state of PowerVR Series 5

[R420]

You will have to excuse the fact that this is off-topic for the ati,
nvidia groups, however I would argue that competition in the high end
PC graphics arena from PowerVR should impact the quality of sucessive
GPUs/VPUs from Nvidia and ATI.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12637

quote:
_______________________________________________________________________________
We've been following the progress of PowerVR'5 Series 5 graphics
technology for some time, often wondering if it will actually reach
the market and if so how – given PowerVR's reluctance to do anything
along the fab-less semiconductor business model, instead stick purely
to an IP model. With no semiconductor licensee's it appeared that
Series 5 would stall, however last time we saw news of Series 5 it
was. We presume, for an announced deal with SEGA's arcade division.

More recently Imagination Technologies, the parent company of PowerVR,
has put out a new financial statement and within that a few references
have been made to the progress of state of Series 5. Here are a few
elements of the statement that may be pertienent:
" We are close to delivering our very high-end next generation
graphics technology that targets arcade, PC and console. We have
already licensed this technology to SEGA for use in arcade systems and
intend to explore relevant partnerships for other markets."

"Developments with Renesas/Sammy, and the latest SEGA partnership are
expected to lead to volume shipments in the amusement machine market
starting from the second half of this year and early next year
respectively."

"5 partner devices in or close to production (compared with only one
in production at the beginning of FY03/04) and 2 in prototype
silicon;"
So, it would seem that in the second half of the year, which begins
fairly soon, PowerVR will be ready to show of Series 5 in an arcade
guise at least, however given their business model this still leaves
some questions as to how, if at all, this will be brought to the PC
market without any semiconductor licensees – if PowerVR are reluctant
to go to a fables semiconductor it may be a tall order to ask a board
vendor to become one by effectively paying for the production
themselves and giving royalties back to PowerVR. Hopefully, though,
this will still prove to be an interesting solution and something can
be worked out.
_______________________________________________________________________________

 

[Asestar]

Glad to hear PowerVr are still alive.
I really loved my Kyro2 64mb card back then. It cost halv of what Gf2 was
going for and still had decent performance.
I loved those 16bit depth quality tough.. just as good as 32bit. So many old
games using 16bit max looked better with that card.

Now if only they put on TnL unit, DX8 features and DDR2 ram to that
interface, it would still outperform any Radeon9200se/Fx5200/Ti4200 cards at
hopefully much less price.

As for next gen, I'd love to see Kyro4 with 128mb GDDR2, 4x2 pipeline,
ShaderModel 3 support. With TBR interface (TileBaseRendering), that card
will be real threat to 9800/5900 series of cards. May even challenge x800
and 6800 cards if it gets a faster pipelines (hopefully 8x2 .

You will have to excuse the fact that this is off-topic for the ati,
nvidia groups, however I would argue that competition in the high end
PC graphics arena from PowerVR should impact the quality of sucessive
GPUs/VPUs from Nvidia and ATI.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12637

quote:
____________________________________________________________________________
___
We've been following the progress of PowerVR'5 Series 5 graphics
technology for some time, often wondering if it will actually reach
the market and if so how - given PowerVR's reluctance to do anything
along the fab-less semiconductor business model, instead stick purely
to an IP model. With no semiconductor licensee's it appeared that
Series 5 would stall, however last time we saw news of Series 5 it
was. We presume, for an announced deal with SEGA's arcade division.

More recently Imagination Technologies, the parent company of PowerVR,
has put out a new financial statement and within that a few references
have been made to the progress of state of Series 5. Here are a few
elements of the statement that may be pertienent:
" We are close to delivering our very high-end next generation
graphics technology that targets arcade, PC and console. We have
already licensed this technology to SEGA for use in arcade systems and
intend to explore relevant partnerships for other markets."

"Developments with Renesas/Sammy, and the latest SEGA partnership are
expected to lead to volume shipments in the amusement machine market
starting from the second half of this year and early next year
respectively."

"5 partner devices in or close to production (compared with only one
in production at the beginning of FY03/04) and 2 in prototype
silicon;"
So, it would seem that in the second half of the year, which begins
fairly soon, PowerVR will be ready to show of Series 5 in an arcade
guise at least, however given their business model this still leaves
some questions as to how, if at all, this will be brought to the PC
market without any semiconductor licensees - if PowerVR are reluctant
to go to a fables semiconductor it may be a tall order to ask a board
vendor to become one by effectively paying for the production
themselves and giving royalties back to PowerVR. Hopefully, though,
this will still prove to be an interesting solution and something can
be worked out.

____________________________________________________________________________
___

 

[Gonzo]

I also hope that S3 also makes a decent card and driver set. We need some
competition. Im not holding my breath waiting for these two though. S3
cards should be out soon I have read.

 

[MrRobichaud]

I thought my card with the kyro chip was great too. Excelent picture
quality, better than both the nvidia cards I've had since then. I wish then
good luck.

