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Technology Stocks : 3DFX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Plaz who wrote (13366)	6/18/1999 5:42:00 PM
From: Patrick Grinsell	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 16960

Is anyone else sick of hearing... 3dfx (ie Burke interview) make excuses for their products. The more weasel words they use angrier I get. I liked it better in the old days when 3dfx had features that nobody was using because they thought they people MIGHT use them. I got to decide what I needed, not 3dfx. Example: PCV: Performance vs. image quality. What is 3dfx's position on this topic? 3dfx: Simple, gamers need both, but should not be forced to compromise either. Without performance, image quality means very little and visa versa. 32-bit color is a perfect example. Compare two images side by side, one using 3dfx Voodoo3 at 16-bit, the other with a competitors card at 32-bit. If you freeze a frame and blow it up 200% you can see some very subtle differences in image quality. But if you play the game, the difference in the frame rates are obvious. To really get a true measure, you have to include frame rates WRONG! It should read: 3dfx: Simple, games need the best of both. The rest is just making excuses for 3dfx's lack of innovation. Here is another good example: PCV: A lot of your critics claim that the Voodoo3 is lacking some important 3D features critical for the next-generation of games set to be released later this year. For instance, your lack of support for larger texture sizes, 32-bit color, and AGP texturing to name a few. What is your response to this? 3dfx: 3dfx looks at the whole gaming experience. We make product decisions based on that experience the best we can. We know frame rate is the key to having a positive gaming experience, and you can't do that on existing hardware in 32-bit mode. We know that the bandwidth to move textures over the AGP bus is not available today, and it would kill the frame rates. When those features are available we will support them. We also are working very closely with game developers to give them the hardware features they want. The statement about not having a positive gaming experience in 32-bit mode is untrue, and almost anybody who calls themselves a gamer will see it as such. The rest is just more garbage about not implementing features until "the world" is ready for them. Is this an admission that 3dfx will now only use trailing and not leading technology? 3dfx had multitexture before the world was ready for it. Heres what Burkes answer should have been: For next-generation games we will have a next-generation architecture. For this generation of games 3dfx is the performance leader and at a much better price than the competition. Next month you will see the 3500 with even better performance and the addition of leading edge video technology. Pat