I have read alot of threads where this is discussed...

some people say that Nvidia Cards will not support as many DX8 abilities as ATI's Radeon.

How can they say that? Nobody thought Nvidia would solve there bandwidth problem for the next release model....and they did. If Nvidia has proven 1 thing its they are in this market to win. Obviously DX8 will be a large part of gamings future.....dont you think Nvidia will be there? To say there cards wont have as many features for some unknown reason is...silly. Just as silly as saying , Well DX8 isnt out yet and so they may re-work a few aspects of it before release which will make it less compatible with current ATI Radeons. (THAT IS HYPOTHETICAL and false......for now )

Both statements are equally silly.

ATI cards are no more future proof than anything else. Someone made a point, cant remember where, that is Nvidia is making X-box chips both Video and Audio...optimized for DX8. Nvidia will know exactly what DX8 and all possible features are before ATI will. So how people can say ATI cards will support more features than Geforce Ultras or NV20''s is a sign of Zealocy (my own word )

I would be more worried of ATI being future proof as a company, The Radeons are cheap...and using DDR so that tells me they are dumping for little profit. If anyone else here is a stock market monkey than you know ATI has not had a good quarter for a while. The Radeon selling so cheap may not help ATI and make it vulnerable in the future...especially since they have lost huge market share to another company.

Just put your card in and play your damn games. Doom 3 wont run on any of our current cards anyway.

Good point about nVidia and the X-box. I didn't think of that, but then again I don't spend much time thinking about such stuff. BTW, how much weight can you put behind Carmack saying that todays cards won't play Doom 3? Didn't he say something similar about Q3 at one point.

"Nvidia Cards will not support as many DX8 abilities as ATI's Radeon."

This is wrong. But it's true that the best currently available cards from ATI have more features, which will be included in DX8, than the NVidia cards that are out now. Of course the best supported DX8 cards will probably be NVidia's NV20s based ones, because this ist the brother chip of the chip that powers the X-box.

nobody said that nVidia is not able to produce DX8 cards, but it's well known that current NV cards (GTS, GF2U) do not have as much features as Radeons have, no matter wether DXn or not.

besides, the GF2U is a GTS core @ 250 w/ a memory at 460 DDR.
no differnce except speed.

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The GeForce2 barely has as much DX8 features as a Radeon. Also you forgot Microsoft demonstrates DX8 using a Radeon. Microsoft and ATI has a close relationship, that is why they choose ATI to supply Xbox chip first but then ATI left because of low margins. Nvidia couldn't decline because they are a small company compared to ATI.

Also, I don't think ATI is dumping Radeons for cheap price. When did a $320 card become cheap? They only look cheap because Nvidia cards are so overpriced. ATI makes their own cards therefore can make them cheaper.

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The quarter before the last one ATI had 100% earnings growth. They had like 20 consecutive quarters of high growth.

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I don't know where you get your ATI-is-dieing ideas from, but ATI still owns the graphics industry with the most marketshare, even though you see Nvidia everywhere, ATI sells more graphics chips than Nvidia. That number does not include Radeon sales so Im pretty sure ATI has gained a lot of marketshare lately. If you follow ATI and Nvidia, you will notice that ATI has stolen business from Nvidia lately as OEMs are choosing the Radeon SDR instead of the GeForce2 MX. Who wouldn't?

will. So how people can say ATI cards will support more features than Geforce Ultras or NV20''s is a sign of Zealocy (my own word )

That's odd because i've never seen anyone say the NV20 will support less DX8 features. Everyone is more then a little certain it will support more. But do we care when the board isn't available yet, or likely to be for another 5 months? And no, the Gf2 Ultras don't support more (any)DX8 features and they never will. They don't even support all the DX7 features. This is just fact ignore it if you want..

I would be more worried of ATI being future proof as a company, The Radeons are cheap...and using DDR so that tells me they are dumping for little profit. If anyone else here is a stock market monkey than you know ATI has not had a good quarter for a while. The Radeon selling so cheap may not help ATI and make it vulnerable in the future...especially since they have lost huge market share to another company.

These kind of posts make me laugh... ATI has been getting contract after contract over the past year. They control some 55% of the video market. Compared to Nvidia's what..5%? If you can even count them since they don't even make their cards. Ya really have to thank 3dfx and Nvidia though, they woke the sleeping giant and forced it into innovating. Now ATI can come in, make a few advancements, and crush, returning the market to a more stable place before 3dfx and nvidia came along.

