EA and NVIDIA in Alliance

Deepak Jois writes "Arstechnica is reporting that EA and NVIDIA have entered into a pact to promote each other. Among other things it also means EA will support games on all PC platforms featuring NVIDIA hardware. Also check this link to the press release."

Comments

ALL platforms?

[SixArmedJesus]

I wonder if they're just talking about hardware platforms, or software as well. Does this mean some good games getting released for Linux?

Re:ALL platforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

probably just hardware. unless you mean linux with wine so they can still use all the directx api's. I'd say ea is pretty closely married to microsoft.

Re:ALL platforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they'll support all hardware -- like they have a choice! There are chipset-specific optimizations that will improve performance, but for the most part OpenGL and DirectX abstract the hardware. That's the point, after all.

Your right to DRM ends where my TV begins

Re:ALL platforms?

[rf0]

Have you seen NVidia drivers on Linux. Yes they are fast but I have had hard locks on a number of occasions when I start pushing them. When the drivers are more stable then I might start getting excitied. I mean I would love to be able to play games under Linux so I didn't keep rebooting but unfortunalty it ain't there yet

Rus

Re:ALL platforms?

[grolim13]

In my experience, it depends a lot on the card in question; also, some of the more recent Linux drivers are more stable than others.

I have a Geforce 4MX and a TNT2 on my machine (i.e. dual-head), and ran the Geforce4 with the NVIDIA closed-source binary drivers and the TNT2 with the XFree drivers. Why? Because the system locks hard every few hours with the NVIDIA drivers for the TNT2. Interestingly, it has exactly the same symptoms in Win2K - if I hadn't been using Linux on the same system, I would probably be blaming Microsoft for NVIDIA's buggy drivers.

On the other hand, getting the NVIDIA drivers to work at all is a pain. In fact, getting working drivers for any hardware that isn't supported by the stock kernel is a pain.

Re:ALL platforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

can't the geforce4 mx do dual headed display by itself?
I have the 4600 doing dual headed display under linux and its the best thing ever, next to more than two monitors and possibly that thing involving the opposite sex...

especially when that involves getting more head.

Re:ALL platforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone know if they're including Apple in their "all platforms"?

Re:ALL platforms?

[Moloch666]

I have a TNT2 Ultra running on a p3 500 on Linux. It was all pretty painless and easy. I did struggle a little getting X to use the TV-out optimally (It 's DVD player). Now it's stable as a rock, although I don't know how much DVD/Divx playing pushes the card.

I would recommend making sure the fan on yours is spinning ok, if it has one. A while ago the fan on my TNT2 built up so much dust that it stopped spinning. After a lot of trouble shooting (since the card sits upside down, I never see the fan), I finally pulled the card out and saw the horror. With some compressed air it resolved my problems. It was consistently locking up and showing strange artifacts, when accelerating, never got hot doing 2D.

Re:ALL platforms?

[hibiki_r]

I don't know if you've been following videogames for the last couple of years, but IMO, most EA games are not really good games. EA caters to the casual gamer, not precisely the most common breed among home Linux users.

Have you visited their webpage lately? If they were to release their entire PC lineup on Linux, yhey'd get marginal sales from their EA Sports line, and maybe some sales from Battlefield 1942, but that's about it.

Re:ALL platforms?

[Anonymous Rockstar]

Why isn't this modded (Score:5, Funny)? I doubt we will ever see great games under linux.

Re:ALL platforms?

[dorzak]

I have installed the Nvidia drivers under a few different distros. So far I have found it easiest with the Mandrake 9.0 download version. The commercial version is supposed to ship with the closed source drivers.

I have tried, and succeeded, under Red Hat 7.1, 7.2, and Debian Woody.

However, these instructions for Mandrake were the easiest I have been able to get them working:

http://www.geocities.com/desktopmandrake/nvidia. ht m

Under Mandrake 9, I have played UT and TacOps, both without lockups and within +/- 3 fps of the same games under Windows.

The only time I have failed to get them working was on a K6-2 500 mhz system. Interesting same card in my Athlon 1.2, same distro, worked fine.

Re:ALL platforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if they're just talking about hardware platforms, or software as well. Does this mean some good games getting released for Linux?

No. It means that some EA games getting released for Linux

Re:ALL platforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

Q3, UT, UT2003, SoF, Rune, CivCTP and NWN are all good games..

Re:ALL platforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope! But they will probably support the big plantform, like c64, kompis, etc.

Re:ALL platforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

Q3, UT, UT2003, SoF, Rune, CivCTP and NWN are all good games..

Fuck, they are ALL there is for Linux gaming. Buy a proper OS you commie wanker.

Re:ALL platforms?

[zdzichu]

For FreeBSD and Linux, those platform obviously feature PC (x86) and nVidia.

Re:ALL platforms?

[xziz]

I still have not pushed Linux with games much, the few times that I have there has not been very good results. It sure would be nice if video drivers for Linux weren't an afterthought but a high priority. :(

Your Game Sucks

Re:ALL platforms?

[xziz]

Yes and EA is married to itself. It still irks me that they should be crediting Sega for giving them a great platform to make their sports games yet they never supported the Dreamcast. EA Sucks! =)

Re:ALL platforms?

[dorzak]

The Geforce4 MX can support dual head, but not all cards ship with 2 outputs.

Re:ALL platforms?

[molarmass192]

I've had very good results but primarily with my GF3 Ti200. My backup machine is a GForce2 board with built in video, it's ok but doesn't even come close to matching up to the Ti card in FPS. The GForce2 based board was squirrelly up until 2.4.21-pre7 with respect to DMA. I also had a Vanta card that was decent, but I got rid of it a fair while ago. That said, I've dealt with a TNT card that just sucked. It didn't lock up but it would puke green artifacts on the screen that would only go away with a reboot.

So, I guess the drivers just work better with newer hardware. I don't think you can buy TNT cards anymore, but if you see one on eBay avoid it like the plague.

My last hard lock was when I experimented trying to get a Lucent based WinModem to work as a fax. That driver caused some bad mojo. In the end I wound up throwing the thing out and buying a controller based modem for $15 on eBay.

Re:ALL platforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

...Nerd. Why don't you go outside or something?

Re:ALL platforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

More likely good games for X-Box.

Re:ALL platforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

This thread has become too complicated for me to post this everywhere it applies. Many people have mentioned linux, one apple, one BSD. What does "ALL PC PLATFORMS" mean? It means whatever they want it to.
If it litterally meant all PC platforms, it would probably mean all x86 platforms--macs and powerpcs are not included.
Linux and BSD are not going to be included, I'm pretty sure. I'm absolutely sure they're not thinking about Solaris x86, Atheos, BeOS, OS/2, GNU/HURD, all of which being x86 platforms can use nvidia hardware (at least with generic vga drivers).
PC has come to mean windows--it's wierd, but it's true. PC Gamer is only windows games. PC Magazine is at least windows-centric if not completely about windows-based computing.

Anarchy online creators promised a linux version in a press release and dropped development of this. Even if EA did intend to make Linux version, they would probably drop the idea after market research. It's the unfortunate truth--We just have to get used to it.

Re:ALL platforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

by Anonymous Coward ...Nerd. Why don't you go outside or something?

lol, the funniest thing I read all day. Actually I leave my computers on so they tend to suck in more dust. I do plan on going outside tomorrow night, I've got some 'shrooms that I'm taking to the drive-in.

Re:ALL platforms?

[EthSoma]

Even if EA did intend to make Linux version, they would probably drop the idea after market research. It's the unfortunate truth--We just have to get used to it.

Even if the linux version only accounts for 1% of total sales, EA is still making a pretty substantial profit (for popular games). If the game uses cross-platform APIs then the cost of porting to linux is almost nothing. So why not port to linux?

Re:ALL platforms?

[ibbey]

If they were to release their entire PC lineup on Linux, yhey'd get marginal sales from their EA Sports line, and maybe some sales from Battlefield 1942, but that's about it.

