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ATI Wins Bid For Next Xbox
TypoNAM writes "CNET News is reporting that graphics chip underdog ATI Technologies has signed a contract with Microsoft to produce components for future versions of the Xbox game console, beating out market leader Nvidia." According to the article, "The announcement ends months of speculation over whether Nvidia, the leading maker of graphics processors for PCs, would renew its troubled partnership with Microsoft on the Xbox."
This roughly equates to: "We choose ATI because they begged more and offerred to do it for less. I don't want to burn any bridges with Nvidia, so let's just say something about vision, or strategy, or something. Besides, Nvidia wanted more money. Right, well, time to crush some little entertainment company now, recycle their goods, and call it innovation!" in normal, human language.
I'm thinking Microsoft made a mistake, with NVidia they could of renamed the game executables to 3DMark03.exe and gotten just that much more power!
Mike
If this is the case it seems unlikely that we will see any backwards compatibility between xbox2 and the original. The original Nvidia chip was based on a DX part (and it's likely the ATI one will be as well) but the better games access a lot of the hardware directly.
Of course it's possible that MS were smart enough to have conditions in the original X-Box contract with Nvidia that would allow them to produce a more or less compatible chip.
contract with the devil is not good...
Hrmmm. Given that the CEO of Nvidia has made comments discussing his "platform on a chip" concept for the company, it makes me wonder if Microsoft views him as a potential future competitor?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
How do you think this will affect the current relationship between ATI and gamecube?
My Sig Beat up your Honor Roll Sig
The reason i can't play todays FPS's isn't that Nvidia isn't compatible it's that my card is too old and is obsolete.
I'll bet that the games will be backward compatible.
I went to battle MC Escher, but drew a blank
I'm so confused...
SCO - Eternally bad
Microsoft - Very Bad
IBM - Good? Bad? They are the guys with the guns.
RedHat - Good
Nvidia - Bad, or good? I don't know this week.
ATI - Good or bad now they partner with MS?
Help!
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
6 days changes a lot in the graphics card business...... So much for Nvidia cashes in on Xbox chips
Every company that ever deals with MS gets shafted. I give them a year before Microsoft discovers that it is perfectly able to produce its own graphics systems, using technology that is amazingly close to ATI's, yet incredibly much cheaper.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
to pick up some ATI stock. I thought about investing in Nvidia a while back but didn't really have the money to throw down at the time. IIRC, that was a little before they started winning all of those big contracts (like with MS). Would have at least tripled my money (or maybe more). DOH!
And the opportunity might be here again, and still no money to throw around. (Sigh)
"I turn away with fright and horror from the lamentable evil of functions which do not have derivatives."
"Made in Canada"
Maybe this will help us get over that Lumber/Mad Cow hump.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Maybe we will see Nvidia jump over to nintendo's camp now sinec ATI is on with M$...
The Good Life
I thought ATI had taken that title away from Nvidia a couple years ago.
The announcement ends months of speculation over whether Nvidia, the leading maker of graphics processors for PCs, would renew its troubled partnership with Microsoft on the Xbox.
/. submission regarding their 'troubled partnership'? I'm curious as to what's been happening.
Does anyone have a link to a story or
I would hope that this relationship will assist ATI in fine tuning their still awful drivers that seem to conflict with everything on my system.
Will this decrease the size of the oh so HUGE current Xbox? Frankly who wants to lug something of that massive stature into their homes? I for one think it hurt the sales of the original Xbox.
I think any chance AMD had in getting the X-Box contract just went up in flames.
yep! Willing to do whatever for the MS Monster. And I really like my 9500Pro too! Hopefully, we'll see some Nvidia open-source drivers real-soon-now huh!
This poses the question of whom Nintendo will be using for their next consoles graphics processor. With the Gamecube it was ArtX (whom ATI now owns). So with this deal with the devil will Nintendo have to go else where? With all the talk of their next box coming in 2005 and that specs are already getting released to developers I would imagine they already have a team in place for this, but have they said who?
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
Now its gonna be a real pain in the ass to configure video drivers once I put Linux on my Xbox2.
to give or to take the beating?
Rebounders were my ONLY hope in college. Sure they were damaged goods, but hey, I'm no prize pig myself. Maybe ATI is the Slashdot Geek waiting to feed off the scraps left behind, not because they can't compete, but because it's just easier, and you still get your itch scratched?
ATI Technologies has signed a contract with Microsoft... ...which means ATI will be yanking all their open source and Linux support within the next 60 days.
It's Corel all over again.
It has been demonstrated that while nVidia may have the fastest overall chip, ATi has concentrated on a more balanced solution -- better color and clarity of the image. ATi's ship is not all that much slower than nVidia anyway when you look at the specs and benchmarks. I would rather have a game console that's fast and has a good, crisp image than a fuzzy-around-the-edges rendering. This is a good thing for XBox.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
You are bad, Microsoft Man! You are bad and we are good! Your badness will be your demise, and our goodness will be our triumph! Bad is bad, good is good! Good-good, bad-bad, bad-bad, good,bad, good,good,bad,bad,good.
nVidia starts warming up to non-Microsoft OS's (see Mac OS X, the binary drivers for Linux, some discussions of opening up docs, etc) then Microsoft offers them a spot on the XBox. Suddenly, top-end support for getting their chipset used elsewhere seems to evaporate. By this time, nVidia is pretty much an also-ran on other platforms, support is horrid and people are fleeing to ATI.
Now, Microsoft buddy-buddies up to ATI, promices big contract. How long before ATI's non-M$ efforts start becoming lackluster, and support is dropped?
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
I don't understand why ATI is considered an "underdog" these days.
... people tend to forget that nVidia was not only supplying the video solution for the Xbox, but also the networking and audio components. So with nVidia out of the picture, who is going to do the audio and networking? Does ATI have any GOOD audio and network chipsets? I know they have some sort of motherboard chipset "a la nForce", but does it feature decent 5.1 audio and networking?