 

[Dark Avenger]

I also hope that S3 also makes a decent card and driver set. We need some
competition. Im not holding my breath waiting for these two though. S3
cards should be out soon I have read.

don't forget XGI, with their super powerfull Dual GPU card, they are
also a contender

 

[Asestar]

"Gonzo" <[email protected]> wrote in message

don't forget XGI, with their super powerfull Dual GPU card, they are
also a contender

Their drivers were very buggy, last time i checked. also they cost a fair
bit more than competetion, that kills sales for new cards.

 

[Gonzo]

Their drivers were very buggy, last time i checked. also they cost a fair
bit more than competetion, that kills sales for new cards.

I predict that XGI and S3 will go down in flames because of their driver
quality. Even this late in the game S3's pre production drivers absolutely
stink. Not a good sign.

PowerVR I have more hope for. This is the first that I have heard of them
coming back though.

What's next?....Rendition maybe?

3Dfx was pretty much killed by Nvidia and the corps cut up and most of it
thrown away. Too bad. Still leaves a bad taste in my mouth and is still
the primary reason I have banned myself from buying Nvidia products.

Rant over.

 

[Dark Avenger]

Their drivers were very buggy, last time i checked. also they cost a fair
bit more than competetion, that kills sales for new cards.

Not to forget that the output wasn't correct in most of the times,
turbo-texturing is used and Farcry?...you get a black screen!

Nice card....

 

[R420]

I predict that XGI and S3 will go down in flames because of their driver
quality. Even this late in the game S3's pre production drivers absolutely
stink. Not a good sign.

PowerVR I have more hope for. This is the first that I have heard of them
coming back though.

What's next?....Rendition maybe?

3Dfx was pretty much killed by Nvidia and the corps cut up and most of it
thrown away. Too bad. Still leaves a bad taste in my mouth and is still
the primary reason I have banned myself from buying Nvidia products.

Rant over.

Rendition made the first good consumer/gaming 3D chip, the Verite. I
miss them. they were working on the 4th generation Verite, the V4400e,
in 1999. the thing had 12 MB eDRAM (embedded memory) which boosted the
transistor count to like 125M. since then, Rendition was acquired by
Micron.

3Dfx stretched the SST1 architechure (Voodoo Graphics) for too long,
never getting their true next-gen Rampage part out before Nvidia
devoured them. maybe if Sega hadn't mislead 3Dfx on the BlackBelt
console contract, (Sega selected the PowerVR based Dural console which
was renamed Dreamcast) 3Dfx would still be around.

 

[Chip]

I predict that XGI and S3 will go down in flames because of their driver
quality. Even this late in the game S3's pre production drivers absolutely
stink. Not a good sign.

PowerVR I have more hope for. This is the first that I have heard of them
coming back though.

PowerVR (Imgtech) is different inasmuch as they have many cards up their
sleeve: They have Intel signed up, lots of other player sublicensing their
mobile technology and Sega backing their high-end 3d stuff. And of course
they make digital radio's and speakers and telecomms stuff and all.

So I very much doubt they will disappear. Its more a question of whether
they can be bothered to make a PC card. The problem is there is no money at
the top end of the PC card market. Its all about marketing rights & hype so
you can make your money on the lower-end, volume market.

So PowerVR wouldn't need 1 card. They'd need a high-end one and perhaps 3
or 4 other cards to address different price points in the market.

And they don't *make* anything. So they'd have to get a large PC graphics
card player signed up, and also sort out who would fab the silicon. All
from a position of 0% share of the market.

I can't ever see it happening to be honest :-(

Chip

 

[chrisv]

3Dfx was pretty much killed by Nvidia and the corps cut up and most of it
thrown away. Too bad. Still leaves a bad taste in my mouth and is still
the primary reason I have banned myself from buying Nvidia products.

I don't like Nvidia either - largely because of their FUD campaign
against 3dfx. However the blame for 3dfx' downfall must be shared by
3dfx, and, maybe most of all, the foolish consumers, who bought the
"you gotta have T&L and 32-bit" FUD from Nvidia.

 

[Chip]

I don't like Nvidia either - largely because of their FUD campaign
against 3dfx. However the blame for 3dfx' downfall must be shared by
3dfx, and, maybe most of all, the foolish consumers, who bought the
"you gotta have T&L and 32-bit" FUD from Nvidia.

3dfx's downfall was *entirely* their own doing imho.

As soon as they decided to alienate all of their oems by bringing card
manufacture back in house, it was the end. You can win the world graphics
card market all on your own. You need the likes of Diamond and Hercules and
Creative and Leadtech and PNY and Sapphire and Asus and Abit and and and.

As soon as 3dfx kicked all their parter outs, it was the end. Most stupid
business decision in the history of the world. Caused by pure arrogance
that their position was invincible.

Chip

 

[Asestar]

3dfx's downfall was *entirely* their own doing imho.