You might be right, but it would still be a very important development. Remember, most computer users won't bother with two OS's. If they have to rebot in order to play games, they'll just stick with Windows.

If EA were to start releasing their titles on Linux (and that's a big if), then it would be a MAJOR step towards mainstream Linux acceptability.

Re:ALL platforms?

[grolim13]

It doesn't have a fan any more, just the heat sink. I ripped out the fans from both my graphics cards because they were rather noisy. (The Geforce4 has an enormous heat sink and barely gets warm; the TNT2 is rather hot to the touch, but seems to be okay.) I'd also imagine that a fan that wasn't spinning would be a lot worse, from a heat dissipation perspective, than no fan at all.

The TNT2 should only ever be doing 2D, because it's powering my secondary monitor, and neither Windows nor XFree support 3D on more than one head with two separate cards.

Re:ALL platforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is a proper OS, and nobody in thier right mind pays for windows...

Re:ALL platforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well at least not until Doom III is released.

Re:ALL platforms?

[ukyoCE]

I'm pretty sure this isn't true. The versions of nvidia drivers are pretty darn close to equivalent between linux and windows. I had common hard locks on windows, and found when i installed linux that I had the same thing there. As soon as v2960 drivers came out, and i installed them for both OSes, the hard locks stopped in both OSes.

Colaboration

[Odie_flocon]

At last Game, and hardware companies are supporting each other.

Re:Colaboration

[Anonymous Coward]

why ?
atari has always been supportive to atari.

Re:Colaboration

[Anonymous Coward]

Now EA can work their ass off to limit choices in video cards, and make sure those of us who dare buy a Radeon or other card cant play their titles.

Hip, hip hooray!

Here's a good idea...

[swordboy]

nVidia should write a proprietary API for their video chips. And then they could pay EA to release hardware specific products...

I think that "Glide" would be a good name for this API.

Re:Here's a good idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, they already have a proprietary API (cG), proprietary GL extensions - why would they need more?

nVidia, this is the desparate clutch of someone realising they're falling behing in the hardware arena. I have absolutely no objections providing EA don't make their support of ATI even more crappy than it is at present.

Re:Here's a good idea...

[Distinguished Hero]

Cg is not an API, it is a programming language. It compiles to Direct3D and OpenGl. As for proprietary GL extensions, ATi has EXT_VERTEX_SHADER and ATI_FRAGMENT_SHADER.

Re:Here's a good idea...

[Zog The Undeniable]

You said it more succinctly than I could. This is a backwards step, I'm sure.

EA's games have been crap lately

[vasqzr]

I remember them, back in the days of "NHLPA Hockey", "John Madden Football", and "Bulls vs Blazers", they were the creators of the BEST sports games on Nintendo/Sega.

Seems like they stopped working on the game quality somewhere about 1999, and now are just concerned with shoving as much FMV, dumb features, and gimmicks in to their games. Not to mention the games are pretty buggy, the AI is horrible...

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[Anonymous Coward]

yea! sega sports owns EA. madden 2k3 is good but thats about the only EA sports game i've liked in awhile.

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[Locky]

I'd hardly consider Medal of Honor, Battlefield 1942, SimCity 4, C&C Generals to be filled with dumb features, gimmicks and FMV.

I know that The Sims is the root of all evil, but EA do publish some very high quality games.

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[Nitar]

Battlefield 1942 and C&C Generals are exceptions to the EA rule. EA loves to crank out sports titles with little more to offer than the previous years release, besides updated stats.

Also, the customer support at EA just plain sucks. I can't think of a game since Anarchy Online where the support sucked as bad as it does for C&C Generals. Don't get me wrong, though. I think Generals is an excellent game, and I have been playing it quite a bit... now that I actually have it working. However, there are a lot of people who can't install the game, or it crashes to the desktop consistently, or it freezes up all the time. The only information that is returned from the game itself is that a "Serious Error" has occured.

There is absolutely no useful input from EA to help people out with this problem. They give you links to benchmarking, and system stability testing software. If all of these utilities prove your system is indeed stable, EA basically ignores you, and the problem.

Anyhow, I could care less about this union. I doubt EA will stop supporting ATI cards, so Nvidias major competitor will still keep going strong. I personally think that Nvidia is just trying to raise the perceived value of their gfx cards, since the actual performance of the cards is lower than the latest ATI cards.

-Nitar

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[farnham]

Did you buy simcity 4?
It was a completely derivative work. I was extrememly dissapointed in the lack of innovation and new features. They even reused some of the sound effects from Simcity 3000.

Add to that the HUGE problems with many chipsets at release (that kept me from playing the game at all for several days) adn extreme hardware requirements of the game and many people were very dissapointed in the game.

I have totally sworn off EA games unless I've verified they work on my system through a demo or pirated download.

The "issues" with ATI cards were rediculous! They claimed that the ATI cards weren't powerful enough!

I see EA games as where quality titles go to be squeezed out of every penny and left to die, a shadow of thier former self.

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[West Palm Beach]

Two words.

NHL 94.

Still the best hockey game out there in terms of playability and challenge. I recently picked up a used copy for 99 cents.

By NHL 96, I was beating the computer AI on the most difficult level 20-0 in a hockey game...go figure.

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[vasqzr]

By NHL 96, I was beating the computer AI on the most difficult level 20-0 in a hockey game...go figure

They STILL haven't fixed the 'wrap-around' glitch....

Ugh

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[pmz]

The only information that is returned from the game itself is that a "Serious Error" has occured.

This is EA's first mistake. How are they supposed to do tech support, when the customers can say only that a "serious error" occurred. Internet Explorer is just as bad when pages don't load. How are end-users supposed to learn anything when the programmers give up on reporting useful error information?

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[Qzukk]

Ha. Gripe to the human-interface people who get up on their soapbox and beat their drums to the tune of "nobody wants to see that debugging junk, its enough to know their program crashed. It shouldn't have crashed in the first place, so its the programmers fault that it happened."

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[Anonymous Coward]

bf1942 and CnC genreals are, unfortunately NOT the exception to the rule. Why? buggy as hell. both games were rushed out the door. both games had zero-day patches, like most of EA's games nowadays (zero-day patches are ones which are created, or started creation, on the first day of release; not released on the day of game release, as some beleive.)

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[pmz]

Ha. Gripe to the human-interface people who get up on their soapbox and beat their drums to the tune of "nobody wants to see that debugging junk, its enough to know their program crashed. It shouldn't have crashed in the first place, so its the programmers fault that it happened."

So, the suits fall for the UI argument, and, then, follow-up by not increasing funding so the programmers can't write robust code. This makes me question whether EA would ever be a good place to work as a programmer.

To anyone who says, "programmers should write robust code by default", I say, "get a real job." To anyone who says "use Lisp or Python (or whatever) and all your woes magically disappear", I say, "no programming language yet invented fundamentally reduces the complexity of programming, even Lisp can break when lists take on nil values unexpectedly--you just don't get a core dump from it".

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[GreenHell]

See, now you're taking it into parody, whether you realise it or not.

There's bad error messages with debugging info. I was setting up something and it kept crashing on setup. The only info? A hex code that meant nothing to me. I don't want to call tech support if I don't want to, but if I'm not given any indication as to what occurred other than that, I'm going to have to.

At the same time, there is such a thing as error messages that hide too much, such as having every error message be "A serious error has occurred"
In fact, I'm sure most human interface people will tell you that this is a bad idea, because it makes everyone's life much more difficult.

IMO a decent compromise were the error messages you got back in Windows 95, it told you it crashed but didn't bombard you with extra info unless you clicked the little button for it. Could they have been made better? Sure, but they didn't completely and utterly scare a new user with incomprehensible garbage, and they didn't hide everything from those looking for more.

<rant>
But at the same time: It shouldn't have crashed in the first place, and you know what, sometimes it is the programmers' fault.
A game shouldn't crash while installing, it shouldn't crash to the desktop constantly, it shouldn't constantly lock, it shouldn't have had 5 patches (if they followed some sort of sane version numbering) released in less than two months. All this says that someone, somewhere, didn't test as much as they should have, or if they did they cared more about getting it out the door than making a decent release.
</rant>

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! Cause wrap arounds never happen in real life!

