The REAL Reason ATI WANTED to be acquired by AMD

[Zstream]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster

Originally posted by: josh6079

And secondly, Microsoft and ATI have a relationship

Yeah they have a relationship. It's called DX10.

If you honestly think ATI is more special towards Vista because MS said a few nice words about them, get a clue.

It's more than just a few nice words. Microsoft didn't practice it's implementations of DX10 with Nvidia hardware only to give compliments to ATi.

Link?

I agree with Nelsieus. People are taking it way to literally on this matter. AMD would have benfited MUCH more by acquiring nVIDIA instead of ATi.

There are several MAIN reasons for AMDs acquisition of ATi instead of nVIDIA.
- Firstly, the industry will eventually go down the road of CPU+GPU. This was somethig predictable. In the near future, we will begin to see these "new processors" that can both achieve what CPUs and GPUs do now today. Its both economical/efficent in concept and well worth the money invested to this technology. However the major players in the industry needs to start somewhere. CPU companies lack experience in the GPU side of things. For AMD to compete with Intel was to either acquire a GPU company or began a long hard process of R&D for the technicalities of the GPU not to mention the added cost for the CPU + GPU R & D.

Obviously with the current competition with intel heating up which isnt looking so favourable to AMD and knowing Intel that has the bigger resources, AMD probably could not match Intel in terms of R&D due to lacking the money. Unlike AMD, Intel has established themselves as the major player in both CPU, chipset, and GPU business. Ther revenues are far...

continued. will finish this later.

85% of mobiles use ATI GPU's which is the future...

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: josh6079

And what would be better for a "failing" business than to have an increase in fabs and workforce?

AMD currently does not have any extra fab production

It was? *shrugs* Oh well, all of the recent ATi cards have been late in some form.

& their revenue suffered to the point that they were bought out by another company.

...their chipset sales were lagging...
Their sales might have been, but definitely not the quality.

Without sales you don't have a company.

So now they can be just like Nvidia, not supplying a video card/tv-tuner in one product.

It was one of the cards they were "known" for. Not to mention that NVIDIA is now competing as well or better in the TV tuner market.

Enough as in as much as Nvidia's? I could agree with that. However, it doesn't change the fact that ATi's products attracted AMD and Microsoft.

AMD prices attracted AMD and Microsoft. If AMD could have gotten NVIDIA as cheaply they would have.

It was to my understanding that ATi's mobile platform was pretty much unrivaled. Do you have a link showing otherwise? If so I'd be curious as to who the competition is, Nvidia or Intel.

Unrivaled? There is not a mobile GPU out there than can touch the 7950GTX. NVIDIA has had the top mobile GPU for years. Even Joker will agree with that.

Then I guess SGI is sueing a name and not a company.

SGI's suit was filed before the buyout was complete. ATI as a company is gone. I don't know why some people have trouble accepting that.

Intel makes their own chipsets, but if you're talking about the RD600 I'd have to disagree. It will be one of the Lanparty flagships from DFI, not some altogether disappearing component.

I will look for the link, but AMD pretty much stated they will be leaving the Intel platform (with ATI).

Not at all. If their employees didn't want this, they would have left for Nvidia and Intel instead of "being ruled" by AMD.

I'm sure many of them will. The buyout just finished last week. It will be a year or 2 before the dust settles. Just because nothing was announced today does not mean an announcement is not forthcoming.

If they would be fired, such would only be characteristic in corporate merges. The fact that they haven't been and don't plan to is a plus and almost unheard of in such deals.

Exactly, people always get canned. Right now it's good PR for AMD to say "nothing will change". I sure very few outside of a few fanATIcs truly believe that.

I really don't want to see ATI fall. I fully realize that without competition the high end GPU market will slow down and costs will stay high. Because appopin's original post was so one sided, any rebuke to his argument had to be one sided. Many a fanATIc can call the kettle black for saying I'm trolling, that may be the only way to justify their denial.

I wish AMD the best of luck. I'm sure a lot of what they bought from ATI will help them in the future. The next couple of years shall indeed be interesting.

 

[CrystalBay]

FiringSquad: Is there anything in DirectX 10 that you couldn?t do in DirectX 9.0?

Tim Sweeney: Realistically, DirectX 10 doesn't introduce fundamentally new capabilities, but brings many new features that will enable developers to optimize games more thoroughly and thus deliver incrementally better visuals and better frame rates.

