I dont see that nvidia is "finished"...

[Steven C \(Doktersteve\)]

And please dont get me wrong, i really dont want to upset the people in this
group after they spent so much time helping me with some issues i have had
in the past week with my hardware, and giving me some good info on radeon
cards.

i dont think that the current "scandal" with nvidia will kill that company,
and i think that nvidia saw this coming a mile away... it seems that nvidia
has done quite alot of diversification in the past, making chipsets for the
xbox, making motherboard chipsets, etc... it seems as though somewhere down
the line they said "enough with this high end gaming business, we can make
far more money by pandering to the middle range consumer". and that is what
they did.

Its like 3dfx and nvidia years ago.
3dfx decided to go after a certain market, while nvidia catered to a high
end market. in this case, you could compare call it nvidia going for that
middle range market and ati going for the high end.
The problem that 3dfx had was releasing way to many cards at the same time
in a desperate attempt to regain market share... a problem that nvidia
doesnt have.

years ago ati wasnt a contender for high end, then the radeon 7500 and
8500's changed all that, and nvidia was faced with competetion for the first
time ever.

If this is the result (these bad benchmarks with HL2) of nvidia having
competetion, then it marks a turning point for the company, and hopefully
they can stop and change direction and gt back on track, just like 3dfx was
NOT able to do.

Still, this doesnt spell out the end for nvidia. If they have cards that
cost less, and which run games, that is what about 80% of the market will
tolerate.
Admit it... 8/10 gamers could care less about what we here care about, and
that mass market is what keeps hardware and software companies in business.
It costs less to make Geforce4 cards than the new 5900 cards, and if nvidia
sold enough geforce4 cards to still turn a huge profit, they would never
complain.

they got themselves in trouble with behcnmarks, they should have shut up
about 3dmark, and i am sort of grinning at my own decision to get a 9600 pro
card now, but i dont want nvidia to die.

in fact, no one here should want nvidia to die.
Why did ati become so good in the 3d game? it was because they were trying
to compete with nvidia.
if one company has a monopoly for a market, its never a good thing.

still, i dont think nvidia is dying by any means, they are just at a point
where they have to decide if they want to go mass market only, or seriously
work on making great cards, and ignoring little squabbles like whether or
not someone optomizes cards for benchmarking.

thats my opinion. worth what you paid for it btw ;-)

thanks for reading.

 

[SST]

I replaced a clients Ti4600 with a Radeon 9600Pro (the Ti4600 died just
after a year!) for allot less then the cost of the Ti4600 new and still less
after all this time.

Client reports back that the 9600p seems faster, feels smoother and looks
better in 3D. They are very happy with the switch. Apparently it 'benches'
less then it actually performs in the real world.

Cost of the 9600p was under $150 including S/H.

System is an XP2000+ on a VIA KT333 board with 512Mb DDR running WinXP Home.

I battled with a wide variety of NF2 boards and all were disappointing in
the end although I did get nice performance with them and a damn good
overclock. My current Intel based machine is a league or two beyond the
AMD/NForce2 stuff. Basically nVidia couldn't get a consistent yield of chips
and didn't get there ducks in line with the motherboard makers, leading to
lots of unhappy buyers.

I was happier with the nVidia of yesterday.


My two cents.

 

[methylenedioxy]

And please dont get me wrong, i really dont want to upset the people in this
group after they spent so much time helping me with some issues i have had
in the past week with my hardware, and giving me some good info on radeon
cards.

i dont think that the current "scandal" with nvidia will kill that company,
and i think that nvidia saw this coming a mile away... it seems that nvidia
has done quite alot of diversification in the past, making chipsets for the
xbox, making motherboard chipsets, etc... it seems as though somewhere down
the line they said "enough with this high end gaming business, we can make
far more money by pandering to the middle range consumer". and that is what
they did.

