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ANOTHER 3DGAMING RANT...
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| Future of 3D Hardware
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By Jan Meijer
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I read your article about the future of 3d hardware with a lot of interest. As the amount of honest comparisons is hard to find I read every good one I DO find. I did miss the skeletons in the cupboard though. Every chipset has a few it seems. Ill try to motivate this.
In (hardcore!) gaming cards are purchased on the following motives, as the last two years have proven. Listed with the arguments with the most weight on top:) 1. Performance. 2. Media coverage. 3. Game developer support. 4. Price.
Performance needs no explanation, its why the Voodoo family did so well. Same can be said about Media coverage and Game support. Price is harder though; it seems that price is not that big a consideration for most people as long as the price is below ~300$ and the performance is right. We must not forget that PC-gaming hardware is expensive anyway and that most people are more than willing to pay up.
This all will be known by every big 3dchip firm, yet I already see problems:
1. 3dfx: 3dfx is doing the Rush debacle again.
The Banshee is not fast enough compared to its two main competitors; the Voodoo2 and the Riva TnT. Especially since Voodoo2 prices are below 150$ there will not be a market for this chipset. Voodoo2 owners will get a Riva TNT perhaps to enjoy great d3d performance, but will not get a Banshee. Non Voodoo2 owners will still get the TnT or the cheapo (!!!) Voodoo2..... 3dfx will eat its own children again and loose a lot of money again.
2. NEC. What to say about them?
They have so much against them they are already doomed it seems. After losing almost every media and developer support by being a "difficult out of the ordinary" chipset, they now loose a lot of followers too. The card is delayed so long that the gamers are losing interest. The PVRSG itself will land in a market where it wont stand out. Its not faster than Voodoo2, yet the price will be the same (or even higher????). As the Voodoo2 still has the Glide-trump up its sleeve (even if thats losing strength) and it wins any Image-contest hands down, there does not seem a future for a PVRSG. But perhaps more worrisome is the economic Krach thats hitting the Far East (Japan, etc). We don't hear about NEC having troubles with it, yet computer branches all over the world are losing stock value. Its hard to believe that NEC will skip that dance so close to the Epicentre. The Krach will also curb the Japanese Sega market, as people will not get yet another console in this crisis. Sega has only done well in England and Japan so far, so I even have to see with my own eyes if Sega will be the next hot console thing...... Last but not least are the non-existing merits of the Sega crossover(converting Sega games to PC games). The genre is VERY different on a lot of points which stems from the age difference of the audience. PC-gamers are older than their Console counterparts. The price to get in the game will undoubtedly have a lot to do with it (PentiumII is a bit more expensive than a Nintendo64:). If Sega games will filter through it remains to be seen if they make enough of a splash. As an aside; they will probably start arriving in force 99Q2 and by that time the 3d market can have moved anywhere performance wise, as the last years have shown.
3. S3; The PVRSG all over again.
No support, bad press, bad reputation with gamers and performance which is not top of the heap, however fast it is. I just cant fathom a spot for this mediocre(!see how far the market has moved:) card. There are already I740s, G200s and the Voodoo2+any card combos. It has not got any features that will make it first choice.
4. Ati. Can you spell bad reputation?
For as long as I own a PC (8 years) Ati has a bad name. First they were incompatible. Then they were not fast enough. Moreover, they are expensive to boot. If Ati wants to succeed they should bring out a Riva Tnt killer to swing the minds of the customers.
5. Riva: The winner?
Maybe. The card seems to be ace and it has a lot of good press recently. Although the original Riva got some quality-flak, it still had a reputation to be fast. The price is high at the moment, but it will go down pretty fast. Riva's go down in price quite soon it seems and the market will force it down anyway. It has some competition with the Voodoo2 as SLI will become VERY common if the prices of the V2 will drop even more. But the cards don't bite....they can coexist in any system. In fact for the hardcore gamer I think V2 SLI paired with a Riva TnT will be the way to go. And still there are some question marks.... The card is fine, the capacity of the firm is big enough, but the company seems to be getting lawsuits every month about patent infringement. Will this hurt the card? I have not got a clue to be honest:). I am not technically-savvy enough to know the truth of these allegations and I am no lawyer:).
Conclusion. Will Riva roll over the competition? It seems so. 3dfx will stay strong in any case as the Voodoo2 will keep on being sold in high numbers. Voodoo2 owners will go SLI if the prices continue to plummet at this rate. But the Banshee will be a disaster (mark my words:) and the Voodoo2 will not be the fastest of the class anymore. The other contenders? I don't think so. They need to bring out cards which beat a V2 Sli or a TNT before they will become top dog.
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