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[canajin56]

True true. While HCI principals say that ugly error messages and hex dumps are bad, this is what Nielsen has to say about error messages:

Error messages should help users recognize, diagnose, and, where possible, recover from errors. All parts of the system, errors included, should use terms the user understands, not system terms.

Further, if one follows Norman's principal of Feedback, any error messages should attempt to describe the nature of the problem, where it occured, and, if possible, why.

Conclusion: If one took a course in HCI, and studied the writings of the experts in the field, one would NOT recommend error message that don't tell the user anything. Optimally, the error message would be in plain English (Or whatever language the app is in), explaining the nature of the error and so on, along with a button to click that gives technical details for tech support.

But at the same time: It shouldn't have crashed in the first place, and you know what, sometimes it is the programmers' fault.

That's Nielsen's next principal after the good error messages one. "Prevent errors from happening in the first place"

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[Anonymous Coward]

This makes me question whether EA would ever be a good place to work as a programmer.

It isn't. Trust me.

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had similiar problems (crashes, lockups) with BattleField 1942. I have had to turn the graphics quality down from 'high' to 'medium' to keep from crashing. This is on my brand-spanking-new Radeon 9700 - which should run just about anything out there. I definately get the feeling that BF1942 was tailored to the Nvidia...

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[satanami69]

I have crash to desktop errors with BF1942 and my Ti4200 card. So it's not an ATI only problem. I still haven't figure out if it's some hardware I have or a software bug. I've tried:
WINDOWS ME, 2000, XP Home
Changed out the Sound Card and tried a Radeon 9700 PRO. Upgraded all drivers. Tried with different memory sticks, one at a time. The only thing I haven't done is try a new power supply. Stupid game.

Re:EA's games have been crap lately

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, well, take a look at some UT error messages. You start playing mods for that game and you can get error messages that end up being like 2000 pixels high. A little excessive, but complete. Now, if only I could read it...

NVidia got itself a good deal

[markpapadakis]

EA is, no doubt, the leader in the computer games industry. NVidia is into a head 2 head fight with ATI ( ATI is probably going to come out as the winner ), and such a deal will add points in its favor in this 'fight'. Imagine a series of games to comes with a 'NVidia' recommented stamp on the cover.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[aflat362]

ATI is probably going to come out as the winner

If EA is making games that work better on an NVidia card and no other big game software company is making games that work better on ATI cards guess which one I'd buy.

I have an ATI Radeon 8500 128MB right now and it will be time to upgrade pretty soon. I'm considering switching to NVidia simply because I've heard of a few games that work better on NVidia cards. SimCity 4 (an EA game) to name one has some problems graphically even with the ATI 9700 - Makes NVidia look good to me. (But there's no way I'm going to get the FX with the big freaking fan on it)

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Mac Degger]

"NVidia is into a head 2 head fight with ATI (ATI is probably going to come out as the winner)"

Strange statement to make. True, at the moment ATI is in the lead, but keep in mind that nVidia has now changed over to 13(?) micrometer technology. This is what caused all the delays with the FX. But ATI has yet to make that switch, with all the problems that entails.

I bet you that the next round will see nVidia pulling ahead while ATI has problems with it's production on the smaller wavelenght technology.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Lu Xun]

No need to imagine. Check out UT2k3. Does "the way it's meant to be played" count as 'NVidia' recommended?

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Apreche]

I wouldn't be too sure that ATI will come out as the winner. It's not like in the Voodoo days where the Voodoo 3 came out and was total crap compared to the TNT2, thus giving Nvidia the huge advantage. ATI vs. NVidia is much more involved and uncertain.

Despite the uncertainties, I predict a role reversal. ATI was always the card that came in Dells and Gateways and such. It was the video card that was good enough to play games, but not good enough for the l33t. ATI made their money by having their video card built into pre-built machines. People learned about ATI through their system tray. NVidia was the card for l33t gamers. You used to not be able to get a computer with an NVidia card in it. What's happening is ATI is becoming the L33t gamers card while NVidia is becoming the thing for the average user. But NVidia also makes the ridiculously expensive card for the millionaire gamer. ATI, with the technologically better Radeon is moved into the smaller market.

Don't believe it? Look at NForce. It's a beautiful thing. It allows for technologies gamers want like dual AGP bandwith to the RAM and AMD processors. While at the same time you can get one that has integrated GeForce4 Video, sound, and ethernet to save the average user money. The best of both worlds. If NVidia was just trying to take the gamers market why would they make a chipset with integrated video?

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[foxtrot]

EA is, no doubt, the leader in the computer games industry. NVidia is into a head 2 head fight with ATI ( ATI is probably going to come out as the winner ), and such a deal will add points in its favor in this 'fight'. Imagine a series of games to comes with a 'NVidia' recommented stamp on the cover.

Sure, it's a great win in the marketing department.

Personally, though, I'd rather nVidia spent their time designing better video cards instead.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought they DID make a chipset with embedded video. The reason they probably won't again is due to the fact that MOST people already get, embedded video sucks ass.

Not only that, but plenty of us, knew and supported ATI before Nvidia even existed!! Then they take the market for a bit and people like you think they are the shit. ATI just got lazy people, they had NO reason to have to make the parts like they do now because the demand simply wasn't there then. Now it is and they've stepped up to the plate.

Let's try not to forget that ATI also had the only AIW type card on the market until just recently I believe, but even then, if you want these features on the Nvidia side you have to go 3rd party, ya great. If you want features AND performance you go ATI, if you want PERFORMANCE only, you go Nvidia

BTW, the Nforce reviews all sucked ass in case you didn't notice. It's the new Nforce2 that is being talked about, please get your hardware straight.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

If EA is making games that work better on an NVidia card and no other big game software company is making games that work better on ATI cards

Most games companies make games that work better on ATI cards, because ATI cards are better cards. Only EA has this problem.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Distinguished Hero]

13(?) micrometer technology
It is actually 0.13.

nVidia is not ahead of ATi at all. nVidia and ATi both manufacture their chips at TSMC. The supposed reason that it took nVidia so long with the FX was that TSMC was having trouble with the 0.13 micron process. Not that they ironed out all the problems, there is no reason they can't manufacture ATi's chips using the same process.

In fact, considering that nVidia's 0.13 micron card runs hotter and slower than nVidia's previous generation 0.18 micron card (I'm not even talking about the 9800 here) really shows that nVidia is really behind this round.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[KFT]

NVidia is into a head 2 head fight with ATI ( ATI is probably going to come out as the winner )

I sure don't hope ATI will come out as the winner, considering NVidia actually makes working and quite fast graphics drivers for linux and ATI seems to ignore Linux as much as they can get away with (I'm speaking about 3D support, I am aware about the 2D support for ATI cards being pretty nice). IMHO, the more market share to NVidia, the better...

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Pulzar]

True, at the moment ATI is in the lead, but keep in mind that nVidia has now changed over to 13(?) micrometer technology.

Radeon 9600 is also made using 0.13u process. The whole "switch to 0.13" has been overplayed, since neither nVidia nor ATI actually develop the process itself, as they don't produce any of their chips.

The only thing that they have to do is start using new libraries when creating their chips, and altough that's not a simple thing, it's also not something revolutionary -- both companies do it almost once every year.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[ergo98]

Imagine a series of games to comes with a 'NVidia' recommented stamp on the cover.

This is exactly what 3dfx did in their dying days: Lining up with a bunch of game makers, offering cross-promotion dollars for them to stick a "Works best with a 3dfx Voodoo X" stick on the box. Of course, we know where that led 3dfx.

This really is a negative sign for nvidia. I don't think that they're defeated at all, however things like this indicate a scary fundamental corporate philosophy shift: From a philosophy that pushed supreme engineering dominance, to one that pushes marketing dominance and "leveraging" partnerships and marketing. The former is actual magic, and the latter is smoke and mirrors. This is exactly the same shifts 3dfx went through when nvidia started to challenge them...