No-one is suggesting it will "kill" the company, it's just a scandal that
the customers are going to suffer. Those middle ranging customers are going
to get a shock when they try to use their brand new Nvidia cards on new
games it is supposed to handle well and doesn't, they will end up having to
upgrade even sooner than before, especially if devwelopers just say no to
optimising their coding to allow geforce cards to run due to time
constraints etc. Then Nvidia could well just say that the games are just
poorly made, great news for a new developer no? :s

Its like 3dfx and nvidia years ago.
3dfx decided to go after a certain market, while nvidia catered to a high
end market. in this case, you could compare call it nvidia going for that
middle range market and ati going for the high end.
The problem that 3dfx had was releasing way to many cards at the same time
in a desperate attempt to regain market share... a problem that nvidia
doesnt have.

It's nothing like 3dfx and nvidia years ago, 3dfx produced decent cards, in
fact superb cards, they just made a mistake with the voodoo 5 (and note,
there are rumours that this new fx range was based on the plans of the
voodoo 6, so not sure if this is true or not, but the curse lives on)

years ago ati wasnt a contender for high end, then the radeon 7500 and
8500's changed all that, and nvidia was faced with competetion for the first
time ever.

No, the Radeon DDR changed it, before the 7500...

If this is the result (these bad benchmarks with HL2) of nvidia having
competetion, then it marks a turning point for the company, and hopefully
they can stop and change direction and gt back on track, just like 3dfx was
NOT able to do.

I doubt they will get back to the same as before, you realise how much money
Nvidia have lost in last 8 months? First the 5800 embarassment and now this,
there is no turning back....And it isn't just Half Life 2 mate, it's any DX9
game with pixel shaders, nothing to do with half life 2, if it was, Nvidia
could easily squeeze out of this hole they are in by saying that it's all a
concoction by Ati and Valve seeing as they are both promoting each other,
but it isn't, Doom 3, 3d Mark 03 and the last Lara Croft all brought these
issues to light, no doubt we will see far more as more and more dx9 coded
games come out.

Still, this doesnt spell out the end for nvidia. If they have cards that
cost less, and which run games, that is what about 80% of the market will
tolerate.
Admit it... 8/10 gamers could care less about what we here care about, and
that mass market is what keeps hardware and software companies in business.
It costs less to make Geforce4 cards than the new 5900 cards, and if nvidia
sold enough geforce4 cards to still turn a huge profit, they would never
complain.

Of course gamers care about this, they have just shelled out £100+ for a new
card, you think everyone is made of money? Do you think people shell out
money for 3d cards if they won't use them? Don't be mad. The only reason it
costs more to produce the 5900 is because of the marketing costs.....I'm
sure they have made enough of them now to rectify any problems with
production, and they have the 5600 and 5200 cards, any bad cards are turned
into these anyway.

they got themselves in trouble with behcnmarks, they should have shut up
about 3dmark, and i am sort of grinning at my own decision to get a 9600 pro
card now, but i dont want nvidia to die.

No-one thinks they will die, as above they have just hit a bad spot and one
I doubt they will really get back to the "old" days over. Times have now
changed for Nvidia.

in fact, no one here should want nvidia to die.
Why did ati become so good in the 3d game? it was because they were trying
to compete with nvidia.
if one company has a monopoly for a market, its never a good thing.

There are other makers out there, don't forget about them, S3 for instance
have been on the OEM and onboard gfx for years, they are due a big boost and
it could be time, they have a couple of chipsets that are looking good.

still, i dont think nvidia is dying by any means, they are just at a point
where they have to decide if they want to go mass market only, or seriously
work on making great cards, and ignoring little squabbles like whether or
not someone optomizes cards for benchmarking.

Nothing to do with their positioning in the market, they are a gfx chip
maker and always have been, they have just produced 4 bad chips on the trot
and 2 of those are high end cards.

thats my opinion. worth what you paid for it btw ;-)

thanks for reading.

No worries

 

[Splitskull]

Thank GOD I got a ATI and didn't continue with nVidia......(nvidia was good
too)

 

[Crash7]

I replaced a clients Ti4600 with a Radeon 9600Pro (the Ti4600 died just
after a year!) for allot less then the cost of the Ti4600 new and still less
after all this time.