Those who think that nVidia has the largest market share for videocards are most likely limiting their scope. Many think that nVidia is #1 because of what they see here in the U.S., where nVidia has the #1 rate of growth in market share. Don't forget that the videocard market extends beyond the U.S. to places where most people don't have money to spend on a $300 videocard. Many people are more than happy to settle for a $100 ATI Rage Fury Pro 32MB that offers great 2D, decent 3D, and and superb DVD playback.

quote:Originally posted by Bog Trooper:
Someone made a point, cant remember where, that is Nvidia is making X-box chips both Video and Audio...optimized for DX8. Nvidia will know exactly what DX8 and all possible features are before ATI will.

ATi, nVidia, 3dfx, Matrox etc have all known what DX8 is gonna be for a long time. They all participates upon designing the API.

Dont read unless you are interested in stock report info....basicly says ATI been losing large market share (and contracts) to Nvidia....probably cause most brand name pc's will ship with generic TNT2 cards now....and motherboards with integrated G-force.

Stock of the Day: Nvidia: The Party's Just Getting Started

Research Analyst: Will Frankenhoff (09/25/00)

We initially recommended shares of Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA - news) on Individualinvestor.com back in March of 1999 at a split-adjusted price of around $9.50, citing the fact that demand for high performance 3-D graphics chip was expected to explode from 4.9 million units in 1997 to more than 138 million units by the end of 2001, implying an average growth rate in excess of 136% per year. Since Nvidia was the leading provider of these 3-D graphics processors used in PCs and workstations, we figured that the company would be a primary beneficiary of this trend.

We sure erred, on the conservative side that is. Since that time, Nvidia has lived up to its promise as the company has now strung together six consecutive quarters of revenue growth that averaged more than 180% on a year-to-year basis and has recorded results in the last two quarters that put it solidly in the ranks of America's Fastest Growing Companies as defined by individualinvestor.com.

For the second fiscal quarter ended July 30, Nvidia reported revenue of $170.4 million, up 118% from the $78 million recorded in last year's quarter and earnings came in at $0.28 per diluted share, up 211%.

Impressive, isn't it? Investors certainly think so, as shares of Nvidia have gained more than 625% since the time of our initial recommendation. The stock closed Friday at $70.63, or 45 times forward estimates of $1.53.

Guess what? Despite this amazing run, we believe that Nvidia is better positioned than ever and that the party has just begun.

There are a number of reasons for our continued bullishness, the first of which is that overall demand looks to remain strong as according to Jon Peddie Associates, a market research firm, the PC graphics chip market is expected to exceed 230 million units, up 70% from the 135 million unit shipped in 1999.

While this is quite a bit slower than the ramp up from 1997 to 1999, it is still quite a respectable growth rate.

Secondly, Nvidia has successfully diversified its product line. While the company is still know for its mainstream TNT family of processors, it also now offers the ultra high-end family of GeForce processors as well as the Quadro product line that targets the workstation market. Nvidia has also introduced Aladdin TNT2 developed with Acer Laboratories that targets the low-end PC market.

Simply put, the introduction of these products has enabled Nvidia to serve several major market segment ranging from its traditional base of consumer PCs to high volume commercial desktops to professional workstations. The success of this diversification is evident by the fact that, according to Mercury Research, Nvidia's unit share of the total desktop market grew 300 basis points to 25% in the most recent quarter alone while its share of the desktop stand-alone processor market was up 1000 basis points to 35%. It should be noted that Nvidia's TNT2 line is now installed in four out of five of the world's top commercial desktop systems.

As if this growing dominance weren't enough (competitor ATI Technologies (NASDAQ: ATYT - news) has been losing market share to Nvidia and reported a loss in its most recent quarter due to declining sales), Nvidia recently scored a huge design win with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT - news) in which its graphics chips will be used in Microsoft's upcoming X-BOT game console.

Not only are the implications of this win dramatic in terms of Nvidia's operating results (the consensus among analysts is that 50 million units could be shipped over five years and contributed more than $2 billion to Nvidia's top line over the same period) but also that this win gives the company a high profile entry into the broadband communications market as well as opening new opportunities in the consumer electronic market.

