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Trident Back From the Dead
FunkyMonkey writes "It seems that Trident is trying to pull a Matrox and resurrect themselves from
the 3D video card grave yard. AnandTech
posted a Trident
XP4 Preview today that has some interesting information on Trident's latest
stab at the graphics market. The company is claiming 80% the performance of the
GeForce 4 TI 4600 at a price tag of less than $100 USD including DX 9 support.
How? A 0.13 micron process and only 30 million transistors thanks to pipeline
resource sharing. "
My firewall is blustering along using a ISA Trident 8900 : You can't fault them for making low quality products.
Having said that, this preview has no hardware, and hence no benchmarks or qualitative/quantitative reviews. This is nothing more than market fluff at this point.
I would *not* recommend Trident to anybody who is in the market. It is sugary and rots your effing teeth right out of your god damn mouth. I would instead go with Wrigley's Extra instead. Also Wrigley is a very moral company and they named the baseball field in Chicago. Please to be thanking you.
We had a Trident card in the first 486 (SX33!) we had, and I remember thinking that I could probably get a faster display using Trident Gum...
Hope they've changed things a bit.
Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
The Trident XP4 isn't a DirectX 9 part, as the headline says Trident claims that they have a DirectX 8.1 GPU. Anyway, even if it was DX9 compliant, it would only meet the Vertex Shader specs and not the pixel shader specs (2.0 is DX9, 1.4 for DX8.1).
For that matter, no current processor has the fill rate necessary to comply with the Pixel Shader 2.0 specs, except possibly the Radeon 9700, which isn't yet available for benchmarking.
And while the specs are good for an entry level part, count the number of launch partners-zero.
With ATI and Nvidia taking the lion's share of the market, but putting their main publicity on their top-end products, it wouldn't be unusual for a not-quite-so-high-end graphics chip to find its way into a lot of cheaper systems. If the performance is reasonable, I should think it'd be a welcome addition to the tiny Shuttle computers, for example.
Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.
I don't think they'll be able to live down the stigma associated with their company name. They probably should have come back under a different name to at least show that they've changed a little. It was such a disgrace having a trident card or built-in chipset in your computer back in the day.
The graphics market boils down to two major markets:
1) OEM's
2) Gamers
Gamers will likely pay the premimum to get that extra 20% of performance. Also, the NVIDIA name carries a certain assurance that it's all going to work well.
As for OEM's, harder to say. One the one hand you've got some systems where the goal is being cheap and you go for an integrated chipset. Then on others the goal is best performance and thus the premium for 20% becomes worthwhile. There's a middle there, but I don't know how wide that middle is.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
1. Make card slower than competition 2. Charge less little for it 3. ....
4. Profit!
Our card is slower than theirs but you should use it anyway!
The taiwanese are very smart. Why spend billions on R&D when they can get 90% of the performance at 10% the cost? I believe the resurgence will be very noticeable this time, especially since companies like SiS (Xabre 400 chip - 90% performance of Ti 4200, 10% production cost) also make motherboard chipsets. Trident, being a long standing Taiwan chipmaker, probably has a natural advantage in striking deals to integrate their chip into m/b chipsets. This also explains why NVidia feels so compelled to make nForce. I think NVidia is smart enough to realize that these Taiwanese companies are a hell of a lot more stable and successful than they are, and that if they want to mirror tha success, they will have to also focus on integration to build product synergy and adoption.
This article has been up on /. for about two minutes, and almost every comment so far has been, "Well I had a card from them that sucked, so everything else they do will suck too."
Guess what? THOSE CARDS ARE YESTERDAY'S NEWS! Trident is making a different card with different chips and different circuits. They'll have different performance than the old cards!!!!
Now the new card is going to be cheap, which makes me suspicious of its performance/quality. However, discounting is out of hand because their last card (or even every card before this one) is completely pointless and wrong-headed. Look at the card, and then decide if it sucks. Amazing that so many of you have to be told that.
