🚀 go-pugleaf

Anthony Hill <hilla@uoguelph.ca> wrote in message
news:3839adb0.9757660@63.211.125.80...
> On 21 Nov 1999 17:11:48 -0500, Salim Qadri <sqadri@nortel.xx> wrote:
> >Daniel Chee <cchee2@bigred.unl.edu> writes:
> >> The V4 does do Multitexturing although it's done in a shit ass
> >> way.
> >
> >Umm. It has 2 full texture units per VSA-100. Thats like the TNT2.
>
> Though not like the GeForce or S3 Savage 2000, which can both
> handle 4 textures at a time in a single chip.

..and both run at a whopping 120-125Mhz and still get hot.  For 3dfx to use
a single chip quad pipe design in the 6000, they would have to run at 360Mhz
plus use DDR SDRAM at a higher rating than the DDR GeForce uses.  The card
would cost much more than $599.
Anyway, the only reason they went with the multiple chip design was to make
it scalable.
1 chip = 5 models of cards.  Plus the capability for companies like Quantum
to do their wacky 32 chip designs.

> >You are obviously an idiot. See other posts to see how the Voodoo4
> >uses texture memory efficiently even while duplication is
> >unfortunately necessary for higher memory bandwidth.
>
> It uses memory efficiently while duplicating everything?  Is
> it just me or does that not make much sense.  I get the concept that
> they're going for, that each chip get's it's own 128-bit, 166MHz or
> whatever memory pipeline, but it doesn't seem overly efficient to me.
> I'd much rather just see half as much memory but using DDR memory (to
> double the bandwidth).  Seems as though that would be a more effective
> and cost efficient idea to me.

It's a multichip design so using half the memory would not work out.
Using DDR would make the card more expensive.

> >Also, each VSA chip gets its own 32 MB of texture/framebuffer space
> >except for the V5 5000 board. This is as much memory as any other
> >gamer board available (more in effect because of framebuffer size
> >getting smaller as you add more chips).
>
> 32MB is the norm now, but it's quickly looking like 64MB per
> chip will be fairly common when the V4/V5 are finally released in 5
> months time.  Both the GeForce256 and S3 Savage 2000 support 64MB of
> memory.  Heck, even the SiS 300 video chipset supports that much
> memory.

GeForce 256 with 32MB DDR is already over $300.  How much will a 64MB board
cost?
I think we will be seeing 32MB as the norm until next holiday season at
least.
BTW, each VSA-100 chip can address 64MB.

> >There are 2 texture and 2 pixel pipelines per VSA-100. 2 VSA-100's
> >give you 4 texture/pixel pipelines per board. I am not sure why the
> >increase from 9 to 14 million when all they added was:
> >- 1 pixel pipeline
> >- enhanced texture pipeline
> >- 32 bit rendering
> >- 32 MB support
> >- 2048x2048 textures
> >- 32 bit texture support
>
> It's about time they added these last 4 features.  These are
> all features that the last 2 generations of 3D accelerators have all
> had except for 3dfx products.

32Bit and large textures are not features that have been needed so there
really is no point in the last generations of cards supporting them.
They will most likely be needed for 2000 though.
In 16bit, there really is no need to have 32MB RAM.  That's why Voodoo3 only
has 16.

> >- AGP 4x + sidebanding
>
> Nice that it's finally supported though it isn't a very useful
> feature.

Finally?  AGP 4x isnt even out yet.
Sidebanding in AGP 2x is already supported by V3.

> I am, however, sceptical as to how this will work in the V5
> cards with more then one processor.  From what I'm hearing, these
> cards have an AGP to PCI bridge on board to allow for the multiple
> graphics processors to work together.  It might still work, but I
> wouldn't be holding my breath for AGP texturing support.  Still, as I
> said, not exactly something I'd be too worried about.

They dont have an AGP to PCI bridge chip.
They dont support AGP texturing.  Not that it is needed.

> >- asynchronous core/memory clocks? (speculation)
>
> Didn't the V3 have seperate clocks for it's core and memory as
> well?

No.