The tree demo Nvidia used to show off GeForce is available for dowload.

[Spike!]

It really depends on what you have now. If you have a 3D accelerator that is fast enough for the next gen of games: Q3A, UT, etc. then don't bother upgrading until whatever is coming next spring.
If you need one now and you have nothing and you have a slow system, the GeForce is probably worth waiting a few weeks for to see if it is any good. The T&L should help slower systems like my Cel400 or PII-266 considerably...

ken
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still running my S3 Virge (don't ask...I keep waiting for a "good enough" card)-:

[LAMFDTK]

Here is the one thing I have'nt heard anyone talk about. Have you seen the quaility of game design of late? It seems to me that there is not as much talent in the field as one might think. Having to patch a game 10X's after buying a FPS game built on an engine that is years old is nothing but a joke! Now think about this Gforce256, (a bad cartoon if I remember)It gives game designers the ability to have more CPU for AI in a game program. It took how long to complete C&C Tiberian sun? and WTF its the same game... right? and no German shepards !
I think that all this big talk is looking like 2 years away to get anything up and running on a PC that will take advantage of the remarkable benifits of a GPU. Can you imagine that bugs that no one has ever seen before in programing? Do you think the talent is in place for this kind of game design? I don't. While the concepts are new and exciting the benifits are down a longer road that is being mapped out.

(by the way have you heard of the new "Matrox SPACE GHOST 5000"?

I also ripped this information....
The fillrate for the GeForce256 is 480Mpixels/sec based on a 120Mhz chip speed. The Savage 2000 700Mpixels/sec is based on a 175Mhz chip and 800Mpixels/sec on a 200Mhz chip (I don't know what 3dfx are claiming).

If you extrapolate these Savage 2000 figures back to the 120Mhz G256 clock speed guess what fillrate you get, you guessed it, EXACTLY 480Mpixels/sec.
The fillrate argument can not be decided until we see what clock speeds the final release boards run at.

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PIII-450, 128 HDSRAM, Asus P3BF, G400/32, SBLive!, Nokia 447Xi 17",

[This message has been edited by LAMFDTK (edited 09-07-1999).]

[Cloudy]

It seems funny to me too, but how come so many PC games are buggy while the PSX have many more games (at least x4) and they run respectably well ?

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Cloudy
Asus P2B-DS, 2 x Celeron 400@75Mhz, 128Mb Ram, Xitel Storm Platinum,
2 x IBM 4.3Gb scsi, Pioneer DVD rom scsi, ati rage fury.

[SteveC]

Respectably? I've seen my playstation crash twice I think EVER in its 4 year existance....

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Cheers,
Steve

PS: Some or all of the above message may be wrong, or, just as likely, correct. Depends on what mood I'm in. And what you know. ;¬)

[LAMFDTK]

How much variety of hardware is in Playstations? None. How many .dll's ? none How much Microsoft? None. etc. etc.
Case closed

[SteveC]

How much microsoft..... that bodes BAD news for the DreamCast considering it runs Windows CE.
BTW, Anyone noticed Microsoft are bringing out their own console using the geforce256 chip late next year? MSX all over again....

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Cheers,
Steve

PS: Some or all of the above message may be wrong, or, just as likely, correct. Depends on what mood I'm in. And what you know. ;¬)

[Buuri]

I heard that GeForce rasterizer is basically 2 TNT2's running in parallel. That much for image quality then.

_
B

[Cloudy]

Lamfdtk, about M$ try BeOS...
About hardware variety, it depends on the stability of the drivers on the OS. Most games use DirectX so they don't care which graphic/sound/network/game adapter you have. For the game developer there should be no difference between M$ or Sony, except for the SMP option...


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Cloudy
Asus P2B-DS, 2 x Celeron 400@75Mhz, 128Mb Ram, Xitel Storm Platinum,
2 x IBM 4.3Gb scsi, Pioneer DVD rom scsi, ati rage fury.

[agallag]

Isn't there a way for them the load balance the T&L duties between the CPU and the graphics card? That way you'll be able to use the full potential of both the cpu and the vid card. Just a thought...

[SteveC]

Therefore games written as well on the PC as on the PSX should never require patching - only drivers can cause problems... hmmm

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Cheers,
Steve

PS: Some or all of the above message may be wrong, or, just as likely, correct. Depends on what mood I'm in. And what you know. ;¬)

[franksch3]

What everyone seems to forget about the fillrate 'problem' of the GeForce 256 is that a timedemo really doesn't say anything. It only tells you the average fps.

Tell me honest: Which accelerator do you prefer? Accelerator A which has a maximum framerate of 80 fps and a minimum of 25 fps? Or B which has a max of 60 fps and a minimum of 40 fps? I prefer type B.

Another thing is that according to the nVidia engineers the 480 number was from dualtexturing with 2 pixels per clock and trilinear of 8 tap anisotropic filtering. They said 480 pixels, which might indicate 480 MPixels/s. Because it is using two textures it fillrate in 3dfx terms might be actually 480*2 = 960 MTexels/s. That would indicate that the chip is running at 240 MHz.

Great food for thought.

[SteveC]

Does it not do 4 pixels at once like s3's? If so it's actually 480/4 which gives the 120Mhz everyone's quoting.

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

PS: Some or all of the above message may be wrong, or, just as likely, correct. Depends on what mood I'm in. And what you know. ;¬)

[LAMFDTK]

Most games use DirectX so they don't care which graphic/sound/network/game adapter you have.

I leaving this thread

[Himself]

Yeah, that tree thing is sorta impressive, I expected more for some reason.

Frankly, NVIDIA is going to get more market share with the G256, there is no getting around that, until alternatives appear it has a hell of a lot of oooh ahhh power for NVIDIA's marketing team. In fact NVIDIA is poised to take over the entire gaming market entirely unless some competition gets in there and quick. If more companies come to bat, it's a good thing, if they are slow to catch the ball, it means more of a chance for NVIDIA to become the Intel of video cards.

Bottom line, games have pretty mcuh played out what can be done without T&L, with an actual card capable of doing T&L, you can bet developers will be targeting it for creative freedom if nothing else. But I personally can wait for the Savage 2000 or whatever else comes along, I don't trust NVIDIA to deliver what the spec sheet suggests. And get ready to upgrade your cpu, T&L will mean the drivers will be even sloppier than they are now and game developers love to fill a vacuum.

[tish beta2]

Himself. First you said how much 3dfx and other competitive companies must hurry up and get something out to compete with befor Nvidia has taken over.

Then, you say you can wait for the Savage 2000 or wathever else comes along, and you don't trust Nvidia to deliver what the spec sheet suggest.

Please make up your mind, and don't post yes and no in the same post