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Best comment so far.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

ATI is screwed after the 9800 Pro. They have nowhere to go. Thanks to TSMC's complete ineptitude at .13 micron fabrication, the R400 chipset will be delayed at least as much as GeForce FX was delayed. Meanwhile, NV40 will probably be out by the time of R400's release with NV45 coming shortly. And don't forget how yields will be terrible, the card will be impossible to find, and for those lucky few who can find them, the rushed drivers will be pretty bad for a few months.

Unless TSMC gets its shit together, ATI doesn't have a chance in hell of keeping the lead they tenatively have now. NV35 is VERY likely to beat the 9800 Pro soundly in the vast majority of benchmarks, and the 256 meg NV35 will beat the 256 meg DDR2 9800 Pro that is coming later this summer (it gets DDR2 but no huge clock increase, so nothing's going to happen with it).

Plus, oh, NV35 doesn't have the giant fan of the NV30.

So, right now, sure, ATI has the lead, but they've kind of run straight into a wall by sticking with TSMC. Loyalty is not the best policy.

And nobody cares at all about what logos a game has on it. I've got numerous old games in my closet with the PowerVR logo stamped on them, and I would NEVER own a PowerVR card. ;)

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Most games companies make games that work better on ATI cards

Links? References?

None. And the reason? Because it's so untrue. The facts are facts. ATI cards may have a slight speed advantage (not that anyone would notice) but NVidia's cards almost always just "Look right", with less graphical glitches or colors that just don't "look right".

ATI's entire history is covered in games that just never did look right on their cards, until recently.

While it's true that ATI's more recent cards normally display games just as well as anything NVidia makes (with a few exceptions) image has a whole lot to do it. For some people who were burned by an NVidia card or two in the past (this game didn't look right, this game didn't run, this game locked up, etc) that's a hard history to ignore, and one that might not soon be forgiven.

NVidia isn't without their faults, I'll grant you, but don't expect ATI to come out on top based on current merit alone.

After all, if ATI had not bought ArtX they very probably wouldn't have any good products on the market what-so-ever.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[SuiteSisterMary]

Of course, we know where that led 3dfx.

Yeah, unfettered market dominance.

What they then did, or more accurately, failed to do, led to them losing that market dominance. But there was a time that you didn't have a 3d card; you had a 3dfx card, or you had nothing.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[dinivin]

I sure don't hope ATI will come out as the winner, considering NVidia actually makes working and quite fast graphics drivers for linux and ATI seems to ignore Linux as much as they can get away with

Is that why the 3D drivers from ATI for my Radeon 8500 work so much better than the 3D from nVidia for the GeForce3 I have at work?

Adam

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[evil_one]

I'm sure that the marketing droids would be a big help down in R&D. Let's go over there and tell them right now, ok?

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[ergo98]

Yeah, unfettered market dominance.

Revisionist history. 3dfx acquired market dominance through superior engineer, and they then lost it when they became business oriented rather than technically oriented. The cross-promotion venture came at a time when everyone was questioning what 3dfx was doing, was question the usefulness of Glide, and generally the anti-3dfx movement had begun. Here's a hilarious thread one usenet that I could look up because I remember having that conversation some 5 years ago (I'm one of the participants in the thread), and it hilariously is an agreement at the time between EA and 3dfx. How ironic.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[SynKKnyS]

EverQuest. Is it by chance that NVIDIA and Gateway are funneling money into SoE? I don't think so. There is no other way to explain why my GeForce2MX 200 32 MB runs better than my Radeon 8500 64 MB *only* in EverQuest.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[monthos]

"NVidia's cards almost always just "Look right", with less graphical glitches or colors that just don't "look right"

Im sorry i always buy Ati Hardware, with the newest cards yes you can notice the speed improvement, and about your lookign right comment you summed it up best...

"Links? References?"

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Anonymous Cow herd]

Don't believe it? Look at NForce. It's a beautiful thing. It allows for technologies gamers want like dual AGP bandwith to the RAM and AMD processors. While at the same time you can get one that has integrated GeForce4 Video, sound, and ethernet to save the average user money.

Err, nForce (nForce2, actually) is hardly revolutionary. Intel has come up with a dual-channel DDR solution as well to increase memory bandwidth (Granite Bay, IIRC), and other than that, the integrated features are pretty stock on motherboards these days. And note that nForce only supports AMD AFAIK, which could cause them problems competing with other motherboard manufacturers like Abit or Tyan. Having said that, nForce2 is extremely popular with gamers... it's a robust and well-designed chipset, and the other features (SATA, AGP8x, built-in audio/lan) make it competitive as well, in the AMD arena.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Vodak]

And if NVidia didn't buy 3DFx back then the geforce 3 would have been good.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[SynKKnyS]

It is really hard to say. NVIDIA seems to be playing out the history of 3DFX, which is sort of bothering: solid drivers but few updates, missed due dates for products, and paying off game manufacturers to sell out. I remember when games were branded with 3DFX logos (compared to now, where games are branded with NVIDIA logos) even if they used OpenGL or DirectX instead of Glide. In the end, having the larger company share and more industry support did not win them out, and they were swallowed by NVIDIA. I really hope NVIDIA doesn't follow the same path.

Going a little farfetched here, but if NVIDIA were swallowed by ATI, who would compete with ATI? S3? Chapter 11. Trident? No chance. STM? Stopped mainstream GPUs. SiS? Slight chance, but I don't think they have the experience yet. VIA? CastleRock needs to become faster than a VirgeDX first.

My point is, I hope both manufacturers stay afloat for as long as possible. For the consumers' sake mainly.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Jim Norton]

Is it by chance that NVIDIA and Gateway are funneling money into SoE? I don't think so. There is no other way to explain why my GeForce2MX 200 32 MB runs better than my Radeon 8500 64 MB *only* in EverQuest.

Bad example. The EQ engine was originally designed for first-generation 3D cards (specifically the 3dfx voodoo 1/2 series with Glide) It's not too surprising that anomalies like that exist.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[SuiteSisterMary]

They gained market dominance by being the best, they exploited it by getting their brand name splattered onto boxes, then lost it by resting on their laurels.

But it quite obviously worked, as I've a ton of games I'd love to play, but can't, as they're glide only, and I don't feel like slapping a 3dfx card into a P4/2Ghz.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

"EA is, no doubt, the leader in the computer games industry."

Their games are pure ass.
There I said it.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Tycho]

ATI makes Athlon and P4 chipsets that have onboard graphics hardware. Not that the video performance is very good, but it doesn't matter very much when it is a low end system. But for chipsets with onboard graphics they are reasonably inexpensive. The nForce2 is fast, if you are an OEM building a high end gaming system why would you buy the nForce2 when the VIA KT400 costs half as much? Many people who buy such a system probably don't know the difference between motherboard chipsets and are only looking for a Radeon 9700.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Slack3r78]

nForce only supports AMD AFAIK

You say this like it's a bad thing. :) Yeah yeah, flamebait, I know.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Slack3r78]

The difference is nVidia hasn't made the key, stupid management mistakes 3DFX did. They haven't tried to turn themselves into a card manufacturor like 3DFX did with the Voodoo3 and later. They haven't pissed off all their allies. They haven't focused SOLELY on the performance market. As it stand, nVidia has the GF Ti4600 and FX lines as a flagship model, but the majority of their sales are made to the mid-level market with cards like the GF4 MX.

They've also expanded into being a fairly standard OEM item - something 3DFX never really did (which was ATIs bread and butter at the time). Sure some gateways came with Voodoo3's , etc. but 3DFX never really made a push for that market. Throw the fairly popular nForce2 motherboard chipset into the mix, and I honestly don't see nVidia in any danger of becoming another 3DFX at all. They're making money - lots of it. 3DFX wasn't. It's that simple.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[Escaholic]

I seriously doubt ATI will come out as the winner, but I hope they will prove me wrong. All the problems NVidia has experienced as of late has been because they were way overambitious about next generation technology. ATI played their cards safe and went for tried and tested .15 micron technology (NVidia went for .13).

