Half-Life 2 - NVIDIA exclusive???
The Posting One
computers. i'm done with them. they are going down the shitter in a
handbasket:
---
We can reveal that Valve is currently looking at making its massively
anticipated FPS sequel Half-Life 2 exclusive to nVidia graphics cards, in
what will be the first deal of its kind in the PC gaming sector.
This massive story comes from insiders at nVidia, who are boasting that this
will be the first of many such deals for exclusive content, bespoke to its
cards.
We have been aware for some time that both ATi and nVidia have been courting
the publishers and developers of AAA PC games, trying to gain
card-exclusivity.
"You will see a massive change in the structure of the PC games industry in
the next few months, with the first batch of announcements hitting at E3,"
one insider told us. "Instead of being referred to as PC gaming, you will
become an nVidia or ATi gamer, as distinct as Sony and Nintendo."
This concept has been circulating for some time, with gossip about graphics
cards overshadowing next-gen console talk at the recent Game Developer's
Conference.
Remember where you read this first, and expect confirmation at this May's
E3.
Mesaeus
"The Posting One" <bl...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:zEwza.13625$Pz3.6...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
> I just read this and nearly fell off my chair, if this happens, then
forget
> computers. i'm done with them. they are going down the shitter in a
> handbasket:
>
I think this is not true. It may have extra features for nvidia cards, and
be written for nvidia shaders so it works a lot faster on nvidia hardware,
but no f****** way that it'll only play on nvdia hardware. That's halving
their own sales, and for a big seller like Half life 2 that's a HUGE
amount that nvidia would have to cough up to make it Valve's worthwhile.
No this cannot possibly be true, but rest assured that I won't buy it either
if it against all odds is true, even though I only bought nvidia up until
this
point. Trust me, this won't be as far stretching as you think, it's just a
bit
too much "out there".
Jamie_Manic
"The Posting One" <bl...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:zEwza.13625$Pz3.6...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
forget
> computers. i'm done with them. they are going down the shitter in a
> handbasket:
Its rubbish, look at ATIs website.
http://mirror.ati.com/shopati/promotions/halflife2.html
GPU manufacturer exclusivity may happen in the future though...its a
horrible thought.
Alai
> etc. exclusive PC games? Nothing new, but still:
Like what?
NightSky 421
news:zEwza.13625$Pz3.6...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
If these statements hold true, I can only respond by saying that a house
divided will fall. If developers start shutting out users because of what
video card they own one way or the other, the death knell for PC gaming is
certain. I would be majorly ticked off if the above statements come to
life. I want one PC in which to do all my gaming. I don't mind so much if
extra graphical features are implemented based on what video card you own as
was the case back in the days of 3dfx, but for a game to say you can't run
it at all because you own the 'wrong' brand of video card is completely
unacceptable.
Martin Eriksson
news:zEwza.13625$Pz3.6...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
forget
> computers. i'm done with them. they are going down the shitter in a
> handbasket:
>
<snip>
Well this all sounds like 100% bullshit to me. Yup. There you have it.
/M
Nathan
Tomb Raider
Falcon
Mechwarrior Mercenries
Unreal originally
Quake originally
"Alai" <ski...@hitscan.com> wrote in message
news:bam7o0$raf$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net...
Alai
"Nathan" <bnathan@big(ANTI-SPAM)pond.net.au> wrote in message
news:qPxza.53$ES....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
The Posting One
news:bam9ag$skm$1...@hudsucker.umdac.umu.se...
I tend to agree with you, but what if Nvidia did come up with say, $50
million to make half-life 2 exclusive... valve could only tolerate about 2
million sales lost, but it would only take, say, 200,000 high end video
cards to be worth nvidia's while. i think it would take about $100 million
to make it worth valve's while... but still within the realm of possibility.
Microsoft dropped $50 million to make Doom 3 Xbox-only...
Mike Webster
> Remember where you read this first, and expect confirmation at
> this May's E3.
Yep, that's why at E3 Half-Life 2 was shown in an ATI-sponsored booth
with ATI logos everywhere and the presentation was done on an ATI
Radeon 8500.....
FUD
Thunder
news:zEwza.13625$Pz3.6...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
> I just read this and nearly fell off my chair, if this happens, then
forget
> computers. i'm done with them. they are going down the shitter in a
> handbasket:
Yes, you will make your final stand!!! You go girl.
Destroy
Xocyll
entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
say:
>"Alai" <ski...@hitscan.com> wrote in message
>news:bam7o0$raf$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net...
>> > Have you already forgotten the times of 3Dfx Voodoo, Rendition Verite
>> > etc. exclusive PC games? Nothing new, but still:
>>
>> Like what?
>Virtua Fighter
>Tomb Raider
>Falcon
>Mechwarrior Mercenries
>Unreal originally
>Quake originally
Well since I played Tombraider, MW2:mercenaries, Unreal and Quake all
without owning a 3DFX card, they could hardly be _exclusive_ 3DFX games.
A 3DFX enhanced version of a game does not equal that game being 3DFX
exclusive.
Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr
Scud
And how would we do that? All mobo's that I know of only come with 1 AGP
slot and most of the top of the line cards are AGP only, that and how
many people are going to spend $800+ on two high end cards? Hell, most
people balk at a $400 card. This article has been floating around for a
month or two now, E3 has come and gone and I think if there was to be
such an announcement it would have been made at E3. Besides, Valve would
be shooting themselves in the foot if they made such a decsion, I don't
think they're that stupid.
-Scud
--
----------------------------------------------------
" A man of genius has a right to any
mode of expression. "
- Ezra Pound 1918
" Fuck you " - Barry Ween 1999
mr bernard langham
"Mike Webster" <mdw*nospam*@hotpop.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9384E3C54...@216.166.71.233...
In fact, there's a scripted Radeon placement plug in the voice-over to the
tech demo, if you watch the videos.
--
>^..^<
Bernard
www.cs.uwa.edu.au/~langhb01
"Acts of rebellious solidarity/Can bring sense to this world/La Resistance!"
Stereolab "French Disko" 1995
mr bernard langham
> > with ATI logos everywhere and the presentation was done on an ATI
> > Radeon 8500.....
>
> In fact, there's a scripted Radeon placement plug in the voice-over to the
> tech demo, if you watch the videos.
And I quote (from e32k3-halflife2_pce32002_1dn_qt.mov) @ 2 min 10sec in:
"Over here, you can get a sense of the wide variety of visual effects that
are possible using Source on top of a hardware platform like the ATI Radeon
9800 Pro".
This voice over occurs just after the refractive water demo, during the
sequence where the demonstrator looks at a series of rotating, procedurally
textured, bumpmapped, translucent, refracting, animated panel things
(including a fresnel glass panel, a panel made up of rippling water, and
lastly a stained glass image of Gordon Freeman "teh Saviour" ;p).
So... I'd say the OP's source is full of it.
Nathan
These were just off the top of my head there are hundreds of others.
"Xocyll" <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote in message
news:i4otcv4rqtvrbidf8...@4ax.com...
Alai
Heh... can you believe we actually played games without 3d accelerated
graphics? Those looked so awful! :)
"juha" <ju...@invalid.none.com> wrote in message
news:ej6ucvcj8ehbuvrq2...@4ax.com...
>
> Of course, but they usually supported only certain 3D cards. Quite
> often the non-accelerated modes looked terrible and were so slow.
Nathan
These were just off the top of my head there are hundreds of others.
"Xocyll" <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote in message
news:i4otcv4rqtvrbidf8...@4ax.com...
Jarkko Altonen
>I played most of them in non 3d-accelerated mode just fine.
I think the point he was making was that the 3d accelerated versions
of these titles were "exclusive" to certain chipsets.
writeme.com
wrote:
>I think the point he was making was that the 3d accelerated versions
>of these titles were "exclusive" to certain chipsets.
Thats because 3Dfx was the only real player in 3D acceleration at the
time. They were so far ahead of the competition.
Andrew.
Jarkko Altonen
There was another 3d chipset around during this era called Rendition
Verite (sp?). Some of the early titles were exclusive to this chip and
were not 3dfx compatible.
The bad old days.
Andrew MacPherson
(Alai) wrote:
> can you believe we actually played games without 3d accelerated
> graphics?
I started replaying Quake2 recently on my non-D3D laptop. Enjoyed it
enough to transfer Q2 to my main desktop, but I still prefer the look of
the software mode graphics to the OGL accelerated graphics.
I may just be weird though :o)
Andrew McP
writeme.com
wrote:
>>Thats because 3Dfx was the only real player in 3D acceleration at the
>>time. They were so far ahead of the competition.
>
>There was another 3d chipset around during this era called Rendition
>Verite (sp?). Some of the early titles were exclusive to this chip and
>were not 3dfx compatible.
>
Yes there was PowerVR too, but that was nowhere near as good as 3Dfx
either.
Andrew.
Ries
> I don't recall names of 3Dfx-only games but I do remember there were
> some, because some die-hard Verite-owners would try to downplay those
> games saying they wouldn't have wanted to play them anyway. :) Could
> be Eurofighter, Longbow 2, POD, Uprising, Uprising 2: Lead and Destroy
> or some such games, don't remember for sure.
Extreme Assault was a 3DFX only game.
Richard
Alai
news:9tducvs60jmkj644s...@4ax.com...
Here's what had happened.
In the beginning, id Software fully endorsed Rendition, to be their 3D
graphics for the upcoming Quake 1. Soon after releasing the 3D patch for
Quake, John Carmack(head honcho at id) realized that 3dfx voodoo card was
much more powerful, and faster. So he quickly switched gears, and started
supporting 3dfx by the way of Glide, OpenGL(which rendition was too slow for
it), and transparent water and ect ect.
writeme.com
>Here's what had happened.
>
>In the beginning, id Software fully endorsed Rendition, to be their 3D
>graphics for the upcoming Quake 1. Soon after releasing the 3D patch for
>Quake, John Carmack(head honcho at id) realized that 3dfx voodoo card was
>much more powerful, and faster. So he quickly switched gears, and started
>supporting 3dfx by the way of Glide, OpenGL(which rendition was too slow for
>it), and transparent water and ect ect.
>
Quake onwards was OpenGL, not Glide. You needed a MiniGL driver to run
it on the Voodoo 1, 2, etc.
Andrew.
Arnulf Guenther Jr.
wrote:
>
>Remember where you read this first, and expect confirmation at this May's
>E3.
Someone pissed off at Nvidia?
-Arnulf
redTed
> > So just run 2 video cards in one computer.
> > And how would we do that? All mobo's that I know of only come with 1 AGP
> slot and most of the top of the line cards are AGP only, that and how
> many people are going to spend $800+ on two high end cards? Hell, most
> people balk at a $400 card. This article has been floating around for a
> month or two now, E3 has come and gone and I think if there was to be
> such an announcement it would have been made at E3. Besides, Valve would
> be shooting themselves in the foot if they made such a decsion, I don't
> think they're that stupid.
>
And the fact that FX cards require 2 PCI slots due to their size.
Martin Eriksson
news:banfp2$1jo7v$1...@ID-76866.news.dfncis.de...
... AHA!
It's all a plot to give us less space for secondary PCI-based Voodoo cards!
I KNEW IT!
kars
> Here's what had happened.
>
> In the beginning, id Software fully endorsed Rendition, to be their 3D
> graphics for the upcoming Quake 1. Soon after releasing the 3D patch for
> Quake, John Carmack(head honcho at id) realized that 3dfx voodoo card was
> much more powerful, and faster. So he quickly switched gears, and started
> supporting 3dfx by the way of Glide, OpenGL(which rendition was too slow
for
> it), and transparent water and ect ect.
>
>
Well, almost. Carmack ported Quake to OpenGL in order to play around with it
on one of iD's Silicon Graphics machines which had 3d acceleration. 3dfx
quickly realised that getting Quake to run on their cards would be great
promotion for their products and thus they wrote an glide<-->opengl-wrapper
which only implemented those OpenGL functions that Quake needed, a miniGL
driver. Carmack didn't really go out of his way to support 3dfx per se,
since he didn't port Quake to Glide (even though he did do later
incarnations of GLQuake with 3dfx in mind). I'd say the 3dfx support in
Quake was more a good business move on the part of 3dfx.
/kars
Martin Eriksson
news:qPxza.53$ES....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> Tomb Raider
> Falcon
> Mechwarrior Mercenries
> Unreal originally
> Quake originally
Not really, they were "exclusive" in the sence that there were no (good)
universal API around at that time. So what should you do as a dev? Write
livraries for each and every 3D API?
Nathan
These were just off the top of my head there are hundreds of others.
"Xocyll" <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote in message
news:i4otcv4rqtvrbidf8...@4ax.com...
JumpKick
"Nathan" <bnathan@big(ANTI-SPAM)pond.net.au> schreef in bericht
news:aYEza.472$ES....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> It was EXCLUSIVE to hardware.
