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

To: Michael G. Potter who wrote (9517)	12/11/1998 10:23:00 AM
From: Scott Garee	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

Every time Tom opens his mouth lately I lose a little more respect for him. Yes, Rage is as good as it gets in 32 bit rendering, but it isn't good enough. Sellers clearly said TDFX thinks 60Hz is the peg the brass ring is hanging on. Now, this may all be market positioning, but TDFX does know their business. Tom implies that there was no performance loss for ATI going to 32 bit, but is blind to the fact that it is impossible to get the same frame rate on the same hardware in 32 bit as you get from 16 bit unless you cripple the 16 bit, which is clearly what ATI has done. If ATI has found a way to move twice as much data over the same hardware at the same data rate then the implications are tremendous in every aspect of computer operation. The specs for the Rage show it should clearly be faster than it is at 16 bit. Why is no one flaming them for blowing 16 bit performance? Remember, Tom has said he won't do any game playing at less than 1024x768. Is he going to do this on a Rage? Is 15-28 fps enough for him to be happy? Is that a foot I see in his mouth? He also never said whether he used the "performance booster" to obtain his benchmarks. No one is going to use that thing if it requires reboots. It also is likely an ATI hack that cheats to improve FPS. By the way, the following paragraph preceeded the two given in the last quote. This means two things. Rage 128 will indeed let you play most games in 32-bit mode, but die-hard gamers will still not use it because there is some performance hit. Aside from this Tom doesn't seem to care too much for the Rage and it clearly isn't ready to ship unless it has improved a bunch in the last week. Why does Tom degrade an otherwise good review by making reckless statements like he made about TDFX and 32 bit? His final conclusion that the combination of Rage and ATI's current position in the market will keep them strong should be taken to heart, but if ATI doesn't get Rage working soon they won't make the next OEM refresh. (It takes a month or so after boards usually ship retail before you see them start showing up in OEM boxes. The OEM's aren't as willing to accept beta drivers as the public is, it seems.)