Ramapge dead now (same as V6000) ?

[JellyBaby]

To the original poster,

Someday, when you must work for a living, when your company goes through several setbacks and is having a great deal of trouble surviving, I hope you logon to your favorite message board and see a juvenile delinquent disparage, slur and otherwise put down your company.

Making rude comments about a healthy company is one thing but beating a wounded horse while it?s down is cruel and demeaning. 3dfx employs many people, some bad but most good, who really could do without your efforts to sink them prematurely.

Now I know some of your posts (those I bother to read) are attempts to be funny, gain attention, and even to pass along some news. For the most part they?re harmless. But some of them go over the line of decency. I would hope that in the future you might consider your actions a bit more carefully. Thx.

 

[erub]

listen I'm going to back Hardware up here, even though I have nothing against 3dfx. He has a right to post whatever he wants, (as long as its okay with the mods), and everybody has a right to their own opinions about a company and their products. There is no evidence to prove that he is a juvenile deliquent, just cause he MAY be younger does not make him a crimnal (I have no idea how old you are Hardware).

>>3dfx employs many people, some bad but most good, who really could do without your efforts to sink them prematurely.

And I sincerly doubt his comments about a product that is months away from POSSIBLE release is going to sink any company. After all, I believe that until a product is in the stores, ready for the consumer to buy, it has not been officially released. Intel is an expert at these 'paper' launches - and 3dfx hasn't even made a press launch of Rampage yet.

I would doubt seriously that anybody interested in hardware enough to read this board would actual decide not to purchase Rampage if/when it comes out simply because Hardware posted on the 9th of Decmeber 2000 that there was the possibility of the launch being canceled.

As for their current products on the market -- their sales won't be influenced at all by this posting on an obscure forum for hardware freaks (myself included).

 

[Phuz]

Because poor dave probably doesn't wana argue with brick walls anymore.

 

[Hardware]

erub i am 31 and working 18 years with computer stuff

 

[dawheat]

ah the term "computer stuff" would be one of those techie terms eh? Whatever company(ies) you've been with for 18 years, I truly feel for them if they have people of your caliber there.

But in general I am curious to see 3dfx's Q3 numbers and maybe even q4 forecasts.

 

[Hardware]

The point from these stuff is it COULD be possible unlike something "Nvidia drops NV20 and go out of business"!

 

[hans007]

hardware , you are 31 years old? what have you done for 18 years, pick computer parts out of landfills or something?

 

[insane]

I have totally lost respect for Nvidia. I used to own one (v6800 teo be exact). It's not a good videocard. I went to V5 5500 wich was pretty good (i always like 3Dfx. i owned v1, v2, v3 and v5) now i am using Radeon 32MB DDR wich absolutly rulez. You know The GF2U is 3 times more expensive can you even imagine how much a NV20 will cost. I don't know if it will blow the competion away but it will for sure blow your money away like no other videocard can. I think 3DFX made a mistake by selling the videocard alone. My guess is they will be back to get the 3D crown but not with there own videocard (there are going to produce chipsets). The NV20 will be 35% quicker then GF2U i personally think Rampage and Radeon II will spank the sorry ass of NV20 (what's net nvidia a videocard cost $1000?

 

[RoboTECH]

hi hardware!

<waves>

honest question here

did Gary Tarolli steal your girlfriend?

c'mon, you can admit it.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

3dfx has plenty of capital left to finance itself for the rampage. That is why it is trying to get other companies to make their cards. As long as the rampage does good they will be ok. However, if the rampage isn't a hit they will be in some deep doo doo.

 

[NFS4]

I thought that this post by WaltC over at Beyond3D was qiite a good read:


<< The problem is two-fold. First, I think we can dispense
withcalling these individuals &quot;journalists&quot;--they are not
journalists--they are individuals who run web sites who
thinkthat repeating unsubstantiated rumor is
&quot;journalism.&quot; They simply do not understand
journalisticterms like &quot;corroboration&quot; or &quot;verification&quot;
or&quot;attribution.&quot; Calling them &quot;journalists&quot; is extremely
charitableas well as wholly inaccurate.
The second problem although widespread is not so
easilyunderstandable. It lies in the individuals who read
unsubstantiatedrumor and believe it immediately even
thoughit is wholly unsubstantiated.
For instance, in this specific example, it is purported that
3dfxspent &quot;$100 million&quot; on the development of the V5
6K.Now, of course, that's laughable and a dead
giveawaythat the comments are utterly bogus. But it
doespoint out the problem that many are completely
unableto see how ridiculous this statement is at all
levels,presumably due to a thorough lack of fiscal
understanding.
So we have the worst possible combination: ignorant
webmastersspreading ignorant rumors to ignorant
people... Of necessity, then, it is incumbent on 3dfx
toconsistentlydeliver a PR stream of information which
nullifiesthe effects of persistent and inflammatory
rumor.To some extent the rumors fill a void created by
thelack of 3dfx response to legitimate questions, such
as:&quot;What happened to Rampage?&quot;
According to comments made by Greg Ballard a year
agoprior to his departure, Rampage was scheduled for
afall 2K ship date at the very latest. His comments
alludedto some $10 million in R&amp;D that had been
investedin Rampage up to that point in time. Flash
forwardto where we are now, a year later, and it is not
presumptuousto estimate that 3dfx has at least $15
millionin R&amp;D invested into the Rampage designs as well
as,according to Ballard's comments last year, about
threeyears' time invested into the Rampage project.
(Ballardsaid last year that the Rampage project had
alreadybeen on the drawing boards for 22 months.)
The reality is that if 3dfx cannot execute Rampage then
thecompany does itself no service by withholding this
infofrom the public and investors. This is so because
withoutRampage 3dfx will have no new products to
offerfor most of next year, which puts the survival of
thecompany in question. The situation resulting is a
downwardspiral of revenue based on a lack of new,
competitiveproducts to sell into the markets, which is
furtherinflammed by an ever-decreasing sell-through
ofthe existing product lines due to competitive
pressuresfrom other companies who are shipping new
products(eg, nVidia and ATI.) This in turn results in
lessand less money available for R&amp;D and means that
thelikelihood of 3dfx actually being able to compete
diminishes.
In other words, 3dfx gains nothing financially by killing
Rampageand saying nothing about it as opposed to
killingit and saying something about it. Either way, the
company'sprospects would be equally dim.
What 3dfx desperately needs is a new-product
announcement!Of course, such an announcement
needsto based on products 3dfx can actually execute
withina reasonable amount of time post their
announcement.Saying nothing about anything they're
preparingto do leads to endless negative speculation
whichcan only hurt them, even if the speculation is
entirelywithout merit, as seems clear in this case.
The fact is that it has been almost two years since the
V3,and in that time 3dfx has produced a single chip
design--one--the VSA-100. Look at the number of chips
producedby its competitors since the V3, and the
reasonfor 3dfx's perdicament becomes obvious.
My own opinion is that without competitive products to
shipinto the market it really doesn't matter what 3dfx
sayspublicly at this point--the company has no future
withoutcompetitive products regardless of what it may
sayin a various PR inititatives.
On the other hand, if Rampage is 80-90% complete at
thispoint, which one would certainly hope to be the
case,then 3dfx has utterly failed by not talking about it
andannouncing it since Comdex 2K.
One other related point that comes to mind about 3dfx's
perceiveddirections is that 3dfx unfortunately seems to
believethat it can prosper on a &quot;brand-related&quot; level
whilesaying next to nothing about specific upcoming
products.This is very similar to what we've seen from
Applecomputer over the last couple of years, and I
thinkthis approach is a huge mistake. This kind of
approachis more or less a &quot;style-over-substance&quot;
campaignwhich is destined to fail, I believe. The reason
whysuch PR directions are destined to fail in the
hardwaretechnology sectors, whether you talk about
Appleor about 3dfx, is because, ultimately, people buy
hardwarefor its substance, and any positive response
frommarkets about style is only a temporary
phenomenonwhich the market will tire of just like any
sortof fad you can think of.
Steve Jobs at Apple is being forced to start talking
aboutthe substance of the hardware in Apple
computersthese days (from processors to CD-RW's,
youname it) because the Apple customer base is
becomingbored with loud colors and artistically shaped
plastic.While Apple no doubt considers the Cube an
artistictriumph, the markets have all but rejected it
completely,and the flop of the Cube is in no small
measureresponsible for the upcoming quarter-billion
dollarloss Apple is preparing to announce. The &quot;reality
distortionfield&quot; at Apple is even now fizzling out.
Should 3dfx take a similar route and decide to rely on
its&quot;name&quot; instead of on the products it sells, on the
hardwareit sells, it will find that its &quot;name&quot; has a very
limitedvalue in the longer run of things. V5 5.5K/V3
saleswill not suffice for most of next year.
And so, to the extent that 3dfx refrains from both
announcingand shipping new, competitive products
intothe market, the sort of mindless gossip sprouting
throughthe Internet is in part directly due to
negligenceat 3dfx, IMHO.
Of course, if you have nothing new remotely ready to
shipthere's no point in saying anything about it. I think
allof us sincerely hope that this is not the case, and that
3dfx'ssilence is due to errors of judgement in its public
relationsefforts instead of due to a complete lack of
havinganything under development which is close to
shipment. >>