>
> These were just off the top of my head there are hundreds of others.
> > >Tomb Raider
> > >Falcon
> > >Mechwarrior Mercenries
> > >Unreal originally
> > >Quake originally
no it was not, Tomb Raider, Unreal and Quake at least didn't require 3DFX (I
played them both with and withouth it)
Kroagnon
> In the beginning, id Software fully endorsed Rendition, to be their 3D
> graphics for the upcoming Quake 1. Soon after releasing the 3D patch for
> Quake, John Carmack(head honcho at id) realized that 3dfx voodoo card was
> much more powerful, and faster. So he quickly switched gears, and started
> supporting 3dfx by the way of Glide, OpenGL(which rendition was too slow
for
> it), and transparent water and ect ect.
No Quake engine ever supported Glide. It supported OpenGL natively and came
with a 3Dfx Glide wrapper.
JumpKick
"Ries" <ri...@cistron.nl> schreef in bericht
news:bane5v$s3r$1...@news.cistron.nl...
no it wasn't- I still have the game, in fact it was known for running well
and looking good (nice transparacy's etc) WITHOUT any 3D accelerator
Anders Albrechtsen
"The Posting One" <bl...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:zEwza.13625$Pz3.6...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
> I just read this and nearly fell off my chair, if this happens, then
forget
> computers. i'm done with them. they are going down the shitter in a
> handbasket:
>
> ---
>
> We can reveal that Valve is currently looking at making its massively
> anticipated FPS sequel Half-Life 2 exclusive to nVidia graphics cards, in
> what will be the first deal of its kind in the PC gaming sector.
>snip<
It's a little late for April's fool jokes, don't you think? ;-) Last week
Halflife 2 was demo'ed at the E3 booth on a test system which used a Radeon
9800 Pro graphics card. Aside from this there're legal matters to consider
as well. I don't think Valve is allowed to exclude particular graphics card
vendors as long as they use DirectX which is an open source API. Should they
decide to do so they would most certainly face several lawsuits from ATI,
Matrox and other competing graphics vendors.
---
Anders
Nathan
These were just off the top of my head there are hundreds of others.
"Xocyll" <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote in message
news:i4otcv4rqtvrbidf8...@4ax.com...
Nathan
Walter Mitty
internet community might be interested in his ill considered point of
view when in news:zEwza.13625$Pz3.6...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net he
conjectured that:
> I just read this and nearly fell off my chair, if this happens, then
> forget computers. i'm done with them. they are going down the shitter
> in a handbasket:
>
> ---
>
> We can reveal that Valve is currently looking at making its massively
> anticipated FPS sequel Half-Life 2 exclusive to nVidia graphics cards,
> in what will be the first deal of its kind in the PC gaming sector.
>
> This massive story comes from insiders at nVidia, who are boasting
> that this will be the first of many such deals for exclusive content,
> bespoke to its cards.
>
> We have been aware for some time that both ATi and nVidia have been
> courting the publishers and developers of AAA PC games, trying to gain
> card-exclusivity.
>
> "You will see a massive change in the structure of the PC games
> industry in the next few months, with the first batch of announcements
> hitting at E3," one insider told us. "Instead of being referred to as
> PC gaming, you will become an nVidia or ATi gamer, as distinct as Sony
> and Nintendo."
>
> This concept has been circulating for some time, with gossip about
> graphics cards overshadowing next-gen console talk at the recent Game
> Developer's Conference.
>
> Remember where you read this first, and expect confirmation at this
> May's E3.
>
>
Rubbish.
The demo videos were rendered on an ATI 98000 Pro.
--
Walter Mitty.
Walter Mitty
might be interested in his ill considered point of view when in news:ban6cq
$sja$1...@slb9.atl.mindspring.net he conjectured that:
> Okaydokay.
>
> Heh... can you believe we actually played games without 3d accelerated
> graphics? Those looked so awful! :)
>
Unreal didn't. It looked great,
--
Walter Mitty.
Martin Eriksson
news:Xns938622B3F2...@62.153.159.134...
<snip>
>
> Rubbish.
>
> The demo videos were rendered on an ATI 98000 Pro.
I WANT! More zeroes must mean more performance, no?
Martin Eriksson
I-War looked absolutely fabulous in 256-color software mode. True
programming genius on that one.
/M
Stephen Robertson
"Martin Eriksson" <mar...@norrsken.dhs.org> wrote in message
news:baq540$bg9$1...@hudsucker.umdac.umu.se...
>
> I-War looked absolutely fabulous in 256-color software mode. True
> programming genius on that one.
>
Thanks for the kind words about I-War. When I first saw the graphics I was
totally amazed. Even today they have a starkness about the shading which
gives them a really moody atmosphere.
Best regards,
-- Steve
Stephen Robertson
Senior Designer
Argonaut Sheffield
(Formerly Particle Systems, creators of I-War)
The Posting One
I don't believe that's a valid logical argument, because "past results does
not indicate future performance". Nvidia might make a deal tomorrow and
whether or not HL2 was rendered on an ATI 98000 yesterday, does not mean it
won't be exclusive to FX59000's tomorrow.
Eep²
Anders Albrechtsen wrote:
> "The Posting One" <bl...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> news:zEwza.13625$Pz3.6...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
> > I just read this and nearly fell off my chair, if this happens, then forget
> > computers. i'm done with them. they are going down the shitter in a
> > handbasket:
> >
> > We can reveal that Valve is currently looking at making its massively
> > anticipated FPS sequel Half-Life 2 exclusive to nVidia graphics cards, in
> > what will be the first deal of its kind in the PC gaming sector.
>
Anders Albrechtsen
"Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED0F093...@spam.com...
> Uh, yea right. A developer can make its game not work on ANY hardware it
chooses to.
Only if they develop their own rendering technology.
>What about all the older video cards from long-dead manufacturers?
Invalid argument. Those cards do not support newer versions of DirectX and
the more advanced rendering functions. Halflife 2 supports DirectX 9.0 and
therefore should work with all compliant cards. The only way to exclude
particular DirectX 9.0 compliant graphics card brands is to make the game
exclude those chipsets.
>Surely, by your logic, they should be able to sue nVidia too, eh?
Why would they do that when the game developer limits hardware support?
Obviously your logic is different from mine.
> Hardly. Developers can exclude ANY hardware/software (many require the
latest DirectX version at the time--and some even require completely new
OSes!) with NO threat of silly lawsuits.
If they use an open source API such as DirectX or OpenGL I don't think
they're allowed to explicitely exclude certain card manufacturers that
otheriwse meet the hardware specifications. This would require the game
engine to search for particular chipsets and exclude all others. It can be
compared to releasing a DVD movie that'll only play on a particular brand of
DVD player. Do really think this is legal?
---
Anders
Peter Cowderoy
> Invalid argument. Those cards do not support newer versions of DirectX and
> the more advanced rendering functions. Halflife 2 supports DirectX 9.0 and
> therefore should work with all compliant cards. The only way to exclude
> particular DirectX 9.0 compliant graphics card brands is to make the game
> exclude those chipsets.
>
Sorry, but this isn't true. There are issues like the length of pixel
shader supported where the Geforce FX presently has a lead on ATI
hardware, and you can write DX9 apps that used pixel shaders that
presently only run on nvidia kit.
Mesaeus
"Jarkko Altonen" <jar...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:3ecf2fb2.6229147@news-server...
> aep@nospam writeme.com wrote:
>
> >On Sat, 24 May 2003 08:11:12 GMT, jar...@nospam.com (Jarkko Altonen)
> >wrote:
> >
> >>I think the point he was making was that the 3d accelerated versions
> >>of these titles were "exclusive" to certain chipsets.
> >
> >Thats because 3Dfx was the only real player in 3D acceleration at the
> >time. They were so far ahead of the competition.
>
> There was another 3d chipset around during this era called Rendition
> Verite (sp?). Some of the early titles were exclusive to this chip and
> were not 3dfx compatible.
Actually, everything got predated by Nvidia. I remember a NV1 product
that got bundled with a special version of Virtua Fighter. In fact at that
time it was the only version for PC of that game so people who wanted
to play it needed to buy that NV1 card bundled with it, I think it was a
"Diamond Edge" or something.
kars
"Peter Cowderoy" <psy...@petercowderoy.org> wrote in message
news:Pine.WNT.4.53.0305252046510.1004@SLINKY...
> Sorry, but this isn't true. There are issues like the length of pixel
> shader supported where the Geforce FX presently has a lead on ATI
> hardware, and you can write DX9 apps that used pixel shaders that
> presently only run on nvidia kit.
>
Not that the Geforce FX could execute such lenghty shaders with any kind of
performance though :)
/kars
Anders Albrechtsen
"Peter Cowderoy" <psy...@petercowderoy.org> wrote in message
news:Pine.WNT.4.53.0305252046510.1004@SLINKY...
Rubbish. Back in the days of the GeForce 2, Radeon and Voodoo5 several games
were released which supported different bump mapping techniques. Only Radeon
owners would enjoy the full benefits of these advanced visual effects, but
the games ran just fine with Nvidia and 3dfx hardware. Even today many games
use pixel shaders (Morrowind, Splinter Cell etc.), but run just fine with
older cards. In other words, supporting advanced DX9 pixel shaders will not
make it impossible for ATI hardware to run the game per se.
---
Anders
ThE AnArKrIsT
Cooooool! I was just about to buy a brand new 9800 pro and now they're making
a 98000? I'll hold off then on that 9800. What's the release date, "when it's
done"? Does that mean some time in 2010?
ThE AnArKrIsT
>whether or not HL2 was rendered on an ATI 98000 yesterday, does not mean it
>won't be exclusive to FX59000's tomorrow.
OH YEAH!! Now that's what I'm waiting for, the FX 59000!!! Nevermind the
98000.....
Peter Cowderoy
>
> "Peter Cowderoy" <psy...@petercowderoy.org> wrote in message
> news:Pine.WNT.4.53.0305252046510.1004@SLINKY...
> > On Sun, 25 May 2003, Anders Albrechtsen wrote:
> >
> > > Invalid argument. Those cards do not support newer versions of DirectX
> and
> > > the more advanced rendering functions. Halflife 2 supports DirectX 9.0
> and
> > > therefore should work with all compliant cards. The only way to exclude
> > > particular DirectX 9.0 compliant graphics card brands is to make the
> game
> > > exclude those chipsets.
> > >
> >
> > Sorry, but this isn't true. There are issues like the length of pixel
> > shader supported where the Geforce FX presently has a lead on ATI
> > hardware, and you can write DX9 apps that used pixel shaders that
> > presently only run on nvidia kit.
>
> Rubbish. Back in the days of the GeForce 2, Radeon and Voodoo5 several games
> were released which supported different bump mapping techniques. Only Radeon
> owners would enjoy the full benefits of these advanced visual effects, but
> the games ran just fine with Nvidia and 3dfx hardware.
Yes, because they had seperate codepaths to support different combinations
of features.
Eep²
> "Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED0F093...@spam.com...
> > Uh, yea right. A developer can make its game not work on ANY hardware it
> chooses to.
>
> Only if they develop their own rendering technology.
No, not only. Engine developers don't give 2 shits and a piss about how a developer limits its game; all they care about is their licensing fee. <shrug>
> >What about all the older video cards from long-dead manufacturers?
>
> Invalid argument.
Nah; it was merely a point to invalidate YOUR invalid argument. Wee...
> Those cards do not support newer versions of DirectX and
> the more advanced rendering functions. Halflife 2 supports DirectX 9.0 and
> therefore should work with all compliant cards. The only way to exclude
> particular DirectX 9.0 compliant graphics card brands is to make the game
> exclude those chipsets.
duh
> >Surely, by your logic, they should be able to sue nVidia too, eh?
>
> Why would they do that when the game developer limits hardware support?
Der, gee, George, then why did you bring up video chip/card manufacturer lawsuits against a game developer in the first place? <blink>
> Obviously your logic is different from mine.
It's YOUR logic that is different, bub; you're simply coming to terms with it as I reflect it back to you--and seeing just how ridiculous it truly is. <snicker>
> > Hardly. Developers can exclude ANY hardware/software (many require the
> latest DirectX version at the time--and some even require completely new
> OSes!) with NO threat of silly lawsuits.
> >
> If they use an open source API such as DirectX or OpenGL I don't think
> they're allowed to explicitely exclude certain card manufacturers that
> otheriwse meet the hardware specifications. This would require the game
> engine to search for particular chipsets and exclude all others. It can be
> compared to releasing a DVD movie that'll only play on a particular brand of
> DVD player. Do really think this is legal?
<shrug> Do I care? No. DirectX and OpenGL are OPEN APIs (come on; surely the "Open" in "OpenGL" could have clued you in just a bit...) and NO restrictions against hardware restriction are imposed.
NOTHING (except, of course, less users) will happen to a developer who chooses to limit the hardware its software works on.