Financial terms of the new deal were not disclosed, but Rick Bergman, senior vice president of marketing for ATI, confirmed that the contract includes a royalty arrangement that will protect ATI from the type of inventory problems that hampered Nvidia.
Hopefully ATI has seen how the relationship worked with NVDA and used their experience with Nintendo. If this is a license to have someone else manufacture like NEC does with the flipper chip, ATI should be okay.
Remember ATI has a Pentium IV license and will shortly releasing their dual DDR 9100-class graphics integrated motherboards(RS300). I suspect ATI won't just be doing graphics, but might provide the entire momboard infrastructure.
Microsoft also announced that this will be a Special Edition XBox, or SEXBox for short. So ATI will actually enter into and penetrate the SEXBox market.
Remember: no matter how powerful the system is or how pretty the graphics are, the games are what make the system great. If Microsoft can't pull in good games, their new console will die fairly quickly.
Goo goo g'joob.
Considering that ATI probably didn't make out well with the GameCube, and NVidia didn't fare much better with the XBox, shouldn't they be scrambling to provide hardware for the PS3 instead of fighting over the "scraps", since the PS2 has pretty much cleaned up the console market? Not trying to start a flame war, but 50/8/8 is pretty much a win. Does Sony produce their own GPUs?
If I were a GPU manufacturer, I'd rather have my widgets in 50-60 million PS2 units rather than 8 million GC or XBox units. Anyone know the story on this one?
Who's the troll now then???
I was merely pointing out that the word bush is another word for vagina.
Pesky right-wing conspiracy theorists.
Um, calling ATI an underdog is a gross misrepresentation. Not only do they have the best performing chips, but their marketshare is actually dominant in many areas.
http://www.beyond3d.com/#news7249
DX9 Marketshare:
ATI 40%
nVidia 60%
Integrated Marketshare:
ATI 21%
nVidia 27%
Laptop Marketshare:
ATI 68%
nVidia 32%
In most cases, nVidia's share in the last quarter fell, while ATI's was on the rise. Plus, ATI will be in all XBox sales and Playstation sales.
Underdog? That's one brawny underdog.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
It depends on how closely the games tied to the GPU. My games work equally well on an ATI or NVidia card in windows, no reason the same shouldn't apply on a console. Now, it could be that they have to do a little modification to make it run right, or that not all old games will be quite exactly same as X-box #1, but ah well.
That being said, I wonder how many people here would go for an X-box anyhow? The current game linup isn't great anyhow, much better stuff on other consoles, though perhaps this will change for X-2.
Might be a good slashdot poll:
Preferred console:
a) Gamecube
b) Playstation 2
c) X-box
d) X-box (but I run linux)
e) Atari 2500 rules!
Somebody with one more mod point, please mod this as insightful instead. I'm not kidding.
why a company as huge as MS has to bid this stuff out? Wouldn't it be easier to just buy the company and move on? What am I missing here?
MMORPG Fan? Prove your worth!
Give me a break..ATI is the graphics chip underdog? Please. They've been making chips for like 20 years (mostly crappy). With the advent of the 9000 series they finally made cards that dont suck ass, and are taking away the business from Nvidia hand over fist. Since they obviously are willing to wheel and deal (probably selling the chips to M$ at cost) to take the business away from Nvidia, who are having trouble competing with the graphics GIANT. Obviously ATI is pulling a M$, getting in taking over market share and then boosting prices.
Nvidia will be out of business in 2 years (or close to it). But, as always Micro$oft is out to steal technology...
Bring your friends close, bring your enemies even closer.
I hope ATI fuking chokes on the short end of the stick when it's rammed up their ass.
Some have speculated that the reason ATI caught up with (and surpassed) nvidia in the overall speed category was because nvidia took time off from their R&D to do the xbox. I think even John Carmack may have referenced this in one of his .plan updates. At any rate, nvidia no doubt realized that they couldn't do xbox2 _and_ regain the speed crown. I predict that this move may benefit ATI in the short run but they will allow nvidia to catch up again and overall I think this benefits nvidia.
Can anyone mane ONE company that entered into an agreement with Microsoft that didn't get screwed?
Help fight continental drift.
Seattle WA: Microsoft, with the ink barely dry on its chip deal with ATI, turned around and sued ATI in an attempt to get ATI to lower its chip prices.
A Microsoft spokesperson was quoted as saying, "We're losing about 100 dollars on each Xbox we sell. We feel that ATI should bear the burden of at least some of these tremendous loses. At least until we steal their technology and get our own chip plant up to speed."
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I imagine the "troubled partnership" between Micros~1 and NVidia is largely based on the fact that NVidia made damn sure they had a good contract in place.
NVidia and Microsoft cut their deal when NVidia was the undisputed leader in graphics chips, and Microsoft was the undisputed leader in anti-trust crimes. NVidia, being founded in part by ex-Sun employees, knew full well that dealing with Microsoft was a sure-fire way to get screwed. So no small amount of time was spent making absolutely certain the contract between them left no room for "creative misinterpretation" on either side.
I imagine NVidia wants/wanted to exercise the same care in the Xbox2 deal, but Microsoft would rather have someone they can walk over. Hence the "troubled partnership."
This is, of course, all pure speculation.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Provided the developers actually used DirectX, none.
haahhaahahahahhha!!!!!!!
Uneducated? If you think he is uneducated then either you are the next plato, or you are very ignorant. Bush recieved his undergraduate degree from YALE, and went on to recieve a Master of Business Administration from Harvard. HARVARD!! If you call that uneducated then I suggest you wait till middle school to get into politics.
What you are really upset about is that your pansy GoreBot couldn't sue his way into the oval office.
