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

To: Stuart C Hall who wrote (5868)	7/28/1998 11:57:00 PM
From: Jeff Lins	Respond to of 16960

Almost midnight, so I can hit my max 3 posts: There is supposed to be a big review on Banshee at the all games network. Can't get it to come up, however. Here is some of the info from VoodooExtreme, where you can get the link:http://www.voodooextreme.com/ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> More Binky on Banshee - 7:20pm MDT- Billy "Wicked" Wilson Whoa, even a mention of my stank-ass there Binky? Whoohoo! Binky Dinkums, over at AGN3D has whipped up a HUGE mf'n preview/review/first look (whatever) of 3dfx's Banshee. Ok Binky, let's see some numbers (and other goodies): For performance testing I used my P2 300 computer running Windows 98 and Direct X 6.0. I did not do extensive testing on the card since this is Alpha silicon, but I think I did do enough testing for you to get an overall picture of what to expect. (BENCHMARKS DELETED BECAUSE I CAN'T GET THEM TO ALIGN CORRECTLY; click the above link to VE, then look at Tuesday, Banshee article, click that link) In the end I think the TNT and maybe even the Savage3D may come up with better performance numbers, but I do not think it will matter. The Banshee has what is most important in the gaming market, software support. With the full library of existing Glide supporting games at it's disposal the Banshee will be coming out with the largest installed base of 3D supporting games for a 2D/3D device. This in the end will be what I consider the reason for the Banshee's upcoming success. Binky also did some of that nasty talkin' with Wayne Do, Product Marketing Manager for Banshee. Here's a few morsels of information that stuck out: Do you think that the Dual-TMUs of the TNT are going to offer it a big performance advantage over the Banshee? They claim 2 pixels per clock, but the 2 pixels per clock is not enabled when they do multi-texturing there is a huge performance overhead. Does the Banshee have any advantages over the Voodoo2 as far as through hardware support? There is one feature that the Banshee has that the Voodoo2 does not have, and that is dynamic environment mapping. And the reason why Banshee has it is because we have a unified memory architecture, which allows us to do this. What the feature simulates is the rendering of an image behind your field of view, and the ability to mirror it in front of you. We have two camera perspectives, the camera in front of you and the camera in back. The camera behind you will generate the image in front of you, and the image in back of you can be rendered into memory and textured into the image in front of you. So this would allow for true hardware mirroring. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ----------- Thank you to Patrick for nailing the Sun on the "envelope" numbers. Let's try not to forget the concept of "fixed" costs... ------------ Chip- I love the term Due Diligence as applied to testing TDFX technology by playing games. Great laugh... -----------