IDF Report

\"I like the geFORCE, even though I can\'t run at some insane resolution that my moniter wont support\"

DIRECTLY CONTRADITCS

Has anyone seen the real hardware running?

WHICH DIRECTLY CONTRADITCS

\"I don\'t see how any of us Quake freaks would want a Voodoo 4 over a geFORCE\"

#36. You should ask your therapist to \"up\" your doseage.

In fact, during their marketing, Nvidia always talked about the pixel fill-rate so they could say stuff like \"our TNT can do 180Mpix/sec while the Voodoo2 can only do 90Mpix/sec\" which was true, given how each chip was designed. 3dfx always talked about texels because their texel numbers were twice the pixel numbers.

#37, *sigh* you stupid, stupid little man. The quote says TNT2 (notice it doesn\'t say ULTRA). The regular TNT2 is clocked at 125MHz, giving you a fill-rate of 250Mpix/sec. 480Mpix is almost double, not \"over double\" as the quote says. Who made that quote, Nvidia. Yeah, they\'ve never exaggerated specs before, have they.

Try all you like, you\'re never, eeeeever going to change the facts. TNT architecture processes two pixels per clock when it\'s not doing multitexturing, and that\'s one of the features that they hyped endlessly. You seem to be confused with the Voodoo serries, which process two texels per clock because when doing multitexturing both texture units are active, but only process one pixel per clock because when not multitexturing, only one texture unit is active while the other is idle. Unlike TNT\'s architecture, whe it\'s not doing multitexturing, it still uses both texture units to process two pixels per clock. This is one of the features Nvidia hyped endlessly to convince people that TNT was better than the Voodoo2/3. For such an obvious Nvidia troll, I figured you\'d know this. I guess I was wrong. Those numbers for you again:

TNT=180Mpix/sec
TNT2=250Mpix/sec
TNT2U=350Mpix/sec
NV10=480Mpix/sec

Everybody and their mother knows this. Nvidia even claimed these same numbers in their spec sheets. Sorry to rain on your parade pal.

About texture compression, I think S3TC has been licensed by Microsoft and is part of DirectX, and that means 3dfx and nVidia don\'t need to pay for it. The only reason I see why they would not support it is because they are \"too proud\". I sure hope they do support it because games like Quake3 and UT do. In fact, I don\'t think Q3 and UT would support S3TC if only S3 used it, so I think they know that 3dfx and nVidia will use it at some point.

#32, yeah, I meant 350Mpix/Mtex a second. And since the only thing you had to reply to was a minor mistake, I\'ll take that as an admission of being wrong...

Dsl fool..
Lay off the GOD damn NVIDIA HYPE PIPE!
we dont know any thing about these damn cards...
cpt that Napalm will not have T&L and will have T-BUFFER and some GOOD AA support..
and the GEF256 (please change to GFORCE256) will have T&L and no T-buffer
Wait till the damn card is out b4 you start tossing your steaming crap on the net..
Sure your calculations are valid..
but....
I\'ve gotta see it to belive it b4 i buy a new damn mother board that supports 4x agp (or agp for that matter)
which ever card looks the best with most fps i\'ll buy it...or has one hell of a price.. (<$100 than competition

I mean jeez, even Nvidia says TNT2U\'s fillrate is 350Mpix/sec...

You obviously don\'t have ANY knowledge of how TNT\'s architecture works. I explained this in the comments under another article, but I guess it didn\'t get through that thick little skull of yours. TnT\'s two texture units are always working no matter what. When doing multitexturing it produces 480Mtexels/second. But when doing SINGLE TEXTURING both texture units are still working, filling two pixels per clock resulting in a pixel fillrate of...480Mpixels/second. God, only every moron on the planet knows this...well *almost* every moron I guess.

The reason why no one (besides S3) will ever support S3TC, is probably because they do not want to pay royalties and/or licensing fee to S3.

3DFX is expected to have their own version of hardware texture compression/decompression. NVIDA will supposedly support texture compression in some form through software.

BTW: It would be funny if S3 and 3dfx merged. Then they could call themselves s3DFX =)

get it? hehe..? Ok it was\'nt funny.

#18 BTW, that 32fps at 1600x1200 was in 16-bit color.

#18, OK between thinking TNT2 had a 175MPix/sec of fill-rate and now this post I\'ve come to the conclusion you have absolutely no fuckin\' idea you\'re talking about.

You do realize that in games that use multiple rendering games, especially games like Quake3 pixels are redrawn many times in each frame, right? You\'re \"calculations\" don\'t mean shit.

Well, I hope at least 3dfx ends up supporting it, seeing as Quake3 uses it. We don\'t need another form of texture compression.

Neither will support S3TC. We know for certain that NVIDIA won\'t:
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/articles/99/idf_report/4.shtml

And 3DFX hinted that they will use a texture compression tech other than S3TC.
http://www.firingsquad.com/features/3dfxinterview/page4.asp

#18 your calculation is meaningless because of various overheads involved. Nice try though. And I know what an antialiased pic in Photoshop looks like, what I would like is to see it at 60fps. It could be a big difference. You might claim otherwise but then people claimed that 30fps was fast enough too, and nobody\'s saying that anymore.

