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

To: Jeff Lins who wrote (8424)	10/18/1998 12:49:00 AM
From: Simon Cardinale	Respond to of 16960

Jeff: Banshee demand and Glide's support base... You've put your finger on a very important point here. Glide will always have technical advantages over D3D (closer to the metal, supports new features faster, optimized for one group of chipsets, more reliable visual results for limited group of chipsets, etc.), but is hurt by its more limited support base. Banshee (and particularly being default in a big OEM - please, please) is an important step in changing that. When geometry accelerators come out I expect Glide will gain popularity until MS gets out a DX that supports it (probably longer for the wait for multitexturing support because geometry processors will be more complex and varied). For perhaps a year Glide will very likely have D3D/DX beat hands-down in content and performance. With a big Glide audience I think game developers will be very interested. I think installed base, developer support, performance edge, and branding have a significant chance of snowballing into a serious "platform". I'm not counting on it, but that's my best-case scenario. But the odds aren't so bad really. Simon PS <OT> - You guys should check out fireteam.com to see the future of internet game play. This game's going to be a lot of fun with real-time voice communication with your squad-mates. If you buy the beta say I referred you and I might get something cool.

To: Jeff Lins who wrote (8424)	10/18/1998 3:12:00 PM
From: timbur	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

The sub-$100 price point is key. 3dfx is squeezing nVidia at both ends: the sub-$100 Banshee (after rebate) approaches the Riva 128 price (~$79), and its performance is close enough to TNT. Plus you have Glide compatibility, and it should get very hard on nVidia. The only trouble I see right now is that the local OEM shops do not have any Banshee in stock, since the cards have not been bought by the discount distributors. (Ingram, Merisel, and TechData do NOT count! Their prices suck without large volume discounts.) It's gonna be an exciting 4Q!