Client reports back that the 9600p seems faster, feels smoother and looks
better in 3D. They are very happy with the switch. Apparently it 'benches'
less then it actually performs in the real world.

Actually, I think you've got this reversed. It's not that the 9600p
benches less than it performs. It's that the Nvidia cards do the
opposite. There's a reason for that.


Crash7
remove x's from address to email

 

[SST]

In looking at reviews of current games, The Ti4200 actually beats the 9600p
in many places. It also seems to get beat out by many of the other
competitive cards.
However, in reality this is quite opposite!! (so reports the users)
http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030416/radeon_9600-07.html

Also, in new DX9 games like HF2 the 9600p outperforms nVidias $500
5900ultra, what's that all about? Their is going to be very many unhappy
nVidia owners by years end. Get your ATI now before the demand goes up

 

[SST]

FWIW: Doom3 is OpenGL and is said to perform as well or better then any ATI
card.

Problem is with DX9 video rendering, no?

 

[Gamer]

I own an ATI card, but if NVIDIA goes belly up over this it would bad for
consumers and gamers in general. I'm happy that I made the right choice this
time around with my 9700PRO--but we can only hope that the .50 det drivers
for the NVIDIA cards can make up for the half-life2 performance gap somehow.
In a few years or possibly less, when we are all starting to crave something
to replace our current hardware, ATI's solutions will just be that much
better(and cheaper) if they feel like NVIDIA is right on their heels. So, if
you own an ATI card and are a half-life fan, breathe a sigh of relief but
don't forget that competition in this market is what is best for GAMERS over
the long haul.

-G

 

[methylenedioxy]

I own an ATI card, but if NVIDIA goes belly up over this it would bad for
consumers and gamers in general. I'm happy that I made the right choice this
time around with my 9700PRO--but we can only hope that the .50 det drivers
for the NVIDIA cards can make up for the half-life2 performance gap somehow.
In a few years or possibly less, when we are all starting to crave something
to replace our current hardware, ATI's solutions will just be that much
better(and cheaper) if they feel like NVIDIA is right on their heels. So, if
you own an ATI card and are a half-life fan, breathe a sigh of relief but
don't forget that competition in this market is what is best for GAMERS over
the long haul.

-G

That argument is bollocks. If there was only Ati cards then Ati would be
cheaper anyway, more people buying them then.....Supply and demand.

 

[jaeger]

That argument is bollocks. If there was only Ati cards then Ati would be
cheaper anyway, more people buying them then.....Supply and demand.

Ah, better go back to Economics 101. If only ATI made cards they could
charge anything they wanted and consumers would have no choice but to
pay it. The rules of supply and demand don't apply to monopolies.

 

[methylenedioxy]

Ah, better go back to Economics 101. If only ATI made cards they could
charge anything they wanted and consumers would have no choice but to
pay it. The rules of supply and demand don't apply to monopolies.

I think it would because in order to keep being the monopoly they would
charge less to keep that market position making it extremely difficult for
any company coming into the fold, they would be twice the price then

 

[McGrandpa]

I own an ATI card, but if NVIDIA goes belly up over this it would bad
for consumers and gamers in general. I'm happy that I made the right
choice this time around with my 9700PRO--but we can only hope that
the .50 det drivers for the NVIDIA cards can make up for the
half-life2 performance gap somehow. In a few years or possibly less,
when we are all starting to crave something to replace our current
hardware, ATI's solutions will just be that much better(and cheaper)
if they feel like NVIDIA is right on their heels. So, if you own an
ATI card and are a half-life fan, breathe a sigh of relief but don't
forget that competition in this market is what is best for GAMERS
over the long haul.

-G

Yep! Now you're someone that's talking a little good sense.
Seriously.
I own a couple more ATI vid cards than I do Nvidia. I have one old
Matrox.
I've known for many years that for US to get something really good, the
video card makers have to have some serious competition in the market.
You can't have that if there is only one major maker of 3D video cards.
My first video card, ever, is an ATI. So are my second, third, sixth,
ninth, tenth and fourteenth AND, very likely, the sixteenth
Yeah, I been doing this a long time now.
Let the GAMES makers dictate what we need

 

[McGrandpa]

That argument is bollocks. If there was only Ati cards then Ati would
be cheaper anyway, more people buying them then.....Supply and demand.

