Bitboys discussion

[Matthyahuw]

I'd like to start a SERIOUS discussion about the Bitboys, and their upcoming card.
Please don't revert to bashing them (even tho it's warranted :D).
So what do you think about them, anyone heard anything about them?

[pelly]

I haven't heard anything regarding BitBoyz in over 6 months...Honestly, I hope they do get a product out to market...they sound like they are on to something good...

:D

[1eppan]

if someone haven't found out so far, use the mirror to find out what I use as my username usually. (as almost everywhere else.)

and yep, I was the guy at the Assembly presentation almost exactly year ago where Petri Nordlund from Bitboys talked about their future plans.

and still yes, I know more than I am willing to discuss right now, but I can say that it would be good for all of us if you would forget Bitboys forawhile. when the times comes ( it will, even you would not believe it right now.) there will be something to discuss about.

and besides, I am pretty sure that their first actual chip in the market isn't targetted to PC-platform. but also more about that later.

[pelly]

Dah...talk about a cliff-hanger...

Could we PLEASE have just a tiny bit more info... :p

[1eppan]

just hold on to thursday....

The Assembly `02 is coming, Are you?
http://www.assembly.org

and well, they have seminar there again... (look for game dev. seminars at the Asm web page. Link above.) So, I think after that even I am a bit more wiser about the situation.

[StealthHawk]

yeah, i haven't heard any news about BitBoys and a desktop graphics card in the longest time. no rumors, no more PR from them, nothing.

[Raptorman]

I havn't heard anything, and I'm always looking at the news sites.

Hopefully BitBoys will "eventually" come out with a card, but I think it will be quite a while. I still have very little faith in them though.

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by 1eppan
just hold on to thursday....

The Assembly `02 is coming, Are you?
http://www.assembly.org

and well, they have seminar there again... (look for game dev. seminars at the Asm web page. Link above.) So, I think after that even I am a bit more wiser about the situation.

hmm, could you be talking about this page? (http://www.asmparty.net/content/gamedev/tracks-platforms.html)

[1eppan]

yep, that's it.

I'll be there if I can get in. (I have registered for that Seminar, but only 100 visitors gets in, because of seminar room cannot handle more than that.)

[1eppan]

I have seen a piece of working Hardware. It was running on FPGA platform but still as being Scalable Vertex Graphics Mobile chip, it was quite impressive.

I have some pictures from Presentation but I need to get somewhere for linking, so you have to wait forawhile.

[Jandar]

send me email...

I have a couple of sites (and good friends with server owner) that I can host the stuff on.

[LORD-eX-Bu]

What exactly is this bitboys chip everyone seems to be talking about? I saw bitboys a few times months ago but I never paid any attention to it. What is it all about? what can it do? what can't it do? How much $$$? Is Nvidia better?

[StealthHawk]

did you go to the link i posted from Assembly? it sounds like they are going to make a graphics chip for mobile phones.

[Nemesis77]

It seems that my old username is disabled. I was Pyramid3D, but it doesn't work anymore :(

Anyway, I was present in the Bitboys-seminar. When I went there, I thought "Who needs 3D-hardware in cell-phones/PDA's?". after seeing their demo, I'm convinced that it's a must-have feature!

they seem to be pulling out a bit from the PC-market. They did have working samples of their 3D-accelerator (C
codenamed Axe) along with prototype-board. However, they did not demonstrate those chips. They said that they will receive new revisions of the chips in week or two. But their focus is in the mobile-chips right now.

Now, regarding the PDA-chip. It was working and they demonstrated it (BTW, the technology is Scalable Vector Graphics, not Scalable Vertex Graphics). It had FSAA and it worked well. It was the first prototype of the chip, and they will continue to improve it. But it worked, and the image-quality was good. after seeing the demo, I was convinced that graphics in PDA's and mobile-phones could be ALOT better than they are today!

[volt]

those new pictures seem kind of blurry, but on one of them there is actually a reflection of their chip and brand name. Look at the plexiglass :)

[pelly]

DaveW posted that he saw a date of Feb 22 on one of the boards.......has anyone else seen this....I can see where some info is silk-screened on the PCB but I definitely can't read the date!

:(

[DaveW]

See the earlier news post http://www.nvnews.net/#1028267483

There is a link at the bottom of the story to a page with higher res shots on them

[pelly]

Dah...I was confused...since you commented on the post above...I was looking for the date in the [H] pics! :)

[pelly]

That site posted a ton of pictures of people!!! I don't want to download some huge pic only to find somebody's goofy face on there!!!

:D

[DaveW]

Here, this highlights the interesting bits. The date is still a little blurry in this pic, its clearer in another one. It says 22.02.2002 (european date format) under the version number, 0.177.

My questions are, what is the logo above the version number? And how come the Bitboyz logo on the GPU appears to go under the white insulation thingy at the bottom (cutting off the "s"), but over it at the top (showing the "3").

[pelly]

Warp2Search has a great collection that loads fast....I linked it under my post on the front-page.

No clue about the logo though... :confused:

[Nemesis77]

Like I said, I was present in that presentation. I was standing about half a meters to the left of that "AF3DE" picture. AF3DE is a little inside joke me and few of my mates and BB was willing to play along ;).

Now some facts: Yes, Bitboys definitely have a 3D-accelerator ready, and they have reference-boards as well. However, the silicon-process that is used to make that chip, will be killed at the end of this year (thanks alot Infineon!), so they are de-emphazising the PC-business for now, and they are focusing on the Mobile/PDA-stuff. They might restart their work on PC-chips, but their focus is elsewhere for now.

The 3D-accelerator is called Axe (their internal codename). And they will work on the Axe (new revision is coming up), but it will not be making to the hands of eager consumers (because of Infineon is killing the production-line). There are plans for follow-up chip that would have used different fab, but plans regarding it are uncertain since they are focusing on the mobile stuff.

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 (meaning: the graphics on the screen) was clearly superior to any PDA/mobile phone I have seen! At first I thought that there is no need for hardware-acceleration on mobiles/PDA's, but that demonstration changed my mind.

Now for some quesstimates: I think that BB has backing of some _major_ mobile/PDA corporation! They didn't say it as such, but it seems very propable. When could we see their PDA-chip in action? They said 2003.

I tried to ask them about the performance of Axe (it IS working), but the obviously didn't say anything. They did comment on Ati Radeon 9700, saying that it shows how more bandwidth clearly boosts performance and that Axe has even more bandwidth.

[volt]

Here is my mirror:
http://www.nullnetwork.com/BitBoys/

[Nemesis77]

Axe is a working chip, and they are working on it as we speak. By revision I obviously mean new spin of the same chip (you know, with changed layout/fixed bugs. NVIDIA and Ati both go through several revisions of theiur chips before they ship 'em).

I have been following them and their progress, I know what I'm talking about...

EDIT: some new info: There were representatives from Asus in that presentation, and they were mighty impressed when BB demonstrated working hardware of their mobile 3D-accelerator.

[Philibob]

Be nice to see another company in there. Wider range of choises. I don't think they'll hit the high-end market for a while though. It'll be nVidia and ATI for that.