Walter Mitty
internet community might be interested in his ill considered point of
that:
Hmm. Yes. You're right. It amazed me. Astounding graphics for the time in
ONLY SW rendering mode. Didn't they come out with a 3dfx version for the
US at a later date?
It was one of those games that made me think "surely gfx can't get better
than this". Had it not been for the crappy scripted nature of the
missions (a problem, IMO, amplified in IWar-2) it could have been an all
time great.
--
Walter Mitty.
Walter Mitty
internet community might be interested in his ill considered point of
conjectured that:
Come on lads. My 00000000 key sticks.
Cut me so0000me slack on that typo00.
--
Walter Mitty.
Stephen Robertson
"Walter Mitty" <n...@no.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9387188087...@127.0.0.1...
> "Martin Eriksson" <mar...@norrsken.dhs.org> mistakenly thought that the
> internet community might be interested in his ill considered point of
> view when in news:baq540$bg9$1...@hudsucker.umdac.umu.se he conjectured
> that:
>
> > "Walter Mitty" <no...@noway.com> wrote in message
> > news:Xns938622DBD9...@62.153.159.134...
> >> "Alai" <ski...@hitscan.com> mistakenly thought that the internet
> >> community might be interested in his ill considered point of view
> >> when in
> > news:ban6cq
> >> $sja$1...@slb9.atl.mindspring.net he conjectured that:
> >>
> >> > Okaydokay.
> >> >
> >> > Heh... can you believe we actually played games without 3d
> >> > accelerated graphics? Those looked so awful! :)
> >> >
> >>
> >> Unreal didn't. It looked great,
> >
> > I-War looked absolutely fabulous in 256-color software mode. True
> > programming genius on that one.
> >
>
> Hmm. Yes. You're right. It amazed me. Astounding graphics for the time in
> ONLY SW rendering mode. Didn't they come out with a 3dfx version for the
> US at a later date?
>
Yes, there was a 3Dfx version released in the US, and later in the UK as a
special edition.
Lithurge
Well as the hack for the Nvidia Dawn demo showed, people can
proivde a workaround for exclusive features too, if they
really want to. The point is Valve will not be limiting their
market for those who can play the game.
Why do you think Half Life is still so popular?
One Punch Mickey
Counterstrike and Day of Defeat.
--
* -
* - Nicotine, valium, vicadin, marijuana, ecstasy, and alcohol.
* - C-c-c-c-c-cocaine ...
* -
Anders Albrechtsen
"Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED1AADA...@spam.com...
> Anders Albrechtsen wrote:
>
> > "Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED0F093...@spam.com...
> > > Uh, yea right. A developer can make its game not work on ANY hardware
it
> > chooses to.
> >
> > Only if they develop their own rendering technology.
>
> No, not only. Engine developers don't give 2 shits and a piss about how a
developer limits its game; all they care about is their licensing fee.
<shrug>
As long as they develop their engine using DirectX or OpenGL it isn't
necessary to specifically support compatible chipsets. On the other hand it
requires special coding to deliberately exclude certain compatible chipsets.
> > >What about all the older video cards from long-dead manufacturers?
> >
> > Invalid argument.
>
> Nah; it was merely a point to invalidate YOUR invalid argument. Wee...
Your arument is a "non-argument" since deliberate and specific hardware
restrictions has never been seen before in the computer game industry.
> > Those cards do not support newer versions of DirectX and
> > the more advanced rendering functions. Halflife 2 supports DirectX 9.0
and
> > therefore should work with all compliant cards. The only way to exclude
> > particular DirectX 9.0 compliant graphics card brands is to make the
game
> > exclude those chipsets.
>
> duh
What a convincing argument. >chuckles<
> > >Surely, by your logic, they should be able to sue nVidia too, eh?
> >
> > Why would they do that when the game developer limits hardware support?
>
> Der, gee, George, then why did you bring up video chip/card manufacturer
lawsuits against a game developer in the first place? <blink>
First of all my name isn't George. Do you have a reading problem? Or maybe
you would prefer if I called you "Doofis" or "Zorba the Geek"? I don't know
how your parents raised you, but where I come we don't take people seriously
who resort to namecalling.
I brought up the lawsuits because making Halflife 2 exclusive to nVidia
chipsets would represent an entirely new situation with no preceding
examples in the history of computer games. Sure there're many examples of
hardware that don't work with certain games, but that is a question of
features and API support not a specific and deliberate refusal to support
certain chipsets.
> > Obviously your logic is different from mine.
>
> It's YOUR logic that is different, bub;
I see your reading problem is persistent ;-)
> you're simply coming to terms with it as I reflect it back to you--and
seeing just how ridiculous it truly is. <snicker>
It isn't rediculous at all since ther're no similar examples in history.
Masking Halfife 2 exclusive to Nvidia chipsets would represent an entirely
new situation.
> > > Hardly. Developers can exclude ANY hardware/software (many require the
> > latest DirectX version at the time--and some even require completely new
> > OSes!) with NO threat of silly lawsuits.
> > >
> > If they use an open source API such as DirectX or OpenGL I don't think
> > they're allowed to explicitely exclude certain card manufacturers that
> > otheriwse meet the hardware specifications. This would require the game
> > engine to search for particular chipsets and exclude all others. It can
be
> > compared to releasing a DVD movie that'll only play on a particular
brand of
> > DVD player. Do really think this is legal?
>
> <shrug> Do I care? No.
So you refuse to argue. >sigh<
>DirectX and OpenGL are OPEN APIs (come on; surely the "Open" in "OpenGL"
could have clued you in just a bit...) and NO restrictions against hardware
restriction are imposed.
OpenGL was founded by a joint venture of several hardware and software
companies and I believe it would conflict with the intentions of the project
to restrict it's use to only a few chipsets. I'm pretty sure even M$ would
argue if their DirectX API is restricted to only a few chipsets unless of
course they made such an agreement with a particular graphics chipset
company themselves.
> NOTHING (except, of course, less users) will happen to a developer who
chooses to limit the hardware its software works on.
Maybe, maybe not. I agree that lawsuits may seem like an unlikely result of
a deliberate hardware restrcition imposed by a game developer. It is
probably more likely that hardware vendors would simply ignore this game
developer in the future and form new alliances. However since the're no
preceding examples one shouldn't rule out one or the other action.
---
Anders
Walter Mitty
internet community might be interested in his ill considered point of
that:
Not if it's DX 9 compliant. The whole point of the the cover API is that
the driver then compensates a missing HW feature either by (a) ignoring
it or (b) approximating it in SW mode.
Otherwise the card is NOT API (read "DX9") compliant.
--
Walter Mitty.
Anders Albrechtsen
Precisely the point I've been trying to make. Making the Halflife exclusive
to nVidia chipsets would require special coding (or 'hack') to prevent the
game from running with ATI Radeon 9xxx and other 'unspported' DX9 compliant
chipsets. In many cases DirectX is backwards compatible with earlier
versions so that games coded for the latest DirectX version still work with
older hardware which isn't fully compliant. For instance Splinter Cell run
with GeForce 2 and Radeon chipsets although these arent't fully DirectX 8
compliant. You jts don't get pixel shaded water effects.
---
Anders
killermike
st...@particle-systems.com says...
As with most games, I started playing it a long time after it was first
released. This did mean that I was able to start with the 3dfx version.
The interesting thing about the 3dfx rendering is that it was mostly of
a higher quality than the prerendered movies, IMO :-)
> Best regards,
>
> -- Steve
> Stephen Robertson
> Senior Designer
> Argonaut Sheffield
> (Formerly Particle Systems, creators of I-War)
>
>
>
--
***Please remove the word 'not' from my
email address to reply.
Lithurge
news:Xns93879233F59...@194.125.133.14:
>> Why do you think Half Life is still so popular?
>
> Counterstrike and Day of Defeat.
>
And the support valve have given to the community to enable
these mods to develop & continue to develop.
Eep²
> "Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED1AADA...@spam.com...
> > Anders Albrechtsen wrote:
> >
> > > "Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED0F093...@spam.com...
> > > > Uh, yea right. A developer can make its game not work on ANY hardware it
> > > chooses to.
> > >
> > > Only if they develop their own rendering technology.
> >
> > No, not only. Engine developers don't give 2 shits and a piss about how a
> developer limits its game; all they care about is their licensing fee.
> <shrug>
> >
> As long as they develop their engine using DirectX or OpenGL it isn't
> necessary to specifically support compatible chipsets. On the other hand it
> requires special coding to deliberately exclude certain compatible chipsets.
>
> > > >What about all the older video cards from long-dead manufacturers?
> > >
> > > Invalid argument.
> >
> > Nah; it was merely a point to invalidate YOUR invalid argument. Wee...
>
> Your arument is a "non-argument" since deliberate and specific hardware
> restrictions has never been seen before in the computer game industry.
Surely you've never heard of a hypothetical argument?
> > > Those cards do not support newer versions of DirectX and
> > > the more advanced rendering functions. Halflife 2 supports DirectX 9.0 and
> > > therefore should work with all compliant cards. The only way to exclude
> > > particular DirectX 9.0 compliant graphics card brands is to make the game
> > > exclude those chipsets.
> >
> > duh
>
> What a convincing argument. >chuckles<
Yours aren't any better. <shrug>
> > > >Surely, by your logic, they should be able to sue nVidia too, eh?
> > >
> > > Why would they do that when the game developer limits hardware support?
> >
> > Der, gee, George, then why did you bring up video chip/card manufacturer
> lawsuits against a game developer in the first place? <blink>
>
> First of all my name isn't George. Do you have a reading problem? Or maybe
> you would prefer if I called you "Doofis" or "Zorba the Geek"? I don't know
> how your parents raised you, but where I come we don't take people seriously
> who resort to namecalling.
It's an expression obviously lost upon your young ignorant mind. <shrug>
I stopped taking you seriously when you suspected lawsuits against a game developer for excluding some video chips. And calling my argument "invalid" and my logic different from yours didn't help your seriousness-taking either.
> I brought up the lawsuits because making Halflife 2 exclusive to nVidia
> chipsets would represent an entirely new situation with no preceding
> examples in the history of computer games. Sure there're many examples of
> hardware that don't work with certain games, but that is a question of
> features and API support not a specific and deliberate refusal to support
> certain chipsets.
So what? For a video chip maker to SUE over that would just be silly and wouldn't stand up in court at all. There's NO law that says game developers MUST support ALL current (or not) hardware. Why doesn't Apple sue every PC-only software developer then for not supporting its platform? Think, man...
> > > Obviously your logic is different from mine.
> >
> > It's YOUR logic that is different, bub;
>
> I see your reading problem is persistent ;-)
The only problem I have is in dealing with you. Rest assured, after this post, that will be alleviated once you're filtered.
> > you're simply coming to terms with it as I reflect it back to you--and
> seeing just how ridiculous it truly is. <snicker>
>
> It isn't rediculous at all since ther're no similar examples in history.
> Masking Halfife 2 exclusive to Nvidia chipsets would represent an entirely
> new situation.
Not entirely; learn to think relatively.
> > > > Hardly. Developers can exclude ANY hardware/software (many require the
> > > latest DirectX version at the time--and some even require completely new
> > > OSes!) with NO threat of silly lawsuits.
> > > >
> > > If they use an open source API such as DirectX or OpenGL I don't think
> > > they're allowed to explicitely exclude certain card manufacturers that
> > > otheriwse meet the hardware specifications. This would require the game
> > > engine to search for particular chipsets and exclude all others. It can be
> > > compared to releasing a DVD movie that'll only play on a particular brand of
> > > DVD player. Do really think this is legal?
> >
> > <shrug> Do I care? No.
>
> So you refuse to argue. >sigh<
I tire of arguing with a weak mind. <yawn>
> >DirectX and OpenGL are OPEN APIs (come on; surely the "Open" in "OpenGL"
> could have clued you in just a bit...) and NO restrictions against hardware
> restriction are imposed.
> >
> OpenGL was founded by a joint venture of several hardware and software
> companies and I believe it would conflict with the intentions of the project
> to restrict it's use to only a few chipsets. I'm pretty sure even M$ would
> argue if their DirectX API is restricted to only a few chipsets unless of
> course they made such an agreement with a particular graphics chipset
> company themselves.
Uh huh...well, I'll believe it when (if) I see it.
> > NOTHING (except, of course, less users) will happen to a developer who
> chooses to limit the hardware its software works on.
> >
> Maybe, maybe not. I agree that lawsuits may seem like an unlikely result of
> a deliberate hardware restrcition imposed by a game developer. It is
> probably more likely that hardware vendors would simply ignore this game
> developer in the future and form new alliances. However since the're no
> preceding examples one shouldn't rule out one or the other action.
I'd bet no lawsuits would happen (or if so they would be quickly thrown out).
redTed
>
It's difficult enough following your obtuse meanderings without this
grammatical mess. Get a grip, son.