Lets also not forget that Trident did extremely well selling 'shite' cards. At one point there were more 8900 chips than any other single video chip in PCs at the time! Cheap, slow, but great where you just need a screen. (like my console server and my firewall, for instance)
So get over the past.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Begs the question if it really is too late to get into the 3D graphics biz.
I was at a presentations about asynchronous logic by a company who did some research into the area.
They took the advantage of fast and fine grain asynchronous pipelines but by then nvidia was in the market and they claim they had no chance copeating with them.
If trident can come out of the blue and make a card %80 of the speed of a gforce4 then maybe they and others gave up too early.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
Actually,
Hercules is one of the biggest manufacturers of current video cards. They are using the latest nVidia (maybe not for long), ATi, and PowerVR chips in their boards. They were purchased by Guillimot a few year back and have been making some excellent products. In my opinion, they were the pioneers of high quality video boards when the nVidia GeForce series started to take off. Recent connections with ATi and PowerVR though have soured the nVidia relationship.
Cirrus Logic is currently making some of the best audio DSPs in the business. You can see (hear) their chips in the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, Hercules Game Theatre XP, and a few others. Most operate on a dual chip DSP setup that allows a lot of control for audio spatialization, and their reference design for boards based on the CS4630 was designed with quality in mind. Currently, they also create DSPs for a lot of integrated devices, including portable MP3 and WMA players.
S3 on the other hand, still blows, and always will. "SIGHT! SOUND! AND SPEED!" They still have a lot of the cheap OEM integrated market, especially after being purchased by VIA Tech. But that still doesn't make the Savage series any more than pumped up S3 ViRGE chips. It remains to be seen how their Alpha Chrome and Savage XP chips hold up.
I've got a low-cost laptop from HP (one of the 'build your own' from Circuit City); and it's got a Trident cyberBladeXP in it. I was going to wait a bit to hold out for a ATI chipset, but after doing some reading I figured I could make it work. It does. Sure, I had to throw X into vesa mode to use my whole screen, sure the default trident driver stinks up the room (badly), but Trident just opened the specs for the cyberbladeXP and there is now a "drop in" driver for X that is 2d accelerated (3d is being worked on); and it works great. It's "no frills," but then I wasn't getting this laptop to do serious gaming. Would I use a Trident Card in a gaming machine, only if I was taking some serious drugs that warped my mind, but for a simple workstation, sure; no prob. I too had a terrible card in the past from Trident, but they're trying to get better. Can we just give 'em a chance?
The newer "blade" series of trident cards support OpenGL, have Linux drivers, are relatively responsive, and CHEAP.
I've always liked Tridents, especially in comparison to S3; they work.
Not the power gaming card, but good for general performance on a budget.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Oh, goody. I can't wait to see some next generation products from Hercules, Cirrus Logic, and S3.
I have an ISA VGA Trident Video Card in my Linux router. It has 256k of video memory, and let me tell you, when I used to use it on a Windows 2000 server, it used to take 5 seconds to redraw the page.
BUT, on a related note, it is still working, and has been working for almost 10 years straight. Much better than the Radeon that I bought 2 years ago, which has now been moved to by web server, because it only works half the time. Trident makes cards that may not be quick, but they are pretty cheap, and seem to last forever. Never had a problem with one. If I'm looking for a video card for a server, I don't want to have to spend $60-80 on an ATI card. I want a $30 Trident card.
Are there fatal flaws with NVidia and ATI's offerings? Why else the resurrection of these other companies? Is it because NVidia and ATI are getting monopoly rents?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
For me, the stigma is not with the name but their support. I got a company laptop with a trident card. need i say more? i will anyway, no driver support under linux. so no X. no more trident for me. what's even worse is that there is a third part driver but has a small quirk (intermittantly types in multiple chars when i hit a key) trident could have just helped this guy fix the driver. but guess not. they want to keep their IP to themselves. they can keep their video cards to themselves too.