Yeah right, and why exactly they're the underdog??? Cause NVidia had slightly larger part of the market for the last 3 months, cause NVidia's quote is a bit higher(at the moment), or cause they(ATI) were the first(and arguebly still are the only one) to provide a GPU with DX9 support???
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
These are some of the reasons I hate your idiot president, hope it's rational enough for you - although, to be frank, with a sig such as the one you're sporting I'm sincerely doubting whether I should have bothered.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
...somebody already posted a reply with similar idea....sorry for the dupe.
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
This is all simply observation from where I stand, and may or may not indeed be accurate, but I've got a strong feeling that nVidia's getting slapped by the trout of irony in the short term, that Microsoft is having fun with their spot on the totem pole of cash, and ATI and nVidia may in fact switch places again with this move.....
What we saw with X-Box one looked like this: nVidia makes waves with graphics cards. nVidia scores humongous x-box deal. nVidia wisely focuses on development of their x-box product, while losing some focus on their core audience, home PC gamers. R&D mishaps, and one bad mini-product-line later, and now ATI's got a clear lead in the game.
Honestly, I bet that if Microsoft makes ATI contort and wrap themselves around all sorts of bad practices and ideas just to make the perfect X-Box 2 chip, ATI may just lose ground back to nVidia... Remember, ATI thinks they are the ones with nothing to lose now, while nVidia learned the hard way that a dustbuster makes for a sloppy cooling fan, and are resolved to quit making mistakes.... especially since they probably aren't happy with the net results of their first Microsoft outing.
nVidia's strong point has always been their continued driver development (yes, I know the Linux driver is not open. Yes, I know about the 3Dmark controversy), and since updating drivers on a console is not something people would be used to doing, or even allowed to do, ATI's raw speed bonus seems logical.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
I could care less about Gore, but you do realize that because someone recieved a degree from Yale does not mean he is educated.
access the hardware directly? where would you get such an idea?
developers are using dx8 and at most are hand-coding vertex and shader routines; which if you hadn't noticed, may have been proprietary to nvidia 2 years ago, but are directx 9 canon now.
there is no reason to expect that xbox2 will not have backwards compatibility. there is every reason to assume that it will. heck, nintendo might even cave and have backwards compatibility.
if anyone has learned anything from the ps2 run - it's that backwards compatibility guarantees solid sales out of the gate. you can accuse microsoft of many things - but being bad businesspeople is not one of them. they know where the money goes.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Day of Week: M T W T F S Su
SCO E E E E E E E
Microsoft E E G E E E E
IBM G G E G G E G
RedHat G G G G G G G
NVidia G E G E G E G
ATI E G E G E G E
I don't really see how Apple got screwed when they entered their in to their agreement with microsoft.
If it wasn't for microsoft saving them apple would likely be dead today. Since microsoft saved them Apple has now regained its niche market, got back its stock from MS and is throwing off the MS baggage that remains.
SCO ;-)
So much for seeing Dawn on Xbox2.
Oh, wait... Nevermind.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
Xbox is not just Windows + Graphics card. What nVidia also produced was the chipset that amongst all things was also the sound subsystem of Xbox. nVidia has been very successful these years with nForce/2/3 in the gaming world and ATI has not yet shown anything comparable to these chipsets. Consider that these units are already integrated in nForce family: Direct Sound 3D hardware, Dual bank memory controller, 10/100Mbit Ethernet controller, IDE controller. And all these units are amongst the best ones available in the industry.
To be accurate, none of the big names
build their own hardware, hardly. Most is built
by anonymous assemblers in various places. Who
builds the rest of the X-Box? How much does
Microsoft pay in terms of royalties to other
companies for the various components?
I'm guessing (and it's a wild guess, based on
nothing more than twenty years of watching MS
in action) that Microsoft are paying quite a
lot for the graphics subsystem, and as usual
money is the deciding factor in such things.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Ok, I'll humor you...what then defines 'educated' in not recieving an education?
I don't get people that complain about the size. why would you judge a game system on how big or small it is? I understand it could be a cosmetic factor or even a technical issue (fitting it into your entertainment center), but isn't it the game that's important? Nintendo marketed the Cube as being small and cute. ? I take my xbox to my friends house all the time. I like that's it not Cute.
Hopefully MS will take advantage of ATI's other strength (swiss army knife video card) and expand the concept of a console into PVR, etc.
hahaha.. I can just see *this* coming back now.. http://tinyurl.com/4ui Why do people love to send you things like this.
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
Let me give you some examples...
... now go find another person and try to explain this to them. I'll be surprised if they do not laugh at you within the first 5 seconds.
Was Albert Einstein educated? yes
But he also dropped out of college.
So in your theorem Bush is more educated that Einstein
...between-keyboard-and-chair.... ah well.
i've yet to witness a change in ATI's driver situation. and quite frankly - it's the -only- thing left keeping me on the nvidia side of the fence.
as a gamer, i have no brand-loyalty. i want the fastest, cheapest, quitest card i can get - cuz we get pressured to upgrade often. but for all the compat probs my mates with ati have, i just can't stomach it. i'll cough up some frames for peace of mind thanks.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
I for one welcome our new ATI masters....
Well, nobody else said it, so I figured I'd get it out of the way.
I still miss Natalie and Ellen though...
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
Buy on rumor, sell on news. nVidia needs to fall in price before it becomes attractive.
nVidia got out engineered last August and their desperation plays with the drivers cheats prove they got nothing as a viable response until NV40. ATI is also way ahead in mobie, pda/settop. ATI will soon release RS300 dual DDR mom board chipsets. Nvidia bought mediaQ as a response, but ATI is the best bet right now. nVidia needs to fall about $6 before being a buy again.
Hmm, not really. Anyone that cared already knew, after all the dev details for xbox 2 have been circulating for a very long time now.