>shrug<>wink<>nod<>titter<>toss<>pot<>etc<
Anders Albrechtsen
"Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED254EE...@spam.com...
> Anders Albrechtsen wrote:
>
> > "Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED1AADA...@spam.com...
> > > Anders Albrechtsen wrote:
> > >
> > > > "Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message
news:3ED0F093...@spam.com...
> > > > > Uh, yea right. A developer can make its game not work on ANY
hardware it
> > > > chooses to.
> > > >
> > > > Only if they develop their own rendering technology.
> > >
> > > No, not only. Engine developers don't give 2 shits and a piss about
how a
> > developer limits its game; all they care about is their licensing fee.
> > <shrug>
> > >
> > As long as they develop their engine using DirectX or OpenGL it isn't
> > necessary to specifically support compatible chipsets. On the other hand
it
> > requires special coding to deliberately exclude certain compatible
chipsets.
> >
> > > > >What about all the older video cards from long-dead manufacturers?
> > > >
> > > > Invalid argument.
> > >
> > > Nah; it was merely a point to invalidate YOUR invalid argument. Wee...
> >
> > Your arument is a "non-argument" since deliberate and specific hardware
> > restrictions has never been seen before in the computer game industry.
>
> Surely you've never heard of a hypothetical argument?
Yes, but yours aren't.
> > > > Those cards do not support newer versions of DirectX and
> > > > the more advanced rendering functions. Halflife 2 supports DirectX
9.0 and
> > > > therefore should work with all compliant cards. The only way to
exclude
> > > > particular DirectX 9.0 compliant graphics card brands is to make the
game
> > > > exclude those chipsets.
> > >
> > > duh
> >
> > What a convincing argument. >chuckles<
>
> Yours aren't any better. <shrug>
Hmm, we're runnig in circles here. >bah<
> > > > >Surely, by your logic, they should be able to sue nVidia too, eh?
> > > >
> > > > Why would they do that when the game developer limits hardware
support?
> > >
> > > Der, gee, George, then why did you bring up video chip/card
manufacturer
> > lawsuits against a game developer in the first place? <blink>
> >
> > First of all my name isn't George. Do you have a reading problem? Or
maybe
> > you would prefer if I called you "Doofis" or "Zorba the Geek"? I don't
know
> > how your parents raised you, but where I come we don't take people
seriously
> > who resort to namecalling.
>
> It's an expression obviously lost upon your young ignorant mind. <shrug>
I'm not ignorant, I just don't like arrogant people. Sorry if this fits your
description.
> I stopped taking you seriously when you suspected lawsuits against a game
developer for excluding some video chips. And calling my argument "invalid"
and my logic different from yours didn't help your seriousness-taking
either.
>
> > I brought up the lawsuits because making Halflife 2 exclusive to nVidia
> > chipsets would represent an entirely new situation with no preceding
> > examples in the history of computer games. Sure there're many examples
of
> > hardware that don't work with certain games, but that is a question of
> > features and API support not a specific and deliberate refusal to
support
> > certain chipsets.
>
> So what? For a video chip maker to SUE over that would just be silly and
wouldn't stand up in court at all. There's NO law that says game developers
MUST support ALL current (or not) hardware.
There's no explicit law against that, agreed. But try to analyze the problem
in an intelligent way for a change. What if nVidia (or whatever graphics
chip vendor) suddenly decides to sign exclusive contracts with all major
software companies thus in effect gaining a monopoly position on the marked.
Don't you think this would interfere with general competition law? I know
for a fact that such actions are prevented by competition law in my country.
It's called illegal entry barriers.
>Why doesn't Apple sue every PC-only software developer then for not
supporting its platform? Think, man...
Start using your brain man! Apple and PC are two _completely_ different
platforms. Its's like comparing apples and bananas.. First of all the basic
technology (CPU etc.) is different and they use different operating systems.
Nvidia and ATI on the other hand use similar technology on the same platform
(Windows, OpenGL, DirectX) and is thus aimed at the exact same market.
Making a game exclusive to Nvidia or whatever chipset can be compared to
supporting only Dell systems or releasing a DVD movie that only plays on
Sony DVD players.
> > > > Obviously your logic is different from mine.
> > >
> > > It's YOUR logic that is different, bub;
> >
> > I see your reading problem is persistent ;-)
>
> The only problem I have is in dealing with you. Rest assured, after this
post, that will be alleviated once you're filtered.
Filter me all you want, I couldn't care less. >chuckles<
> > > you're simply coming to terms with it as I reflect it back to you--and
> > seeing just how ridiculous it truly is. <snicker>
> >
> > It isn't rediculous at all since ther're no similar examples in history.
> > Masking Halfife 2 exclusive to Nvidia chipsets would represent an
entirely
> > new situation.
>
> Not entirely; learn to think relatively.
I could ask you to do the same.
> > > > > Hardly. Developers can exclude ANY hardware/software (many require
the
> > > > latest DirectX version at the time--and some even require completely
new
> > > > OSes!) with NO threat of silly lawsuits.
Of course they could, but that isn't the issue here. ATI's current chipsets
meets the same hadrware and software standards as Nvidia's latest chipset
except for some advanced pixel shader functions. The only way to prevent
ATI's chipsets from running a particular game is to incorporate some kind
of artificial lock.
> > > > If they use an open source API such as DirectX or OpenGL I don't
think
> > > > they're allowed to explicitely exclude certain card manufacturers
that
> > > > otheriwse meet the hardware specifications. This would require the
game
> > > > engine to search for particular chipsets and exclude all others. It
can be
> > > > compared to releasing a DVD movie that'll only play on a particular
brand of
> > > > DVD player. Do really think this is legal?
> > >
> > > <shrug> Do I care? No.
> >
> > So you refuse to argue. >sigh<
>
> I tire of arguing with a weak mind. <yawn>
Then stop doing so and move on. You certaily didn't earn any respect from me
with this arrogant and infantile attitude.
> > >DirectX and OpenGL are OPEN APIs (come on; surely the "Open" in
"OpenGL"
> > could have clued you in just a bit...) and NO restrictions against
hardware
> > restriction are imposed.
> > >
> > OpenGL was founded by a joint venture of several hardware and software
> > companies and I believe it would conflict with the intentions of the
project
> > to restrict it's use to only a few chipsets. I'm pretty sure even M$
would
> > argue if their DirectX API is restricted to only a few chipsets unless
of
> > course they made such an agreement with a particular graphics chipset
> > company themselves.
>
> Uh huh...well, I'll believe it when (if) I see it.
This will surely happen if one hardware vendor (Nvidia, ATI or whatever)
tries to sign multiple exclusive contracts. This will create artificial
entry barriers in the industry and would clearly be in conflict wiith
competition law in most if not all countries which has a market economy. If
the problem is severe the government will be forced to intervene.
> > > NOTHING (except, of course, less users) will happen to a developer who
> > chooses to limit the hardware its software works on.
> > >
> > Maybe, maybe not. I agree that lawsuits may seem like an unlikely result
of
> > a deliberate hardware restrcition imposed by a game developer. It is
> > probably more likely that hardware vendors would simply ignore this game
> > developer in the future and form new alliances. However since the're no
> > preceding examples one shouldn't rule out one or the other action.
>
> I'd bet no lawsuits would happen (or if so they would be quickly thrown
out).
Only if Halflife 2 was/remains the only case. However _IF_ one hardware
vendor tries to sign multiple exclusive contracts with game companies rest
assured the competing companies will take legal action. Otherwise they'll
slowly be forced out of the market. And if competition in the sector
develops into a monopoly situation even the government might intervene and
cancel the contracts. .
---
Anders
martin z
the DX shader language.
Anders Albrechtsen
"martin z" <px...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:vEvAa.250717$M81....@news02.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
> They could be using Cg - I believe that's an NVIDIA only system. ATI uses
> the DX shader language.
They could, but the game would still run on ATI hardware, just without the
advanced shader effects. Also the game engine is in the final state of
development and it probably wouldn't be profitable to rewrite the entire
game code with the sole purpose of supporting CG only.
---
Anders
mattchu
when Nathan <bnathan@big(ANTI-SPAM)pond.net.au> stumbled in shouting while
inebriated:
> It was EXCLUSIVE to hardware.
My hardware was able to handle those games just fine upon their release
without 3dfx products..
--
best regards, mattchu
np:
>
> "Xocyll" <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote in message
> news:i4otcv4rqtvrbidf8...@4ax.com...
>> "Nathan" <bnathan@big(ANTI-SPAM)pond.net.au> looked up from reading
>> the entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the
>> signs say:
>>> "Alai" <ski...@hitscan.com> wrote in message
>>> news:bam7o0$raf$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net...
>>>>> Have you already forgotten the times of 3Dfx Voodoo, Rendition
>>>>> Verite etc. exclusive PC games? Nothing new, but still:
>>>>
>>>> Like what?
>>
>>> Virtua Fighter
>>> Tomb Raider
>>> Falcon
>>> Mechwarrior Mercenries
>>> Unreal originally
>>> Quake originally
>>
>> Well since I played Tombraider, MW2:mercenaries, Unreal and Quake all
>> without owning a 3DFX card, they could hardly be _exclusive_ 3DFX
>> games.
>>
>> A 3DFX enhanced version of a game does not equal that game being 3DFX
>> exclusive.
>>
>> Xocyll
>> --
>> I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
>> a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
>> Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
>> FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr
mattchu
when juha <ju...@invalid.none.com> stumbled in shouting while inebriated:
> On Fri, 23 May 2003 15:35:42 -0700, "Alai" <ski...@hitscan.com> wrote:
>
>>> Have you already forgotten the times of 3Dfx Voodoo, Rendition
>>> Verite etc. exclusive PC games? Nothing new, but still:
>>
>> Like what?
>
> it supported was Rendition Verite cards. Much much later (like over 6
> months later or so) 3Dfx Voodoo cards were also supported with a
> patch.
>
> I don't recall names of 3Dfx-only games but I do remember there were
> some, because some die-hard Verite-owners would try to downplay those
> games saying they wouldn't have wanted to play them anyway. :) Could
> be Eurofighter, Longbow 2, POD, Uprising, Uprising 2: Lead and Destroy
> or some such games, don't remember for sure.
>
> Then there was e.g. Ultim@te Race or whatever it was which at first
> supported some third chipset only. Much later they released another
> version of that game which supported other 3D cards too.
I think Ultim@te Race Pro only supported the PowerVR chipset at first and it
took them a ridiculous amount of time to implement support for other 3D
chipsets in a product with a similar name that appeared on store shelves.
--
best regards, mattchu
E. Deirdre Brooks
>
> I played most of them in non 3d-accelerated mode just fine.
Kind of late, and the game isn't available anymore, but Redguard could
*only* be played with a 3dFX card.
--
E. D. Brooks | kalima...@attbi.com | US2002021724
Listowner: Aberrants_Worldwide, Fading_Suns_Games, TrinityRPG
AeonAdventure | "Why, in my day, we used to fight the Lord of
Terror with nothing but a sharp stick!" -- www.reallifecomics.com
Joseph Huesmann
> Alai wrote:
>>
>> I played most of them in non 3d-accelerated mode just fine.
>
> Kind of late, and the game isn't available anymore, but Redguard could
> *only* be played with a 3dFX card.
Right, prolly because it was written in Glide, the 3dfx proprietary API.
Lemongrass
<kalima...@attbi.com> wrote:
>Alai wrote:
>>
>> I played most of them in non 3d-accelerated mode just fine.
>
>Kind of late, and the game isn't available anymore, but Redguard could
>*only* be played with a 3dFX card.
If you installed the 3D-accelerated version of the game, true, but the
game ran/runs fine in software mode on non-3DFX cards to this day, and
the Glidos application allows some pretty nice Glide emulation for
Redguard. ^_^
Lemongrass
E. Deirdre Brooks
I don't seem to have this option available.
Lemongrass
<kalima...@attbi.com> wrote:
>> >Kind of late, and the game isn't available anymore, but Redguard could
>> >*only* be played with a 3dFX card.
>>
>> If you installed the 3D-accelerated version of the game, true, but the
>> game ran/runs fine in software mode on non-3DFX cards to this day, and
>> the Glidos application allows some pretty nice Glide emulation for
>> Redguard. ^_^
>
>I don't seem to have this option available.
Odd; I tried it again just now, and it's pretty hard to miss. After
the license agreement screen a window pops up asking if you want to
install the Software Version or the Hardware Acceleration Version,
which is 3DFX only, as you say. You can't change between versions
in-game.
This is the original boxed release, just in case the game was ever
re-released, or you have an OEM version, or something of the sort.
Lemongrass
Rickenbacker
news:zEwza.13625$Pz3.6...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net:
>
> We can reveal that Valve is currently looking at making its massively
> anticipated FPS sequel Half-Life 2 exclusive to nVidia graphics cards,
That must be why they showed it in the ATI booth at E3 then...