If the Geforce FX 5800 Ultra had been released when it was supposed to, ATI wouldn't have had the speed crown over xmas. At the moment the world is waiting for the R350 which will temporarily hand it back to ATI, but the NV35 is scheduled for release in only a few months time, and that will definitely pass the bragging rights back to NVidia.

Besides, don't forget NVidia is a financially sound business with $1bn in the bank. ATI are seriously in debt at the moment.

But we're at an interesting point in time from a GPU point of view. All the basic features (and a lot of advanced) are now in place, and we now see the similar Intel vs AMD speed race happen in the GPU market. Higher order surface (hardware) support is the next really big thing on the horizon, but it's turning out to be more difficult than originally anticipated for various reasons.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[mink]

Then get a cheap old p-200 MMx and drop a voodoo car d in it. cant think of any glide only games that need more processor.

Re:NVidia got itself a good deal

[SuiteSisterMary]

Exactly what I did.

All platforms supporting nvidia hardware?

[tommten]

if this would mean that EA are going to release games for Linux and Freebsd then Wow!

probably though a x86 pc only counts as a platform if its running windows :/

Anti Competitve?

[ackthpt]

EA and Nvidia best consumate this in word and not so much in act.

Re:Anti Competitve?

[grumpygrodyguy]

EA and Nvidia best consumate this in word and not so much in act.

No actually it's been happening for some time now. There's a cluster of 64? servers provided by NVidia to host Battlefield 1942 games. As far as I know these are deticated servers provided as a courtesy by NVidia in order to promote Battlefield 1942, which EA produced.

This helps NVidia because BF1942 requires a high-end video card to run...so the more popular the game becomes, the more potential business for them. I believe these servers have been running for almost a year now.

Re:Anti Competitve?

[ackthpt]

This helps NVidia because BF1942 requires a high-end video card to run...

Just so long as it doesn't require only NVidia chipsets. I thought we left enough of that crap behind us.

This reminds me...

[Quass]

Read this this-morning on CNet avantgo...
Anyone remember those 3dfx emblazened boxes about 5 years ago? First they get they're own graphics language (reminds me of Glide), and now they start working with companies to program for the chips they make?? For some reason I think Nvidia is being just a BIT too influenced from 3dfx.. it's like they're repeating all the mistakes!

"Nvidia: The way it's meant to be played" ... pfft.. yeah, the cards are good, but honestly!

Re:This reminds me...

[TopShelf]

Exactly - this is a step towards the bad old days, when such-and-such video card or this specific sound card was needed to run a particular game. The loser in all this is the consumer, whose software choices become constrained by hardware... Boo hiss!

Re:This reminds me...

[Anonymous Coward]

NVIDIAs grachics language (Cg) is compatible with Microsoft High Level Shader language and has NOTHING to todo with Glide. All software written in Cg will run on every competitor card which satisfies requirements of the software.

There is also nothing wrong with utilizing more features of the newest cards as long as EA games will work with cards from other manufacturers. In fact many people have complained that it takes a way too long for games to use advanced features of the GPUs, this partnership will alleviate.

Re:This reminds me...

[Distinguished Hero]

Cg ("Their own graphics language") is a programming language.
Glide was an API.
Cg compiles to OpenGL or Direct3D, and it could very well be used on ATi cards with slight modifications. The two are nothing alike.

Re:This reminds me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cg can be used on ATI cards with no modifications.

Re:This reminds me...

[alpha17]

Cg isn't open for modification and the compiler is optimized for nvidia cards. Should ATI really want to use this?

Re:This reminds me...

[DemENtoR]

Same with directX 9, ATI and Microsoft got around and created lots of directX 9 together (becased on the cards features and such). It's kind of like saying: should NVIDIA really want to use this?

Re:This reminds me...

[Slack3r78]

Not really. They've supposedly been busy working on their own competiting technology called "Render Monkey." I just did a search of ATI's site to give you a link, but every mention of it has disappeared. Anyone know if Render Monkey's been dropped or if it was just an attempt by ATI to distract some of the fanfare from Cg (it was announced not long after Cg, so I could see this being a possiblity). Or maybe ATI just sucks at keeping people informed of what they're up to? :)

Re:This reminds me...

[alpha17]

Render monkey isn't really anything like CG

Render monkey is a program where you create effects graphically and it outputs them to DX HLSL language or OGL language. It could infact be made to output CG code as well.

Re:This reminds me...

[Slack3r78]

Render monkey isn't really anything like CG

How do you figure?

Cg is a high level language that outputs to DX and OGL code. Render Monkey is a high level language that outputs to DX and OGL code.

The only REAL difference is ATI packages their downloadable toolkit with a rather nifty IDE that has a built in previewer so you can see what you're doing as you're coding it. Maybe you're mistaking the fact that this IDE has a "Variable Editor" that lets you easily modify an existing shader for it simply being "Render monkey is a program where you create effects graphically and it outputs them to DX HLSL language or OGL language." At it's core, it's simply a high level, graphics oriented language. I mean, logically, does the fact that that there are built-in tools in Visual C++ that make working with C++ easier than with notepad and a compiler mean that "C++ is just a program where you create software and output it to bytecode?" Cg and Render Monkey are just competing languages for doing the exact same thing.

Wait a...

[Martigan80]

By exclusively adopting NVIDIA hardware for their worldwide studios, EA is escalating the creative palette of its 3D artists and programmers

I thought a palette was a piece of wood or something that had a range of colors, so how can a creative palette be obtained from using only one gfx card?

Re:Wait a...

[Speare]

By exclusively adopting NVIDIA hardware for their worldwide studios, EA is escalating the creative palette of its 3D artists and programmers

I thought a palette was a piece of wood or something that had a range of colors, so how can a creative palette be obtained from using only one gfx card?

Maybe they meant 'pallet', the 3'x3' forklift-ready cargo platform. Kinda reminds me of the cubicles into which many 3d artists and programmers are crammed at these "layoff-before-christmas" game shops.

Or maybe they meant 'palate', referring to the walls of the mouth. It's also used to refer to some aspects of the overall taste of a beverage, or a person's skills in tasting. This whole PR campaign leaves a funny taste in my mouth, maybe that's the connection.

Re:Wait a...

[Hydrogenoid]

Well... The trick is to use the back of the card to put your colors, of course!

Re:Wait a...

[aalex675]

When developers program for multiple cards they have to leave out features that are specific to each card and use the more general features that will work on all the cards. If they can develop for cards that have very similar GPUs like those of NVIDIA then they can use all of the features. Hopefully now they will be able to start fully using the programmable GPUs.

The cycle never ends..

[phuturephunk]

..It impresses me how quickly the davids of the past become the goliaths of the present..Seems like a trend with geekdom, cause, at least in part to the merciless social beatings we got while growing up for being the way we are..Microsoft Vs. Ibm...3dfx Vs. Nvidia and now Nvidia vs. everyone else. One can only hope one day, if and when Linux truly becomes a dominant desktop operating system, that someone has the perception to learn from the past and not doom us to repeat it.

Re:The cycle never ends..

[cgenman]

The cycle is a sign of a healthy market... Manufacturers one-up eachother, making improvements and capturing marketshare. It is a wonderful thing that 3Dfx fell, that Nintendo fell, that all empires fall, because they are surpassed by better empires. Personally, I would find it great if Linux becomes the dominant desktop, then falls and is surpassed by something better. It is exactly this lack of cycling that has hurt the desktop arena, and computing in general.

-C

Does this mean....

[Dutchmaan]

...that EA's new slogan will be "Challenge Everything... except nVidia"

Re:Does this mean....

[smg_mrBlonde]

Or EA's new slogan will be "The Way It's Meant To Be Played... this year, cus next year there is the 2004 version of the same old game".

Re:Does this mean....

[Anonymous Coward]

"You must bow down to the almighty bunghole, for there is but one nVidia!"

creepy

[IAR80]

I allways found that kind of alliances creepy. This kind of thing never promotes value. The end of all this will be that all EA games will work verry bad with ATI boards and non EA games will be less competitive on Nvidia. Finally the end user will end up screwed.

