XGI App Detection

[Malfunction]

Originally posted by The Baron
We're not seeing driver problems alone. We're seeing once again that multi-chip simply is not feasible if you want any sort of reliability, profit margin, or yield.

Ummm... give them a break, I mean.. sh**. ATi has the ability and won't do it, though the only product they had do it was the Rage3D Maxx. Now, I am sure if they wanted to spend some more time on it they could perfect it (since every chip since the R200 is capable of running in multi chip configs) but do they need to is the question? No, they don't because they can compete with a single chip design.

Nvidia is capable, especially after acquiring 3DF/x. Do they need to? No, they can compete in a single chip market still. So who does that leave that needs as much horsepower they can get to make up for the lack of engineering on one stand alone chip... yes, that's right.. XGI.

Give'm a freaking chance to develope the line before you or anyone esle condemn them before they even leave the starting gate with their products. Who knows, a lot can change in a year....

Peace,

:surrender

Edit- Added/Changed what I said about ATi and multi-chip videocards. Every chip since the R200 has the capability.

[ChrisW]

The only reason why XGI is using multiple chips is because they have to. Their chips are so slow they have to use at least two just to reach the performance of one of their competition's chips.

[The Baron]

Here's the problem with multi-chip. You have to make the two chips cooperate efficiently, and it's probably easier to make a single-chip solution that rocks rather than a good interface between the two in addition to drivers that use both chips efficiently. Rage Maxx failed MISERABLY at that. 3dfx doesn't count that much anymore because Rampage was a single chip card and the amount of data being processed in the days of the Voodoo2 and such is pretty neglegible compared to cards of today.

ATI HAS done it for visualization cards, and that's something different altogether. In vis cards, you need raw power and huge amounts of memory, and you can accomplish that with multi-chip. In those situations, you don't need finesse as much as you need blatant amounts of power (see Quadro versus FireGL performance delta), so the efficiency lost is replaced by obscene amounts of power. That's fine.

BUT. We're not talking visualization cards that have four extremely powerful chips. We're talking about a company that is using multichip so it doesn't have to produce four different chips versus two. THAT'S why they're using multichip, not because the original V8 design was too weak or whatever.

XGI could have made a badass chip, but it would have been high-end only; they would have to develop another midend chip as well. This way was simply cheaper. It was so they could have "across the board solutions," in PR speak. They're launching before it's done, which you can tell by the state of the drivers, and that does not bode well for the card's future.

I'm merely condemining them because if right now is any sort of indication on how they will progress, they have no future. In a year? Maybe they'll stop with this multichip crap (or actually get it in a decently efficient state), but I don't see it happening, especially with NV40, R420, and Series 5 on the horizon.

[saturnotaku]

Originally posted by The Baron
Here's the problem with multi-chip. You have to make the two chips cooperate efficiently, and it's probably easier to make a single-chip solution that rocks rather than a good interface between the two in addition to drivers that use both chips efficiently. Rage Maxx failed MISERABLY at that. 3dfx doesn't count that much anymore because Rampage was a single chip card and the amount of data being processed in the days of the Voodoo2 and such is pretty neglegible compared to cards of today.

You also seem to have forgotten an even bigger problem with multichip graphics cards - the fact that the AGP specification can only support one device. The two chips on the Voodoo5 5500 worked together in PCI mode (that's why you saw V5 5500 cards for sale as PCI). And on the Rage Fury MAXX, ATI was able to trick Windows into seeing one chip as AGP and the other as PCI. Even then this trick only worked on Windows 98 and it wasn't very good at that.

Perhaps with PCI Express this will no longer be a limitation and we might actually see some decent multichip solutions. Maybe by 2005 we'll all be running dual-chip NV50s or R500s. :D

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by The Baron
1. Launch reviews are the only reviews that really matter. Case in point (or so I'm told repeatedly whenever I bring it up): R200. With the exception of the Volari now, it was THE WORST LAUNCH EVER.

2. Since only launch reviews really matter to people, performance on launch samples (or samples within 2 weeks of launch) must be good through any means necessary.

I still have yet to see a Volari review from any major English website.

This launch is by far worse than the R200 launch, at least R200 was reviewed and readily available- even if the drivers sucked.

[The Baron]

Originally posted by saturnotaku
You also seem to have forgotten an even bigger problem with multichip graphics cards - the fact that the AGP specification can only support one device. The two chips on the Voodoo5 5500 worked together in PCI mode (that's why you saw V5 5500 cards for sale as PCI). And on the Rage Fury MAXX, ATI was able to trick Windows into seeing one chip as AGP and the other as PCI. Even then this trick only worked on Windows 98 and it wasn't very good at that.