Xbox Linux gives consumers a reason to buy Xbox without buying a lot of games. If they are selling the console at a loss so they can make money on the games, this would cost them money. And MS doesn't like Linux anyway...
I suppose there are other ways they could patch the holes that allow unmodded Xboxen to run Linux, but removing backwards compatibility allows them to make other more drastic changes.
...better buy an extra tube of KY jelly, and wear a helmet.
He also went on to drive his company into the ground, bastardized the english language with such words as 'misunderestimated', and had his Harvard professors state that he had no business attending classes. If it weren't for his father, the guy that vomited on a foreign national, He would not have made Yale, Harvard, or had a job since graduating.
His policies favor the rich, has done little to nothing to restore investor confidence in American companies, and has consistantly 'raided the piggybank' for his warmongering ways, which only go to help big oil, big lumber, big business. His laissez-faire attitude towards the economy is only prolonging the recession which his republican predecessors had doomed with their questionable foreign policy, business pandering and overall chicanery.
In short, he is selling off America to the corporations. If he believes that these corps will act in the best interests of the country, he is more stupid than even I give him credit for. But at least his wallet isn't hurting any.
Another 8 years of Clinton is better than another 8 minutes of Bush.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go pack. I just won an all expense paid vacation to Camp X-Ray. All I need to pack is aspirin, to dull the pain of the torture, because I'm not a P.O.W, so I have no rights.
Thank you Georgie, may you rot in hell.
They are gonna get screwed, just like Nvidia.
Sooner or later the production price of the x-box has got to go down *again*, microsoft doesn`t want to have a cheap box now becouse they couldn`t get normal pc game developers over to the new x-box. The single reason the x-box has games for it is becouse the hardware/software is a plain direct-x windows box, meaning PC developers could just "hop over" to the console side without major engine rewrites. If the x-box 2 doesn`t have any power compared to pc`s there wont be games in time. But when the pc power to price ratio keeps going up (which it will in the 3d arena at least considering nvida wont let ATI walk away with all its customers just yet) then microsoft will want to make giving away xboxes at a loss cheaper again just like they tried with the nvidia based x-box. And then ATI cant say no to microsoft. ATI can only outperform nvidia in enough market segments as long as they keep supporting every single detail that the new direct-x standards come with. If microsoft doesn`t like them anymore, they will ahve a hard time keeping up in direct-x support and steering the direct-x direction toward their cards favourite arenas.
For nvidia the x-box was an opertunity to finance moving into the chipset market, afterall the xbox crush chipset is a plain nforce for the pentium III. With their past experience with microsofts xbox pricing tactics, I doubt nvidia would be willing to go very low in their price. Also this time with the amd hammer for the consumer market around the corner, nvidia`s has a new market where they have the advantage of already having a chip thats quite close to a hammer chipset. Afterall the nforce uses hypertransport between the north and southbridge which is also the bus protocoll for the "hammer". With the hammer having its own memory controler, the tasks of the northbridge evaporate quickly. So with the nforce southbridge as its basis nvidia only had to move the graphics part to the southbridge and they had a single chip hammer solution ready for the market.
This wont hurt nvidia, and they know it.
While I was mainly looking for internal citizens to reply, since its split down the US political middle, of sheer hatred from day one ( long before any of the 9/11 or Iraq issues came into play ) thanks for replying anyway.
Along my same point, there are many things he has done that have reduced my personal rights and freedoms, but I don't hate him at a personal level, I just dislike those polices.. thus what my confusion is based upon.
I cant really comment much on how others feel about the US defending itself since I'm on the inside, so ill leave that part alone. Other then that I can understand why outsiders that are on the wrong end of the stick could feel persecuted.. However that wont change my duty to defend myself and my family. ( Which overall is what we are doing, regardless of some of the questionable components. )
In closing I would like to comment about your apparent slam to my sig. ( or my open mindedness ) In my country its a recognized right. I only stand up to defend it ( along with the 10 others that part of my constitution. ). You may feel otherwise for yourself, but those feelings should not be allowed to effect my rights and liberties, only your choice not to exercise them. ( though I may have misinterpreted your intent ).
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Microsoft killed off Mac Internet Explorer, and has been making noises about killing off Mac Office.
Sure as heck they want to get a better price down the road. Thus they chose ATI which also has better image quality and cooler-running chips to boot. If they can also sell them for cheaper, so much the better.
So much for Nvidia cashing in on Xbox chips.
And, so much for ATI crashing on Xbox chips.
"This agreement cements ATI's position as the prime graphics supplier for the future of the games industry," ATI CEO K. Y. Ho said in a statement.
I like this new graphics chip already.
Why do they need the same company that makes the video chipset to also provide the audio and network chipsets? Sounds to me like they could shop around a bit for audio and network. That's not a bad thing either since nVidia isn't the only game in town when it comes to that stuff.
They're buying the package. nVidia doesn't have a Pentium IV bus license. Their nForce 2 efforts have been with AMD. ATI's Pentium efforts will soon shine when the RS300 integrated dual-channel DDR solutions are released. ATI has long been ahead in the low-power and pda/settop box area. That is what Microsoft wants Xbox to become - the new media center. Microsoft is not going for ATI as much for technology (which kicks ass - my 9700 pro rules) as for the relationship ATI has Intel and the fact that ATI can better deliver on Intel processors.
XBOX will use Intel. ATI-Intel are cozy (Intel licenses graphics tech from ATI, ATI gets to use the Pentium IV bus. nVidia is not getting a license to use the Pentium bus for daring to help AMD. Microsoft would have to dump Intel to use nVidia. Prediction: The rumored nForce for Pentiums will never be seen.
This means that Xbox2 will have Gatos 3D driver support for its video drivers, when someone boots Linux on the machine. Hehe.
Yeah - there's nothing quite like playing a suck-ass game with nice, clear, colorful images.
