Do you think we need at least one more IHV?

[Anarchist420]

I was wondering what others thought.

I personally think having only two (3 if you count intel) is a problem, because they slack too much on drivers and since blending and depth aren't done in software. I think prices would also go down if the patents and contracts (subsidies) were abolished.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Definitely yes. More choices are always welcome. I miss the old days with Matrox, Kyro and 3dfx.
Unfortunately chips have become too complex, development costs too high and expertise to massive. It will not happen

 

[Ben90]

From a theoretical standpoint, the more competitors of a given market, the higher the margins needed to keep all companies profitable. While the competition generally isn't quite as fierce in a duopoly, AMD and Nvidia's graphic divisions aren't bringing in enough net profit for us to really see a price drop if another competitor joined the market. If another player the size of Nvidia's graphic division joined the market and was profitable, us consumers on average would be paying quite a bit more for video cards.

I'm curious as to what you think needs to be improved in drivers? From my point of view, the current implementation of VGA drivers are way too abstracted for what we need them for. Yes, its true smaller in house game studios developing their own engines would be quite a bit rarer than it currently is. I feel the big boy engines such as IDTech derivatives, Frostbite, and Unreal could handle developing strait for the raw hardware. Hell, they already do for the consoles.

 

[Anarchist420]

From a theoretical standpoint, the more competitors of a given market, the higher the margins needed to keep all companies profitable. While the competition generally isn't quite as fierce in a duopoly, AMD and Nvidia's graphic divisions aren't bringing in enough net profit for us to really see a price drop if another competitor joined the market. If another player the size of Nvidia's graphic division joined the market and was profitable, us consumers on average would be paying quite a bit more for video cards.

I'm curious as to what you think needs to be improved in drivers? From my point of view, the current implementation of VGA drivers are way too abstracted for what we need them for. Yes, its true smaller in house game studios developing their own engines would be quite a bit rarer than it currently is. I feel the big boy engines such as IDTech derivatives, Frostbite, and Unreal could handle developing strait for the raw hardware. Hell, they already do for the consoles.

the problem I have with the current graphics drivers is removed features and other features unavailable that aren't possible in modern hardware not being emulated via shaders with perfect accuracy.

I'm not sure though that costs would go up if there was another IHV, because they would just cut their management compensation or not have offices in california... I could be wrong about that, but I doubt it.

Thanks

 

[DooKey]

Bitboys?