Bottom Line:

The company is growing its market share in all aspects of the desktop PC market, continues to diversify its product line and gain entry into attractive new markets, and has a proven track record. As PCs, personal digital assistants and various wireless products continue to evolve so will the need for more advanced 3-D graphic chips. Nvidia has proved itself the leader in this area, and its future looks bright and crisp.

hey bog - i like that - if you have an argument over who's doing better not to go word of mouth, but go and quote - it'll shut em up anytime
i do have to say, if you go through sunday's papers with all the ads, you look at the systems that computer manufacturers are selling like *gag* compaq or HP...you see a lot more with TNT2 graphics, but a lot are still coming with ATI too.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bog Trooper:
[B]Dont read unless you are interested in stock report info....basicly says ATI been

Um... yes. Going from $1.53 per share to just about anything is an improvement. A 300% improvement over 2 is still only 8. And how much of that increase is market hype? ATI's stock price actually reflects the real world value of the company.

How exactly does this make GF2's support DX8 features? You know... the entire premise of this thread..

Way..Way..way..Back in the old days it was me and my ATi video card. It was cheap but worked for me. Had one in a mac and a pc. But then 3dfx showed up and my love for it grew. Then time went on and Ati made monies and 3dfx was talking of better things. And then BAM! Nvidia cam out and tolk the 3d market with a vegence. Was like less than one year then we had mass produced nvidia chips to push the hog of a king 3dfx out of the picture. Mean while Ati is baskin in money from the oem market. The Big bad Nvidia company continuse to mass produce a few bad ars chips and it stockes grow out of the roof!
3dfx at this time is laying dorment for a big return. Only thing is that 3dfx has been locked out so long they lost money. And now here we are. Ati jumps back in with it's loads of cash and a few new Insane techs ready to beat the snot out of nvidia and take the winning spot. But Nvidia had a plan..."Lets **** up are drivers and squeeze the life out of are already watered down overclocked smoken monster of a silicone electric house fire flying butt Monkies...lol

So what card is the best?...hmmm

There are no best cards..Each card does a great job of pushing games. And each card has bugs... The hard part of all this is you have so many kinds of hardware that it makes it just about impossible for them to build a card for everyones system. So it may look great in 2d and crap in 3d or vice versa...So just be like me... Buy from a place where you can take it back. Like best buy or something. And try them all out/Pay the 10% stocking fee if you have too. In the end you want what works for your computer and not others.

Well, there stocks are doing actually around 80 after the split...

The point of posting is to propagate flame wars about market share.....

duh!

This is unrelated, but why must companies make better grafx chips (besided ATI, all things prior to the radeon sucked badly). I mean really, Can't they just put More of them on the same board and come up with creative ways to break up the work (SLI and such). Also, can't they move to a smaller die size to cut down on the heat? I mean i shouln't get burned for touching my Vid cards heatsink.

>>I mean really, Can't they just put More of them on the same board and come up with creative ways to break up the work (SLI and such).

Radeon Maxx is going to be announced this month.

> Also, can't they move to a smaller die size to cut down on the heat? I mean i shouln't get burned for touching my Vid cards heatsink.

Uhm they have, not our fault the GeForce2 consumes 3 times more power than a Radeon. I can touch my friend's Radeon without burning my fingers, I wouldn't dare touch a NVidia product though. I think ATI will finally put their 1500 engineers in work, NVidia only has 200 engineers, but the Radeon is a good example of what happens when you have a lot of people working on a single product. So much features!

quote:Originally posted by commesdesgarcons:
>>I mean really, Can't they just put More of them on the same board and come up with creative ways to break up the work (SLI and such).

Radeon Maxx is going to be announced this month.

> Also, can't they move to a smaller die size to cut down on the heat? I mean i shouln't get burned for touching my Vid cards heatsink.

Uhm they have, not our fault the GeForce2 consumes 3 times more power than a Radeon. I can touch my friend's Radeon without burning my fingers, I wouldn't dare touch a NVidia product though. I think ATI will finally put their 1500 engineers in work, NVidia only has 200 engineers, but the Radeon is a good example of what happens when you have a lot of people working on a single product. So much features!

GF2 doesn't suck nearly as much power as the GF1 did. (Which isn't saying much I agree, but it's an improvement) But as everyone proves time and time again power consumption really doesn't matter. People buy GF2's over RADEON's, and Athlons over P3's. Power consumption really isn't considered.