Not to mention that you are playing them on a low-res TV.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Surely the sequal to the XBOX is the "Y-Box?" .
Everyone wants a piece of the huge integrated-graphics pie. Intel owns it and is the only one threatened by it. ATI is soon releasing the RS300 with integrated graphics (9100-class). They would get it down to one chip as fast as nVidia, so I don't think this is the reason for the move.
ATI's acquisition of ArtX had a much broader effect than you think. I highly suggest reading this article about it over at EETimes.
This post sponsored by Ninja Burger. "
"proprietary for ps2: gta"
:D
Yes, let's ignore Xenosaga, which was the most successful first-game-launch for a company in the genre ever(tm). We'll also ignore metric assloads of other PS2-only games.
"proprietary for xbox: halo, mechassault, ghost recon, crimson skies, kotor"
Halo? That game they're tossing on the PC, with more vehicles, even? And MechAssault is a poor substitute for MechWarrior 4 - they can keep it on the X-Box. The rest, *shrug*. Only real beef there is kotor, if you're into Star Wars. (Which, if you are, you probably own a Gamecube.)
Stop speaking out yer ass, k thx byebye!
for their original X-Box's. NVIDIA still provided Linux drivers and support.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
There will be an Xbox2?
Maybe, but since they can't code their way out of a corner nobody really knows if their hardware is all that good. I'll take drivers that work properly any day, thanks.
The average age demographic for gamers these days is circa 28 years old, and, frankly, going to a LAN Party or whatever the heck you call it is not high on our list of fun nightly activities. I don't remember how big or heavy my Xbox is cuz I haven't moved it since I bought it shortly after its launch. I suspect the non-movers are in the majority for XBox, with that number skewing younger for the PS2 and 'cube cuz the games skew younger.
As for the controllers. Logitech Wireless, baby. No cords, no fuss, no mess. Better than the originals (although they gobble AA's like M&M's...)
I was always partial to EX-box myself...
GTRacer
- If it doesn't have GT, it's not worth a damn!
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
If I may filter down you comments here...
So, you hate dumb or slow people. Thats really a personal issue and no fault of W's.
Trampling on freedom and democracy? Care to site a specific example? I feel no more or less free than before he took office.
He is at fault that the world is envious of the US since 9/11? The world was envious of the US BEFORE the attacks so it is only logical that this would become the norm again after.
He is actually being pretty successful in the Isreal/Palestine situation. Clinton wanted peace there to be his legacy, yet he could not convince Arafat to reliquish even a little power within the PA, something W has already accomplished.
I guess he is figure head of the nations of people whom you are envious of so, yes he is guilty of that. Your comments betray you. You dont hate the President, you hate all Americans. Of course, that makes you worse than Americans, who are at worst indifferent to the rest of the world rather than actively against them.
Why? Because the X-Box business was designed to be a high volume, low-profit enterprise, and with X-Box mired way back behind the PS2, it just wasn't high volume enough to make up for the thin margins.
Moreover, because they were so concerned with X-Box, NVidia took their eye off the ball and let ATI catch up and even pull slightly ahead. I would not be at all surprised if the same thing happened to ATI this time around. There's only so much graphic card technical talent available to throw at a problem, and with so many of them working on X-Box2, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that 6 month product rev cycle shipping to nine months or a year.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
remember the dawn demos for the nvidia chipsets that were run on ati cards with the help of a wrapper?
anyway - what self respecting geek - especially when hardware is at such low low low prices, would buy a console? Look at how obsolete the graphics are on these consoles already! They are only 2 years old, and they look tired!
How long do you suppose it will take Micro$oft to assimilate ATI?
Better drivers where? Windows? Linux? ... They will be working very close with Microsoft to get the performance they need.
Let's be honest here... ATI works closely with Microsoft already. I'm no video expert but I would expect both ATI and nVidia help Microsoft design the specs for the next revision of DirectX (for example). I think it's unlikely Microsoft is "hiding" something from ATI right now.
Here's what you can expect to happen... ATI will make and design most of the video hardware, adjust per Microsoft's desires (backwards compatibility for XBox v1 perhaps), and then Microsoft will write the drivers. If ATI writes the drivers for XBox it's bad news.
That rhetoric is rater common here, so its not far fetched to have assumed that is what you meant.
Much as expecting Microsoft to be bashed, or BSD is dead.... it is just part of the persona here..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Now that all the hardware can push a bajillion polygons, perhaps they should concentrate on the game play rather than the "beautiful plumage"?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
So what if some current XBox games write directly to the hardware to edge out more speed. But if MS puts in backward compatibility into the XBox 2 those games might not work anymore because of the totally different graphics chip. Current PC games have slightly different drawing calls sometimes depending upon what graphics card it finds, I doubt XBox games contain the same logic.
MS picking ATI does not surprise me at all. It is a natural progression based on the direction XBOX is taking.
Remember that MS's big goal with XBOX (at least the current vision), is to make it become the home entertainment center for home. This means future XBOX will have to have (addition to gaming), Progressive DVD (current XBOX is not very good), TV/Cable tuner, and HDTV tuner.
ATI with its "Wonder" cards, is clearly the leader in integrating video with PC graphics. ATI cards are the graphics card of choice for Home Theater PC enthusists. MS's move just makes it crystal clear that they are serious about making XBOX the home entertainment center.
Sure, ATI probably offered better financial deal on top of everything, but ATI's strength is probably what put them over NVidia.
You're right Microsoft has to pull in good games. Glad they've managed that task as the X-Box has some of the best games and graphics out of any of the 3 consoles.
Wonder if MS would push them to not make Linux drivers anymore.. They've done things similar in the past. Though the driver quality is dominated by Nvidia I'd like my 9700PRo to work in Linux.
I hear alot of conversation in this thread about buying ATI or nVidia stock... First off, dont buy Nvidia... not yet atleast... they are still in a bit of a downward spiral.