#16: If it does, I\'ll buy it. But from the numbers I\'ve seen, it won\'t. And I\'d like to see Napalm\'s anti-aliasing in action before I buy anything else.

It comes down to this, before making any decision I\'d like to see benchmarks and preferably see each card running. Or at least read reviews.

Not like some troll who says \"there\'s no way I\'m buying a 3dfx card this chrismas\" just because he didn\'t like the 3dfx interview.

Hmm, I guess I\'m assuming one thing too: Napalm can to 60fps with a decent CPU. If not, i\'ll probably upgrade my CPU anyways. I think P3-500s+ will be pretty cheap when these cards come out.

#10, 11, 12: Dude, why don\'t you write a single post, you make it seem like I\'m getting flamed by a whole crowd when it\'s just one person.

Ok,

#10: I never said that the GeForce has to run at 640x480. But at 800x600x32bit it WILL be fillrate limited, just like the TNT2U. Have you seen benchmarks of the TNT2U at various rez? If you did, you\'d know that it is fillrate limited. 40% will not do much, and when the drivers get better, I honestly don\'t think it\'s going to magically jump to 200%.

3dfx propaganda? WTF are you smoking?

#11: Seeing as the TNT2U is obviously fillrate limited and the GeForce at present is only 40% faster, I would say the GeForce has a fillrate problem as well.

And I\'m not bashing the GeForce, I\'m pointing out its flaw, which is fillrate. I didn\'t flame it for not having S3TC you moron! I was ASKING if it has S3TC. After reading the specs myself I see it lists \"texture compression\" under DirectX specs, so I can only assume it has it, which is good.

#12: Ok, first you misunderstand my comments, which makes you think I\'m a 3dfx fan, which makes you think that I think \"framerate is king and graphics suck\" because that\'s what you misunderstood 3fdx to say. Seeing as your very first assumption was full of shit we know that the rest of your post is too. I\'m not a fan of 3dfx. I do think framerate maters up to a certain point, say 60fps. After that I think it\'s pointless to have more framerate. Assuming I can get 60fps with a Napalm, I will probably prefer that card since it will allow me to play at high-res as well as at high framerates.

Stop making an ass of yourself by assuming so many things.

Deos the GeForce256 use S3TC? If Naplam does, and GeForce doesn\'t, that\'s it for me, I\'m not getting GeForce. Can someone point to a reference where it states the support/lack of support?

Also, as I mentioned in the other discussion, I hope game developers will take the approach Shiny is with their models. Supposedly in Messiah the models use this ridiculous amount of polygons, but the engine scales down the # to what your hardware can handle.

I don\'t know...TF2\'s models sure look like they have an awful lot of polygons...

For Quake3, I would rather be able to play at 1024x768 at 32bit, rather than 640x480 with more polys. I think it has plenty enough polys for now.

As for future games being made with T&L in mind, I don\'t think it\'ll happen that soon, because then they\'ll alienate all these people with ATI Rage-something cards, Matroxes, TNTs, TNT2s, Voodoo3s, etc. I think by the time these \"T&L-ready\" games come out, they will ALSO require much more fillrate than the GeForce has, rendering it useless. So T&L on the GeForce will be useless at first, and the fillrate will make it useless later. I makes more sense to me to get a Napalm which will have useful fillrate NOW, and which will only be made useless later by lack of T&L.

Well, it looks like 3dfx will have a competitive part. I wonder how much difference T&L will make, guess we\'ll just have to wait for benchmarks.

Those who say that T&L will allow you to have lower timedemo scores at high res, but the framerate will not dip as much during heavy gameplay, have a good point. I wonder how true this will be in practice but it makes sense.

However, I would like my new 3D card to let me play at higher resolutions and 32-bit, not just play at faster framerates than my TNT. It\'s a tough call, but I think right now, assuming Napalm has much higher fillrates than GeForce, I would prefer to upgrade to a P3-500+ AND a Napalm rather than getting a GeForce. This way I can keep a high framerate during heavy battled and also have high-res.

One more thing: nVidia said that the minimum CPU to have for GeForce is a P266. This means that the GeForce is not the magical 3D card that saves you from upgrading the CPU, like I hoped myself.

Anyways, if 80fps on a P3-500 is what you get a 640x480 now, being a CPU-limited number I would expect Napalm to get that too but at 1024x768x32bit. I don\'t think framerate would dip more than 40fps duing really heavy deathmatch, and that\'s plenty enough for me.

I dunno, I like framerate but at some point you have enough framerate and you want eye candy. I want eye candy!

Stevie its early in the wee hours of the morn where Iam man .....just got back from a wicked party and Im a wee bit pissed so anyway Cheers and keep up the good work buddy:)