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

To: Patrick Grinsell who wrote (7670)	9/25/1998 9:48:00 AM
From: Michael Linov	Respond to of 16960

Specs of the motorola project-x box Processing performance - over 1,500 MIPS - 216 Million 32-Bit Multiply-Accumulate operations per Second - 864 Million 16-bit Multiply-accumulate operations per Second - 13.5 Million (4x4) x (4x1) Matrix Transformations per Second (32-Bit Elements) 2D/3D Graphics - 16 Million Colors - Anti-Aliased, scaled fonts - Alpha Blending With 256 Levels of Transparency - Primitive 2-D Drawing Functions (Line, Rectangle, Ellipse, Arc, Polygon, Bitblit) - Gouraud and Phong Shading - Geometry Transformation, Clipping, Culling, and Rendering - Texture Mapping with Bi-Linear and Tri-Linear Texture Filtering - MIP-Mapping, Z Buffering - Advanced rendering algorithms including ray tracing, voxel rendering, Parametric Modeling, Procedural textures, intelligent caching Audio - 32 voice wavetable synthesizer - Invision CybersoundTM full MIDI sample set - Reverb, Chorus, 3D spatialization, PrologicTM - ADPCM and PCM sample playback Basically, appears to be a decent general purpose,graphic oriented processor with hardware assist. Hardware ray tracing? None here. First impression is that this thing has about as much power as a 400 Mhz P2/ AMD K6-3D for geometry transforms. Might even make a decent companion chip to a banshee :). No mention of floating point support, or hardware assisted vector intersection. My first impression is of a product that will likely make a decent set-top box controller, but not a part that will compete with the next-generation of consoles, or pc's. The licensing terms tend to favor the hardware maker, but not the software designer, a receipe for disaster. Time will tell, but sounds like another 3do to me. (Actually, I own a 3do ... but never mind).

To: Patrick Grinsell who wrote (7670)	9/25/1998 11:03:00 AM
From: Sam Sara	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

I came across this a few weeks ago, and it scared the hell out of me. When I posted on it, it was essentially denigrated as a nonthreat, without supporting data. I emailed Got2MuchTime urging him to evaluate it, and he expressed some interest, but so far I have not seen an evaluation. I see this threat as another reason for the poor stock performance. Sun Tzu, I would ask Ballard about this, if you ever get a hold of him. His response will be very interesting vis a vis Patrick's suggestion that TDFX might be pursuing this