Re:creepy

[JaredOfEuropa]

I wonder...

Will EA shoot themselves in the foot by making their games run badly on all boards made by ATI, which is after all a major graphics card manufacturer? That does not seem to be in their best interest unless they see NVidia as the clear and uncontested winner of the graphics card wars.

Re:creepy

[Anonymous Coward]

I completly agree. This alliance goes in the direction of removing the advantage of my desktop computer and goes towards owning a console.

I mean if I need an NVidia now to play games on my desktop -- what's the use to have the desktop? I might as well buy a PS or XBox...

And common guys (all the other posts I see), give me a break that they'll start supporting Linux now. I highly doubt it -- we are talking about EA here. Which, mind you, has some good games out there... but a move like this sounds much more of an "MS thing" then a "Linux thing."

The Linux mindset has never been to lock you in with anything. So where in the article did you see that they support Linux now?

Re:creepy

[Anonymous Coward]

EA has absolutely nothing to gain by signing on to this deal...

So why did they do it?

$$$$$$ from nvidia

Re:creepy

[c_jonescc]

Maybe in the future:

You'll buy vid cards like consoles. Drop $100 (it's my fantasy, I'll keep the prices low) for competing proprietary cards to play certain games that aren't cross-platform. I currently own a PS2 and a GameCube for this reason.

I think that I would be willing to run a machine with both an nVidia card and an ATI card in it if it meant that all games would work out of the box.

But then games would be expected to work out of the box.

Plus, I'd finally get around to hooking up another display.

Re:creepy

[Babbster]

Huh? What? I guess you've never heard of DirectX/3D and OpenGL. Simply put, if the game uses one of the established APIs, then any graphics card, whether Nvidia, ATI or any other, will work assuming that the card's drivers are compatible with that API. Your comment would mean something if this press release were accompanied by another that announced a brand-new Nvidia-specific graphics API which EA is now going to use in their games (a la Glide).

All this announcement tells us is that there will be Nvidia logos on EA games and that EA developers will use Nvidia cards in their machines. The worst case scenario is that API features which Nvidia cards don't support won't be utilized in EA games. Reading anything more into it is paranoia.

Re:creepy

[Slack3r78]

Well, in the case of OGL, you have the core API and then each manufacturer can add various extensions to the language to suit their particular cards. They have to be approved by the ARB, but that's really only a superficial concern. So it's not uncommon to have a general ARB approved method of doing something, and then also have proprietary nVidia and ATI calls optimized for their general chipsets. Read Carmack's .plan if you want to get a bit more in-depth with this than my puny /. post :)

RE: The point.

[fshalor]

Of course, now ID(and a few associates, Nerve, Etc) has to join with ATI. I think I know which combination I favor. :)

After having a horrible experience trying to get a darn kernel driver working with an Nvidia card (which has been sitting in a box for a year now) I'm now exclusively ATI.

Bundles

[rf0]

I'm just waiting for the day we see John Madden branded video cards. Hey why not go a step further and load the games on to the graphic cards. Now that would be "working together"

Seriously though I can't see why this is a huge deal apart from it might mean the EA get some slightly better locking games. Its not like NVidia would lock out everyone else. Would they?

Rus

Really? What about the EA - XBox Live spat?

[iainl]

Given that we can take releases of EA games on Windows XP as a given, and I fail to believe for one minute this means we'll be seeing a port of Potter (or whatever) to Linux, this seems to relate to a statement about XBox. Which, given that EA have famously had a falling out with Microsoft over the 'Our Way or off the Information Highway' Live setup is 'interesting'.

Whither Battlefield 1942 now?

Re:Really? What about the EA - XBox Live spat?

[hibiki_r]

I don't think this changes their stance on xbox live in any way. EA does not support live because, after developing their own gaming infrastructure for the PC for years, they'd rather use their own online system than paying to use Microsoft's. They do release some xbox games from time to time. After all, it's not any different from developing for the Gamecube.I don't see them backing down from their xbox live stance though

Re:Really? What about the EA - XBox Live spat?

[Slack3r78]

After all, it's not any different from developing for the Gamecube

How do you figure? The XBox pretty much runs DirectX on a hacked Win2K, while the GCN uses a custom version of OpenGL. The rendering languages may be simliar to what you see on a PC with both, but it's easier to port to the XBox from PC and vice versa simply because like it or not, the XBox IS a PC at heart.

yes, at last.

[mfh]

Not like this every happened with...

Sony
Nintendo
Philips
Sega
Atari
EA
Akklai m
3dfx
id Software

I could go on, but I don't feel like searching Google right now.

Scissors + Standards Documents...

[Jerk City Troll]

I guess this means we're going to see a flood of games that either require an NVIDIA accellerator or "highly recommend" one (read: "this game will look like shit on ATI").

Nah, it'll never happen. They'll stick to OpenGL, I'm sure of it!

Re:Scissors + Standards Documents...

[Nitar]

They will lose sales on games in that case. I know that many gamers who are building new boxes, or buying new graphics cards, are buying the Radeon 9700Pro or the 9800Pro.

The reasons for this are that the 9800 Pro is faster than the LONG awaited GeforceFX 5800 Ultra in almost every area. The 9700 Pro is about equivalent in performance. Check out the reviews on tomshardware.com and anandtech.com and see for yourself.

Anyhow, I doubt EA would want to alienate ATI at this point.

Re:Scissors + Standards Documents...

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, openGL is the API that needs custom codepaths for each video card. This makes easy to optimize for one brand of card and not another.

D3d is standardized, so the only way to optimize for a card is to look at the hardware and use features that one card does better.

Alliance?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it an Evil Alliance?

Evil Man

Re:Alliance?

[imac.usr]

Is it an Evil Alliance?

Aren't they all these days?

Re:Alliance?

[IAR80]

No! This is the coalition.

Re:Alliance?

[telstar]

Is it an Evil Alliance?

• Nah, then it'd be an axis....

Re: The point.

[BabyDave]

After having a horrible experience trying to get a darn kernel driver working with an Nvidia card (which has been sitting in a box for a year now) I'm now exclusively ATI.

Try taking the card out of the box and plugging it into the PC.

HTH

Uh oh.

[Anonymous Coward]

This can only be an EVIL alliance.

think X think Box.

[oliverthered]

What GFX card is in the XBox?

EA have just taken a stiff 5 1/4 inches from bill gates.

Re:think X think Box.

[Dot.Com.CEO]

EA publish for Sony Playstation, Sony PS2, Nintendo Gamecube, Nintendo Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, the PC and the X Box.

Only a true troll would be able to make a connection with Microsoft...

Re:think X think Box.

[Anonymous Coward]

EA wont (wouldn't) publish games for the X-Box live.

Re:think X think Box.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, your dreaming if you think EA is going to release anything for linux. Nvidia is clearly in bed with Microsoft

"NVIDIA hardware will become the preferred PC graphics platform for EA's worldwide studios to give its developers the best solution for realizing their creative visions."

Meaning at this point in time Nvidia is not EA's preferred platform, but it will be. More focus on Nvidia means more focus on xbox than ps2, cube or any other platform. It certainly doesn't mean more focus on linux.

"NVIDIA also announced that it has been awarded the exclusive OEM bundling rights to certain EA PC titles. Under terms of the agreement, NVIDIA will act as sole OEM distributor of certain PC titles published under the EA Games and EA Sports brands, bundling select content with its PC manufacturer and system builder partners."

system builder partners = Microsoft = XBox

There's no connection to linux at all. Linux is the furthest thing from Nvidia's mind.

Stop...

[Anonymous Coward]

...this. You have been warned.

U.S.M.$. Goverment

What they mean is...

[koi88]

"it also means EA will support games on all PC platforms featuring NVIDIA hardware"

That, of course, means, they'll support all PC platforms as long as they're Windows 2000, ME or XP. Linux is not a hardware platform and a Macintosh is not a PC.

Re:What they mean is...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are dumb.

