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As to their mobile-chip... The chip we saw was first prototype-chip. It was Altera's FPGA-chip. It seemed to be 100% functional and the image-quality on the screen was clearly superior to any PDA/mobile phone I have seen!
How can an Altera logic controller be "their" mobile chip? If bitboyz ran some graphics instructions through an FPGA, it doesn't make it a graphics chip. In the same way that my Pentium 3 isn't a GPU just because it can run Open GL in software.
It sounds like all Bitboyz did is buy an off-the-shelf FPGA, stick it on a board with some ram, and ran a few graphics instructions on it. Any electronics student could do the same.
Nemesis77
08-02-02, 05:13 PM
Originally posted by DaveW
How can an Altera logic controller be "their" mobile chip? If bitboyz ran some graphics instructions through an FPGA, it doesn't make it a graphics chip. In the same way that my Pentium 3 isn't a GPU just because it can run Open GL in software.
It sounds like all Bitboyz did is buy an off-the-shelf FPGA, stick it on a board with some ram, and ran a few graphics instructions on it. Any electronics student could do the same.
Really? Could that "electronics student" implement best-of-breed FSAA on that FPGA? Or hardware-assisted SVG-acceleration? I don't think so. They obviously used the FPGA to test their implementations and algorithms. And they are obviously working. Like I said, it was their first prototype-chip. The actual fabbed silicon will come later (who knows, they might have it already. The date on that board was awhile ago if I remember correctly)
Really? Could that "electronics student" implement best-of-breed FSAA on that FPGA? Or hardware-assisted SVG-acceleration? I don't think so. They obviously used the FPGA to test their implementations and algorithms. And they are obviously working. Like I said, it was their first prototype-chip. The actual fabbed silicon will come later (who knows, they might have it already. The date on that board was awhile ago if I remember correctly)
It wasn't "their first prototype chip". You can't order an off the shelf FPGA from Altera and call it "our prototype" anything. Altera made it! Its like me ordering an Athlon XP and calling it "my prototype CPU" just because I attached it to a circuit board I made.
If anything this was a prototype board. And although programming an FPGA to run graphics algorithms is an acheivement, it is one of programming, not hardware design. And testing algorithms on an FPGA doesn't help you design the wafer of a GPU.
sebazve
08-02-02, 10:27 PM
Bandwith helps a lot but it is not all. They better have something else to compete against the big boys or they will be eating dust.
it seems that they are in some kind of bandwith race. Someone should tell those guys that ATI and Nvidia are catching up. Next ATI and Nvidia cards will even have more bandwith and what will they do? they will just push it for another five years to compete.:rolleyes:
StealthHawk
08-02-02, 10:29 PM
Bandwith helps a lot but it is not all. They better have something else to compete against the big boys or they will be eating dust.
as we have seen with Matrox Parhelia
-=DVS=-
08-02-02, 10:34 PM
Originally posted by StealthHawk
as we have seen with Matrox Parhelia
Yea, 256 bus but without Tilling techniques is usless...
sebazve
08-02-02, 10:45 PM
Originally posted by DVS
Yea, 256 bus but without Tilling techniques its usless...so true
Nemesis77
08-03-02, 05:39 AM
Originally posted by DaveW It wasn't "their first prototype chip". You can't order an off the shelf FPGA from Altera and call it "our prototype" anything. Altera made it! Its like me ordering an Athlon XP and calling it "my prototype CPU" just because I attached it to a circuit board I made.
Oh for crying out loud! They didn't make one bit of effort to hide the fact that the first implementation of the technology ran on Altera's FPGA-chip! I mean, you can clearly see it on the pics! When they were asked about it, they said up front that it's an FPGA chip that's running the demo and that they use it to test their algorithms. It was a prototype of their technology using FPGA-chip.
Nemesis77
08-03-02, 05:47 AM
When I walked in to that demonstration, I thought "Who the hell needs 3D-acceleration in mobiles/PDA's?!". But their demo showed that having it CLEARLY boosts the image-quality. Their demo did things that I haven't seen in any PDA or mobile-phone! It's the kinda of feature that you are happy without, but once you get used to it, you start to think "How did I get along when I didn't have this?"