;-) You can click here, to read the full 3rd quarter release.
As to ATI... I already own the stock, I bought it about a month back when it was 13$ on the TSE(tsx.com symbol ATY). You know why I bought it then? ATI ALL BUT CONFIRMED THEY WERE GOING TO BE PRODUCING THE CHIPSET FOR XBOX2!!! When they announced 3rd quarter earnings, they said "a pre-payment of $18.0 million recorded as deferred revenue, associated with a development contract"... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm now, who exactly would spend 18 million in a lump deferred sum ( as in, pay now, record later ) to a graphics card company?!?! I bought that day... and damn am I happy I did!
It still rather annoys me how often analysts miss the boat... im thinking these people know rather jack shit, for the most part. I would argue that somebody thouroughly entrenched in the IT industry with a mediocum of knowledge on financial matters... could pick stocks better then most analysts do!!!
As an asside though, I wonder what this will do to the future relationship ATI mentions with Nintendo. Personally, I doubt there will be another Nintendo Console... regardless to what they say. There has been a management rift at nintendo over exactly this discussion.
Actually Here's how I see nintendo's future in gaming. .... NO ONE. All they have to deal with N-Gage ::snicker:: and cell phones (is trying poorly to be a game device). Yes sony is coming along, so it might get difficult.
They dump console platform systems. Do mainly to Sony's Steller Success, and Microsoft about to sink billions to give the better deal. They pick up production in the handheld/wireless area. Compeating with
Since ATI is getting it's dipping it's toe into graphics cards with wireless devices, I wouldn't be surprised to see nVidia and Nintendo jointly work out the next nintendo console more powerful then the N64.
This still leaves Sony. They have expernice with handhelds (SonyErricson) and have the manufacturing abilities to do it up right. So Nintendo better make the killer handheld platform quickly or it'll end up the way of Sega. Which is sad, because to me they are the start of my gaming heritage. (Sorry Atari fans)
Apparently not, it says over at ExtremeTech. Of course, the microprocessors will likely be different as well.
The non-conspiracy theory answer is that Nvidia was the unhappy one in this relationship. Thus far, the xbox has failed to generate the kinds of numbers hoped for by Nvidia given the amount of time/effort invested in this project. Nvidia was the uninterested party, not Microsoft.
"...we dont care about the economics; we just want to be able to hack great stuff."
Those with CS degrees will recognize the name; they have been pioneers in computer graphics for decades.
A local planetarium just took delivery of the first E&S Digistar 3 planetarium machine. It's an incredible piece of equipment and is pretty cutting edge. The demos I saw on it were breathtaking.
The equipment? The projector box is a dual-AMD 2200+ running Windows XP/DirectX and two ATI Radeon 9800 Pros.
Not only do (most of) the figures you cited give the edge to Nvidia, but ATI doesn't make the graphics processors for the Playstation, dumbass.
It doesn't even follow basic logic. NVidia's support for Linux and FreeBSD hasn't wavered because of it's involvement in the XBox.
Not insightful.
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
How long is development going to take? Robably at least 2 years before this sucker hits the streets. And then it has 5 years of market viability.
Are you honestly telling me you don't expect 1/3-1/2 or more of all US households to have an HDTV before 2010? The prices keep falling dramatically every year, and this year the things could actually be termed "affordable" ( 2x the price of a decent 480i set or less ).
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Apple came with safari and is pushing that instead of IE. So MS pulled out instead of being 2nd dog where it doesn't control the OS.
I wouldn't be too surprised to see Apple come out with its own office suite based off Star Office sometime before MS kills off Mac Office.
Even with that said, MS hasn't really screwed Apple over. Apple is alive because of MS and is working towards being completely rid of the remaining MS influence that is left.
I think Microsoft made an intelligent decision on this one. I was an avid supporter of nV and started getting the feeling that there may be some problems in their labs. Especially with the problematic nv30 being so late and lacking in innovation. ATI improved their driver support and began picking up where nV left off with the GF3.
I, more than anyone, want to see nV get over it's engineering problems and be stiffer competition. But that's not going to happen by zealotting over them.
Nobody loses when there's a GPU war going on.
microsoft is not going to get rid of a cash cow like backwards compatibility to piss off the comparitively small xbox-linux crowd. they know minutes after the xbox2 is released people will already be working on getting linux on it anyway.
really, look at it realisticly. there are not very many people running linux on the xbox. there are definitely not enough people doing it for microsoft to give a fuck.
Apparently, mods don't read Ubersoft...
(\(\
(=_=) Bani!
(")")
If it wasn't for microsoft saving them apple would likely be dead today.
MS *never* "saved" Apple. How does buying 150 million worth of stock (which they sold at a very nice profit) in a company that has 2 BILLION DOLLARS in liquid assets lying around amount to "saving"?
Since when is ATI the underdog? They started as one of the graphics card players years before Nvidia. They have more consistantly had the OEM market of Dell, Gateway, HP, etc... Nvidia may make great cards but they are relatively new. In my opinion ATI has a more sound business plan while NVidia is the challenger. Not to say either one is going away any time soon. And the mere fact that NVidia and MS can't agree on anything whereas ATI is a solid and dependable business partner just contradicts its status as an underdog.
Never forget that just because the holy geek crowd is in love with NVidia, doesn't mean that the general public has just as much or probably more name recognition with ATI. Some of my friends who know very little about computers have heard of ATI but not NVidia.
uhhhhh... GO Nintendo.
Dude, you flew right past the part where he said open source support. Nvidia has had great drivers for linux, but they've never been open source.