On a GeForce 4 4600 Quake 3 in 1024x768 32bit High Quality runs at 220 fps. (Source: Tom's Hardware VGA Charts.) Now, 80% of 220 = 176. A Geforce 3 (standard) runs the same benchmark at 173.8 - roughly 80%. A GeForce 3 can be had for $91 according to pricewatch. Granted, it may not have the same "DX9" support, but I'm sure it will run without any problems with DX9. In fact, I'm sure it will run any game on your local computer retailer's shelf. It will also run under Linux. It will also have new drivers released next year. It also works with your choice of virtually any AGP slotted motherboard being sold today. It will not cause random lockups because you bought a cheap NIC. It has flawless OpenGL AND Direct3D support. And any game manufacturer that produces a game that doesn't run under it will go out of business.
Don't get me wrong, I love market competition as much as anyone. I hope Trident can compete with Nvidia and ATI, but even if this PR bullshit proves true, they're still behind the curve as far as I can tell.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire
Seriously, you just proved his point.
Companies aren't genetically pre-disposed toward a course of action. They weren't abused when they were young and are therefore more likely to settle into that same pattern.
Companies have not been subjected to rigorous Pavlovian testing (hear the bell ring and produce a low-end graphics chipset!). While they may occasionally be stricken with poor management, they can, and do, change.
--
Meanwhile, back at the site, ACs were posting for no reason.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
I never had a problem w/ the Virge line (well, other than their multihead non-friendlyiness). It got the job done for ~$25.
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
Well, everybody seems to be bashing the snot out of Trident the company, so I'll probably just get buried in the noise. But... a few years back, when sound cards were a genuine pain in the ass to support under Linux, Trident Microsystems was one of the few to release complete details of their chipset (4DWave DX/NX), and even wrote and donated an open source driver to the ALSA project. So, maybe their video cards weren't as perfect as you all seem to want, but you need to quit slamming the company. Because in fact, they were one of the early "good guys" with Linux.
Based on that experience, I'll probably buy the video card. So long as it includes a Linux driver.
Now that several companies are producing OpenGL hardware that is somewhat comparable to NVIDIA's, all it's going to take for me to switch is for one of them to have a completely open-source driver. I am tired of recompiling NVIDIA's driver manually for every kernel update, waiting for updates from them, and forget any platforms other than x86 and ia64...
Cards are so fast these days, I'd gladly sacrifice a 25-50% performance edge for the portability and reliability advantages of an open-source driver. ATI, Matrox, Trident - I'm waiting...
I hardly think Matrox comparing Matrox to Trident is very fair. Matrox did not "come back from the dead" with the Parhelia, they just attempted to compete in the gaming market. While they did not release a Ti4600 killer, the Parhelia did introduce a number of innovative features. But G-series cards have been quite successful for the past few years in the workstation and financial markets with Matrox's excellent dual-head capabilities. Trident on the otherhand hasn't released a competitive card on any level in many years, so this announcement is in fact a resurrection of sorts.
In my laptop, a toshiba tecra 8200 is a trident cyberblade xp gfx chipset. Trident has not beeing willing to provide specs. or anything else so that the Xfree people can provide us with drivers. I feel very bad about Trident and will never buy another product from them again. Please do not support such companies and buy products like Ati, which have a good relationship with the Xfree people.
I've been looking for a video card that doesn't put out more heat than the rest of the computer.
At 0.13 micron and with the low transistor count they advertise, maybe this will be it.
If it's 90% as fast as a GeForce4, and puts out a lot less heat, I'm there.
I'll wait for reviews and drivers to see.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Linux - ISA Trident card
Amiga - (Paula, Fat Agnus and Denise - OCS)
Win311 - PCI Trident Card (1 meg memory, yes!)
