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ATI vs. NVIDIA: ATI Steals the Show

(54)T-Dub writes "Apparently a group of MIT engineers made an OpenGL wrapper for the NVidia Demo of 'Dawn.' (a fairy with high sex appeal) Even though the wrapper adds more overhead the demo still runs faster on the 9800pro and creates higher quality images." Yet another reason it's good to have engineering students on your side.

10 of 400 comments (clear)

  1. Re:OUCH by mharris007 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That might be true, if they weren't venturing into any other computer market other than graphics. Considering they got one of the hottest chipsets (nForce 2) for AMD CPUs right now, I don't see them going completely downhill in all their computer markets.

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  2. Re:OUCH by roalt · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Once they kill off Nvidia, they will have no excuse not to release open source drivers, there'll be nobody left to copy them.

    For years, NVIDIA was the number one in 3D graphics on the PC. And yet, they did not release any open source drivers as it is considered top secret business confidentiality.

    Why do you think ATI will do otherwise?

  3. trend? by graveyhead · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1) Get to the top of the video card market.
    2) Get lazy.
    3) Competitor gets to the top of video card market.

    Rinse, lather, repeat as necessary.

    Didn't NVIDIA learn from 3DFX? Hell, they bought them. I'm hoping this is a driver issue and that subsequent optimized releases of Detinator will speed it up. If not, it is a sad day for NVidia.

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  4. idea by wiggys · · Score: 5, Insightful
    It's pretty silly paying through the nose for an expensive new graphics card when the only thing you can "play" are the tech demos.

    Sure, the card is faster so you can now play your existing games with anti-aliasing on all the time (well, mostof the time...) but unfortunately your games won't look any different.

    Remember the first time you installed your 3dfx card (inc pass-through cable) and played GLQuake? Amazing! High res smooth graphics on your P166, the envy of consoles everywhere. Then nVidia brough our their TNT cards which did 32-bit colour... nice. But since then, what's changed? Answer: not much. There are only a handful of games which use 50% of the features offered by a Geforce 3. I have a Ti4600 and a Ti200 and it's nigh on impossible to tell them apart.

    Why the Sam Hill should I buy ANOTHER new card when there's simply no compelling reason to upgrade?

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  5. Financials by gwappo · · Score: 5, Insightful
    nVidia, unlike 3DFX at the time, has a huge pile of cash sitting on their balance sheet.

    Although its engineers need to learn to ignore their marketing dept. the management of nVidia is pretty good

    expect them to regain the crown at the NV40 marker, ATI has indicated they'd be slowing their innovation cycles, whereas nVidia has made no such statement.

  6. Re:Slashdot Effect by tavis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's usually cause the banner ad is pulled from another website.

  7. Re:Fairies? by Yarn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    princesses don't have transparent wings to show off transparancy etc.

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  8. "Lazy"? Not so sure about that. by gwappo · · Score: 5, Insightful
    nVidia did not get lazy, instead, they did the smart thing and diversified, which is why we now have nVidia in the chipset market.

    Good move at the time, and a good move now as it will allow them to bridge the poor comparative performance of their graphics unit vs. ATI.

  9. Re:OUCH by Cloud+9 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Probably because if they don't someone else will come along (maybe even NVIDIA) with open source drivers and kill them off.

    Why, in order to satisfy a few thousand users who demand them?

    Get real. I'm as big of a linux fan as the next guy, but money talks. There simply isn't enough of it in the hands of users to cast a meaningful vote. That's the real reason it hasn't been done yet. There simply isn't enough cash coming in from linux users to justify it, regardless of whether or not there's licensed IP or top-secret code in there.

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  10. Re:Graphics Wars by Falrick · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One feather that nVidia has added to their hat in the last two years is their beginnings of diversification. No longer are the completely reliant on the consumer graphics market, what with their entry into the motherboard market. They have produced graphics chips for the XBox and have made a healthy entry into the mobile graphics chip realm. A couple (few?) years back they received a contract from the US Gov to produce graphics chips for displays in military jets (if memory serves).

    They have much more going for them then being purely a gaming chip company. Given time I suspect that we'll see nVidia and ATi oscilate the leadership position. nVidia, while in the valey, has other businesses to fall back on.

    While not always the case, companies with a backup plan tend to be more willing to take risks simply because if the risk doesn't pan out it doesn't spell disaster for the company. I think that we'll see more inovation coming from nVidia yet.

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