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A lot has changed the last couple of years

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  • A lot has changed the last couple of years

    looking at the PC graphics market...

    before 'the great 3D revolution', there were many companies... now only a few remain.

    Only 3Dfx, Matrox, ATI and nVidia (including all the graphicboard vendors they sell to) are left in the market.... the rest still exists either on a much lower scale, or in a different segment.

    Before the 'war' we had these:

    S3 - bought Diamond, and now stopped making new chips... graphics devision is being sold to VIA, and their technology will likely be used in integrated chipsets in the future. It's the speed of the 3D revolution that killed them. The first years they stayed behind with their Virge line of 'Decellerators', later on they introduced the Savage line, which either had hardware flaws (Savage3D, Savage2000 TnL), or mediocre performance (Savage4) and all had bad drivers

    Trident - completely surprised by the 3D revolution, never released a chip of interest ever since... I think they still are active in the notebook market

    Tseng Labs - never released a real 3D accelerating chip, bought out by ATI

    Rendition - latest chip they released was the Verité 2200, and then they stopped pumping out chips, yet still designed them. The problem they had was that by the time their designs were finished, the specs were to outdated to compete with others. After some time Micron bought them, and they stil are working on a new chip(s)?
    anyone else wants to finish the list? post it here...


    [This message has been edited by dZeus (edited 20 August 2000).]

  • #2
    What's even more interesting is that neither 3dfx nor NVIDIA were here just a few years ago. Even better, these two are now considered to be the main players...

    What about the fact that the other two still surviving video card vendors are both Canadian?

    Comment


    • #3
      Let's not forget the highend: 3DLabs and Evans & Sutherland.

      Man does not live by Quake alone.

      Paul
      paulcs@flashcom.net

      Comment


      • #4
        I know about them, but I was targeting the 'consumer' level graphic card manufacturers.

        I did not mention VideoLogic (or whatever they are called currently) in my earlier post, but I don't think they sell that many cards... but at least they do have current technology on the shelves.

        Comment


        • #5
          fds,

          What about the fact that the other two still surviving video card vendors are both Canadian?

          I have it on good authority that the only good thing to come out of Canada is the band Rush.

          Comment


          • #6
            Number9 - had quite a run, being an OEM for Dell and others.

            Comment


            • #7
              NeoMagic - still around a little, notebook market only, but they're slowly being replaced by ATI's new mobile line.

              --
              Andrew
              Lady, people aren't chocolates. Do you know what they are mostly? Bastards. Bastard coated bastards with bastard filling. But I don't find them half as annoying as I find naive, bubble-headed optimists who walk around vomiting sunshine. -- Dr. Perry Cox

              Comment


              • #8
                Chips & Technologies. A little know manufacturer that never did anything spectacular, had/has a small OEM presense in the laptop market.

                Oak Technolgies. Had a suprisingly strong OEM presense in the early 486 desktop days.

                Cirrus Logic. Still there, I think. A very small OEM vendor now, mostly in the laptop market although they do still make dirt cheap cards for the the desktop market.

                Of course, none of these has anything even vaguley resembling a 3D capable card.

                Ian
                Primary System:
                MSI 745 Ultra, AMD 2400+ XP, 1024 MB Crucial PC2100 DDR SDRAM, Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro, 3Com 3c905C NIC,
                120GB Seagate UDMA 100 HD, 60 GB Seagate UDMA 100 HD, Pioneer DVD 105S, BenQ 12x24x40 CDRW, SB Audigy OEM,
                Win XP, MS Intellimouse Optical, 17" Mag 720v2
                Seccondary System:
                Epox 7KXA BIOS 5/22, Athlon 650, 512 MB Crucial 7E PC133 SDRAM, Hercules Prophet 4500 Kyro II, SBLive Value,
                3Com 3c905B-TX NIC, 40 GB IBM UDMA 100 HD, 45X Acer CD-ROM,
                Win XP, MS Wheel Mouse Optical, 15" POS Monitor
                Tertiary system
                Offbrand PII Mobo, PII 350, 256MB PC100 SDRAM, 15GB UDMA66 7200RPM Maxtor HD, USRobotics 10/100 NIC, RedHat Linux 8.0
                Camera: Canon 10D DSLR, Canon 100-400L f4.5-5.6 IS USM, Canon 100 Macro USM Canon 28-135 f3.5-5.6 IS USM, Canon Speedlite 200E, tripod, bag, etc.

                "Any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke

                Comment


                • #9
                  how could I ever forget Cirrus! AAARGG!

                  hehe

                  I thought Chips&Technologies was bought by Intel? or at least some technology of theirs was used in the i740 chip (the 2D engine?)

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Canopus - such a good name and logo are gone from the 3D games industry - a Voodoo 1 and 2 based products, the Canopus Pure 3D and the Canopus Pure 3D II were their best efforts.

                    They focus on the DV industry now.

                    ------------------
                    "I wish I was a witch...
                    ...to shove my broomstick right up your *ss."

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      After poking around their website, remebered their Nvidia Riva 128, Nvidia TNT and Voodoo Rush-based products...

                      ------------------
                      "I wish I was a witch...
                      ...to shove my broomstick right up your *ss."

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        What about Orchid?

                        ------------------
                        "I wish I was a witch...
                        ...to shove my broomstick right up your *ss."

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          I thought Chips&Technologies was bought by Intel?

                          Were they? I honestly haven't the foggiest idea. All I know is that my ancient 486 laptop has a Chips&Tech graphics chip in it.
                          Primary System:
                          MSI 745 Ultra, AMD 2400+ XP, 1024 MB Crucial PC2100 DDR SDRAM, Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro, 3Com 3c905C NIC,
                          120GB Seagate UDMA 100 HD, 60 GB Seagate UDMA 100 HD, Pioneer DVD 105S, BenQ 12x24x40 CDRW, SB Audigy OEM,
                          Win XP, MS Intellimouse Optical, 17" Mag 720v2
                          Seccondary System:
                          Epox 7KXA BIOS 5/22, Athlon 650, 512 MB Crucial 7E PC133 SDRAM, Hercules Prophet 4500 Kyro II, SBLive Value,
                          3Com 3c905B-TX NIC, 40 GB IBM UDMA 100 HD, 45X Acer CD-ROM,
                          Win XP, MS Wheel Mouse Optical, 15" POS Monitor
                          Tertiary system
                          Offbrand PII Mobo, PII 350, 256MB PC100 SDRAM, 15GB UDMA66 7200RPM Maxtor HD, USRobotics 10/100 NIC, RedHat Linux 8.0
                          Camera: Canon 10D DSLR, Canon 100-400L f4.5-5.6 IS USM, Canon 100 Macro USM Canon 28-135 f3.5-5.6 IS USM, Canon Speedlite 200E, tripod, bag, etc.

                          "Any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            talking about boardmakers (Alec):

                            Canopus only sells its boards in Japan (and other Asian countries?) nowadays.

                            Hercules was sold to Guilletemot (well... only the brand name)

                            Orchid sold to ???

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Himself, I always liked Bryan Adams, he's from Canada, no?

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