Linux is a pc platform, and NVIDIA hardware works under linux.

Re: The point.

[laughing_badger]

If it don't fit ('cos of that ATI you have in there), send it to me and I'll do some testing on it for you. Should only take a year or two.

Re: The point.

[pmz]

Try taking the card out of the box and plugging it into the PC.

I wonder how many tech support calls were resolved with exactly that answer.

This reminds me of Homer Simpson's first computer where he used the mouse as a microphone...

Sorry, gotta ask: who the heck is EA?

[mwood]

The article seems to be saying that they make games of some sort. I guess I would know, if I thought there was a better game than _GCC and binutils_. :-)

Stopped Buying EA Games years ago

[zcollier]

I wonder how many of us will be completely unaffected by this?

I vowed never to buy another Electronic Arts game years ago, after they decided that Ultima Online and its patrons deserved to be handled in a cynically condescending and ham-fisted manner. I will never forgive EA for having me pay to play a beta, their game not even living up to the feature set printed on the box.

From what I hear, their customer support has only gotten worse, not better, as they farm support out internationally, while making it even more difficult to email or call in for support (by not providing such information), let alone overcoming potential language barriers.

EA..... Are they NUTS

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, EA has some wonderful and exciting games.....
but does it matter much if they dont work, crash my system, reply with nasty stupid moronic emails from inquiries for support????
Well NVIDIA you just lost my business.
Not a Coward.... waiting for password.....
RichEcyber

The question is....

[carlmenezes]

Does an agreement for EA to "promote" NVIDIA also mean an agreement for EA to "demote" ATI?

Now that ATI has the flag as far as graphics hardware is concerned, it will be a sad thing to see the large number of games that EA pumps out only work well with NVIDIA cards.

Granted, this is more a micosoftish thing to do, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. NVIDIA has been known to be bossy in the past.

This is nothing - only a bundling deal

[Torgo's Pizza]

There's already been discussion on this since yesterday on [H]ardforums. Too many people are reading the press release and thinking the graphics world is coming to an end. This is only a deal to get EA games bundled with Nvidia cards. That's it.

First off, let's look at some parts of the press statement. Graphics microchip maker Nvidia Corp. NVDA.O and video game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. ERTS.O said on Thursday they would collaborate to market and develop new games. No biggie here. ATI does the same thing. Actually, in truth the way this works is EA will say to one of their development houses under contract, "Hey, we've got this Nvidia guy we'd like you to talk to, to help you implement some new features."

Under the terms of the deal, Nvidia hardware will become the "preferred" graphics platform for Electronic Arts's video game studios, and video games developed by Electronic Arts may offer features designed to work on Nvidia hardware. Note the quotes around "preferred" and the added emphasis (mine) on may. Note that this is all fuzzy and hazy on exactly what is going to be done. The terms "exclusive" isn't used. Fact is, the developers who actually make the games aren't going to cut off their nose to despite their face. Neither is the publisher.

Nvidia also said it will have exclusive rights to bundle Electronic Arts's games for personal computers with its products. Ah ha! This is what this whole thing is about. The best way to sell a game is to bundle it. The publisher makes a guarenteed sale and lowers his cost of production (no boxes to make, no instructions to print) as well. Best of all, a bundle is usually a guarenteed sale. Nvidia has already bought the game if they sell the video card or not and EA counts it in their books. The only thing that ATI users won't get is a EA game when they buy a new card. No big deal since ATI can lower the price of their card because they don't include a software bundle, or they could go to some other publisher.

Finally, for all those bitching and whining about this you've already been suckered into this for years and years. Bundling agreements have been around and we all have bought products that have them. You buy joysticks and dohickeys because they have video game support and drivers built in. They come with bundles as well. I've bought plenty of video cards with bundles. Most computers come with bundles. All of them involve agreements like Nvidia and EA and press releases.

What is this really? In exchange for technical expertise, the developer gets a free resource to implement some advanced features (which we probably won't use anyway) in return for some games in a video card box. Big whoop. There's just been too much FUD about this. It's not like DoomNukem IX only going to work on a Nvidia card. There's no conspiracy. There's no little green men trying to take away your ATI card. There's no men in black trying to limit your free choice.

It's a bundling agreement. That's it. Now go back to your homes. There's nothing to see here.

Missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm, posting as AC as I've never gotten around to creating an account...

As a games developer, I do see the value of what is happening here.

PCs are the biggest pain in the arse to develop for. First you have a range of specs for processor + ram to deal with, then you have a miriad of graphics cards to get working, then you have the logistical nightmare of trying to test your game on every possible hardware combination out there - and you still get screamed at by angry users who whine that the game is buggy since it doesnt work on their obscure setup. All this, and you are selling to a much, much smaller market than the console world (where you have a fixed platform for 5 years at a time!)

Getting EA to only produce nVidia games is a coup for both parties. The development is easier as you only have to concentrate on one graphics driver set. The creation of graphical effects is eased, as the capabilities of all the cards that you are developing for are relatively fixed. nVidia get a slew of games that utilise the high end features that other devcos shy away from because they know they won't be able to create them on all platforms (limited time + money, folks... most devco's live in the real world =(

All in all, I see it as a smart move. It is sad to see a market getting squeezed so hard that it has to resort to moves like this, but the competition from consoles is huge.

It just doesn't make sense to develop for a platform where you have to cater for a plethora of (often conflicting) standards when you can create for a platform where you know the limits.

Akula

Re:Missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah well, only just saw the bundleing agreement post. If thats the case, ignore me... that kind of thing's been going on for yonks.

But, rumors have it that nVidia and ATI have been trying to set up this kind of relationship with devco's... in which case see my last post.

Akula

Re:Missing the point

[beuges]

Maybe I am missing the point, but isn't that why standard API's like DirectX and OpenGL are there for? Tell DirectX to draw some shit and it tells the driver "Hey, draw this shit." Then the driver tells the card "Draw this shit" and shit gets drawn. The driver (provided by the card maker) is what actually talks to the card. Sure you have NVidia-only features and ATI-only features, but those would be mostly the exceptions rather than the rules. I always thought it would be the task of the card manufacturer to implement support for a particular standard in its drivers and hardware, then you, as a game developer, pick a standard, like DirectX or OpenGL, and stick with it.

Re:Missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, but the standards like DirectX don't tend to support the really high end features of the cards. If you come up with a really fancy hardware shader that does nightvision on one card, you have to spend time working out how to achieve the same effect on every other card (via DirectX / OpenGL.) This makes it nigh on pointless (economically) to try to develop for the high end features: noticed how samey all Direct X games are looking these days?

Disclaimer: I'm a designer, not a coder.

Of course, the origin of that joke...

[AzrealAO]

goes back several more years to Star Trek IV, when Scotty tries to give voice commands to the Macintosh in the Plexiglass Plant Manager's office.

Re: The point.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a sad wanker. Install Windows, no "kernel driver" needed. But, of course, you would know that. You commie LOSER.

Apple buys Beatles' rights ?

[makapuf]

seems an historical pun.

(disclaimer : this was found no the register)

the sad part is

[stuph]

that a year, year and a half ago, none of this would have been necessary. nvidia was on top of the graphics world, at least for gaming, and nobody really came close.. if, instead of wasting all this time with promotion, advertising, and closed-door boardroom deals, they had been tossing more money into R&D then maybe they would have a VIABLE, SHIPPING product that could COMPETE with the radeon these days..

Unbelievable

[j4ck50n]

All the support I see here for EA...

And they differ from MS how?

They seem to be buying all the smaller studios and then either cancelling or crippling the games in development. Did they or did they not just buy the company working on the RTCW expansion and cancel it among others?

Support...please.

This collaboration will either:

A) Suck

B) Go nowhere

C) Backfire

Yea yea, they 'own' sports titles and have made a few decent driving games, but they also churn out a lot of buggy crap. BF1942 is not all that, C&C Gen is shallow as all hell. Etc etc.

We'll see.

Re:Unbelievable

[Anonymous Coward]

C&C Gen is shallow as all hell

But it's such fun shallowness. :) I like to use it as a sort of battle construction set, and recreate scenes from action movies.

