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Technology Stocks : GTIS - Will it be a Phoenix or not ? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chris McConnel who wrote (1831)	3/24/1998 12:42:00 PM
From: Scot	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2319

>Seems to me there will be a real shakeout for the 3d card makers. I considered investing in 3dfx late last year (and certainly would have benefited in the short-term), but decided against it. One of my reason was Intel's entry into the market. 3dfx makes great stuff, but I worried about the high-price and the fact that their current offerings are 3d-only. I further understand that their banshee (forthcoming 2d/3d solution) will require 2 chips and be fairly expensive. It's hard to look long term when so many other companies appear to have similarly performing solutions that are 2d and 3d and are priced much less. Add to this the fact that 3dfx is fabless and I decided against it (I'm still trying to figure out how this level of risk aversion jives with my GTIS ownership....). As you mentioned the i740 appears promising (although probably not up to Voodoo2 standards) and yesterday at Cebit, Nvidia announced a forthcoming 3d chip that appears to have some impressive performance specs. In addition, PowerVR made some tall claims for their new chip at Cebit as well (although I understand that they're not held in high regard...witness their nickname "PowerPR"....enough said). Certainly all of these factors suggest continued intense competition in the 3d industry, and games will increase in their use of the technology for amazing result. Maybe I'm a little optimistic on this front, but John Carmack, who you mentioned in your post, has stated that the next big game from ID Software will be 3d-accelerator only. I read this morning that Max Payne, a game that GTIS lost in bidding against the G.O.D. egos, will also be 3d only. I guess I think that games have the potential to be very compelling.....beyond the traditional adolescent-male category...and to much larger segments of the population. Like I said in a previous post, first-person perspective ("FPS") games are the most logical way to present an alternative reality. The only reason why arguments that these types of games are oversubscribed have merit, is because the FPS describes a certain genre as well. I think you can expand the basic "kill every thing that moves" idea to a whole range of simulation. I hear Buddy's complaints about the increasing requirements for the hottest games (I think everyone who has bought a computer within the last 5 years feels that pain), but hey, this IS Silicon Investor....technology marches on. I'm also interested what choices developers make regarding openGl and Direct X. Direct X has had a lot of problems, but DirectX 5.0 is a lot better than the previous incarnations. Some things I've read suggest that even with the latest SGI/Mr. Softee deal over OGL (I think I read in Boot that this was merely a MS salvo against Unix, rather than an attempt to appease developers), that Direct 3d will be the API for most games (unfortunately, I find it difficult to believe that people will develop for Glide and Direct 3d in the long term, especially if Direct 3d improves in 6.0). That's enough babbling....GT looks soft today. Not a lot of volume, but some splash-over from Activision's tumble? I'm probably reading too much into it. -Scot H.

To: Chris McConnel who wrote (1831)	3/24/1998 12:49:00 PM
From: Mister Pink	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 2319

>>>Have you tried out Intel 740 3d based card yet (assuming game developers get the stuff first.) <<< No, I haven't. But to be clear... Intel doesn't make the motherboards, they make the chipsets. They will probably offer versions of the chipset with the graphics chip included, and the vendors can decide. But there are better chipsets nowadays - Voodoo2, Permedia 2, Riva's new chipset, all faster than the Voodoo 1. I suspect it will be included as a standard (sort of like the rather cheap built-in sound capabilities on many motherboards), so that the market will consist of people upgrading. How large that market is depends on how good the 740 is. 3Dfx will have the best chance of surviving. >>>Also should be a boon to game developers. DirectX seems to be problematic for many and if the 740 captures most of the market, developers could write to it directly or use the 740 OpenGL driver.<<< Agreed. But there are still other problems - video driver setup, other cards in the system - that will always cause problems. This isn't a problem for platform games. >>>What do you think will be the hit games, going forward. Someone think it was Buddy) on this thread suggested that FPS were becoming boring. Not sure if that's true, but it seems like there is glut of these games coming out, thanks mainly to Epic's and Id's licensing deals.<<< Oh, definitely. With companies able to lease engines, everyone can make a FPS game. But I think there will always be a market for FPS games; too many people enjoy it. Most games today are made for young male game enthusiasts (because the developers are, too.) I see most of the growth in going beyond this - games for non-games, like Myst; games for women, etc. >>>Thinking out about, given the 3d performance and processing power available now, seems like there must be ways of using that power that no one has thought of yet. Wonder if, for the industry to grow, they will need to start thinking up new kinds of games.<<< Are you suggesting that the game industry get creative? :) I think you are right, but for the most part the only thing increasing 3D performance is used for is making the next FPS/RTS/sports game look prettier.