If you look at the long-term graphics roadmap, there have only been a few points where we've gained fundamentally new capabilities. The most visible was the move from DirectX 6, 7 and 8, which in practice were fixed-function, 8-bit rendering APIs, to DirectX 9 with programmable shaders and support for high-precision arithmetic. Most of the in-between steps have brought welcome but incremental improvements, and DirectX 10 falls into that category.

From here on, there is really only one major step remaining in the evolution of graphics hardware, and that's the eventual unification of CPU and GPU architectures into uniform hardware capable of supporting both efficiently. After that, the next 20 years of evolution in computing will just bring additional performance.



Extract what you can Wreckage... No Failure for AMD...

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: josh6079

And what would be better for a "failing" business than to have an increase in fabs and workforce?

AMD currently does not have any extra fab production

It was? *shrugs* Oh well, all of the recent ATi cards have been late in some form.

& their revenue suffered to the point that they were bought out by another company.

...their chipset sales were lagging...
Their sales might have been, but definitely not the quality.

Without sales you don't have a company.

So now they can be just like Nvidia, not supplying a video card/tv-tuner in one product.

It was one of the cards they were "known" for. Not to mention that NVIDIA is now competing as well or better in the TV tuner market.

Enough as in as much as Nvidia's? I could agree with that. However, it doesn't change the fact that ATi's products attracted AMD and Microsoft.

AMD prices attracted AMD and Microsoft. If AMD could have gotten NVIDIA as cheaply they would have.

It was to my understanding that ATi's mobile platform was pretty much unrivaled. Do you have a link showing otherwise? If so I'd be curious as to who the competition is, Nvidia or Intel.

Unrivaled? There is not a mobile GPU out there than can touch the 7950GTX. NVIDIA has had the top mobile GPU for years. Even Joker will agree with that.

Then I guess SGI is sueing a name and not a company.

SGI's suit was filed before the buyout was complete. ATI as a company is gone. I don't know why some people have trouble accepting that.

Intel makes their own chipsets, but if you're talking about the RD600 I'd have to disagree. It will be one of the Lanparty flagships from DFI, not some altogether disappearing component.

I will look for the link, but AMD pretty much stated they will be leaving the Intel platform (with ATI).

Not at all. If their employees didn't want this, they would have left for Nvidia and Intel instead of "being ruled" by AMD.

I'm sure many of them will. The buyout just finished last week. It will be a year or 2 before the dust settles. Just because nothing was announced today does not mean an announcement is not forthcoming.

If they would be fired, such would only be characteristic in corporate merges. The fact that they haven't been and don't plan to is a plus and almost unheard of in such deals.

Exactly, people always get canned. Right now it's good PR for AMD to say "nothing will change". I sure very few outside of a few fanATIcs truly believe that.

I really don't want to see ATI fall. I fully realize that without competition the high end GPU market will slow down and costs will stay high. Because appopin's original post was so one sided, any rebuke to his argument had to be one sided. Many a fanATIc can call the kettle black for saying I'm trolling, that may be the only way to justify their denial.

I wish AMD the best of luck. I'm sure a lot of what they bought from ATI will help them in the future. The next couple of years shall indeed be interesting.

a rebuke?

you mean ridiculous speculation backed by the personal testimony of nvidiots?

repeated over and over

OTOH - in stark contrast to your ravings - i posted facts from links . . . facts to show that EVERY point your brought up in your admittedly lopsided argument was pure FUD based on your own personal hateful speculation.


btw, "fair and balanced" . . . that was Rollo's claim

 

[imported_wicka]

Not ONE of you morons can post a word without saying either fanatics (and conveniently capitalizing ATI) or nvidiots. I've never been on a forum full of more blatant bickering and idiocy. You're all fanidiots, and you're all wrong...

"This is the character of truth ; it is of all time; it is for all men; it has only to show itself to be recognized; one cannot argue against it. A long dispute signifies--'Both parties are wrong.'" - Voltaire

PS: Maybe some of you can.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: wicka
Not ONE of you morons can post a word without saying either fanatics (and conveniently capitalizing ATI) or nvidiots. I've never been on a forum full of more blatant bickering and idiocy. You're all fanidiots, and you're all wrong...

"This is the character of truth ; it is of all time; it is for all men; it has only to show itself to be recognized; one cannot argue against it. A long dispute signifies--'Both parties are wrong.'" - Voltaire

PS: Maybe some of you can.

excuse me but you also used the 'f' and the 'n' word ... and called ALL of us "morons"
:shocked:



it's contagious

and you are right with us "down and dirty" . . .

anyway, it makes for a lively - if long - dispute ...
[personally i think Frenchy never got out much either . . . ]


however, there is a line ... of personal attacks . . . that should not be crossed ...

