replaced it with an
old PCI card I had laying around a S3 Trio64+ with only
2megs of memory. I was shocked at the total lack of a difference
in the appearance of almost every non 3D program I ran with it.
It even displayed video as well as my current card, but that may
be on account of its S3 Scenic/MX2 chip. In any case, your
current $500 Video cards are only of any value; (in relation to an
old PCI card that you can probably pick up for $10) for games.

Of course, how could we live without Far Cry?

Luck;
Ken

 

[Jamie]

John, i can't speak for PS3 because there isn't much solid info yet.
However the Xbox 360 is going to be better for PC gaming then you think.
Microsoft released a new toolkit a while back called XNA. Sony apparently
is going to have a 17.6 million dollar start up fee for developers to start
making games, due to the difficulty of programming for a Cell proc with 8
SPE's. Anyhoo when companies make games for the Xbox 360 due to the XNA
toolkit they will easily be able to bring their games to the PC. Heck even
Microsofts next PC controller is a wired Xbox 360 controller. Also by the
time that games actually start putting trhe Xbox 360 through it's paces most
people will have a Nvidia 7800 card or a ATI XL1800.

cheers

~jamie

 

[John]

John, i can't speak for PS3 because there isn't much solid info yet.
However the Xbox 360 is going to be better for PC gaming then you think.
Microsoft released a new toolkit a while back called XNA. Sony apparently
is going to have a 17.6 million dollar start up fee for developers to start
making games, due to the difficulty of programming for a Cell proc with 8
SPE's. Anyhoo when companies make games for the Xbox 360 due to the XNA
toolkit they will easily be able to bring their games to the PC. Heck even
Microsofts next PC controller is a wired Xbox 360 controller. Also by the
time that games actually start putting trhe Xbox 360 through it's paces most
people will have a Nvidia 7800 card or a ATI XL1800.

cheers

~jamie

Thats good to hear. But dont they have some contract requirement
regarding exclusivity to spur sales of the Xbox over the PS2 and PC ?
Some games seem to never cross over and some take a year or more to
cross over.

Im not a fanatical gamer so maybe Im exaggerating the deadness of the
PC gaming industry because of the hype about HalfLife2 and Doom3 so
which admiittedly took a long time to come out . So maybe things just
seem dead in comparison to the hype they received but I cant really
think of any memorable games out recently. I was looking at the game
sites and didnt see anything super exciting in the works either and we
are going into the Xmas season.

I guess Quake 4 will be the next big thing and FEAR and Serious Sam II
so it may not be totally dead after all.

 

[Jamie]

Well Sony aside. Picture yourself as a game maker. You own your company
and you make games. So you have 4 choices, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and
PC. Nintendo is off on a weird trend and not selling must by way of
hardware so they are out, Sony needs 17.6 mil before you can even get
started up. Then Microsoft has a toolkit for you to develop games for them,
easy game making, low costs and to up the ante even more it is very easy to
make your games for both the Xbox 360 and the PC. So you could be selling
games on two platforms for a low cost and make twice the money because you
are tapping into Console markets as well as PC markets. As for contractual
obligation. Sony paid Rockstar games half a billion dollars to keep the
Grand Theft Auto Franchaise exclusive to Sony for a set ammount of time.
That was solely up to Rockstars discretion to do that. Since then they have
gone on record as saying that the won't do exclusives anymore. I guess they
realized the profit hit they were taking.