Anyway, I got to use a Rage Fury MAXX. And let me tell you, it was abosutely awful. It wouldn't even run on one board. I'd stay away from the MAXX's.

>> People buy GF2's over RADEON's

Yes, mostly the uninformed ones, lots of people are selling their GF2s to upgrade to a RADEON.

>>Anyway, I got to use a Rage Fury MAXX. And let me tell you, it was abosutely awful. It wouldn't even run on one board. I'd stay away from the MAXX's.

Yes, RFMAXX was a beta test of ATI's AFR technology. However, according to sharkyextreme, Radeon MAXX drivers are already built into current Radeon drivers. I believe RADEON MAXX will be much better than the Rage Fury MAXX. Its like saying Radeon sucks because Rage Pro sucks.

Rage Fury MAXX is not that bad either if you use Win98, it runs UT and some other D3D games faster than a GeForce2 Ultra.

RADEON MAXX is just going to be used by ATI for bragging rights, the Radeon II is ATI's true DX8 part thats supposed to be released in December.

quote:Originally posted by Ironbar:
Ya really have to thank 3dfx and Nvidia though, they woke the sleeping giant and forced it into innovating. Now ATI can come in, make a few advancements, and crush, returning the market to a more stable place before 3dfx and nvidia came along.
More stable......what you are implying is a terribly scary thought....if one company controls the market (which i think is what you are getting at when you say they will crush everyone) it will be negative for all of us......can you imagine if one company had the control of the market...they could charge whatever they want and bring cards out slowly because there would not be any need to bring new ones out because there competition would not exist.......competition is what has forced nvidia to bring out a new card every 6 months

[More stable......what you are implying is a terribly scary thought....if one company controls the market (which i think is what you are getting at when you say they will crush everyone) it will be negative for all of us......can you imagine if one company had the control of the market...they could charge whatever they want and bring cards

It's not a bad thing totally. First ATI woud have to make some seriously drastic improvements in their vid-tech before that could happen. And it would end this need to chuck away your vid card every year to stay current. I like innovation, but make it worth while. The actual visible difference (not theoretical numbers) between say a Voodoo2 and a GeForce is really pretty minimal. Also with nvidia and to a lesser extent 3dfx in the market it forces ATI to cut prices, like they have with the radeon. I doubt nvidia is going bye-bye anytime soon.

quote:Originally posted by Bog Trooper:

Someone made a point, cant remember where, that is Nvidia is making X-box chips both Video and Audio...optimized for DX8. Nvidia will know exactly what DX8 and all possible features are before ATI will.

That would be me, I said this in another thread and was completely ignored, granted I think most of the people were ATi zealots but still It does make sense that if nVidia is buddy-buddy with MS then they will be given the upper hand by their friends who want the X-Box without nVidia the x-box will not happen. I will try to update with a link to my other post.

Here's the link http://www.sharkyforums.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000421.html

> I like innovation, but make it worth while. The actual visible difference (not theoretical numbers) between say a Voodoo2 and a GeForce is really pretty minimal. Also with nvidia and to a lesser extent 3dfx in the market it forces ATI to cut prices, like they have with the radeon. I doubt nvidia is going bye-bye anytime soon.

What are you talking about? I used to own a GeForce2 GTS and my new Radeon looks so much better in every single game. You have to see it yourself, borrow a Radeon from a friend or something. I am shocked Nvidia is still able to sell GeForce2 GTS cards are such high prices. ATI is cutting prices because they are introducing Radeon II real soon and want to get rid of inventory. Then again, Nvidia has no control over pricing since they don't make the boards, ATI manufactures the boards themselves therefore have complete control over quality and pricing. Even if Nvidia wanted to reduce prices they can't, that is what is happening now. Looks like ATI is hurting Nvidia's graphics marketshare.

> That would be me, I said this in another thread and was completely ignored, granted I think most of the people were ATi zealots but still It does make sense that if nVidia is buddy-buddy with MS then they will be given the upper hand by their friends who want the X-Box without nVidia the x-box will not happen. I will try to update with a link to my other post.