 

[schneiderguy]

Originally posted by: ronnn

Originally posted by: schneiderguy

Originally posted by: ronnn

Nvidia just got complacent and made some very poor choices. Which of course is why we are discussing why amd recently bought a company based out of Ontario.

AMD bought ATI instead of nvidia because of NV30? yeah right

You are confused.

I am confused. I would appreciate it if you could explain to me what you meant by "very poor choices"... because NV30 is the only "very poor choice" nvidia has made in the last 4-5 years

 

[schneiderguy]

Originally posted by: apoppin

According to Chris Jones, corporate vice president - Windows Core OS Division, Microsoft, "Microsoft will deliver a series of graphics innovations with Windows Vista that provide a customer experience that is second to none. We could not have achieved this without our partnership with ATI. From day one, ATI has played a key role in helping us design and validate the new driver model at the heart of Windows Vista, and ATI has since developed robust and performant drivers that highlight the capabilities of our new operating system."

does this sound like pure PR?

yes.

if ATI played such a HUGE role in developing windows vista's driver model, why isnt the quality of ATI's vista drivers far beyond the quality of nvidia's vista drivers?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: schneiderguy

Originally posted by: apoppin

According to Chris Jones, corporate vice president - Windows Core OS Division, Microsoft, "Microsoft will deliver a series of graphics innovations with Windows Vista that provide a customer experience that is second to none. We could not have achieved this without our partnership with ATI. From day one, ATI has played a key role in helping us design and validate the new driver model at the heart of Windows Vista, and ATI has since developed robust and performant drivers that highlight the capabilities of our new operating system."

does this sound like pure PR?

yes.

if ATI played such a HUGE role in developing windows vista's driver model, why isnt the quality of ATI's vista drivers far beyond the quality of nvidia's vista drivers?

is Vista out? . . . what do we know? . . . i guess we'll see when comparing r600 to g80 ... Vista should be out by then


and MS said "key" not HUGE

... and please do a 'search' and show us where MS said similar things about nvidia and Vista

 

[CrystalBay]

Originally posted by: wicka
Not ONE of you morons can post a word without saying either fanatics (and conveniently capitalizing ATI) or nvidiots. I've never been on a forum full of more blatant bickering and idiocy. You're all fanidiots, and you're all wrong...

"This is the character of truth ; it is of all time; it is for all men; it has only to show itself to be recognized; one cannot argue against it. A long dispute signifies--'Both parties are wrong.'" - Voltaire

PS: Maybe some of you can.

THA fax are NV needsa FAB tats why they are chewing out TWSC. They need better reliability on their Process fabrications. Either that or they will build their own for integrated CPU/GPU's

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: schneiderguy

Originally posted by: apoppin

According to Chris Jones, corporate vice president - Windows Core OS Division, Microsoft, "Microsoft will deliver a series of graphics innovations with Windows Vista that provide a customer experience that is second to none. We could not have achieved this without our partnership with ATI. From day one, ATI has played a key role in helping us design and validate the new driver model at the heart of Windows Vista, and ATI has since developed robust and performant drivers that highlight the capabilities of our new operating system."

does this sound like pure PR?

yes.

if ATI played such a HUGE role in developing windows vista's driver model, why isnt the quality of ATI's vista drivers far beyond the quality of nvidia's vista drivers?

LOL

 

[ronnn]

Originally posted by: schneiderguy

Originally posted by: ronnn

Originally posted by: schneiderguy

Originally posted by: ronnn

Nvidia just got complacent and made some very poor choices. Which of course is why we are discussing why amd recently bought a company based out of Ontario.

AMD bought ATI instead of nvidia because of NV30? yeah right

You are confused.

I am confused. I would appreciate it if you could explain to me what you meant by "very poor choices"... because NV30 is the only "very poor choice" nvidia has made in the last 4-5 years

Just to put this in the context: I was responding to the silly claim of ms misleading nvidia. But anyways your obvious confusion did prove my oblique point. :beer:

Gstanfor

Some of haven't forgotten that the (former) head of microsoft's directx division left m$ & joined ati just prior to r300 launching... of course he wouldn't have had anything to do with misleading nvidia over the DX9 spec while at m$, would he? ...

 

[josh6079]

Microsoft has worked with nVidia on DX10 just as much as ATI.

Except that Microsoft didn't create a DX10 capable console with Nvidia.