Perhaps with PCI Express this will no longer be a limitation and we might actually see some decent multichip solutions. Maybe by 2005 we'll all be running dual-chip NV50s or R500s. :D
but that's not true of AGP3.0. You can have multiple devices there. so that's not even an issue anymore.

[saturnotaku]

Originally posted by The Baron
but that's not true of AGP3.0. You can have multiple devices there. so that's not even an issue anymore.

Well shut my pie hole. :cool:

[TheOneKEA]

Originally posted by The Baron
but that's not true of AGP3.0. You can have multiple devices there. so that's not even an issue anymore.

Then why hasn't XGI taken advantage of it?

[The Baron]

dunno. hell, they might be. however, that's only true for getting data from the AGP bus to devices; you'd still have to have communication between the two chips to get them to work together well (or have drivers that offloaded a lot of the balancing to the CPU, probably both). so still, multichip isn't that viable.

[Lecram25]

The only reason why XGI is using multiple chips is because they have to. Their chips are so slow they have to use at least two just to reach the performance of one of their competition's chips.

No entirely, as The Baron said, they could have well just made a really good chip. But I also feel that went the multi chip route for it's market appeal, and they did get a great deal of people's attention and support, mainly the ex-3dfx fan base...



Here's the problem with multi-chip. You have to make the two chips cooperate efficiently, and it's probably easier to make a single-chip solution that rocks rather than a good interface between the two in addition to drivers that use both chips efficiently. Rage Maxx failed MISERABLY at that. 3dfx doesn't count that much anymore because Rampage was a single chip card and the amount of data being processed in the days of the Voodoo2 and such is pretty neglegible compared to cards of today

1) Rampage doesn't count as it was never released...but though you've only seen the single-chip solution, I assure you there's a multichip one out there...

2) And what about the Voodoo 5 5500AGP?
It had two chips, worked on an AGP bus, even though it did not take full advantage of AGP features...but eventually, Rampage could have been working in tangent with SAGE and would have utilised full AGP features...


All in all, I'm going to give XGI the benefit of the doubt and let them release another set...it's amazing that we're all freting over their first driver set...

[The Baron]

Rampage was a single chip card. The highest end card was a single chip. They could have made a multichip for a vis card like ATI is doing with the R300, sure, but for consumer, there was only Rampage.

And don't mistake XGI's motives for making a multichip card. It's simply cheaper to produce two different chips instead of four.

5500AGP did not use the AGP bus--it operated in PCI mode (in other words, simply as a PCI device).

[Lecram25]

Originally posted by The Baron
Rampage was a single chip card. The highest end card was a single chip. They could have made a multichip for a vis card like ATI is doing with the R300, sure, but for consumer, there was only Rampage.

And don't mistake XGI's motives for making a multichip card. It's simply cheaper to produce two different chips instead of four.

5500AGP did not use the AGP bus--it operated in PCI mode (in other words, simply as a PCI device).

LMAO! Everyone knows there was gonna be more than one chip on the Spectre card, that being an combination of Rampage and SAGE (geometry engine)...it was SAGE (Scalable Architecture Geometry Engine) that did the TnL and what acted as the busmaster too and each Rampage would have AGP functionality...

*sigh*

cough (http://my.fit.edu/~mmichael/Rampy/Rampage_Q3D_083199.ppt)


And regarding multi-chip cards, you said nothing about them being on an AGP bus...the Voodoo 5 5500 is a multi-chip consumer card, and the most successful one out there...did you know that new games actually run on a Voodoo 5 5500, SPiderman the movie, NOLF2, Bloodrayne, Call of Duty...did you know that there are people working on drivers, and that there is ogl1.3 compliancy now...linkage (http://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/news/3dfx/mesafx/index.htm)

So to date, the Voodoo 5 5500 is the most successful multi-chip consumer card...

[NickSpolec]

did you know that new games actually run on a Voodoo 5 5500, SPiderman the movie, NOLF2, Bloodrayne, Call of Duty...

New games run on the Intel Extreme Graphics chipset too.

But that doesn't mean they run well.

[ChrisW]

Originally posted by Lecram25
No entirely, as The Baron said, they could have well just made a really good chip. But I also feel that went the multi chip route for it's market appeal, and they did get a great deal of people's attention and support, mainly the ex-3dfx fan base...