The Posting One
news:Xns938BD9A9CAB1Di...@195.54.106.227...
As I said before, if Nvidia drops $50 mil tomorrow and Valve bites, would it
matter what happened a few weeks ago?
Anders Albrechtsen
"The Posting One" <bl...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:ZHUBa.3878$Hf5.1...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
That depends how they do it and if they try to 'bribe' other game developers
as well. In a worst case scenario it could destroy comepetition in the
industry which will force the authorities to intervene.
---
Anders
The Posting One
news:Bz0Ca.23092$YZ6.1...@news010.worldonline.dk...
Really, you mean like the way the authorities busted up the console scene?
Demanding Sony to make XBox games work on the monopolistic PS2? That would
be a riot.
Anders Albrechtsen
No, the PC market is different because the various prices of hardware share
the same platform (Windows) and use the same technology (DirectX, OpenGL).
Therefore hardware exclusive games are less obvious than the console market
since a game developed using DirectX or OpenGL _should_ work with any
compliant hardware. I don't think one game would result in intervention or
regulaion, but _if_ one vendor tries to 'bribe' mutiple game developers to
make their games exclusive to their hardware, the authorities might be
forced to intervene. Just look what happend when M$ decided to integrate
Explorer and Windows thus undermining the business of the competing browser
Netscape.
---
Anders
Xocyll
the entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the
signs say:
>
There's a BIG difference between MS leveraging their OS to give their
Browser a boost and a Game only supporting one video card manufacturer.
As long as the box specifies "requires an nVidia x card" there's sweet
fuck all the authorities could do about it.
It's not a critical app or OS, it's a game.
There's no difference between nVidia or ATI "bribing" a game company to
make it an exclusive to their video hardware than there is a console
company getting a game exclusively on their platform.
Game companies are not required to provide their product on any platform
they don't want to.
Remember the game MDK, which would not run on anything less than a
Pentium level machine.
Not because the game couldn't run (Quake ran, if slowly), because the
developers did a hardware check and _refused_ to run on anything less
than a pentium because it wouldn't give what they felt was "the proper
game experience".
If valve really wanted to they could use some feature that's only
supported on the latest, greatest nVidia card and declare that feature
"necessary" to their artistic vision or somesuch bullshit.
You don't _have_ to buy the game.
Anders Albrechtsen
> There's a BIG difference between MS leveraging their OS to give their
> Browser a boost and a Game only supporting one video card manufacturer.
>
> As long as the box specifies "requires an nVidia x card" there's sweet
> fuck all the authorities could do about it.
That depends if it is widespread.
> It's not a critical app or OS, it's a game.
Yes, but if widespread it will destroy the competition in the industry.
> There's no difference between nVidia or ATI "bribing" a game company to
> make it an exclusive to their video hardware than there is a console
> company getting a game exclusively on their platform.
I disagree, there's a big difference. Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox are
_completely_ different systems whereas NVidia, ATI, Matrox etc. competes for
the same PC market using the same technology (DirectX, OpnGL).
> Game companies are not required to provide their product on any platform
> they don't want to.
I never said so. But ATI, Nvidia, Matrox support the same platform, so it
requires artificial constraints to exclude one or the other brand as long as
they are compliant.
> Remember the game MDK, which would not run on anything less than a
> Pentium level machine.
I do remeber that. But currently Nvidia does not offer anything ATI doesn't
other than Cg and advanced shaders. Any DirectX or OpenGL game would still
run on an ATI platform, unless some kind of artificial lock is installed.
> Not because the game couldn't run (Quake ran, if slowly), because the
> developers did a hardware check and _refused_ to run on anything less
> than a pentium because it wouldn't give what they felt was "the proper
> game experience".
>
> If valve really wanted to they could use some feature that's only
> supported on the latest, greatest nVidia card and declare that feature
> "necessary" to their artistic vision or somesuch bullshit.
They could. But try analyzing things one step further. What if Nvidia (or
another company) tries to 'bribe' multiple game companies to artificially
exclude other brands. It would effectively destroy the comepetition in the
industry and would leave behind one monopoly vendor. Do you really think the
authotities wouldn't care?
> You don't _have_ to buy the game.
No, I don't and I probably wouldn't. Even if Valve was stupid enough to
accept such a bribe, I'm sure some hacker would make it possible to run the
game using 'unsupported' hardware.
---
Anders
Gonzo
anyone would be dumb enough to make HL2 an Nvidia Only product. That would
be the dumbest move ever in the history of PC games so don't sweat over it.
It won't happen. Period!
"Anders Albrechtsen" <and...@herlevkollegiet.dk> wrote in message
news:MsbCa.23255$YZ6.1...@news010.worldonline.dk...
Anders Albrechtsen
>Look guys, you are debating this for nothing. There is no way in hell
>anyone would be dumb enough to make HL2 an Nvidia Only product. That would
>be the dumbest move ever in the history of PC games so don't sweat over it.
>It won't happen. Period!
I don't think it will happen either. But it is still interesting to
analyze a 'what if' situation where a particular hardware vendor tries
to squeeze out their competitors by 'unfair' measures (bribery etc.).
---
Anders
Eep²
Patrick Eugene Avis
What would be unfair by nvidia offering a legitimate business
proposition to Valve or whomever? Lets say nvidia offers 100k dollars
to make HL2 an exclusive. Valve weighs the offer and either decides
they can make 120k from non-nvidia customers and rejects the deal, or
decides they can only make 80k from non-nvidia customers and accepts
the deal. Seems straight-forward to me.
&pea
Xocyll
the entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the
signs say:
>news:2afidv8p3aqgo67de...@4ax.com...
>> There's a BIG difference between MS leveraging their OS to give their
>> Browser a boost and a Game only supporting one video card manufacturer.
>>
>> As long as the box specifies "requires an nVidia x card" there's sweet
>> fuck all the authorities could do about it.
>
>That depends if it is widespread.
Not really, since it's all voluntary.
A monopoly or near-monopoly is not always even remotely illegal.
>> It's not a critical app or OS, it's a game.
>
>Yes, but if widespread it will destroy the competition in the industry.
No it won't.
Even if nVidia could afford to get 90% or more of game companies to
produce their games to only run on nVidia chipsets, there will always be
companies that WON'T take the money.
For that matter there would be nothing stopping ATI paying companies to
make ATI specific games.
Here's a little clue, games are not the only things video cards are used
for.
Here's another clue, nVidia and ATI are NOT the only two video card
manufacturers in existence.
Even if nVidia managed to lock ATI out of the PC gaming market for a
year or so, it still isn't a monopoly "in the industry."
>> There's no difference between nVidia or ATI "bribing" a game company to
>> make it an exclusive to their video hardware than there is a console
>> company getting a game exclusively on their platform.
>
>I disagree, there's a big difference. Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox are
>_completely_ different systems whereas NVidia, ATI, Matrox etc. competes for
>the same PC market using the same technology (DirectX, OpnGL).
You have some bizarre ideas. Since when has "gaming" been the focus of
the PC market?
>> Game companies are not required to provide their product on any platform
>> they don't want to.
>
>I never said so. But ATI, Nvidia, Matrox support the same platform, so it
>requires artificial constraints to exclude one or the other brand as long as
>they are compliant.
NO. ATI nVidia, Matrox S3 etc all produce HARDWARE for PCs and others.
Any GAME company can include any limitations they feel like, any at all,
because you are not required to buy the game.
I'll say it again;
It's not an OS you _require_ to run your computer.
It's not a _critical_application_ you require for your business.
It's a game, entertainment, nothing more.
>> Remember the game MDK, which would not run on anything less than a
>> Pentium level machine.
>
>I do remeber that. But currently Nvidia does not offer anything ATI doesn't
>other than Cg and advanced shaders. Any DirectX or OpenGL game would still
>run on an ATI platform, unless some kind of artificial lock is installed.
As long as there is ANY little feature that's only available for one
product they can write their game to _REQUIRE_ that feature.
There's nothing the "authorities" could do about it since there is
nothing requiring that any game or application company support all
platforms.
Any game company could decide to limit their games to any video card
chipset they want, any processor they want, any OS they want.
Carmack could make DOOM3 require a GeForce 4Ti4800, on an Intel 3.08GHz,
with an SB Audigy, a Logitech Optical Mouse using USB and an ATA 133
7200 RPM drive running under Windows ME if he wanted to.
He'd be an idiot to limit his sales that way, but it's perfectly legal
for him to set the limits on HIS game to whatever he feels like.
You don't NEED Doom3, it's not necessary for your business or your
survival, it's just entertainment.
>> Not because the game couldn't run (Quake ran, if slowly), because the
>> developers did a hardware check and _refused_ to run on anything less
>> than a pentium because it wouldn't give what they felt was "the proper
>> game experience".
>>
>> If valve really wanted to they could use some feature that's only
>> supported on the latest, greatest nVidia card and declare that feature
>> "necessary" to their artistic vision or somesuch bullshit.
>
>They could. But try analyzing things one step further. What if Nvidia (or
>another company) tries to 'bribe' multiple game companies to artificially
>exclude other brands. It would effectively destroy the comepetition in the
>industry and would leave behind one monopoly vendor. Do you really think the
>authotities wouldn't care?
So what?
So nVidia _tries_ to bribe multiple game companies?
1. nVidia couldn't afford to.
2. Even if everyone but nVidia got shut out of the PC gaming market
(assuming nVidia managed to "bribe" all the game companies), there is
still competition in the industry.
Macs use video cards
X-box etc use video cards.
ALL kinds of video cards exist that are SHIT for gaming with, but they
still exists, they still sell.
Why?
Because the PC gaming market is not the whole industry.
I didn't see the authorities jumping in when Creative was a monopoly
vendor having absorbed all their competition.
The whole "monopoly is bad" routine only applies when the monopoly is in
something that is universally (or nearly so) _REQUIRED_, not DESIRED.
Gaming is never going to count as REQUIRED.
>> You don't _have_ to buy the game.
>
>No, I don't and I probably wouldn't. Even if Valve was stupid enough to
>accept such a bribe, I'm sure some hacker would make it possible to run the
>game using 'unsupported' hardware.
And you've just shot your whole "ruin competition in the industry"
argument in the foot with this.
Any artificial limitation like checking chipset ids would be hacked
around within days.
Anders Albrechtsen
> "Anders Albrechtsen" <and...@herlevkollegiet.dk> looked up from reading
> the entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the
> signs say:
> >"Xocyll" <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote in message
> >news:2afidv8p3aqgo67de...@4ax.com...
> >> There's a BIG difference between MS leveraging their OS to give their
> >> Browser a boost and a Game only supporting one video card manufacturer.
> >>
> >> As long as the box specifies "requires an nVidia x card" there's sweet
> >> fuck all the authorities could do about it.
> >
> >That depends if it is widespread.
>
> Not really, since it's all voluntary.
Voluntary doesn't count as an argument in favor of monopoly.
> A monopoly or near-monopoly is not always even remotely illegal.
I never said it was. But creating entry barriers may be illegal.
> >> It's not a critical app or OS, it's a game.
> >
> >Yes, but if widespread it will destroy the competition in the industry.
>
> No it won't.
>
> Even if nVidia could afford to get 90% or more of game companies to
> produce their games to only run on nVidia chipsets, there will always be
> companies that WON'T take the money.
Yes, but 10 % isn't enough to survive.
> For that matter there would be nothing stopping ATI paying companies to
> make ATI specific games.
>
> Here's a little clue, games are not the only things video cards are used
> for.
Did I say so?
> Here's another clue, nVidia and ATI are NOT the only two video card
> manufacturers in existence.
I never said so.
> Even if nVidia managed to lock ATI out of the PC gaming market for a
> year or so, it still isn't a monopoly "in the industry."
Of course it is. Gaming is the main focus of ATI and Nvidia. No one will buy
ATIs latest video card if it doesn't work with the newest games that use the
latest technology.
> >> There's no difference between nVidia or ATI "bribing" a game company to
> >> make it an exclusive to their video hardware than there is a console
> >> company getting a game exclusively on their platform.
> >
> >I disagree, there's a big difference. Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox are
> >_completely_ different systems whereas NVidia, ATI, Matrox etc. competes
for
> >the same PC market using the same technology (DirectX, OpnGL).
>
> You have some bizarre ideas.
Since when is it bizarre to point out that the comsole and PC markets are
different?
>Since when has "gaming" been the focus of
> the PC market?
I didn't say so. That is is your imterpretation.
> >> Game companies are not required to provide their product on any
platform
> >> they don't want to.
No, and I never said so. But since more than one company has products that
support the major gaming APIs (DirectX and OpenGL) it doesn't make any sense
to exclude all except one company. Games do not have to be programmed to
support a specific chipset as long as it meets the necessary DirectX and
OpenGL compliance.