Re:Unbelievable

[stuph]

BF1942 was written and produced by an amazing group of guys... DICE made a friggin' great game.. EA had little to do with it, outside of working them too hard on an expansion before the original game was patched up well

universal platform support?

[gobbligook]

shouldn't they support all platforms regardless of hardware? Isn't that the idea of standardized game development? And that would make sense if they wanted to make some serious $.

Although the majority of gamers are using a windows based system, or a console, it would be nice to get those games on Mac's or Linux systems. I remember a time when the developers would build the games for both windows and macs. What happened to that?

Re: The point.

[Anonymous Coward]

" Of course, now ID(and a few associates, Nerve, Etc) has to join with ATI. I think I know which combination I favor. :)"

They have to, do they? Or is this just the fevered dream of a ranting fanboy?

Re: The point.

[Galvatron]

After having a horrible experience trying to get a darn kernel driver working with an Nvidia card... I'm now exclusively ATI.

If you're running Linux exclusively, this may be a good solution. I bought an ATI Radeon 7500 because it has open source 3d drivers for linux. Unfortunately, Windows support blows. I could not upgrade the Win2k drivers from those that came with the card. Any attempt to upgrade would simply result in a frozen screen on reboot. Tech support gave me a long list of things to do, which I dutifully spent a weekend going through, doing each item on the list, no matter how absurd. At the end, it still didn't work, and I told ATI so. Their response was essentially "tough shit." So, now I'm exclusively NVIDIA.

ATI???

[brunes69]

ATI is probably going to come out as the winner

Based upon what? Anyone remember 6-7 years ago when NVidia was in a head to head war with 3DFX (ATI was not even on the map) and 3DFX was clearly the dominant player? NVidia ended up buying them. And up until around 1 year ago ATI was light years behind NVidia. Just because ATI is currently ahead by a VERY small margin does not mean they are anywhere near assured a smooth ride. Plus NVidia has alot going to it that ATI does not. I for one will never buy a card from ATI due to their extremely poor track record with driver stability and customer service. Not to mention NVidia has rock solid drivers available for my favorite platform (Linux) while the corrosponding ATI drivers blow ass and offer a miniscule set of features.

Re:ATI???

[Anonymous Coward]

ATI Has been issuing regular whql certified drivers very frequently and have committed more time and effort into quality driver production than I would say nvidia is currently doing.The latest releases from ATI have been exceptional in quality and stability. The days of bad drivers are essentially in the past. When was the last WHQL release of a nvidia driver set? Quite a few months ago. The Nvidia users are nothing more than beta testers.

Re:ATI???

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing but FUD or you haven't kept up on hardware news for the past few years. ATI drivers are actually very well done now so that arguement is null and void. Both companies have their own flagships and ATI's is 9 out of 10 times the winner in any test, especially visual quality. Need I mention the 3dmark2k3 hack NVidia wrote into their drivers and they still couldn't catch up to ATI who didn't use a hack at all? All this deal will do is lock out consumers and force them to buy NVidia cards to play their games. Microsoft does it, it is bad. NVidia does it, it is good. Explain the logic, or lack of, to all of this?

Re:ATI???

[Slack3r78]

. I for one will never buy a card from ATI due to their extremely poor track record

Agreed. I still can't get images of that god awful Rage chipset and its refusal to texture ANYTHING properly out of my nightmares. Yeah, judging a company off a crappy product from years ago may seem shallow, but if you had any idea of how much gaming that card ruined for me, you'd understand. Really. You would.

Re:ATI???

[mink]

I guess you dont use Nvidia either, so what do you use Permedia?

Remember how craptacular the early Nvidia cards (back in the Voodo1/2 era) were? Easily as bad if not worse then the Rage cards.

Re:ATI???

[Slack3r78]

hehe The difference is the Nvidias weren't in EVERY single OEM setup I had to deal with. Honestly, I never really saw many Nvidias until around the TNT2 era. Like I said, it's a crappy reason for bias, but dammit, I hated those cards. :)

Re: The point.

[Anonymous Coward]

iD *hates* ATI ever since the Doom 3 leak.

This is hardly new

[Syncdata]

EA has been making it's games with Nvidia in mind for many moons now. When I worked there a year ago, the latest version of their golf game was dubbed "Tiger Woods' Nvidia Golf." It just didn't run that well on anything other than a Nvidia video card.
EA is a large company, and they are ALL about bottom line. So it's not at all surprising that they are going to side with the company that (currently) is tops in sales, both retail and OEM.
But ATI is making moves, so this might not be the smoovest of moves.

Re:This is hardly new

[Anonymous Coward]

smoovest? for some reason i can't stop laughing

I thought this was older news

[Slime-dogg]

Judging by one of the first screens that pop up in UT 2K3, you'd think that nVidia and EA are in cahoots. I hardly ever see any other graphics company prominently displayed on a startup screen for a game.

This could also be the result of Nvidia's failure to be king in the vid-card market. There's been enough mud flying back and forth between them and ATI to eclipse the sun. Seriously, I think that this won't really help Nvidia in the long run.

The nv bf servers are some of the worst

[Anonymous Coward]

And thats saying alot when billjoebob runs one off of his cm.

F1 2002 Sucked

[xtal]

Last time I buy a game before getting a copy first. It sucked HARD. F1 Racing and Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 4 are fastly better games, but guess what? EA appears to have the rights to all later than 2001 FIA rights. So nobody else can make a F1 game based around recent teams.

Arrgh.

STMicro

[Andy Dodd]

Not sure, but I believe NVidia used to be part of STMicro.

Feel free to use the open-source ATI drivers

[Andy Dodd]

Until you want to play UT2003. Oh wait, it won't work because ATI's driver support blows (read: missing S3TC support.)

Same with NV drivers. You're welcome to use the open-source drivers, but if you actually want performance, you'll have to go binary-only.

Mod Parent Up

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree completely,

It seems the old 3dFX people are really changing the way nVidia is doing business. ATI's current generation of products have surpassed nvidia, so they respond by pouring money into marketing rather than engineering.

I don't see why all these "open source" people like this deal (because supposedly nvidia makes linux drivers), its nothing more than two companies using their market positions to squash competition. Games should run best on the best hardware, not on hardware made by the highest bidder. This is something a company like microsoft would do, not somthing the open software world should be proud about.

Thats Nice and all

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

But Nvidia is still SUCKING HIND TIT compared to ATI's offerings. Nvidia used to rule the roost, but there is a new sheriff in town and its name is ATI!!! i AM GLAD TO SEE THAT nVIDIA IS AT LEASE TRYING (AND NOT GOING TO JUST ROLLOVER AND DIE)

Just a thought but...

[substance2003]

It just seems to me that this sounds alot like an attempt to copy the microsoft/intel approch that has made those companies succesful and have them dubbed wintel.

Maybe we should start giving them a name like eadia or nviea.

WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.

[Blaede]

You should get the GTR mod for F1-2002, it improves the base game by 10X. Also, EA's F1 licence expires this year and they are not renewing it. They might not even release F1-2003 (even though they are supposed to). After this year, EA is out of the F1 game, the licensing costs are just too much.

Slashdot now a corporate mouthpiece or what!?!!

[fruitbat23]

I can't believe this is even an new item around here..
I mean this is a TOTAL NON-ITEM. Just an excuse for EA/NVidia to SPAM every news outlet on the planet under a wave of Press Releases.
I mean it's great to see the Marketing Monkeys are doing their job, but gimme a break!
This item has appeared on EVERY News service on the web by now! AND IS SAYS NOTHING!

Easy porting???

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if EA only knew how to fully utilize the hardware.

EA will support Mac OS?

[GPS Pilot]

EA will support games on all PC platforms featuring NVIDIA hardware

My Mac is a PC that features NVIDIA hardware... can I look forward to lots of EA games for it?

BAH!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

stupid ati fanboy dorks

I Like Pretzels...

[Anonymous Coward]

The green ones make me horny.