Win95 - S3 Virge (de-cellerator, Came with OEMed Decent)
Win98 - Nvidia TNT 8 megs (Diamond MM)
Win98SE - Dual Voodoo2's and Nvidia TNT (DMM)
Win98SE - Dual Voodoo2's and Nvidia TNT2 (DMM)
Win98SE - Geforce 1 (DMM)
Win2K - Geforce 256 (Asus)
Win2K - Geforce 2MX (Asus)
WinXP - Geforce 3 Ti500 (Asus)
Linux Box - PCI Trident (8 meg)
Linux Box2 - S3 Savage AGP (16 meg)
I remember looking at video cards for some unix boxes, the 2 choices for a cheap card for a long time was Jaton branded pci cards(Trident chips) or Cirus video cards. I tried to go with jaton, the trident chips always had good opensource drivers. I still try to get trident videos card for linux boxes I build, but they are harder to find at local wholesale stores.
The only card I never used, which I heard had great linux support was any Matrox cards, the prices were just to high, and always slower than the others for games.
-
Do you DirectVNC?
I liked the Trident 8900 ISA and 9200/9400 VLB cards -- they weren't the fastest but they were rock-stable and the drivers were well-behaved, AND they have a really nice legible screen font, ideal for console use. They're still my card of choice for ISA/VLB systems (yes, I still support some and even own some).
But I've been gravely disappointed by every PCI/AGP Trident-based card I've seen. Slow as molasses, and the AGP cards have a shit screen font (apparently pilfered from an old Diamond chip). OTOH they do still get along with everything, and they're VERY cheap ($8.00!!), so I use 'em for testing hardware and for "anything that outputs a video signal will do" situations.
In short -- good points: cheap, stable, well-behaved, drivers always available, PCIs and earlier have a really good screen font; bad points: PCI and AGP are both slow as mud (MUCH slower than the claims typically printed on the box), *no* VESA 2.0 support in hardware (so can't do hires outside of Win32), AGP models have a horrible screen font.
But when I went to Trident's site to get information on one of the newer cards, I was presented with a long disclaimer which boiled down to: "Trident only makes CHIPS. Trident has NEVER made *video cards*, ever, period. We only supply drivers as a convenience to you. Don't ask us about any video cards, they're not our fault, we didn't make them, and we don't support them!!"
After reading that, I wrote Trident sales and tech support to this effect: "In that case, you'd better keep an eye on who you supply chips to, because these uniformly-awful recent Trident-based cards are giving Trident a bad name." (No response.)
Anyway.. since Trident disclaims making anything but chips -- my question is WHO IS MAKING THE "TRIDENT" CARDS??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I'm actually using a Geforce2MX DH Pro, that has dual-head built in. That's on my main system. I couldn't tell you what video cards are on my servers. SSH...
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
I have a Trident Cyberblade/XP in my laptop. The 2D acceleration is decent, but I haven't been able to find any 3D acceleration. It's also a little disappointing that the 2D acceleration is closed-source/NDA. If I could swap out a laptop video card, I would have long ago.
Citizens Against Plate Tectonics
Those numbers were also based on a pre-production card, so should not be taken as reflective of
benchmarks from a full retail release product.
ATI has also released a newer (supposedly faster)
version of thier catalyst drivers in the interim.
Which may have additional impact on the performance of the cards once the popular review
sites get actual, testable, cards to make use of.
While Trident may have come up with a low-cost 3-D graphics card breakthrough of sorts, that's what SiS claimed with the 305 and 315 chipset cards, which proved to be a bit disappointing in 3-D performance.
I'm not sure if OEM's here in the USA want to install cards using the new Trident XP4 chipset, especially when you consider that for slightly more money OEM's can install cards with the ATI RV250 chipset, which will likely offer much better overall 3-D performance, especially for DirectX 9.0. Indeed, the ATI RV250 chipset cards are definitely aimed for the various small computer assemblers, and because of the cachet of the ATI brand name will likely be quite popular, too.