> >I never said so. But ATI, Nvidia, Matrox support the same platform, so it
> >requires artificial constraints to exclude one or the other brand as long
as
> >they are compliant.
>
> NO. ATI nVidia, Matrox S3 etc all produce HARDWARE for PCs and others.
> Any GAME company can include any limitations they feel like, any at all,
> because you are not required to buy the game.
That would be rediculous since it would actually take extra porgramming to
make sure the game doesn't run on any chipset.. And even then a clever
hacker will provide methods to bypass this 'lock'.
> I'll say it again;
> It's not an OS you _require_ to run your computer.
> It's not a _critical_application_ you require for your business.
> It's a game, entertainment, nothing more.
It is also a game that uses an open source API which is supported by all
major manufacturers of graphics chipsets. Nvidia cannot even 'hide' behind
their own API as 3dfx did a couple of years back. To create
chipset-exclusive games is a rediculous and meaningless idea.
> >> Remember the game MDK, which would not run on anything less than a
> >> Pentium level machine.
> >
> >I do remeber that. But currently Nvidia does not offer anything ATI
doesn't
> >other than Cg and advanced shaders. Any DirectX or OpenGL game would
still
> >run on an ATI platform, unless some kind of artificial lock is installed.
>
> As long as there is ANY little feature that's only available for one
> product they can write their game to _REQUIRE_ that feature.
> There's nothing the "authorities" could do about it since there is
> nothing requiring that any game or application company support all
> platforms.
No, but the game would run fine without this special 'feature'of course.
> Any game company could decide to limit their games to any video card
> chipset they want, any processor they want, any OS they want.
>
> Carmack could make DOOM3 require a GeForce 4Ti4800, on an Intel 3.08GHz,
> with an SB Audigy, a Logitech Optical Mouse using USB and an ATA 133
> 7200 RPM drive running under Windows ME if he wanted to.
Your kidding right? How would they do that? I doesn't make any sense.
> He'd be an idiot to limit his sales that way, but it's perfectly legal
> for him to set the limits on HIS game to whatever he feels like.
>
> You don't NEED Doom3, it's not necessary for your business or your
> survival, it's just entertainment.
Did I say so?
> >> Not because the game couldn't run (Quake ran, if slowly), because the
> >> developers did a hardware check and _refused_ to run on anything less
> >> than a pentium because it wouldn't give what they felt was "the proper
> >> game experience".
> >>
> >> If valve really wanted to they could use some feature that's only
> >> supported on the latest, greatest nVidia card and declare that feature
> >> "necessary" to their artistic vision or somesuch bullshit.
That's plain bullshit. The game would run fine with an ATI chipset unless an
artificial 'lock' is installed.
> >
> >They could. But try analyzing things one step further. What if Nvidia (or
> >another company) tries to 'bribe' multiple game companies to artificially
> >exclude other brands. It would effectively destroy the comepetition in
the
> >industry and would leave behind one monopoly vendor. Do you really think
the
> >authotities wouldn't care?
>
> So what?
> So nVidia _tries_ to bribe multiple game companies?
> 1. nVidia couldn't afford to.
> 2. Even if everyone but nVidia got shut out of the PC gaming market
> (assuming nVidia managed to "bribe" all the game companies), there is
> still competition in the industry.
> Macs use video cards.
Much smaller market.
> X-box etc use video cards.
Much smaller market.
> ALL kinds of video cards exist that are SHIT for gaming with, but they
> still exists, they still sell.
> Why?
> Because the PC gaming market is not the whole industry.
No, but it is very important for companies like ATI and Nvidia.
> I didn't see the authorities jumping in when Creative was a monopoly
> vendor having absorbed all their competition.
I don't follow your argument. Creative dos not hold a monopoly. Companies
like M-Audio, Terratec, Hercules nd Philips produce soundcrds for the
consumer market.
> The whole "monopoly is bad" routine only applies when the monopoly is in
> something that is universally (or nearly so) _REQUIRED_, not DESIRED.
>
> Gaming is never going to count as REQUIRED.
>
> >> You don't _have_ to buy the game.
No.
> >No, I don't and I probably wouldn't. Even if Valve was stupid enough to
> >accept such a bribe, I'm sure some hacker would make it possible to run
the
> >game using 'unsupported' hardware.
>
> And you've just shot your whole "ruin competition in the industry"
> argument in the foot with this.
>
> Any artificial limitation like checking chipset ids would be hacked
> around within days.
Precisely and that just proves how rediculous this really is. Nvidia or
whatever 'exclusive' games are never going to be released simply because it
is impossible to prevent it from running on other hardware and because it
doesn't make sense from an economical point of view..
---
Anders
Anders Albrechtsen
"Patrick Eugene Avis" <dur...@juntak.com> wrote in message
news:ar1odvc0h5j014j28...@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 01 Jun 2003 16:45:09 +0200, Anders Albrechtsen
> <nyrupis...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Sun, 01 Jun 2003 12:47:09 GMT, "Gonzo" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
> >
> >>Look guys, you are debating this for nothing. There is no way in hell
> >>anyone would be dumb enough to make HL2 an Nvidia Only product. That
would
> >>be the dumbest move ever in the history of PC games so don't sweat over
it.
> >>It won't happen. Period!
> >
> >I don't think it will happen either. But it is still interesting to
> >analyze a 'what if' situation where a particular hardware vendor tries
> >to squeeze out their competitors by 'unfair' measures (bribery etc.).
>
> What would be unfair by nvidia offering a legitimate business
> proposition to Valve or whomever?
No. But it would be unfair to pay the game company to exclude other chipsets
that meets all the necessary hardware and software requirements. I can be
compared to a movie companay that makes an exclusive contract with Sony, so
that their new DVD movie would only play on a Sony DVD player.
> Lets say nvidia offers 100k dollars
> to make HL2 an exclusive. Valve weighs the offer and either decides
> they can make 120k from non-nvidia customers and rejects the deal, or
> decides they can only make 80k from non-nvidia customers and accepts
> the deal. Seems straight-forward to me.
Like I said in another post such an idea is insane. From a hardware
perspective ATIs and Nvidia's latest chipsets are almost indetical and both
support DirectX 9.0 which is the API used. Even if such a deal is signed a
crafted hacker would make it possible to run the game on ATI and other
chipsets as well.
---
Anders
Xocyll
the entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the
signs say:
Sorry this is a bit late, Life got busy.
>"Xocyll" <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote in message
>news:4qcodvk0if1clr1n4...@4ax.com...
>> "Anders Albrechtsen" <and...@herlevkollegiet.dk> looked up from reading
>> the entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the
>> signs say:
>> >"Xocyll" <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote in message
>> >news:2afidv8p3aqgo67de...@4ax.com...
>> >> There's a BIG difference between MS leveraging their OS to give their
>> >> Browser a boost and a Game only supporting one video card manufacturer.
>> >>
>> >> As long as the box specifies "requires an nVidia x card" there's sweet
>> >> fuck all the authorities could do about it.
>> >
>> >That depends if it is widespread.
>>
>> Not really, since it's all voluntary.
>
>Voluntary doesn't count as an argument in favor of monopoly.
Nor does your argument which seems to boil down to "Monopolies are
always bad no matter what."
>> A monopoly or near-monopoly is not always even remotely illegal.
>
>I never said it was. But creating entry barriers may be illegal.
It's not, since ATI can do exactly the same thing, there's NO
competition barrier and there is no way one company COULD ever lock out
every other from the Video Card market.
Even 3DFX with their proprietary Glide format that was Years ahead of
the competition didn't lock out anyone else.
>> >> It's not a critical app or OS, it's a game.
>> >
>> >Yes, but if widespread it will destroy the competition in the industry.
>>
>> No it won't.
>>
>> Even if nVidia could afford to get 90% or more of game companies to
>> produce their games to only run on nVidia chipsets, there will always be
>> companies that WON'T take the money.
>
>Yes, but 10 % isn't enough to survive.
Really, tell that to Apple Computer among others.
Tell that to every other small supplier of anything.
Here's a free clue, neither nVidia nor ATI _started_ with more than 10%
of the market, so they not only DID survive, they grew.
>> For that matter there would be nothing stopping ATI paying companies to
>> make ATI specific games.
>>
>> Here's a little clue, games are not the only things video cards are used
>> for.
>
>Did I say so?
You're implying that loss of the game market would destroy the companies
>> Here's another clue, nVidia and ATI are NOT the only two video card
>> manufacturers in existence.
>
>I never said so.
Once again, by implying that the game market is all important YOU are
implying that only nVidia and ATI exist, since the rest of them have
pretty much no presence in the Game Card market.
>> Even if nVidia managed to lock ATI out of the PC gaming market for a
>> year or so, it still isn't a monopoly "in the industry."
>
>Of course it is. Gaming is the main focus of ATI and Nvidia. No one will buy
>ATIs latest video card if it doesn't work with the newest games that use the
>latest technology.
Bullshit! Hardcore Gamers won't buy it.
You'll notice that both nVidia and ATI have lots of cards that AREN'T
the latest/greatest and sell the Geforce 4 MX series for one.
Onboard video chipsets for another - hardly the mecca of gaming.
>> >> There's no difference between nVidia or ATI "bribing" a game company to
>> >> make it an exclusive to their video hardware than there is a console
>> >> company getting a game exclusively on their platform.
>> >
>> >I disagree, there's a big difference. Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox are
>> >_completely_ different systems whereas NVidia, ATI, Matrox etc. competes
>for
>> >the same PC market using the same technology (DirectX, OpnGL).
>>
>> You have some bizarre ideas.
>
>Since when is it bizarre to point out that the comsole and PC markets are
>different?
>
>>Since when has "gaming" been the focus of
>> the PC market?
>
>I didn't say so. That is is your imterpretation.
What other interpretation is possible when you categorically declaim
that loss of the gaming market would destroy ATI if nVidia locked them
out?
>> >> Game companies are not required to provide their product on any
>platform
>> >> they don't want to.
>
>No, and I never said so. But since more than one company has products that
>support the major gaming APIs (DirectX and OpenGL) it doesn't make any sense
>to exclude all except one company. Games do not have to be programmed to
>support a specific chipset as long as it meets the necessary DirectX and
>OpenGL compliance.
Funny, even with similar features, the chipsets from different companies
do the feature differently, requiring different code paths in order to
support each.
Excluding everything but one company's chipset, simplifies things
considerably since you no longer have to support the other chipsets OR
software mode. Not to mention simplifying the testing hardware.
Look back at the 3DFX "exclusive" versions of games - no need to support
OpenGl, D3D, software emulation.
No lists of _other_ cards that didn't quite support the spec and have
>> >I never said so. But ATI, Nvidia, Matrox support the same platform, so it
>> >requires artificial constraints to exclude one or the other brand as long
>as
>> >they are compliant.
>>
>> NO. ATI nVidia, Matrox S3 etc all produce HARDWARE for PCs and others.
>> Any GAME company can include any limitations they feel like, any at all,
>> because you are not required to buy the game.
>
>That would be rediculous since it would actually take extra porgramming to
>make sure the game doesn't run on any chipset.. And even then a clever
>hacker will provide methods to bypass this 'lock'.
See above, it takes MORE programming to support every card on the market
than it does to support one.
>> I'll say it again;
>> It's not an OS you _require_ to run your computer.
>> It's not a _critical_application_ you require for your business.
>> It's a game, entertainment, nothing more.
>
>It is also a game that uses an open source API which is supported by all
>major manufacturers of graphics chipsets. Nvidia cannot even 'hide' behind
>their own API as 3dfx did a couple of years back. To create
>chipset-exclusive games is a rediculous and meaningless idea.
Really? I seem to remember seeing all kinds of X-box exclusive, PS2
exclusive etc games in the past. That's a pretty odd definition of
a "rediculous and meaningless idea"
For the most part
>> >> Remember the game MDK, which would not run on anything less than a
>> >> Pentium level machine.
>> >
>> >I do remeber that. But currently Nvidia does not offer anything ATI
>doesn't
>> >other than Cg and advanced shaders. Any DirectX or OpenGL game would
>still
>> >run on an ATI platform, unless some kind of artificial lock is installed.
>>
>> As long as there is ANY little feature that's only available for one
>> product they can write their game to _REQUIRE_ that feature.
>> There's nothing the "authorities" could do about it since there is
>> nothing requiring that any game or application company support all
>> platforms.
>
>No, but the game would run fine without this special 'feature'of course.
Not necessarily. Games only run fine without whatever feature because
they have been coded to support that feature AND coded to support not
having that feature.
I originally played Half-Life for instance on an S3 Virge card that
didn't support glide obviously, didn't support opengl and didn't even
come close to supporting ther current level of D3D.
Valve had also coded software emulation for cards that didn't support
the hardware acceleration methods.
That's _extra_ work for Valve, they could just as easily made it
Hardware accel only.