As for losing respect for nVidia, they're profits are up 104% from last year (read at Shugashack), and they're products are in every major computer-maker's systems. They have taken the OEMl crown from ATi (all in 2 years).

They are in the mobile market with GeForce Go , have the X-Box deal, and will be producing mainboard chipsets.

I've been nothing but happy with their chips (Elsa Erazor TNT, Gigabyte SDR GeForce 256, Asus V7700 GeForce GTS). But I've also been happy with my 3dfx products (Canopus Pure3D, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP).

If anything, nVidia should be applauded for their rags to riches story...

 

[Remedy]

Rags to riches? They are getting there riches off of thier expensive cards. If 3dfx actually drops out the race then wouldn't the cost of cards kinda go up seeing there isn't any competition? Kind of like the sound card market.

 

[zippy]

<< It could be true!!
.
.
.
The point from these stuff is it COULD be possible unlike something &quot;Nvidia drops NV20 and go out of business&quot; >>


Sounds like you are really confident in your &quot;friend&quot; (who actually seems to be some other bbs! LMAO!).

Go hide under a rock and don't come out until you have forgotten about forums.anandtech.com!


<< erub i am 31 and working 18 years with computer stuff >>


That is so sad...
31 and you post like a 4th grader? You don't know how to cite your sources, you never punctuate or capitalize, you act like nVidia is G-d and that lucifer is 3dfx. Why don't you grow up.

By the way, playing 13 hours of atari does not count as working with computer stuff. So it's more like you've been using word processing programs and games for 18 years. I know people who have used computers for MUCH longer than I have, but that means absolutely nothing when it comes down to knowledge of them.

 

[MattStone]

More fuking hardware propaganda.

 

[Soccerman]

heh... funny read there Hardware..

here's what I think:

-you work for nVidia in some way
-nVidia is circulating these rumors (who else besides hardware would do this kind of thing) to drop 3dfx off the map (why not? creative did a similar thing to Aureal)

besides all the responces from various members on this board who are simply fed up from your crazy posts, Hardware, you are the root of this problem. the more you post, the more the mods have a case against you posting on these forums. sure, what some of the people are saying to you is not proper, because it is not for anyone to judge you.

even I've quite obviously gotten mad at you.

so would you PLEASE quit while you're ahead? You've already been elevated to immortality on this forum, along with GUTB (is that something to be proud of?).

now, to dispel this rumor: first of all, as Sohcan pointed out, Hardware did not write this, the English is too good.

1) There will be no Rampage produced due to lack of capital to finance this project with the poor sales of the Voodoo 5 products.

I seem to remember 3dfx doing pretty good in the retail market.. which btw is what has kept them afloat all this time (since the Voodoo graphics). not as good as they WOULD be doing if nVidia didn't exist, but none-the-less, enough to keep from going into the red very far.

2) The high cost of development and research used to produce the V5-6000 was the back breaker. They spent in excess of $100 Million just on the Voodoo 5 alone, and sales haven't even begun to make up for this amount of expenditure.

the V5 6k didn't cost much at all to R&amp;D.. really, they didn't release it for other reasons (because theirs a power supply from a 3rd party company, it introduces anotherpotential problem). they already had SLI working FINE with the Voodoo 2.. they had the newer SLI working fine on the Voodoo 5 5500, and they had SLI working on an 8 way Voodoo 2 system, which was used to simulate the power of the Voodoo 5 6K before the cards were released. tell me again why R&amp;D for this card would be especially great?

3) The V5 was the last commercial video card to be produced by 3dfx. According to the president of the company who conducted the meeting, the company will now focus on 3d chips for arcade use and also the same plans as before, to develop products for other parts of the computer market instead of the video card area.

this is the half truth part of this simply rediculous post that makes people who might believe it, actually believe it. the best lie is one that is closest to the truth.

as for #4, I don't care for rumors. rumors ruin companies (look at the stock market! 3dfx's ratings suck just because of the lack of anything very exciting coming out, and because of rumors.. just look how when Toms Hardware bitched about DRDRAM and resulting stocks suffered.