Yes, from his original statement, and the generally accepted definition of the word "educated", Bush was more educated than Einstein. You want to link the work education with intelligence. While greater education tends to imply greater intelligence, it is not guaranteed. Bush received more education than Einstein. So he IS more educated. Is Bush more intelligent than Einstein? Probably not when it comes to theoretical physics, but do you have much information to say how intelligent Einstein was when it came to foreign policy? Would Einstein have the level of intelligence to be the leader of a nation? Einstein has his area of expertise, and Bush has his own. Simply because Bush is not an intellectual giant in every field does not mean he is stupid.
Second, intelligence is not defined as poise while on camera, or the ability to think quickly on your feet. Those might be considered beneficial, but I know plenty of people (myself included) who need time to "digest" information to make a well-informed decision. You are basing your conclusion of intelligence on a collection media clips spread out over time; only instances that Bush is in the public eye. Not only that, you don't have the full story; none of us do. There is undoubtedly some information withheld for various reasons. Some reasons may be bad, and some may be good. You do not know. However, you choose to accept stories or focus on details that support your conclusion because you don't like him for reasons of your own. Again, your reasons may be bad or good.
I find it hard to give any weight to criticisms offered by others unless they are experts in the field their criticisms originate from. I also find it hard when their arguments are very loose analogies without any concrete examples to back up their claims.
Like ATI supports Linux anyway, although I hear the latest slate of drivers actually work.
Makes me happy that I chose Nvidia.
Unless my brain deceives me. ATI is doing better than ever! Buy a server recently? What video chip does it have? Probably ATI Rage series. Who's the first company you think of when you want a video card with tv tuner, tv out and 3d? Probably ATI. For a few years, you couldn't even get a laptop that didn't have an ATI chip in it. For the OEM market ATI has done pretty well. Sun, Dell, IBM have all sold hundreds of thousands of systems with ATI chips on the motherboard. As for high end, ATI and Nvidia are always pretty much neck and neck.
As a result, I have no confidence in ATI what-so-ever, and that's why to this day I won't purchase a gamecube.
This is the most stupid argument I've ever seen against any console. It's like saying "I'll never buy an Apple computer because they use Motorola CPUs and Motorola's phones suck" then how about "I'll never buy an IBM Thinkpad because AIX sucks"?
Incredible... Now, seriously, the concept of "drivers" is not relevant on console development. Typically, the game engine itself is built with low-level calls to the hardware. And there are several companies working on middleware solutions, so most of the developers may actually never worry about hardware support.
ATI may have terrible driver support on Windows and Linux, but that's not where their strength lies. They were chosen by Microsoft because of their hardware (not only performance, but also price should have been an important factor why they dumped nVidia).
ATI's hardware in the Gamecube implementation is extremely well done, it's just a shame idiots like this can't appreciate the efficiency and elegance on its highly integrated design. And on top of that, reflect their ill-informed choices on the market, by buying overrated consoles like the Xbox instead.
Just to throw some facts around, the Gamecube has everything in terms of hardware capabilities the Xbox has. (Pixel/Vertex shaders? You BET! and bet again) The Xbox may still be around 20% more powerful in raw graphics performance, but this has a very high cost in power consumption, size and cost of the components.
FACTS: Gamecube sells for $150 WITH A PROFIT for Nintendo and consumes around 30W, while Microsoft sells the Xbox for $180 WITH A HUGE LOSS, consumes around 200W and on top of it, it's around 3 times as big, if not more. Hint: ATI's ArtX team and nVidia had a high influence on these facts for their respective consoles.
Now tell me why Microsoft wouldn't want a piece of the pie.
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
Would it be possible for MS to post some requirements (or an approved hardware list) and let us put our own xbox hardware together and pay them for whatever OS the xbox uses? Perhaps then they won't loose money on each system and I can have a superior xbox than the guy next door.
It's obvious then that the technology for the Xbox 2 will be heavily based on ATI's Radeon 9100 IGP technology, a generation up with a few customizations for better graphics and cheaper costs.
. ht ml
http://www.ati.com/products/radeon9100igp/index
I've been curious about this chipset and wonder whether any mobo's have been tested with it and how it compares to Nvidia's nForce2/3. I highly, highly doubt it compares to the nforce series which forms the foundation for the Xbox. What does this mean for the performance potential of the Xbox 2?
Thanks for the link! I applied today as a Linux Catalyst beta tester. I encourage other Linux users with recent ATI cards to do the same.
His daddy helped him get into those schools, because he couldn't get into the University of Texas.
It will be interesting to see how they are able to get Xbox1 games run on Xbox2. This is not HLSL, OGL SLang, or Cg, this is GPU specific machine language.
Sony has already shown the enormous value of generation to generation compatibility (both in games and controller button layout). If Xbox2 is not compatibily with Xbox1 then...
After the Linux on X-Box saga which ended up with MS subsidizing Linux pc's made out of X-Boxen, this is probably the real reason why MS chose ATI.... to stop people running Linux on their new X-Box2. The NVidia Linux drivers are just too good, and not many people with ATI Radeon 9x00's run the proprietary ATI drivers successfully. I say all this with tongue in cheek of course.
APIs are created for applications to be portable and sometimes compatible between platforms, but that's completely different from "full cross-platform compatibility". As you noted, APIs are NOT the same as hardware access, that's why you need a driver for in Windows or Linux, BESIDES the API implementation.
But, in the Xbox, as in all consoles, there is no discrete driver, so even if the DirectX programming interfaces are the same as in the PC, the actual resulting binaries have all the low-level access to the hardware hard-coded into them.
So, for the Xbox2 to be backwards-compatible, it will potentially need a wrapper, depending on the new chip design, and would presumably be implemented on the kernel inside the Boot ROM, similar to the PS2 implementation of texture filtering for PSOne titles. This could be a titanic task, and like in the PS2, compatibility may not be 100% achievable, rendering some or many games unplayable in the new console, depending again on the actual chip design.
