'Fusion' cards

[superfly]

A friend of mine is going for a job interview at matrox in the next couple of weeks,if everything goes well,i'll soon find out what the G800 is all about(evil laugh,muhahahaaaaaa... ).

[GinoCyber]

If any of you geniuseseseses bothered asking algo to explain his post, you would have a better chance at getting warmer.

Ciao

[xortam]

I think we've managed to rename the card G800 conFusion.

[drzaius]

can we just have a review of what card names we know? i've just jumped onto this band-waggon and want in

[Jeff]

Alright here is what FCRAM is. Looks like some sort of double or triple data rate chip.

Fujitsu and Toshiba on Monday agreed to jointly develop next-generation high-speed memory chips known as fast-cycle random access memory (FCRAM).

FCRAM technology adopts a new memory architecture to achieve operating cycle times two to three times faster than conventional DRAMs (dynamic random-access memories), they said.

Under the agreement, Fujitsu and Toshiba will jointly develop 64, 128 and 256 megabit FCRAMs to be used as special-purpose memories for applications other than the main memory of personal computers.

The chip will be used in personal digital assistants, printers, set-top boxes and other multi-media devices, he said. After starting sample shipments by the end of 1999, they will start commercial production of 64 megabit FCRAMs in the January-March period of 2000, and of 128 and 256 megabit FCRAMs in April-June 2000, a Toshiba spokesman said.

[Joel]

Tradition thinking will not get you close here.

Joel

BTW: Everyone is still very cold.

[This message has been edited by Joel (edited 07 August 2000).]

[red2]

Fusion: My guess is that Matrox is going to put the two chips on a single die. It is much faster that way and it avoids the interboard communications from one chip to another. I am not an engineer but this might help overcome w2k's "No multichip" video cards.

[Storm]

From PDTOOLS.DLL

...Matrox G800 AGP Matrox Fusion F450 AGP Matrox Fusion Plus F800...

From G400M.SYS

...Matrox Orion Matrox Electronics Orion Matrox Orion AGP Matrox Electronics Orion AGP...

What in the world is "Orion"? Am I missing something.. is it an existing product?

Now.. fusion. These are my guesses..

-Hooking up two boards together.. like the VooDoo2 SLI?? (yuck!)
-Fusing Features together.. like an all-in-one type videocard with all Marvel's features, running on a single or maybe dual chip(s).
-Something along the lines of a totally integrated chip, where the video memory, the RAMDAC, the GPU w/T&L, and everything else inside one chip running at the same speed??
-Or we're on a totally different track, and Fusion is just an entirely different technology.. maybe a programmable GPU or something, which has a core that could be manipulated by software... I'll stop talking now.

=Storm=

[Joel]

Storm has managed to use one of the key words.

Joel

[Jeff]

I don't suppose you will tell us the key word that he used...

1. Fusing Features together
2. totally integrated chip
3. programmable GPU

All you have to say is 1, 2, or 3.

[Jorden]

Originally posted by Joel:
Storm has managed to use one of the key words.

One of the key <u>words</u> ... Meaning there are more?

Though I don't think any BB will risk their NDA by telling us if it's totally the right answer when someone posts that right answer.
And I for one don't mind that, for we need the BBs to test our drivers and probably new cards before they are released in the wild

So be happy with what they can and dare to release to us, and let us, non-BBs keep on guessing, okay?

Btw, I think that Storm's option 2 is the most unusual one. As it's something we've never seen before, and it uses the integrated word... (see www.murc.ws)

And No, I haven't seen a programmable GPU either, but wouldn't that be too difficult for persons who don't know what they are doing, and therefor give Matrox a big chance on getting a whole lot of RMA's due to unexperienced users f**king up their videocard, and thus giving them loads of costs they don't want?

Jord.

[This message has been edited by Jorden (edited 07 August 2000).]

[Greebe]

Do you all hang out at the north pole or what? Darn you're soooo cold!

Next!

[Jutai]

ok FUSION i'm gonna guess...
1 integrated RAMDAC for full speed transfers directly to the monitor.
2 an integrated T&L engine without any bandwith lag as it is integrated on the chip....
SO HOW COLD AM I
and When do those NDA's expire????
CASTING MY VOTE...
-Chris k.

[Skyflyer]

My guess is that it's gonna take an external fusion reactor to power the moster card.

Skyflyer

[JK]

The main bottleneck with todays cards is of course memory. There have been some rumours that both Nvidia AND Matrox have products under development that bypasses this bottleneck.
To put simple: Fusion might as well be a fusion between the memory and the processing unit (much like the Bitboys Embedded Memory Solution)

This would remove the need for faster (and more unstable) chips.

//JK

PS Apologies for any bad English DS