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Ask NVIDIA Interview
A reader writes: "There's a pretty lengthy interview with NVIDIA, which covers many interesting current topics, including the Xbox, BeOS support, Mac support and the NV20." And they covered more quality control - that's been my major problem with the cards.
And for anyone who runs anything other than (or in addition to) windows and linux, then just about any other card is better, since it will probably work.
Besides, even assuming the drivers wouldn't crash my machine willy-nilly, I have better things to do than fight my package system to manually graft in these ridiculous drivers into what is otherwise a well- and tightly integrated system.
As always, it depends on what you have and what you do, but for me, their drivers are not an option.
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Change is inevitable.
Change is inevitable.
Progress is not.
Check the updates. They've had D3D and OGL support for Unreal 1 for some time.
This is not true. T&L support for the radeon is on the way.
This is also not true. The specs are under NDA but the DRI developers have them.
And this one deserves special comment, because it's borderline insulting. From dri-devel, MGA400 driver that Gareth has just done some work on:
The DRI is already pushing the limits of most of the hardware it supports. Mesa has recently gone through significant re-architecture work to prepare for the limits of future hardware.
You ACTUALLY believe OSX is right around the corner? What a sad, sad existance you Mac users lead.
Tell me something. How many times has Apple promised to revolutionize MacOS, and how many times have they shelved the revolutionary version in favor of hacking up the old 1980's technology again?
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
As i understand it, the nVidia code that goes into xfree86 is rendered unreadable before it is submitted.
I don't want to get into the details of how this violates the xfree86 license, or why you may or may not want to do such a thing. I just want to ask one specific question.
Now that you've crushed the competition, when might you consider laying off this practice?
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
Since it's been made rather clear the drivers will not go open source, is it possible that *BSD users will see a port of the Detonator drivers?
It's hard for me to buy a card if my free platform of choice is unsupported.
--K
You ACTUALLY believe OSX is right around the corner?
Well, apparently Apple thinks so, as you can pre-order it (ships 03/24) in the Apple Store...
However, since you're obviously extremely brilliant and clueful
(as demonstrated by your posting), they're probably wrong, and you are likely right.
--K
And from my vantage point, as a BSD user who doesn't play the 'Open Source or Die' game,
I see it as follows: I can't use NVIDIA cards for 3D. Period.
I really wish the 'L33n00x !z k3w1' crowd would realize that Linux is not the only free OS out there.
Carmack has said himself that when the next Doom game comes out in a test release, it will be nVidia only for Linux.
That doesn't really sound like Carmack. From his postings to slashdot,
he sounds like he supports interoperability through OpenGL,
'course it may be that only NVIDIA cards support necessary OpenGL extensions, or it'll be NVIDIA only in just the test release.
Regardless, my next card will prolly be a Matrox.
Yeah, the 3D is pokey compared to NVIDIA's, but Matrox 2D quality supposedly can't be beat,
and the 3D drivers are open.
If I bought a GEForce, I'd essentially be buying an overpriced, inferior 2D card.
--K
Nvidia needs to publish a list of which Nvidia based cards And Bios support the bandwidth and modes for using the DVI interfaces with the SGI 1600SW.
Does anyone know if there be a Dual DVI Nvidia DVI card that works with the 1600SW? Quad?
This screen requires a digital transmitter with lots of bandwidth and some cards with outboard transmitters won't work with it (eg IBM's Riva TNT2 M64 DVI-I which has a Silicon Image 154).
Cards that will support this screen are: Matrox G400/DVI, Hercules/ Guillemot Geforce1 DDR-DVI (PCI !!!), Geforce2 MXs with an outboard Transmitter, Geforce2 Pros with an outboard transmitter and Geforce2 Ultra AND Nvidia Quadro cards like the SGI V3/VR3. Do not bother with GeForce2 GTS/DVI cards. They will not work. They have an onboard transmitter that only supports 10x7 screen bandwidths.
Currently I am using the Asus AGP-V7100/2V1D working with the 1600sw and multilink adapter on Mandrake Linux + XFree86 4.0.1 + NVidia's
binary drivers. It works well except the console looks ugly (in most modes Grub lets me pick). Without using the FBConsole is there any hope for this console support? And it was a bit of a hassel getting the current binaries working in X... But it looks great.
Adults are obsolete children. - Dr. Seuss
Why should I? As a user of Linux who does not play the "Open Source Or Die" game with my hardware and drivers, please give me a good reason as to why I should do this! From my vantage point, I see it as follows:
- Currently, the nVidia driver is one of the fastest around. Could it be faster if it was open? Sure, I believe that fully, but it is pretty damn fast.
- As a every day user of Linux who doesn't download the latest Enlightenment or KDE beta or XFree86 release, I can stand to be behind in my releases to keep compatible with my windowing server.
- Carmack has said himself that when the next Doom game comes out in a test release, it will be nVidia only for Linux.
- He then goes on to add that he himself will start working on the drivers for the ATI cards to bring them up to speed so it can play his game decently.
- Sorry, but since this demo is probably a year away, and since JohnC typically knows his s#!t, he believes that nVidia is the best solution right now. From posts here to Slashdot, he seems to know his stuff.
- I am not saying that he endorses nVidia for their driver practices or anything, this is stuff I have walked away with from things he has said.
So, as a gamer who would like to see the best performance out of my gear, and basing my current opinion off of things I have read, please convince me otherwise. I believe, though, most users of Linux feel this way and just want their stuff to work.Bryan R.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
Agreed.
