Price/performance ratio is not the only level of competition for graphics cards. It does happen to be the criteria I'd use if I were in the market.
Some buyers (office managers) will buy based on raw price.
Others (gamers) will buy on raw performance.
One company may eventually fill all three niches (and any others I may have missed) but I don't think it is the inevitable outcome.
As for DirectX, it is the minimum point of entry to the graphics market today. If you don't support it, and support it in the segment you compete at, you are dead. One reason 3dfx died, IMHO, is that it tried to compete at the high end, but its Direct X support was decidedly low end.
I'd read the article if it weren't blocked by my proxy.
Both ATI and nVidia can survive because the both support the microsoft DirectX APIs. 3dfx could not survive because they did not support them, or supported them only as an afterthought to their own Glide. All Windows users have DirectX... a few had Glide. As the performance edge disappeared, so did the reason to support Glide.
What do you think that net connection and hard drive are for?
Linux?
Data that is usefull to the user?
No, No, No... This is a microsoft product. They know it won't come out right the first time, they need a way to back in the fixes.
And, by the way, my PS2 has a patch. The drivers that came with the DVD remote give the machine functionality it should have had out of the box, and that later revs do have right out of the box. That's a patch in my book.
I used to boycott Ben and Jerry's because of their 1% for peace crap, back when my parents livlihood depended on the defense industry.
Now I boycott Microsoft because they donate money to republican and democratic candidates for office.
Face it.. sometimes money you spend goes to things you don't agree with. This 'conflict diamonds' crap is no different from the 'drugs fund terrorism' crap that I see on TV these day.
I've had the same experience, and I have a theory about it. Cobol programmers, especially the long timers, are by and large not CS geeks. They are people whol came from the business side and recieved corporate training. C++ (and most other languages) geeks tend to be people that studied CS at StateTech.edu.
Therefore Cobol programmers represent the heterogeneous make up of the business world, while other computer disciplines represent the nearly all male world of University CS classes.
That'd be a storage nightmare. Even if you had 4 cameras per vcr (split screen). You would be pumping out 7 - 8 tapes a day. 50 a week. >2500 a year. And you need to store it someplace where it won't degrade.
Slashdot Mirror
I hope you are right... Hopefully amazon will add an intermediate screen to the order process, telling the user who is recieving their commission.
Price/performance ratio is not the only level of competition for graphics cards. It does happen to be the criteria I'd use if I were in the market.
Some buyers (office managers) will buy based on raw price.
Others (gamers) will buy on raw performance.
One company may eventually fill all three niches (and any others I may have missed) but I don't think it is the inevitable outcome.
As for DirectX, it is the minimum point of entry to the graphics market today. If you don't support it, and support it in the segment you compete at, you are dead. One reason 3dfx died, IMHO, is that it tried to compete at the high end, but its Direct X support was decidedly low end.
I'd read the article if it weren't blocked by my proxy.
Both ATI and nVidia can survive because the both support the microsoft DirectX APIs. 3dfx could not survive because they did not support them, or supported them only as an afterthought to their own Glide. All Windows users have DirectX... a few had Glide. As the performance edge disappeared, so did the reason to support Glide.
Xbox patches are coming... bank on it.
What do you think that net connection and hard drive are for?
Linux?
Data that is usefull to the user?
No, No, No... This is a microsoft product. They know it won't come out right the first time, they need a way to back in the fixes.
And, by the way, my PS2 has a patch. The drivers that came with the DVD remote give the machine functionality it should have had out of the box, and that later revs do have right out of the box. That's a patch in my book.
If I had $1500 (US) I could buy a not-quite-top-of-the-line gaming PC with no games...
OR...
An X-Box, a Game Cube AND a PS2 and 6 or 7 games for each.
Assuming I already had an adequate TV, of course.
That was a very nice post. I'm sure you put a lot of hard work into it. Good little /.er.
/.er, and didn't even have to buy anything
There... I patronized a
n fct 'd gv p ll th vwls
I had the colecovision too, but Instead of any of the Adam stuff, I abused my parents into buying me the Atari Adapter.
I used to boycott Ben and Jerry's because of their 1% for peace crap, back when my parents livlihood depended on the defense industry.
Now I boycott Microsoft because they donate money to republican and democratic candidates for office.
Face it.. sometimes money you spend goes to things you don't agree with. This 'conflict diamonds' crap is no different from the 'drugs fund terrorism' crap that I see on TV these day.
I've had the same experience, and I have a theory about it. Cobol programmers, especially the long timers, are by and large not CS geeks. They are people whol came from the business side and recieved corporate training. C++ (and most other languages) geeks tend to be people that studied CS at StateTech.edu.
Therefore Cobol programmers represent the heterogeneous make up of the business world, while other computer disciplines represent the nearly all male world of University CS classes.
That'd be a storage nightmare. Even if you had 4 cameras per vcr (split screen). You would be pumping out 7 - 8 tapes a day. 50 a week. >2500 a year. And you need to store it someplace where it won't degrade.