>> Any game company could decide to limit their games to any video card
>> chipset they want, any processor they want, any OS they want.
>>
>> Carmack could make DOOM3 require a GeForce 4Ti4800, on an Intel 3.08GHz,
>> with an SB Audigy, a Logitech Optical Mouse using USB and an ATA 133
>> 7200 RPM drive running under Windows ME if he wanted to.
>
>Your kidding right? How would they do that? I doesn't make any sense.
No i'm not kidding. Do you have any idea of how many ways there are to
identify the hardware?
How the hell do you think windows detects new hardware?
How do you think programs like SiSoft Sandra generate lists of all your
hardware and what it supports?
>> He'd be an idiot to limit his sales that way, but it's perfectly legal
>> for him to set the limits on HIS game to whatever he feels like.
>>
>> You don't NEED Doom3, it's not necessary for your business or your
>> survival, it's just entertainment.
>
>Did I say so?
>
>> >> Not because the game couldn't run (Quake ran, if slowly), because the
>> >> developers did a hardware check and _refused_ to run on anything less
>> >> than a pentium because it wouldn't give what they felt was "the proper
>> >> game experience".
>> >>
>> >> If valve really wanted to they could use some feature that's only
>> >> supported on the latest, greatest nVidia card and declare that feature
>> >> "necessary" to their artistic vision or somesuch bullshit.
>
>That's plain bullshit. The game would run fine with an ATI chipset unless an
>artificial 'lock' is installed.
SO what?
If the game company decided that in order to have the "proper game
experience" you had to have a 19" or greater CRT and 5.1 sound that is
their right.
It's. Their. Game.
Their creation, their property, their piece of art, and as long as the
requirements list makes that perfectly clear, there's nothing illegal
about it.
YOU don't have the right to play anything you want and you certainly
don't have the right to tell them what to do with THEIR creation.
>> >They could. But try analyzing things one step further. What if Nvidia (or
>> >another company) tries to 'bribe' multiple game companies to artificially
>> >exclude other brands. It would effectively destroy the comepetition in
>the
>> >industry and would leave behind one monopoly vendor. Do you really think
>the
>> >authotities wouldn't care?
>>
>> So what?
>> So nVidia _tries_ to bribe multiple game companies?
>> 1. nVidia couldn't afford to.
>> 2. Even if everyone but nVidia got shut out of the PC gaming market
>> (assuming nVidia managed to "bribe" all the game companies), there is
>> still competition in the industry.
>
>> Macs use video cards.
>
>Much smaller market.
>> X-box etc use video cards.
>
>Much smaller market.
>
>> ALL kinds of video cards exist that are SHIT for gaming with, but they
>> still exists, they still sell.
>> Why?
>> Because the PC gaming market is not the whole industry.
>
>No, but it is very important for companies like ATI and Nvidia.
So what? As long as their is any market OUTSIDE gaming that their
cards are useful for the companies continue.
>> I didn't see the authorities jumping in when Creative was a monopoly
>> vendor having absorbed all their competition.
>
>I don't follow your argument. Creative dos not hold a monopoly. Companies
>like M-Audio, Terratec, Hercules nd Philips produce soundcrds for the
>consumer market.
You seem to have forgotten that there was a period of a year or so when
Creative had no competitors left having absorbed all of them.
I suppose you could claim that Crystal Logic was a competitor but they
weren't for the high end gaming sound. Other companies jumped into the
arena with their new high end offerings.
In short, Creative OWNED the gaming sound market completely and for the
most part, still do. Other companies manage to compete just fine with
onboard chipset sales, and non-gaming sound systems.
>> The whole "monopoly is bad" routine only applies when the monopoly is in
>> something that is universally (or nearly so) _REQUIRED_, not DESIRED.
>>
>> Gaming is never going to count as REQUIRED.
>>
>> >> You don't _have_ to buy the game.
>
>No.
>
>> >No, I don't and I probably wouldn't. Even if Valve was stupid enough to
>> >accept such a bribe, I'm sure some hacker would make it possible to run
>the
>> >game using 'unsupported' hardware.
>>
>> And you've just shot your whole "ruin competition in the industry"
>> argument in the foot with this.
>>
>> Any artificial limitation like checking chipset ids would be hacked
>> around within days.
>
>Precisely and that just proves how rediculous this really is. Nvidia or
>whatever 'exclusive' games are never going to be released simply because it
>is impossible to prevent it from running on other hardware and because it
>doesn't make sense from an economical point of view..
It would make a HUGE amount of sense for a company to get an awaited
product exclusive to their hardware.
Note I said an artificial limitation like checking chipset IDs would be
hacked within days. I did not say that any lockout method could be
defeated.
I'm reminded at this point of game check cracks and the Game Eye of the
Beholder 2, which had a secondary security system.
Sure the crack patched the manual check so any word could be entered to
continue (and in the Eye games those checks were in-game not at the
start), but the secondary check checked later to see if what you typed
was in it's list, and if not, the second you got hit with a spell, the
game crashed with a divide by zero error.
Sure if nVidia bought off Valve and all they did was make the installer
check to see if there was an nVidia card, it would be cracked.
nVidia could come out with a proprietary movie display format for
instance and all in game movies get displayed in it.
Sure the _game_ might play on an ATI card, but the movies won't, and
it's a simple step to make sure that the movies have vital game
information in them.
Of course there's nothing at all stopping ATI or Matrox or S3 or anyone
else from doing the exact same thing.
Except the fact that game developers WANT to sell as many copies as
possible and that means supporting a wide variety of hardware.
What happens when the next time a game company is in financial trouble
an nVidia buys them out?
You going to tell nVidia that their own company MUST support their
competitors?
Anders Albrechtsen
> "Anders Albrechtsen" <and...@herlevkollegiet.dk> looked up from reading
> the entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the
> signs say:
>
> Sorry this is a bit late, Life got busy.
>
> >"Xocyll" <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote in message
> >news:4qcodvk0if1clr1n4...@4ax.com...
> >> "Anders Albrechtsen" <and...@herlevkollegiet.dk> looked up from reading
> >> the entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the
> >> signs say:
> >> >"Xocyll" <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote in message
> >> >news:2afidv8p3aqgo67de...@4ax.com...
> >> >> There's a BIG difference between MS leveraging their OS to give
their
> >> >> Browser a boost and a Game only supporting one video card
manufacturer.
> >> >>
> >> >> As long as the box specifies "requires an nVidia x card" there's
sweet
> >> >> fuck all the authorities could do about it.
> >> >
> >> >That depends if it is widespread.
> >>
> >> Not really, since it's all voluntary.
> >
> >Voluntary doesn't count as an argument in favor of monopoly.
>
> Nor does your argument which seems to boil down to "Monopolies are
> always bad no matter what."
I never said so. But what would you rather have, a monopoly vendor or 3+
companies that constantly compete for the performance and feature crown?
> >> A monopoly or near-monopoly is not always even remotely illegal.
> >
> >I never said it was. But creating entry barriers may be illegal.
>
> It's not, since ATI can do exactly the same thing, there's NO
> competition barrier and there is no way one company COULD ever lock out
> every other from the Video Card market.
Which makes it even more absurd. We have 2+ companies which use exactly the
same rendeering technology, but one wants to make a game exclusive to their
chipset. Can't you see it looks rideculous? It's like releaseing a DVD movie
that will only work with Sony players.
> Even 3DFX with their proprietary Glide format that was Years ahead of
> the competition didn't lock out anyone else.
Different story. They could persuade game companies to use Glide instead of
DirectX or OpenGL. ATI and Nvidia cannot do that since they don't use their
own rendering technology.
> >> >> It's not a critical app or OS, it's a game.
> >> >
> >> >Yes, but if widespread it will destroy the competition in the
industry.
> >>
> >> No it won't.
> >>
> >> Even if nVidia could afford to get 90% or more of game companies to
> >> produce their games to only run on nVidia chipsets, there will always
be
> >> companies that WON'T take the money.
> >
> >Yes, but 10 % isn't enough to survive.
>
> Really, tell that to Apple Computer among others.
> Tell that to every other small supplier of anything.
Apple is partly owned by M$. That speaks for itself...
> Here's a free clue, neither nVidia nor ATI _started_ with more than 10%
> of the market, so they not only DID survive, they grew.
But if one brand gets a reputation of being incompatible with new and
upcoming games, consumers might steer cleer of them.
> >> For that matter there would be nothing stopping ATI paying companies to
> >> make ATI specific games.
> >>
> >> Here's a little clue, games are not the only things video cards are
used
> >> for.
> >
> >Did I say so?
>
> You're implying that loss of the game market would destroy the companies
Not necessaily, but it could end that way for one of the companies. Both
invest heavilily in 3D rendering technology specifically aimed at the gaming
market. If somehow their products don't work with the latest games, although
being fully compliant, they're finished in the business and have no other
choice but to fold or concentrate on other markets.
> >> Here's another clue, nVidia and ATI are NOT the only two video card
> >> manufacturers in existence.
> >
> >I never said so.
>
> Once again, by implying that the game market is all important YOU are
> implying that only nVidia and ATI exist, since the rest of them have
> pretty much no presence in the Game Card market.
No, that is not what I'm saying. I merely pointed out several problems with
vendor-exclusive games:
1. It degrades consumer welfare.
2. It is artificial from a technological point of view since PC games use
hardware independent rendering technology.
3. It may force companies out of the market thus degrading competition
> >> Even if nVidia managed to lock ATI out of the PC gaming market for a
> >> year or so, it still isn't a monopoly "in the industry."
> >
> >Of course it is. Gaming is the main focus of ATI and Nvidia. No one will
buy
> >ATIs latest video card if it doesn't work with the newest games that use
the
> >latest technology.
>
> Bullshit! Hardcore Gamers won't buy it.
> You'll notice that both nVidia and ATI have lots of cards that AREN'T
> the latest/greatest and sell the Geforce 4 MX series for one.
> Onboard video chipsets for another - hardly the mecca of gaming.
No, but the value of those chipsets degrade if they cannot run the latest
games. Even Joe and Jane Sixpack might want to play a game now and then.
> >> >> There's no difference between nVidia or ATI "bribing" a game company
to
> >> >> make it an exclusive to their video hardware than there is a console
> >> >> company getting a game exclusively on their platform.
> >> >
> >> >I disagree, there's a big difference. Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox are
> >> >_completely_ different systems whereas NVidia, ATI, Matrox etc.
competes
> >for
> >> >the same PC market using the same technology (DirectX, OpnGL).
> >>
> >> You have some bizarre ideas.
> >
> >Since when is it bizarre to point out that the comsole and PC markets are
> >different?
> >
> >>Since when has "gaming" been the focus of
> >> the PC market?
> >
> >I didn't say so. That is is your imterpretation.
>
> What other interpretation is possible when you categorically declaim
> that loss of the gaming market would destroy ATI if nVidia locked them
> out?
It has happned before. Aureal dropped out of the soundcard business because
thier investment in 3D sound technology was not covered by sufficent support
from.game developers. They could just shiftt conecntrate on another part of
the market all of a sudden. The same holds true for 3dfx. They died because
no one wanted to support their Glide API anymore.
> >> >> Game companies are not required to provide their product on any
> >platform
> >> >> they don't want to.
> >
> >No, and I never said so. But since more than one company has products
that
> >support the major gaming APIs (DirectX and OpenGL) it doesn't make any
sense
> >to exclude all except one company. Games do not have to be programmed to
> >support a specific chipset as long as it meets the necessary DirectX and
> >OpenGL compliance.
>
> Funny, even with similar features, the chipsets from different companies
> do the feature differently, requiring different code paths in order to
> support each.
But games run through the DirectX and OpenGL APIs and don't need chipset
specific coding as long as the chipsets are API compliant. Chipset specific
coding is only needed to optimize performace. There several examples of new
games that still work with unsupported chipsets that even aren't API
compliant.
> Excluding everything but one company's chipset, simplifies things
> considerably since you no longer have to support the other chipsets OR
> software mode. Not to mention simplifying the testing hardware.
It may simplify things. But preventing game _entirely_ from running on
specific API compliant chipsets would require special coding, and quite
frankly I doubt it can be done in practice. Hackers will find ways to bypass
such a lock.
> Look back at the 3DFX "exclusive" versions of games - no need to support
> OpenGl, D3D, software emulation.
> No lists of _other_ cards that didn't quite support the spec and have
Different story. 3dfx used their own API.
> >> >I never said so. But ATI, Nvidia, Matrox support the same platform, so
it
> >> >requires artificial constraints to exclude one or the other brand as
long
> >as
> >> >they are compliant.
> >>
> >> NO. ATI nVidia, Matrox S3 etc all produce HARDWARE for PCs and others.
> >> Any GAME company can include any limitations they feel like, any at
all,
> >> because you are not required to buy the game.
