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ATI at the Top Graphics Chip Maker for 2004

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-blame-that-pixie-demo dept.

dirutz writes "ATI is at the top according to market share, but nVidia is catching up. Hopefully this competition means lower prices and more goodies."

6 of 323 comments (clear)

  1. Both companies have really dropped the ball... by ShinSugoi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... with regards to the availbility of their high-end cards. When was the last time you saw a store (online or otherwise) that had a x800 (of any stripe) or high end 6800 in stock? Probably not in the last 3 or 4 months. I was considering upgrading from my 9800pro, but until better cards become more widely available the costs are going to remain prohibitive.

  2. Matrox? by koi88 · · Score: 5, Interesting


    How about Matrox? Are they still in business?
    Haven't heard anything from them for ages....

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    I don't need a signature.
  3. The most amazing thing... by Walkiry · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is Intel's 40% market share. Honestly, when I read that the biggest market is for the lower-end cards and the big guns are most for marketing and prestige I didn't imagine it was such a difference.

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    ---- Take the Space Quiz!
  4. I've always wondered... by wolf31o2 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I would love to see the market share numbers broken down into separate markets.

    Who gets the market share in the high-end workstation market?

    Macintosh market?

    Linux market?

  5. Tired of ATI.. by homerito · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I used before an nvidia MX440 with personal cinema. kind of old but the 3d worked fine in linux. Personal Cinema sucked because there was no linux support for the tv part. Windows was fine.

    I upgrade to a radeon 9600 pro and it has been only headaches since then:
    - Installing 3d acceleration in linux is really hard.
    - I got an additional ati tv card that I installed, after a couple of days any 3d application had really bad texture corruption. I wrote to ATI and they replace my 9800pro card (with no proof of purchase because I lost the recipt.)
    - The tv card was uninstalled for a long time, but I installed again and boooom... really bad 3d screen corruption. I turn off my machine and the 9800 was fine after a restart but I removed the tv card. Now ATI asked me to sent the tv card back. (again without recipt).
    - Even in simple 2D screens I got screen corruptions.
    - I did not do any overclocking to the card.
    - Everytime i search for problem on 9800 it seems that they have the tendency of running too hot and people install additional coolers. But why do I have to expend more money in coolers if I already pay for the 9800 pro???

    It seems to me that ATI is aware that some of their cards are a POS because they keep sending me RMA forms (return forms) at any complain I send.

    I want to go back to nvidia :( but that will require another 200US$ :(

    Altough I think the 9800 ATI card sucks, the support has been OK.

  6. Re:What a frackin' idiot by runderwo · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It seems that you can't read, or are deliberately missing the point. Nobody except the most extreme of extremists are calling for them to release their driver source code. What we (developers) want is documentation sufficient to develop our own free drivers that are unencumbered by third-party IP and corporate licensing concerns.

    Unfortunately, the manufacturers obviously don't see enough value in open source drivers to offset the risk of patent suits and/or cloning of their special hardware features. It's a matter of perspective - we see no legitimate reason why they should not release their internal documentation to interested/qualified open source developers, but they probably see themselves sunk if they did. After all, look what happened to the trailblazers in open source graphics docs: 3Dfx, Matrox, 3DLabs, etc.

    The only solution for people who value open source drivers is to stop buying their products and develop our own to compete with them. Relentless lobbying will only waste their time and make them less likely to deal with folks in the open source community.

    For people who don't care about open source drivers as long as a binary driver works good enough for you, just go ahead and buy a card from the leading manufacturers. But don't blame Linux when the driver blows up or acts strangely. As long as these vendors refuse to cooperate with the open source development model, the onus is on them to go the extra mile and produce a stable product that interoperates with the open source world.

    So far, they haven't done well at that challenge, suggesting that either open source developers are deliberately foiling them (some people believe the absence of a driver abstraction layer falls along these lines), they employ incompetent programmers, or they are simply not providing their best effort as a company towards Linux support. I suspect the latter, and only market share will change that. (Hence the driving force behind platform advocacy, as opposed to the 'zealot' label that platform advocates receive from neophytes who misunderstand or reject the fundamental correlation between platform market share and quality of vendor support)

    --
    LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web