Since you seem to be "out of the know" on how these things work let me fill you in. MS has a DX software team, who works with both nVidia and ATI. They don't give one camp anymore time than the other, though they might have filled ATI in earlier (not like it would matter at this point since Vista has been delayed long enough for nVidia to take as much time as they'd need. In fact, G80 has been finished for several months now, but that's getting besides the point).

Let's look logically at the situation and realize MS isn't as a big fanATIc like some of you members on this board seem to be. nVidia loosing out on DX10 hurts everyone from game developers, consumers, and then goes back to ultimately hurting MS. They've seen how much they can influence the success (or demise) of a generation, aka the FX fiasco, and it would be almost illegial if MS withehld pertinent info on the DX10 stanard and code. You would bet nVIdia would press legal actions.

I'm not saying that MS gave DX10 only to ATi and Nvidia is just using a crystal ball to figure out how to be DX10 compliant. I'm saying is that MS and ATi share a DX10 relationship on a hardware standpoint with their Xbox360. I'm sure Microsoft wants to still cater to all sides of the market--Intel, Nvidia, and DAMIT alike and it would be foolish to think that Microsoft is going to make a DX version individually ran by one companies product. Sorry if you thougth I was being hostile in my post.

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster

Originally posted by: josh6079

And secondly, Microsoft and ATI have a relationship

Yeah they have a relationship. It's called DX10.

If you honestly think ATI is more special towards Vista because MS said a few nice words about them, get a clue.

It's more than just a few nice words. Microsoft didn't practice it's implementations of DX10 with Nvidia hardware only to give compliments to ATi.

Link?

Yeah, I knew I mis-worded that and edited my comment. You're just too fast Cookie Monster and quoted me before I caught my mistake. Sorry for the confusion.

- Firstly, the industry will eventually go down the road of CPU+GPU. This was somethig predictable. In the near future, we will begin to see these "new processors" that can both achieve what CPUs and GPUs do now today. Its both economical/efficent in concept and well worth the money invested to this technology. However the major players in the industry needs to start somewhere. CPU companies lack experience in the GPU side of things. For AMD to compete with Intel was to either acquire a GPU company or began a long hard process of R&D for the technicalities of the GPU not to mention the added cost for the CPU + GPU R & D.

I agree 100% The anatomy of the computer is going to become more efficient in the near future and such thoughts hold more attention, and rightly so, for large corporations than the idea of simply putting another company out of business.
@Wrechage, some good points that I haven't considered. While some may scream for evidence, I don't need an article to understand what you're saying and why you're thinking ATi was more or less "bought", "obtained", "ruled", etc. Speculating is pretty worthless but makes for some interesting ideas, so long as they don't get out of hand that is.

I'm not saying I'm right about anything I've suggested and I'm not saying that others are wrong for what they've suggested. I tend to think that the merger between ATI/AMD isn't going to hurt much and if it does, then I guess that would make me wrong, I'll live. I also tend to think that ATi already has some decent experience with making some DX10 compliant hardware and while R600 will arrive after G80, the amount of games existing between now and the supposed R600 launch aren't going to be DX10. I think I've seen a thread discussing how Crysis is going to be Q1 of 2007 anyways so the earliness of the G80 with it's $700 price tag isnt' very enticing if you ask me. Better to wait for the competition, especially if it may be one of the last competitive rounds we have.

It's good to see a DX provider, Microsoft, in favor of a merger that potentially threatens the popularity of high-end gaming. Some worries just don't add up to me, that's all.

 

[josh6079]

Some of haven't forgotten that the (former) head of microsoft's directx division left m$ & joined ati just prior to r300 launching... of course he wouldn't have had anything to do with misleading nvidia over the DX9 spec while at m$, would he? ...

Yes, one man sabotaged the performance of the FX series and it wasn't Nvidia's fault at all.

:roll:

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: schneiderguy

Originally posted by: apoppin

According to Chris Jones, corporate vice president - Windows Core OS Division, Microsoft, "Microsoft will deliver a series of graphics innovations with Windows Vista that provide a customer experience that is second to none. We could not have achieved this without our partnership with ATI. From day one, ATI has played a key role in helping us design and validate the new driver model at the heart of Windows Vista, and ATI has since developed robust and performant drivers that highlight the capabilities of our new operating system."

does this sound like pure PR?

yes.

if ATI played such a HUGE role in developing windows vista's driver model, why isnt the quality of ATI's vista drivers far beyond the quality of nvidia's vista drivers?

LOL

what laughing that your company wasn't good enough to be chosen by MS?

Senior Microsoft officials have gone on record acknowledging ATI?s contribution in delivering graphics innovations for Windows Vista.