I have to disagree. You just can't change your chip after a year or so of development (they would have been ~1 year into development when ATI released the 9700). That needs to be done at design time. Obviously, when they originally drew up the plans for the silicon, they did not realise just how fast cards would be. I just don't think they originally planned to produce dual chip boards at design time. And why would they design a chip on a 130nm process that runs really hot and is less than half as powerful as one of ATI's chips on a 150nm process. Do you really think they originally designed the board to require two seperate power supply rails? That would be insane! The board design reaks of a brute force approach to try to catch up with the competition.

[Lecram25]

Originally posted by NickSpolec
New games run on the Intel Extreme Graphics chipset too.

But that doesn't mean they run well.


Yeah, but this is intel we're talking about...remember, when 3dfx left 3yrs ago, they left no driver support, no source code...these are everyday people going out of their way to help others with their 3dfx cards...and btw, these games actually run pretty good on Voodoos...

[sxotty]

Yeah you are right people go out of their way to help, but they still run crappy. 3dfx is dead and all their cards are completely outdated, even if they had perfect driver support which they dont. BTW some games specifically say does not support any 3dfx cards.

[Lecram25]

Originally posted by sxotty
BTW some games specifically say does not support any 3dfx cards.

LMAO, exactly, Bloodrayne specifically, but I ran that game flawlessly on my Voodoo 5, lol...yet there are other new games that still have them listed as compatible, MotoGP2 is a 2003 game an specifically has the Voodoo 5 in their readme under supported cards...

[reever2]

Originally posted by Lecram25
Yeah, but this is intel we're talking about...remember, when 3dfx left 3yrs ago, they left no driver support, no source code...these are everyday people going out of their way to help others with their 3dfx cards...and btw, these games actually run pretty good on Voodoos...

Last I checked Voodoo cards weren't limited to using glide, what is your point?

[Lecram25]

Originally posted by reever2
Last I checked Voodoo cards weren't limited to using glide, what is your point?

*sigh*

I love people who don't know what they're talking about...my point is...when 3dfx went out, they was no more driver support. M$ was willing to make an XP driver, but nVidia said no, so the XP driver for the Voodoo 5 only allows it to run with one chip and glide is not functional, aka BROKEN, what's the point of having a Voodoo if glide is broken? basically, nVidia made M$ break glide under XP...what these people have done is made an XP driver for Voodoos, made glide work under XP, re-enabled SLI, and from that, allowed most games that require hardware TnL to run on Voodoos, and many more stuff...and recently, Spiderman the movie, which was a bitch to get running on Voodoos...I think that's quite an accomplishment...and remember, they've haven't asked a dime from anyone...

[saturnotaku]

Originally posted by Lecram25
and remember, they've haven't asked a dime from anyone...

Maybe they should start, that way they could afford to buy more capable video cards.

[Lecram25]

If I'm right about something, then say I'm right or don't say anything at all. Don't take stuff out of my post and turn the tables around...most of these people have newer cards, all they're doing is providing support to those who still might need it...how wrong is that...

[/shrug]

[ragejg]

Originally posted by saturnotaku
Maybe they should start, that way they could afford to buy more capable video cards.

sat, did 3dfx fanboys whip you as a child?

[StealthHawk]

Why did this turn into a 3dfx discussion? People have been saying that multichip solutions would make their way back into the mainstream/enthusiast market for a long time. XGI's foray into multichip solutions does nothing to help that argument. Maybe multichip will come back...but I won't be holding my breath.

[saturnotaku]

Originally posted by ragejg
sat, did 3dfx fanboys whip you as a child?

No, actually I was the one who used to do the whipping back in the 3dfxgamers days. Then I realized how incredibly stupid that was. Of course that didn't come until quite a bit of time after 3dfx bought the farm.

I can understand why people would want a 3dfx card today if they're interested in one retro gaming goodness - Unreal, Carmageddon 2, etc. But I'm baffled as to why anyone in their right mind would use one to play modern titles - Bloodrayne, CoD, et al, let alone spend a great deal of time and effort trying to get them to work. Live and let die.

[digitalwanderer]

Originally posted by saturnotaku
I'm baffled as to why anyone in their right mind would use one to play modern titles - Bloodrayne, CoD, et al, let alone spend a great deal of time and effort trying to get them to work.
Mental masturbation, it's a self geek-challenge kind-o-thing. Anyone can get good FPS in GTA VC with a 9700 Pro...making it playable with a V5 5500 is a whole 'nother story! ;)