Yep, there is that. However, ATI didn't really step up to the batters
plate in the 3D market until they felt there was a real market there.
ATI has much more going for it than just us gamers. They are now going
after the game players market aggressively. This means not so much
lower prices, but better features and performance. Have no fear, they
have a serious competitor. The majority of THEIR sales IS the gamers
Nvidia will do something. The hardware is better than the scores
indicate. Drivers and BIOS updates can eliminate this snag. The
hardware is there, for both ATI's and Nvidias offerings.
So who's gonna win the game? Well, WE are, actually !!!

 

[McGrandpa]

Ah, better go back to Economics 101. If only ATI made cards they
could charge anything they wanted and consumers would have no choice
but to
pay it. The rules of supply and demand don't apply to monopolies.

I've been there and seen that in \real life. With ATI in fact.

With serious competition, the rules are different. We see a pricepoint
that's something we have been known to bear. We are constantly getting
more features and better performance for about the same dollar. For the
last three years. I *like* this! WE benefit. It really is sweet,
isn't it?

 

[ELVIS2000]

That argument is bollocks. If there was only Ati cards then Ati would be
cheaper anyway, more people buying them then.....Supply and demand.

Hruum? Competition good. Some brilliant minds on the hardware
groups. Looks like you skipped too many econ 101 classes while holed
up in your dorm playing Quake.

jw

 

[ELVIS2000]

I've been there and seen that in \real life. With ATI in fact.

With serious competition, the rules are different. We see a pricepoint
that's something we have been known to bear. We are constantly getting
more features and better performance for about the same dollar. For the
last three years. I *like* this! WE benefit. It really is sweet,
isn't it?

Case in point -- Intel is holding back the P5 until AMD gets the
Athlon 64 in gear. AMDs slowness allows Intel to milk the P4 for a
while.

jw

 

[Ben Pope]

That argument is bollocks. If there was only Ati cards then Ati
would be cheaper anyway, more people buying them then.....Supply and
demand.

Thats not a good argument.

Competition drives down prices and increases quality.

Your supply and demand argument is only really relevent if everything else
remains constant. Which clearly it wouldn't if you remove the only other
real chip manufacturer.

If monopolies were good, there monopolies and mergers commission would be
actively encouraging them, rather than attempting to make sure that
monopolies and mergers do not adversely affect consumers.

Ben

 

[McGrandpa]

Case in point -- Intel is holding back the P5 until AMD gets the
Athlon 64 in gear. AMDs slowness allows Intel to milk the P4 for a
while.

jw

Ah, but that could allow for a few auxillary issues to occur that would
work to all our advantage? Our budgets for instance Two new types
of processors needing new mobos and new ram are going to hit a lot of us
pretty hard. But this isn't the first time that the hardware has run on
ahead of me. It also gives everyone opportunity to check and recheck
their work. Hopefully fewer glitches and bugs in their processes. And
yeah, it allows Intel the ability to eliminate any excess stock of the
P4 and also the more they run any part specific machinery, the more they
spread the operating costs.
Yeah, they're milking the P4 for more money Show me the business
that won't do it if they have any respite in the market?
ATI and Nvidia are a little bit different I think. Still, same rules
apply I guess.
McG.

 

[McGrandpa]

Thats not a good argument.

Competition drives down prices and increases quality.

Your supply and demand argument is only really relevent if everything
else remains constant. Which clearly it wouldn't if you remove the
only other real chip manufacturer.

If monopolies were good, there monopolies and mergers commission
would be actively encouraging them, rather than attempting to make
sure that monopolies and mergers do not adversely affect consumers.

Ben

If monopolies were good, why did AT&T get broken up? Why did M$ spend
years in court fighting anti-trust suits? I don't think it was because
they were being so benevolent to us Just another way to say you're
right Ben.
McG.