AMD?s Turion 64 X2 technology is the only mobile processor that is optimised for the 64-bit versions of Windows Vista. ...

Considering Microsoft?s domination in the operating system market, AMD-ATI could prove superior to Intel. It would mean soaring profits and greater penetration for AMD.

. . . Chris Hook, AMD?s public relations officer, acknowledged the role the impending release of Vista had played in the acquisition. ?It is one of the many significant reasons behind this merger,?

gonna quote another nvidiot to support . . .

. . . nothing

:roll:

:thumbsdown:

 

[Gstanfor]

Ever stop to consider that the guy really did set things up so that DX9 favored ATi and M$ found out at the last moment and booted him from the organisation (too late to do anything about it with DX9 about to launch).

Why would the head of DirectX not stick around for one of DirectX's finest moments ever (he left before DX9 launched)? Makes no sense whatosoever to me - until you factor industrial sabotage in.

 

[imported_wicka]

Originally posted by: apoppin
gonna quote another nvidiot to support . . .

. . . nothing

:roll:

:thumbsdown:

And it's always this fool with the flaming and name calling...

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: apoppin


what laughing that your company wasn't good enough to be chosen by MS?

I'm laughing because even with Microsoft's help their drivers still suck

 

[josh6079]

what laughing that your company wasn't good enough to be chosen by MS?

No, he's laughing at the fact that ATi needs some better software programmers. Nvidia's Vista drivers have been reviewed to be better than ATi's current ones--although still needing much attention.

Nvidia's driver team does a great job making sure things just plain work right for their cards. Nvidia just recently followed ATi's .NET control panel and have already surpassed the CCC. I myself am still using only the 6.6 drivers with everything else controlling my driver settings and clock frequencies being third-party.

It's a valid point to question this involment ATi has had with Microsoft if it doesn't seem to be doing better than those who weren't said to be involved as much.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: wicka

Originally posted by: apoppin
gonna quote another nvidiot to support . . .

. . . nothing

:roll:

:thumbsdown:

And it's always this fool with the flaming and name calling...

Fool yourself ....stfu or post something useful

you are posting a useless flame . . . trolling this thread . . . and name calling

and you didn't even bother to quote the relevant part of my post . . . you are fitting the very definition of "troll" exactly

hypocrite

============================

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
Ever stop to consider that the guy really did set things up so that DX9 favored ATi and M$ found out at the last moment and booted him from the organisation (too late to do anything about it with DX9 about to launch).

Why would the head of DirectX not stick around for one of DirectX's finest moments ever (he left before DX9 launched)? Makes no sense whatosoever to me - until you factor industrial sabotage in.

no

ridiculous

and you say fanatics make up tinfoil conspiracy threories

:roll:

 

[josh6079]

Ever stop to consider that the guy really did set things up so that DX9 favored ATi and M$ found out at the last moment and booted him from the organisation (too late to do anything about it with DX9 about to launch).

Why would the head of DirectX not stick around for one of DirectX's finest moments ever (he left before DX9 launched)? Makes no sense whatosoever to me - until you factor industrial sabotage in.

Ever stop to consider that you might just be trying to give Nvidia too much credit?

They made a crappy product and hyped it too much. Since then they've learned from that (hence why G80 has been so quiet) and are probably going to release the exact opposite of the NV30 in about a week. At least I hope so anyway....

 

[Genx87]

AMD bought ATI to create a platform?

This is news? This has been known for a long time.

 

[Gstanfor]

You can deny it all you like apoppin & josh. Fact is the head of the DX team left m$ for ATi before DX9 launched. Its also a fact that nvidia & microsoft worked together to produce DX9.0c, which corrected a lot of the intial DX9's shortcomings.

As for nv30 & g80 -- take a closer look. NV30 had integer support. G80 has integer support. NV30 was a multi-precision architecture etc, etc.

 

[Genx87]

Except that Microsoft didn't create a DX10 capable console with Nvidia.

This may have to do more with the falling out between MS and Nvidia on the xBox when MS tried to screw Nvidia out of their contract by not wanting to pay to the agreed scale. Nvidia sued MS and won.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
You can deny it all you like apoppin & josh. Fact is the head of the DX team left m$ for ATi before DX9 launched. Its also a fact that nvidia & microsoft worked together to produce DX9.0c, which corrected a lot of the intial DX9's shortcomings.

i'm sorry but you have presented a genuine crackpot tinfoil conspiracy theory ---

the very ridiculous kind that you decry when someone else posts it

IF it were true, there would be someone besides yourself that discovered it.