The Radeon 9700-discussion went like this (at least their discussion with me, dunno that did they talk about it with someone else as well):
Me: What kind of die-size does the chip have? Alot of people have critizised that eDRAM causes the die to get too big
BB: Well as you can see, it is somewhat bigger than other chips, but we feel that the trade-off is worth it. Ati Radeon 9700 showed that more bandwidth is a good thing, and this has even more bandwidth.
That's it.
Nemesis77
08-03-02, 05:53 AM
They held a seminar. And in that seminar they had hardware-accelerated demo of their mobile-stuff. They also had vid-cards and chips on display. People took pictures of 'em and posted them on the net. That's about it.
Video of that seminar is avaliable at ftp.asmparty.net. It's the one called "Graphics hardware for handheld devices". I'm the guy with the laptop ;)
Oh for crying out loud! They didn't make one bit of effort to hide the fact that the first implementation of the technology ran on Altera's FPGA-chip! I mean, you can clearly see it on the pics! When they were asked about it, they said up front that it's an FPGA chip that's running the demo and that they use it to test their algorithms. It was a prototype of their technology using FPGA-chip.
Good, so you agree with me. But your first posts said it was "their first prototype chip", which it wasn't.
Nemesis77
08-03-02, 11:18 AM
Originally posted by DaveW
Good, so you agree with me. But your first posts said it was "their first prototype chip", which it wasn't.
Well, EXCUUUUUSE me for not being 105% clear in my post. I didn't actually hide the fact that it was Altera's FPGA-chip (read my second post) and it's clearly visible in the pics. But I guess one has to be idiot-proof here .
Nemesis77
08-03-02, 03:51 PM
The card that had their 3D-accelerator (Axe) had a VGA connector, along with S-Video connector (it also had a third connector, but I didn't recognize it). The card with the mobile chip did not have VGA-connector, since it doesn't need it.
BB has not been hyping their products. Lets see, this year they held a seminar where they talked about their plans for mobile-chip. They also had a working demo of the chip. They did NOT mention their other projects, they were talked about after their seminar. There were no huge press-releases or interviews full of hype.
Last year: No hype, no press-releases. They gave one or two interviews, where they did NOT mention their projects (they talked about 3D in general). It's been close to 2 year since they have been hyping their products. They have been silent.
Nemesis77
08-06-02, 05:04 AM
Have they been hyping their products this year? The answer: no. Did they hype their products last year? The answer: no. When was the last time they hyped their products? I believe it was early 2000. It's been over 1.5 YEARS since they hyped their products. When people talk about BB being "masters of hype", they are in fact talking about things that happened close to 2 years ago! I thought I made it clear that these chips (Axe) will not be produced because of Infineon is killing the process.
Matthyahuw
08-06-02, 04:05 PM
That's true Nemesis, they haven't hyped anything in a long time...
I'm personally looking forward to seeing what can be done with the handheld market. They are already putting 3D games like Tomb Raider on the Pocket PCs, too bad it's all software tho...
In a few years, people are going to say how it was stupid to ever live w/o 3D on the PDA...
Nemesis77
08-06-02, 04:30 PM
Originally posted by Matthyahuw
In a few years, people are going to say how it was stupid to ever live w/o 3D on the PDA...
After seeing their demo, I'm saying that right now. Before, I thought that 3D on a mobile-phone/PDA is the stupidest thing there could be. But their demo changed my mind. The possibilites are HUGE.
StealthHawk
08-06-02, 10:41 PM
argh! what happened to my post?
ok, i will ask the question again, is Avalanche3d the same card as Axe? or is Axe a derivative/refresh of Avalanche3d?
Nemesis77
08-07-02, 04:12 AM
Originally posted by StealthHawk
argh! what happened to my post?
ok, i will ask the question again, is Avalanche3d the same card as Axe? or is Axe a derivative/refresh of Avalanche3d?
To my knowledge, Axe is Avalance3D. Axe is the internal codename (like NV25), whereas Avalanche3D would have been the marketing-name (like GeForce4).
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