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

To: JR who wrote (5896)	7/30/1998 8:07:00 AM
From: Michael Linov	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 16960

Ahh... good? 1. The alliance part never had any "real" 3d support, no more so than previous entries from S3 or Cirrus logic. In any event, there will likely be a shakeout in the industry , but it will be BECAUSE of the success of 3dfx, rather than a problem for them. 2. As for the creative announcement, I think it makes little difference (though one wanders if some backroom deals weren't done, or if Nvidia is dumping product below cost to try gain market/mental share). Banshee is an OEM product more than a retail upgrade, though it will likely compete in both arenas. Banshee is now set to compete in a HUGE potential marketplace, much bigger than the large (but admittedly limited) gaming market it has controlled to date. The key to this success will be great performance in both 2D and 3D and good coverage by the biased (we only review our favorite advertisers) computer press. As an OEM product, the real volumes come from the large PC manufacturers (which could include it on the motherboard, aswell as cards), and the asian groups which can deliver similar solutions to the 25%+ of the market not covered by any known brand names. The support of PCI will also increase market penetration and sales, since as of yet, not everyone is running P2 systems. 3. Read recently that the banshee can perform hardware environment mapping ... this is an incredibly powerful feature ( in effect, you can render a scene to a texture, then use that texture in scene, possibly recursively ). This would allow for AMAZING realism in games such as racing, where cars can actually reflect the environment they're driving in, delivering image realism never seen before. 4. Does anyone know what the Banshee chipset is rated at, clockwise? would the banshee be able to benefit from newly introduced 125MHz + SDRAM and SGRAM? possibly as a retrofit by OEM's. 5. Re: 3dfx making their own boards... It is my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) that Quantum3D has been manufacturing (or at least designing and building) all of 3dfx reference boards. They have also sold some of the fastest 3dfx boards (Obisidian S12, X24, 100SB) many of which I own. Do you see the two companies co-operating even closer on a mass marketing/branding campaign? Last I heard, Quantum3D is a private company, whose management came from/worked for 3dfx during its startup.