As soon as they decided to alienate all of their oems by bringing card
manufacture back in house, it was the end. You can win the world graphics
card market all on your own. You need the likes of Diamond and Hercules and
Creative and Leadtech and PNY and Sapphire and Asus and Abit and and and.

As soon as 3dfx kicked all their parter outs, it was the end. Most stupid
business decision in the history of the world. Caused by pure arrogance
that their position was invincible.

Chip

Altough I hated Nvidia many many years afterwards, (still prefer Ati over
nvidia, for that reason), I have to agree 3dfx brought their own end on
them. Voodoo3 were selling nicely. However, v5 and v4 were very hard to find
when came out. People had to wait, then pay much more than competition, gf2.
So many went over to nvidia.

Besides, they should have trusted on oem's. Now, we see that oem card's are
of same quality as original made. 3dfx did not believe that, which lead to
their end.

 

[Tod]

3DFX's downfall was because they had invested a big chuck of cash in to a
company with new graphics technology
and had tried to use it to win a contract for Microsoft's game consol.
When they did not win the contract (Nvidia did), they sold 3DFX to Nividia
to cover the companies debit.
I'm sure the upper management (3DFX's) gave themselves a really nice golden
parachute.

 

[Gonzo]

3dfx's downfall was *entirely* their own doing imho.

As soon as they decided to alienate all of their oems by bringing card
manufacture back in house, it was the end. You can win the world graphics
card market all on your own. You need the likes of Diamond and Hercules and
Creative and Leadtech and PNY and Sapphire and Asus and Abit and and and.

As soon as 3dfx kicked all their parter outs, it was the end. Most stupid
business decision in the history of the world. Caused by pure arrogance
that their position was invincible.

I agree, and that's not what Im saying. It's what Nvidia "CHOSE" to do with
all the 3Dfx customer base in regard to driver support that is the REAL
crime.

But Im not here to beat a dead horse. Just wanted to make a point.

 

[Gonzo]

Yep, mad at 3Dfx for that reason also.

They could at least have stipulated that Nvidia release the driver code to
third party developers or to general public so that driver support would
continue.

Instead they chose to screw thier customer base to appease Nvidia.

 

[Asestar]

Beat the dead horse? Nvidia is not dead yet, let's beat 'em.

 

[Darthy]

don't forget XGI, with their super powerfull Dual GPU card, they are
also a contender

Bwahahah that's funny! Pay $400+ (About the same as a 9800XT or 5950
or the new X800/6800 cards) yet when the drivers are set CORRECTLY
(ie: rendering full detail) its performance is on par with the GF5600
Ultra.

But yes... we could use some more competition.


- - - - -
Remember: In the USA - it is dangeroud to draw or write about Heir Bush in a negative way. The police or SS are called, people threaten to kill you. (What country is this again?)

- 15yr old boy in Washington was disciplined for drawing such images.
- White House blows cover of an undercover agent because her husband said there were no WMD (before the USA started the war) - her job was finding terrorist. (This makes sense?)
God bless the land of the free. Where you can burn the Constitution... Ashcroft does it every day.

 

[Darthy]

3dfx's downfall was *entirely* their own doing imho.

As soon as they decided to alienate all of their oems by bringing card
manufacture back in house, it was the end. You can win the world graphics
card market all on your own. You need the likes of Diamond and Hercules and
Creative and Leadtech and PNY and Sapphire and Asus and Abit and and and.

As soon as 3dfx kicked all their parter outs, it was the end. Most stupid
business decision in the history of the world. Caused by pure arrogance
that their position was invincible.

Yep yep... they pissed off all their OEM's who in turn completly
attacked 3Dfx. Too bad the death of 3Dfx also killed off STB which
was a MAJOR video card maker back then.


- - - - -
Remember: In the USA - it is dangeroud to draw or write about Heir Bush in a negative way. The police or SS are called, people threaten to kill you. (What country is this again?)

- 15yr old boy in Washington was disciplined for drawing such images.
- White House blows cover of an undercover agent because her husband said there were no WMD (before the USA started the war) - her job was finding terrorist. (This makes sense?)
God bless the land of the free. Where you can burn the Constitution... Ashcroft does it every day.

 

[Chip]

3DFX's downfall was because they had invested a big chuck of cash in to a
company with new graphics technology
and had tried to use it to win a contract for Microsoft's game consol.
When they did not win the contract (Nvidia did), they sold 3DFX to Nividia
to cover the companies debit.

"They" didn't sell 3dfx to nVidia. Who is this - "They" - you are referring
to anyway?

3dfx were on the point of bankrupcy and nVidia bought them, plain and
simple. If the hadn't bought them then 3dfx would have gone bust anyway...
they were all over the floor by then anyway.

To answer Gonzo's point about what nVidia chose to do with the 3dfx customer
base and driver support: Well its a moot point. If NV hadn't have bought
them the company would have been wound up, so there wouldn't have been any
development or driver support going on anyway.

Chip