Nvidia zealots somehow think Nvidia has an advantage over DirectX because of their Xbox relationship. They don't. Microsoft uses Radeon to demonstrate DX8, not a Nvidia product. Also, Radeon has so much DX8 features which the GeForce2 GTS doesn't. It will be a completely different story once DX8 games come out, Radeon will beat GeForce2 in DX8 games by a very large margin.

this is such a waste of space. why don't u people stick to arguing religion instead of this. arguments about both subjects when it gets down to zealots on both sides has nothing to do with anything other than their blind allegiance. for the record i started out with a geforce mx which is extremely cool and uses 4 watts of power (for the radeon people) switched to a radeon which seemed to have a little color advantage (for nvidia people) but completely sucked on 16 bit-which means if u have this card for any length of time u will be in trouble if u try to crank it down a notch to increase performance (for the radeon people) and actually was slower in benchmarks i performed compared to the mx. so last but not least i went back to the mx because it was over $100 less than a discounted radeon-no other reason.

quote:Originally posted by KR02:
...besided ATI, all things prior to the radeon sucked badly.

Actually, prior to the Radeon, the ATI cards did most things very well. I agree that they were kind of 3D lemons, but at the time 3D wasn't for most of the video card using public.

quote: I mean really, Can't they just put More of them on the same board and come up with creative ways to break up the work (SLI and such). Also, can't they move to a smaller die size to cut down on the heat? I mean i shouln't get burned for touching my Vid cards heatsink.

I'm not really sure how to interpret your comments here. Do you mean: "My old Voodoo SLI card sucks and burns me when I play with the jumpers" or "Sure, it's handy having this GeForce 2 to overclock when I can't find that dang skillet!"?

The Radeon doesn't even need the bloody fan. ATI seems to have included it for "completeness". Too cool

a nvidia stock holder told me that microsoft had asked nvidia to write a replacement for directx

Microsoft lets every developer have access to Directx 8. And no company has a secret decoder ring that enables them to do more with DirectX 8 than anyone else.

What are you talking about? I used to own a GeForce2 GTS and my new Radeon looks so much better in every single game. You have to see it yourself, borrow a Radeon from a friend or something. I am shocked Nvidia is still able to sell GeForce2 GTS cards are such high prices.

Uhhh... you can afford to go from a gf2 to a radeon? um... you have too much money. Give me your GF2.. i'm willing to suffer. But seriously, does it significantly enhance what developers can do with games, probably not. Ah well.. whatever, still better then playing c@n$o^e games. Shudder..

ATI is cutting prices because they are introducing Radeon II real soon and want to get rid of inventory. Then again, Nvidia has no control over pricing since they don't make the boards, ATI manufactures the boards themselves therefore have complete control over quality and pricing. Even if Nvidia wanted to reduce prices they can't, that is what is happening now. Looks like ATI is hurting Nvidia's graphics marketshare.

I basically said this.. so yes. Goodness for cheap I like!

ATI is currently offering a $50 rebate on the Radeon 32MB DDR which ends in 2001. Best Buy and most retailers are selling the Radeon for $200.

Too bad, you could have waited another week and got a Radeon 32MB DDR for just $0 - 30 more than your MX.

Radeon 32MB DDR is about 2 times faster than a GeForce2 MX in 32-bit high resolutions. Third texture isn't even used yet. Have I mentioned the amazing 2D\3D\DVD image quality?

Nvidia still has not reduced prices...and people are buying a GeForce2 that costs $100 more than a Radeon?

Actually... I'm a big Nvidia fan. I don't care about pricing, sales, etc. The cards based on Nvidia's current chipsets are unbeaten performance-wise in most benchmarks. The rendering features are up to par and exceed in most areas that of almost all other cards. I think ATI designs some very nice cards, well since the Rage 128 anyway, before that they basically made the worst (most joked about,) cards on the planet. What's worse than a Rage 2 or a Rage Pro? The only reason they sell so well is because they go into millions of low cost OEM boxes. The thing about even the newer decent ATI offerings is that ATI CAN NOT WRITE DRIVERS!!!! They have the worst drivers (Well, S3 is close,) that I have ever used. There is a reason that big game companies, and even Direct X developers now use GeForce family products as a baseline. They perform well, look good, and here's the big one, They Work. If ATI started focussing more on their driver deficiencies, they would be regarded a little better. They may have a lot of OEM business making them the largest manufacturer, but that doesn't mean their cards are better.

funny you mention divers, I have not had any problems with any games I have tried to play open gl, as well as D3D. ati has relased 3 or 4 drivers already. benchmarks, well your right nivida products are a little faster, but the difference is not worth giving up the image quality that the radeon offers. i have had a geforce ddr and the image is much better.