🚀 go-pugleaf

Freon wrote:

> 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.

Last I heard 3Dfx is going to make their own cards and stop selling their chips
to other manufacturers. That's why you don't see V3s on any other manufacturer's
cards. So Quantum won't get a piece of the action.

> > >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.

What do you mean by this? Could you elaborate on the multichip design won't work
it half the memory part?

> 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.

What do you mean by "not features that have been needed"? Expendable supports
32bit textures. Q3 supports 32 bit textures. Incoming supports 32 bits. If you
noticed, many people with cards supporting 32 bit colors do run it at that color
depth when speed isn't an issue. I played expandable in 32 bit color and hated
it in 16 bit. Textures in Q3 are sharper when you use a TNT2 compared to a V3.
It's more of a preference, but since the V3 doesn't have those capabilities,
it's basically forcing you to run small (256x256) textures and 16bit colors.

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

It means that when the chipset comes out it will support the extra bandwidth
available.

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

AGP texturing would be needed if you start running higher resolutions with large
textures and at higher color depths. Since the VSA-100 is so good according to
3Dfx, 333 and higher fill rate for the V4 AGP, you would want to do that right?
So when you start doing that you would want the extra system memory for
texturing I should think.