5) Why would my friend talk when he could lose his job? Simple, he knows the company is doomed. He is currenty seeking employment elsewhere. (Nvidia to be exact..) In fact, he already interviewed there this past week.

really.. the rampage had been in developement for so long (since the V3 came out), I doubt 3dfx would throw away the rampage without reason.

the only way I could see them doing this, is when they have some other money maker ready to take rampages place. otherwise the whole economics of this situation would not make sense.

 

[Pocatello]

Actually, the long development of the Rampage worries me. 3dfx was planning to add a separate T&amp;L chip along with the Rampage, because the competitors from ATI and nvidia had T&amp;L built-in, which the Rampage was not designed for. While not arguing about the advantage or disadvantage of T&amp;L, I see that the Rampage is delayed because the competitors are putting &quot;new stuffs&quot; in, so 3dfx has to go back to the drawing board. While the situations at 3dfx is bad (in reality, it probably is worse!), I don't think 3dfx is out of money, and the Rampage is ready to rock 'n roll this April (my birthday). Of course, that's what I said about Aureal .

 

[DaveB3D]

lol

 

[nippyjun]

I assume that Hardware is shorting 3dfx stock, otherwise why would he waste his time 3dfx bashing?

 

[Josh3D]

<< lol >>



ehhh, lol, is this true? is Rampage the true looser?

I guess you will just state that it is not true.... even though it is.

And blah blah blah, when the truth arrives, he will just tell everyone to wait for the next generation 3Dfx, because nVidia is soo far behind, and going the wrong way... well, at least nVidia will sell cards, 3Dfx sells hot air.

Joshua

Am NOT speaking for nVidia

 

[DaveB3D]

Josh...

I love how you know nothing about anything you are saying, yet you gab anyway.. keep at it.. I get a good laugh.

 

[Josh3D]

Sure Dave, always the PR guy in the front lines, doesn't answer anything but keeps up the good mood by swining at others who do.

You seem to have less knowledge than my right foot, Rampage is going down the drain, and probably you are going down with it, but it's cool to see you in such a good mood anyway.

Please just state what you KNOW, and what you KNOW must be FACTS, you have none, you just keep stating how great the new 3Dfx wonder whizz card will be, and how bad the nVidia card is...

3Dfx PR, well, do they need an entire departement, no, Dave speaks for 10 people when it comes to 3Dfx greatness.

One thing that anyone working with any company has to learn, do not put down other peoples products, show them where and why your products are better, Dave you should know this.

Joshua

Am Not speaking for nVidia

 

[DaveB3D]

Josh,

The funny thing is that you continue to prove yourself clueless and nothing more than a little fanboy. How so? When I say something, I provide a technical basis for my opinion and why I feel for or against something..

You. When you say something, you say meaningless rants that lack any support or evidence. AKA, fanboy speak.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Am Not speaking for nVidia

Of course you aren't. Wouldn't that require you to actually work for nVidia in the first place?

 

[Josh3D]

<< The funny thing is that you continue to prove yourself clueless and nothing more than a little fanboy. How so? When I say something, I provide a technical basis for my opinion and why I feel for or against something.. >>



Hehe, technical basis... like the technical basis you provided in the other thread, that using deferred rendering equals 64MB embedded ram? That was a funny post...

Please explain why you think so...

You have some great theory why that would be so, but i think it is flawed...

So please, give us some kind of explanation on how you figured that out...

If you cannot do so, then why the heck should anyone believe in anything that you say?????

I haven't seen any kind of technical basis for anyone of your opinion, maybe it is just in your head, and of course, NDA makes it impossible to explain it... BS!

I even saw this old thread where some buddy of yours were defending you, and in the end, even he couldn't explain why you were so hot to 3Dfx when you are so unbiased.

Joshua

Am NOT speaking for nVidia

 

[DaveB3D]

Why? Well one of the most basic reasons is that deferred rendering requires a single frame-buffer write, while a traditional can/does use multiple reads and writes.. because of this, traditional architectures need to embedded the frame-buffer to get the effeciency.. this is while using a heirarchical Z of course.. but then again, you probably have no idea what I just said so I'm not sure why I bothered explaining it...