By the wording of NVidia's answers I have been left with an overwhelming feeling that any answers from developers have been significantly mangled by their marketing and/or PR department.
Reading the aritcle I was disappointed at how curt they were with answering potential "meaty" developer questions.
What does NVidia wish to achieve with the interview?
Generate interest in their products for future purchase.
Who reads Sharky Extreme?
Hardcore computer users.
Do the responses from the interview generate more (buying) interest in Sharky Extreme readers?
No. I can't speak for all, but I feel Nvidia side-stepped many of the questions and I was un-impressed with the quality of answers.
I love their products, but find their PR representatives doing them a disservice.
nVidia's driver contains intellectual property owned by other companies -- information that they're legally bound not to release. They've posted this info in the past. They'd like to release an open source driver, but starting from scratch isn't very appealing when they already have a driver that works very well.
ck
It's a good thing, too, because I'd hate to see those sludge-talk skills go to waste. In response to a few dozen direct, eloquent questions, they let slip the following valuable insights:
In my experience, there are two things you can always count on with this company: (1) that their products will be great, and (2) that anything they say is so full of crap that it's not worth the paper it's not printed on, much less the time needed to read it.
cheers,
mike
Actually, according to the recent Anandtech benchmark, NVIDIA's 2D is about double the speed of Matrox's (better drivers!) While the speed might have improved in the latest alpha-CVS-snapshot-8:00am build, I doubt it catches up. Also, the Radeon is only barely supported (if you can call it even that) in XFre86 4.0.2 It will give you great 2D quality in Windows though ;)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
A) My guess is that NVIDIA will support the NV20 on OS X as well. (I think they've publically commited to it.)
B) AGP 8x? Please! There was a 3 year gap between the release of AGP 2X (the LX chipset) and AGP 4X (the 820 chipset) AGP 8X is still a few years away!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Umm, the 7.xx drivers blow (20% less performance) Avoid them until they stabilize a bit.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Has RaMbUs sued you yet?
Followup: If so, do they want the death of Nvidia or just your firstborn sons?
need to be addressed before anyone should even bother putting an NV20 in a G4... such as the 4x AGP which Apple has just -now- come out with. 6x/8x AGP will be the standard by the release of NV20. Driver issues are also major. I can't belive nVidia and Apple even BOTHERED making drivers for the GeForce 2 MX for Mac OS 9 when OS X is right around the corner. All Mac software development should be towards AltiVec (PowerPC "G4" 7400/7410/7450) optimized, native Mac OS X code. Wasting time with Mac OS Classic (Mac OS 9 and the such) or even Carbon is just that, a waste of time. *sigh* Study up on the OS X IOkit, core gfx, core audio, and Cocoa and forget the cruft of the past.
If it's a geforce2 mx, that sounds about right, it doesn't have the ram thruput or the fillrate for much higher than 60 fps at a decent resolution and normal texturing. If you have the horsepower of a 1 GHz system you really outta match it up with something with a better raster engine: GeForce 2 GTS, Pro, Ultra. Or, if you're doing professional gfx, consider a Wildcat or E&S. Also, any machine with a 1 or 1.5 GHz CPU really outta be decked out all around to feed that bad boy, otherwise you're better off with a 700 - 800 MHz CPU. Consider getting a board with dual channel PC800 Rambus or DDR-SDRAM "PC2100". Some good fast drives too, disk is the slowest thing on a system short of network.
>>past about 40-50, your eyes can't even tell the difference anymore.
True, but only if the framerate is sustained (say, from a movie projector, or high-end graphics gear -- SGI or E&S). Personally I have my gaming rig set up with vsync on, it rarely dips below my refresh rate (72 Hz) locked on solid. Plus with vsync enabled, I don't get the screen "tearing" that comes with ultra-high framerates and lots of action.
Well why the hell did they buy 3DFX then? Was it just to take out a competitor?
What is to become now of the 3dfx opensource effort, given nVidia's anti-opensource leanings? The linux.3dfx.com site is gone, and the placeholder 3dfx.com site explicitly lists nothing for linux drivers.
What has become of the existing code? I know some of it has been merged into the XFree86 trees, but the rest?
"That's all I have to say about that" --Forrest Gump
Matrox couldn't really be considered to be on par with ATI and nVidia...their G400/G450 design isn't looking so flash compared to the others...open source drivers can buy you only so many warm-fuzzies, when you're getting the FPS crap smacked out of you by your 12 year old next-door neighbour's closed-source driver 64MB GeForce2 Ultra.
Someone: Will you include technology X in future cards? What do you think of competitor X? What about product X?
NVIDIA: NVIDIA is the world leader in graphics solutions.
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Well, at least for the important stuff anyway. Open source NVIDIA drivers don't exsist for a good reason. It's not because they are greedy bastards and its not because the open drivers will reveal patent infringement (as i once thought..), its because some technology is licenced from other companies/people/whatever and they are bound to not reveal stuff by contract. They just don't have a choice.
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We should really be more concerned with the developments of ATI and Matrox. Their 3D drivers are open source and are part of XFree4. NVidia has chosen to ignore DRI and stay closed source.
... is that there is no news in the interview. About the only definitive answer was that BeOS is not going to have nVidia as a pal.
The rest was boring "nVidia is getting better" stuff with discussion about memory management (which is no longer news).
In reality they are evolving, not making any breakthroughs.
.. if only.