Have you ever heard the word API complaint? This means that a specific piece
of hardware is compatible with certain standards. For example if a videocard
is DirectX 9 compliant it will run any game that uses the DirectX 9 (or
earlier version) API. If the game contains vendor specific rendering
techniques, the game will run anyway on other complaint chipsets, without
these features of course.
> >That would be rediculous since it would actually take extra porgramming
to
> >make sure the game doesn't run on any chipset.. And even then a clever
> >hacker will provide methods to bypass this 'lock'.
>
> See above, it takes MORE programming to support every card on the market
> than it does to support one.
Yes, but that won't prevent the game from running on complaint hardware.
> >> I'll say it again;
> >> It's not an OS you _require_ to run your computer.
> >> It's not a _critical_application_ you require for your business.
> >> It's a game, entertainment, nothing more.
> >
> >It is also a game that uses an open source API which is supported by all
> >major manufacturers of graphics chipsets. Nvidia cannot even 'hide'
behind
> >their own API as 3dfx did a couple of years back. To create
> >chipset-exclusive games is a rediculous and meaningless idea.
>
> Really? I seem to remember seeing all kinds of X-box exclusive, PS2
> exclusive etc games in the past. That's a pretty odd definition of
> a "rediculous and meaningless idea"
> For the most part
Why do keep comparing the PC and console markets? Consoles use _different_
rendering techniques, different hardware, different OS etc. and are 100%
incompatible. The PC market is characterized by a unified rendering
technology where the hardware vendors do not control the APIs themselves. If
you can't see the difference we have nothing more to discuss.
> >> >> Remember the game MDK, which would not run on anything less than a
> >> >> Pentium level machine.
> >> >
> >> >I do remeber that. But currently Nvidia does not offer anything ATI
> >doesn't
> >> >other than Cg and advanced shaders. Any DirectX or OpenGL game would
> >still
> >> >run on an ATI platform, unless some kind of artificial lock is
installed.
> >>
> >> As long as there is ANY little feature that's only available for one
> >> product they can write their game to _REQUIRE_ that feature.
> >> There's nothing the "authorities" could do about it since there is
> >> nothing requiring that any game or application company support all
> >> platforms.
> >
> >No, but the game would run fine without this special 'feature'of course.
>
> Not necessarily. Games only run fine without whatever feature because
> they have been coded to support that feature AND coded to support not
> having that feature.
>
> I originally played Half-Life for instance on an S3 Virge card that
> didn't support glide obviously, didn't support opengl and didn't even
> come close to supporting ther current level of D3D.
Bad example. The S3 wasn't fully API compliant. ATI and Nvidia's cards were.
>snip<
> >> Any game company could decide to limit their games to any video card
> >> chipset they want, any processor they want, any OS they want.
> >>
> >> Carmack could make DOOM3 require a GeForce 4Ti4800, on an Intel
3.08GHz,
> >> with an SB Audigy, a Logitech Optical Mouse using USB and an ATA 133
> >> 7200 RPM drive running under Windows ME if he wanted to.
> >
> >Your kidding right? How would they do that? I doesn't make any sense.
>
> No i'm not kidding. Do you have any idea of how many ways there are to
> identify the hardware?
and how many ways there is to bypass this "identification"?
> How the hell do you think windows detects new hardware?
> How do you think programs like SiSoft Sandra generate lists of all your
> hardware and what it supports?
Which makes it easy for hackers to bypass.
>snip<
> >> >> Not because the game couldn't run (Quake ran, if slowly), because
the
> >> >> developers did a hardware check and _refused_ to run on anything
less
> >> >> than a pentium because it wouldn't give what they felt was "the
proper
> >> >> game experience".
> >> >>
> >> >> If valve really wanted to they could use some feature that's only
> >> >> supported on the latest, greatest nVidia card and declare that
feature
> >> >> "necessary" to their artistic vision or somesuch bullshit.
> >
> >That's plain bullshit. The game would run fine with an ATI chipset unless
an
> >artificial 'lock' is installed.
>
> SO what?
> If the game company decided that in order to have the "proper game
> experience" you had to have a 19" or greater CRT and 5.1 sound that is
> their right.
> It's. Their. Game.
> Their creation, their property, their piece of art, and as long as the
> requirements list makes that perfectly clear, there's nothing illegal
> about it.
Like I said, it isn't possible to make these "exclusive" game titles as long
as the hardware vendors use the same technology. If Nvidia or ATI on the
other hand wrote their own API (as 3dfx wrote Glide) and persuaded game
developers to use this rather than D3D and OGL we would have a new
situation.
> YOU don't have the right to play anything you want and you certainly
> don't have the right to tell them what to do with THEIR creation.
Did I say so? I just pointed out that chipset-exclusive games don't make any
sense when all chipsets use the same OS, same rendering technology etc.
>snip<
> >> ALL kinds of video cards exist that are SHIT for gaming with, but they
> >> still exists, they still sell.
> >> Why?
> >> Because the PC gaming market is not the whole industry.
> >
> >No, but it is very important for companies like ATI and Nvidia.
>
> So what? As long as their is any market OUTSIDE gaming that their
> cards are useful for the companies continue.
Not always. There're may examples where the opposite is true. Ask Aureal and
3Dfx.
> >> I didn't see the authorities jumping in when Creative was a monopoly
> >> vendor having absorbed all their competition.
> >
> >I don't follow your argument. Creative dos not hold a monopoly. Companies
> >like M-Audio, Terratec, Hercules nd Philips produce soundcrds for the
> >consumer market.
>
> You seem to have forgotten that there was a period of a year or so when
> Creative had no competitors left having absorbed all of them.
>
> I suppose you could claim that Crystal Logic was a competitor but they
> weren't for the high end gaming sound. Other companies jumped into the
> arena with their new high end offerings.
>
> In short, Creative OWNED the gaming sound market completely and for the
> most part, still do. Other companies manage to compete just fine with
> onboard chipset sales, and non-gaming sound systems.
Creative do not own the game market and never did. Back in the early 1990's
the PC game market was so small that it hardly mattered. Today it is a large
industry and Creative has less than 10 % of the market. The majority of the
market is composed of various OEM and on-board sound solutions which work
just fine with any game. They may no be EAX Advanced HD compliant, but most
games do not support this, and even if they do non-Creative cards still
provide either EAX 2.0 or stereo sound. In other words, a Creative card
isn't required to play games.
> >> The whole "monopoly is bad" routine only applies when the monopoly is
in
> >> something that is universally (or nearly so) _REQUIRED_, not DESIRED.
> >>
> >> Gaming is never going to count as REQUIRED.
> >>
> >> >> You don't _have_ to buy the game.
> >
> >No.
> >
> >> >No, I don't and I probably wouldn't. Even if Valve was stupid enough
to
> >> >accept such a bribe, I'm sure some hacker would make it possible to
run
> >the
> >> >game using 'unsupported' hardware.
> >>
> >> And you've just shot your whole "ruin competition in the industry"
> >> argument in the foot with this.
No, but don't you realize that this discussion is hypothetical? Making
chipet-exclusive games is meaningless and probably not even possible as long
as the chipset makers support the same rendering technology defined by a 3rd
party company (M$, OpenGL forum). But _if_ it really was possible to exclude
certain chipsets by whatever means it _could_ reduce or even destroy
competition.
> >> Any artificial limitation like checking chipset ids would be hacked
> >> around within days.
> >
> >Precisely and that just proves how rediculous this really is. Nvidia or
> >whatever 'exclusive' games are never going to be released simply because
it
> >is impossible to prevent it from running on other hardware and because it
> >doesn't make sense from an economical point of view..
>
> It would make a HUGE amount of sense for a company to get an awaited
> product exclusive to their hardware.
Only to be fooled by a hacker one week later which "unlocks" the game for
other chipsets.
>snip< A load of speculations >snip<
> What happens when the next time a game company is in financial trouble
> an nVidia buys them out?
> You going to tell nVidia that their own company MUST support their
> competitors?
No, if they buy another company or acquire their technology they do not have
to support their chipsets. But that is completely irrelevant in this
discussion.
EOD
---
Anders
Highlandish
The Posting One <bl...@nowhere.com> Wrote:
> I just read this and nearly fell off my chair, if this happens, then
> forget computers. i'm done with them. they are going down the shitter
> in a handbasket:
>
> ---
>
> We can reveal that Valve is currently looking at making its massively
> anticipated FPS sequel Half-Life 2 exclusive to nVidia graphics
> sector.
>
> This massive story comes from insiders at nVidia, who are boasting
> that this will be the first of many such deals for exclusive content,
> bespoke to its cards.
>
> We have been aware for some time that both ATi and nVidia have been
> courting the publishers and developers of AAA PC games, trying to gain
> card-exclusivity.
>
> "You will see a massive change in the structure of the PC games
> industry in the next few months, with the first batch of
> announcements hitting at E3," one insider told us. "Instead of being
> referred to as PC gaming, you will become an nVidia or ATi gamer, as
> distinct as Sony and Nintendo."
>
> This concept has been circulating for some time, with gossip about
> graphics cards overshadowing next-gen console talk at the recent Game
> Developer's Conference.
>
> Remember where you read this first, and expect confirmation at this
> May's E3.
and I just finished reading a thread about how NVIDIA's FSAA wont work for
this game as well as other dx9 games. only ATI have fixed this problem.
--
Do not fear the reaper, you can't go to hell twice.
Add the word "USENET" to the subject line to email me.
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Highlandish
> news:bam9ag$skm$1...@hudsucker.umdac.umu.se...>> news:zEwza.13625$Pz3.6...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
>>> I just read this and nearly fell off my chair, if this happens,
>>> then forget computers. i'm done with them. they are going down the
>>> shitter in a handbasket:
>>>
>>
>>
>> Well this all sounds like 100% bullshit to me. Yup. There you have
>> it.
>>
>> /M
>
> I tend to agree with you, but what if Nvidia did come up with say, $50
> million to make half-life 2 exclusive... valve could only tolerate
> about 2 million sales lost, but it would only take, say, 200,000 high
> end video cards to be worth nvidia's while. i think it would take
> about $100 million to make it worth valve's while... but still within
> the realm of possibility.
>
> Microsoft dropped $50 million to make Doom 3 Xbox-only...
I would only assume it would be possible to have NVIDIA pay to make HL2
optimized for NVIDIA based cards only... ("The Way It's Meant To Be
Played")
ATI cards will run the game (DX-based) but without the NVIDIA propriety
functions and optimisations. ATI cards will only run the game with the
functions it supports in DX but the game wont make use of ATI's
optimisations outside of DX's API.
but as I replied in another post, NVIDIA cards currently wont support FSAA
in DX9 based games until some new patch or another gen cards supports this
feature. ATI currently do support FSAA.
Highlandish
Eep² <n...@spam.com> Wrote:
> What nVidia COULD do is buy exclusive rights to a game for a limited
> time (say 6 months), like icky Sony did with Grand Theft Auto 3 and
> GTA: Vice City. Not that I'm condoning a hardware manufacturer to
> actually DO this, of course...
>
>
or rather that NVIDIA could produce and distribute an NVIDIA-only game
having bought it lock, stock and barrel from a company.
mr bernard langham
"Highlandish" <ckre...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:bl9099$98uug$1...@ID-140307.news.uni-berlin.de...
This would be a somewhat amazing 360 degree, given that the E3 HL2 tech demo
script contain a voiceover advertorial for ATI: "You can get a sense for the
wide variety of visual effects which are possible using Source on top of a
hardware platform like the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro."
--
>^..^<
Bernard
www.cs.uwa.edu.au/~langhb01
"You may lose me on the east face/You may lose me on the west/I may be
covered over in the night/Bury me deep in your love." RIP Harry, 1965-2003
magnulus
"Highlandish" <ckre...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:bl9099$98uug$1...@ID-140307.news.uni-berlin.de...
>
> functions and optimisations. ATI cards will only run the game with the
> functions it supports in DX but the game wont make use of ATI's
> optimisations outside of DX's API.
>
> but as I replied in another post, NVIDIA cards currently wont support FSAA
> in DX9 based games until some new patch or another gen cards supports this
> feature. ATI currently do support FSAA.
>
>
Rubbish. The issue is that HL2, much like Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, and
other games, packs small textures into larger textures, and when the
antialiasing samples the textures, it cannot clamp inside the texture and
instead takes color data from outside the texture as well. So you've been
seeing these artifacts every time you play Quake 3 or Medal of Honor, or
Half Life, for that matter. The way around it is to use centroid sampling,
which will be expposed in DX 9.1, which ATI currently supports, but NVidia
does not. Again, the artifacting is minor and will only be an issue in Half
Life 2 because the visual-quality bar is being rased so much. Nobody
complained about it till now. NVidia cards, however, get around this by
using some of their pixel shaders to clamp the textures in HL2.
The big problem for NVidia is that simply HL2 will not run very fast in
pure DX 9 for their card.