The last 7 years in computer graphics

[lecter]

Have a look at this pretty cool article showing the vidcards that shaped the gaming and workstation world:

http://accelenation.com/?ac.id.123.1

This remark caught my eye though:

October 22nd and 3Dlabs introduced its Wildcat VP560 dual-screen entry-level addition to its new VP range of cards. This card used a cut down version of the new P10 technology called P9. In games the performance fell someway short of a GeForce4 Ti4200 card, but for workstation tasks the VP560 performed much better and represented excellent value for money.

I also checked out this German review of the Vp560 and 760

http://www.tilebase.de/reviews/VP560/VP560_01.html

Not too shabby benchmarks for a 225$ card which also offers great workstation features and good driver support.

[Ribbit]

3DLabs is a company I've had my eye on since the P10 was announced. Their Oxygen hardware was the first which the Linux DRI ran accelerated on, so I've been hoping that they'll have similar support for the VP series. Theoretically (I wouldn't actually know), the P10's multitasking and virtual memory features would make it easier to write 3D drivers for. Plus, they're a professional company, so their image quality should be good, if not quite up to Matrox' standards. And the VP560 has dual-DVI support, which I think is still quite rare. Oh, and 3DLabs has some quite awesome-looking FSAA.

Unfortunately, the only thing 3DLabs have said about alternative OS support is that they've given chip specs to Xi-Graphics (writers of Accelerated-X). Also, browse around their support forum and you'll see lots of unresolved issues such as problems with AMD chipsets (as in the 76x etc., not 'all chipsets for Athlons'), and rendering issues in lots of pro software. Plus, it appears the overlay only works up to 1280x1024. Perhaps their acquisition by Creative Labs wasn't the best thing to happen to them.

But I'm still keeping an eye on them and a couple of fingers crossed...

Thanks for the link to the German review by the way, I was looking for that a while ago.

[lecter]

Well the 750 and 761 series aren't exactly the most bug-free chipsets ever made...do the problems also extend to the 760MP and MPX? What is weird though is the very little publicity that these cards have got so far...the Xabre (yeah, ok, it IS 80$ cheaper) has gotten a lot more and imho 3DLabs have a much better quality product.

[Ribbit]

Yep, lots of problems with 760MPX boards, no doubt the same issues are there with the 760MP as well. Weird thing is, they seem to work great with VIA chipsets, which by comparison... well, we all know about that. (No word about SiS, by the way.)

As for publicity, I'm guessing they're in the same situation as Matrox with the Parhelia. They made a lot of noise around paper-launch time, and then found they couldn't make the silicon go as fast as they thought they could, so they suddenly go very quiet. Also, their cards are professional hardware (even moreso than Matrox'), so they are going to get less publicity simply because they're not aimed at the mainstream market.

Anyway, I've heard very little about the Xabre where I am. I guess you've heard more about it because you're closer to SiS' home turf.

[lecter]

Neah, I can't really follow Asian sites...I'm Romanian, can't speak any Asian language. But still, SiS news are all over the place, whereas that article was the first in which I heard that the P9 can actually provide decent performance (the P10 benchmarks I saw awhile ago were awful).

//off topic

How is it possible that Undying, a fairly recent, graphically-intensive shooter runs perfectly at 1600x1200 with both FAA and aniso on the Parhelia and something like Unreal2 is slow with FAA even in 1024? I mean, the new graphic engine is pretty intensive, but still. the difference is big....

[GNEP]

Interesting site for this sort of stuff (hardware/software roadmaps etc):

http://freespace.virgin.net/m.warner/index.htm

Obviously the guy who does this is pretty dedicated, and I'm not sure where he gets his info... (probably here as he mentions the Parhelia 2)