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Will it always be nVidia versus ATi?

My first graphics card was an S3 Savage 8mb and I was so happy with it. I could play IL2 Sturmovik on my P166!! :rolleyes:
 
XGI Technology (which was formed from acquisitions of Trident Microsystems and Silicon Integrated Systems’ graphics divisions) also tried to enter the discrete graphics card market with their Volari & Volari duo based cards, however they were short lived, due to poor drivers & lack of market penetration (few board partners were found to actually sell the cards).

And as per the original question will it always be ATI v Nvidia - No.
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. Its AMD v Nvidia allready.
 
I think it would be hard for an upstart to make any headway in the market, just look at AGEIA (although you could argue that their PhysX product is unremarkable). You're fighting against huge brand loyalty at the end of the day, even before you consider the actual manufacturing & R&D costs.
 
Intel have the biggest share of the pc graphics card market as it is which, I imagine, pulls in a lot of cash for relatively little r&d. They then have to spend an enormous amount of cash on r&d to catch up with AMD/nVidia, all so they can produce a bleeding edge card which, by definition, will have a tiny proportion of sales overall.

I can see them entering the discrete card market at the low-mid range, but can't really see it at the high end.
 
Personally I think the brand loyalty thing is overplayed. Out of all the so-called fanbois I've seen down the years, the majority have owned cards from more than one manufacturer, and quite a few even change their viewpoint from time to time.

Whatever banter there may be on forums such as these, most people are not so blinkered that they wouldn't switch to another brand if it offered a superior combination of performance, image quality, driver support and price.

The reason ATI/NV have dominated the market over the last 6 years or so is more to do with the fact that nothing has come close in performance terms to their offerings, at least in the enthusiast sector. Parhelia failed because it simply wasn't competitive and was very expensive, not because people didn't want to switch to a Matrox. To be honest the last time we saw a 3rd player with even a vaguely competitive GPU was PowerVR's Kyro II, and even then it was more a question of the lack of hardware T&L coupled with questionable compatibility in some titles which limited it's potential.
 
i loved my 3dfx card it was the best card out when i got it.. was well chuffed it was my first agp card
 
I've always had Nvidia cards until now, i switched to ATI, but that was for the performance and price, not for the brand.

Anyway would the main brand people look at be the manufacturer e.g. XFX, Sapphire, EVGA etc.
 
i still have an old gainward gf4 ti 4800se, think ilkeep it cause it brings back so many memories of mohaa at a good frame rate (old machine i had wich came with a gf4 mx) nearly put me of pc gaming
 
i remember when i 1st installed counter-strike source as a upgrade from 1.4 counter strike on my old nvidia 5500 with a pentium 4, i thaught it was the best thing in the world!

alltho back then i didnt know about the whole framefrate thing i thaught you just put a game on and played it.


i wish i could go back to them days, used to get way more fun out of games but still tho, wouldnt be able to live without my pc :cool:
 
IceShock said:
alltho back then i didnt know about the whole framefrate thing i thaught you just put a game on and played it.
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You mean you don't just put the game in and play it? I could be in the minority here but I generally benchmark once to check the figures are in the right ballpark then just get on with playing games (if/when I have the cash/time), if it doesn't run at acceptable speeds then I need an upgrade or I lower the detail level but I couldn't tell you the FPS I get in most games I play - all I know is it is playable to me and that is good enough. :)
 
i reckon you'll see an ASDA graphics card in the market soon :D in smart-price and 'extra special' flavours
 
PowerVR are still alive and doing extremely well. They beat out ATI and Nvidia in there market. I estimated about a 90%+ market share in mobile device's (excludeing laptops). So there’s a strong chance they will come back to the PC market its just a question of time. I don’t see them coming back this year but I bet they do at some point.
 
Doubt it. God, remember the days when Nvidia was the underdog and 3dfx held the crown? The worm definately turned there :p

There was S3 aswell, they were pretty good, dunno what happened to them. And Kyro who licenced a refence from PowerVR - they we're supposed to be good cards. Matrox made gaming cards in the early days - and still make professional grade stuff. There was a company called xgi that had a fair crack a couple of years back - they did actually produce a semi decent DX8 card. Not bad for a first attempt.

Intel has announced they'll be entering the market. Either Intel or PowerVR have the muscle to put up a challenge. Recent behavior from Nvidia and ATI should encourage competition soon.
 
Dyson said:
Who'd have thought that a company could come along and smash Nintendo, and kill off Sega consoles...

If Sony could come into the console world like they did, whats to stop a company like MS from doing it in the GPU world?
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Yeah but Sony had invested time and money with Nintendo creating an CD add-on for the Snes, and when Nintendo pulled out Sony decided to carry on with the product and develop a stand alone system (PS1). But your right, any one of the major players (M$ etc.) could attempt to crack the graphics card market, but it would take a lot of money and theres no chance of success at the end of the day.
 
bfar said:
There was S3 aswell, they were pretty good, dunno what happened to them.
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S3 made an attempt at DirectX 9 graphics cards not long back by bringing out their Chrome20, which I think was on-par with a 6600GT and not actually a bad card for a first attempt in such a long time.

They're not finished yet either AFAIK. :)
 
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