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
Since when as ATI been considered the "underdog" in the graphics chipset market? They haven't often had the lead in high-end performance, but they probably have a bigger share than most considering how many motherboard and laptop chipsets they supply.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
ATI races to make their cards friggin' huge while still generating ungodly gobs of heat. Engineers are confident, and they have started examining the Sun in order to get the whole huge/hot concept down to a science of sorts. In a related quote, Shaquille O'Neal (the only human with hands large enough to test the next-gen XBOX controllers) said in GQ magazine: "Bo yamma eff da EssBozz dubbahay..."
Steve Ballmer was immediately dispatched to Wal-Mart, where several kids were on the bubble about wherther to buy a PS2, a GameCube, an XBOX, or just gouge out their eyes with pencils. Balmer assured the kids that while the pencil solution was initially cheaper, much larger amounts of their anatomy could be destroyed with a carefully dropped XBOX.
SCO, not to be left out, sued Pac Man for the act of "eating droppings in a maze", which they said directly copied their corporate strategy meeting minutes almost word-for-word.
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! ATI's cards crash everything in sight. Hopefully they'll actually work on their XBOX drivers.
So instead of NVidia corporation providing video cards that Microsoft re-sells in X-boxen at a significant loss, we now have ATI providing them. Call my stock broker now, I want in!
Consider this:
- XBOX (like most other consoles, and well... printers) is sold at a loss
- XBOX is really a fine piece of hardware for cheap if you can hack it
- Like I said... if you can hack it. Even later generation XBOX's are soon cracked wide open. (recall the first point now)
- ATI is known for punishing anyone wanting to use non-MS software (it can be said they punish Windows users too). Getting a modern ATI card working with X is a labor of passion and extreme patence.
So to make a story short, my theory is that MS wisely chose a vendor that will add a layer of Linux incompatability better than the most nefarious team of MS engineers could devise for the XBOX to keep it "crack-proof."Additionally factor in the horrible OpenGL support of ATI and you just seem to cement in more DirectX following (well its more accurate to say that as, "less non-MS following") XBOX if looked at only under the all knowing gaze of ASSumptions would seem to be the PC game developers dream. Now they can use pretty much their entire code base for porting over to a popular console. WooHoo, shovel in the money! MS even used that as a selling point to vendors and game developers. Yet is it a coincidence that by selling boxes at a loss (and what that says of the XBOX department's business model) and how this could be counterproductive to profits for the XBOX franchise and the situation where developers find it difficult to really build for PC and XBOX exist together? Maybe, who knows. What I do know is that many games are developed for Gamecube, PS2 and XBOX yet no PC. Strange how the game could be developed for such different platforms yet to throw in the PC to make even more money potentially is left out. Then again, it seems that the PC is considered "later." Could there be some agreement with MS about this? Does MS find some way of saying, "You can develop for us only if you agree to hold off for PC so that there will not be a reason to NOT buy the XBOX." I notice there is no readily available XBOX SDK. It would only not be in the best interest of a hardware vendor to provide as wide a content development audience as possible unless there was some overpowering problem with the business model that requires limitations of the developer market (by time or by complete exclusion).
thats what I am seeing from nVidia.
However this does in fact happen and you will see it continue to increase in frequency as (like with all consoles) the dev's innovate and scheme.
All political issues aside, NVidia has been taking a hike down the low road lately. Geforce FX is a big big disappointment, more eye candy but less raw horsepower, the exact opposite of what the Nvidia brand used to be about. The thing with the Geforce line is that it used to be ahead of its time. I say that because three years ago I bought a GF2 GTS, I could run Quake at 120+ fps average, and up until late last year I was still running that same card, playing just about any game I could find with decent framerate. But today you can buy an FX5600 and be unimpressed from day one, even on current games.
.13 micron chips for higher clock speeds and lower power consumption. Don't forget that you don't want a huge 7000rpm fan cooling the graphics chip in that Xbox2.
Right now the Xbox is still performing admirably with its slowly aging Nvidia core, rivalling PC graphics to this day. This means that NV has been sitting on their asses shrugging their shoulders, the new products are actually slower than the old, and there isn't much innovation anymore. Therefore there's not enough of a significant improvement to warrant Xbox2 development with NVidia. On the other side, ATI is steadily releasing faster revisions of its cores, and taking advantage of
-Billco, Fnarg.com
bump. mod parent up please kthx bye.
dream on.
1) nintendo is the only one of the three remaining console makers who's consistently turning a profit every quarter. microsoft is losing money. sony hast lost 80% of the profit this quarter compared to last year.
2) nintendo is world-wide no. 2, ahead of microsoft.
3) nintendo has said that it would rather exit the game business than stop producing its own consoles.
so, yeah. metroid in your ps3? get a grip.
please, sir, if your brain has melted: go to google. check out the press releases back from when the three remaining console manufacturers released their current consoles.
If I buy an XBox Does that make me Pro or Ani Microsoft? Considering that they lose money with every transaction.
And based on your logic, you deserve tech support from MCSE's, rather than real geeks. (Note for all the actual geeks who have the cert - I realize the sets are not mutually exclusive)
You should live by your own advice. You wanted me to talk about something I know and I provided specific details. We had plenty of Octanes in the lab too, but there was no need to upgrade my workstation. The simulations ran on the Onyx machines. I have never bought a console machine and have no vested interest in the PS2 or any of it's competitors. The only claim I have made is that the Sony graphics chip had noteworthy performance. You obviously remember the time frame and Sony was releasing specs before their consoles hit the market. We had many water cooler type conversations about what Sony was doing and how this might affect the high end market. As usual, specs about raw performance are one thing and overall system implementation may tell a completely different story.
Since you are just a kid you get a second chance
I hope this magnanimous gesture of yours helps you sleep at night. You do not know me and therefor you should follow your own advice. Perhaps I was too general with the initial post but I have been plenty specific since then. I may be a kid, but it's more likely that you need to grow up.