The Age of Nvidia 234
EyesWideOpen writes "There is an excellent (and lengthy) two part article (part 1, part 2) at Salon detailing the rise, and... rise, of Nvidia and how the company came to rest atop the 3-D graphics chip industry with a little help from Microsoft. The article discusses how Nvidia was able to persevere in the multi-billion dollar industry while other graphics chip companies, such as 3Dfx which was bought by Nvidia, did not fare as well."
Why Nvidia's on top (Score:5, Interesting)
They are the most successful GPU company because they make the best, highest-quality, fastest GPU's, and make a wide variety of them: models designed for gamers, for graphics designers, for businesses. Not to mention, they support a broad range of OS' very well: Windows, Linux, MacOSX, and at one time BeOS. Not only do they support other OS' such as Linux, but their drivers for Linux are actually damn good: benchmarks show that Nvidia Linux drivers operate about 99% as well as Windows drivers.
This isn't like MS where they're on top because of dirty business practices. They're on top plain and simple because they make the best products, from every angle imaginable. Best quality, best performance, best OS-support.
This isn't to say that they're infallible, or always make the right decision. Personally, I think its rather idiotic of them not to support Glide in their GeForce drivers, as Glide offers vastly superior performance in games which use it.
Re:Why Nvidia's on top (Score:1, Insightful)
1) Nobody has been using it for a few years
2) If they supported it, people might start using it again which would suck
Re:Why Nvidia's on top (Score:2)
Re:Why Nvidia's on top (Score:5, Informative)
source: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=162
Re:Why Nvidia's on top (Score:2)
Re:Why Nvidia's on top (Score:2)
Really, it's not much worst than what they've been posting lately.
Re:Why Nvidia's on top (Score:2)
Nvidia's proprietary drivers suck (Score:1)
I hope Matrox's Parhelia kicks ass, and gives us a top of the line card with open source drivers.
Re:Why Nvidia's on top (Score:1)
As always, only worth as much as any other /. opinion... ;)
-J
Dirty business practices? (Score:1)
Now... that doesn't mean we should not be afraid of the dirty tricks MS plays to stay on top, or get on top of every other line of business imaginable.
Re:Dirty business practices? (Score:2)
Re:Dirty business practices? (Score:2)
Bill Gates told IBM that he had an OS ready for the 8088 processor, when he really didn't. He then spent 50 Gs of his mothers cash to buy an OS off a company who actually HAD an OS ready.
I'd say that Bill would still be bitching about how people were reverse-engineering his crappy basic compiler if he hadn't told that little lie.
Re:Dirty business practices? (Score:2)
Re:Dirty business practices? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Why Nvidia's on top (Score:2)
Ouch, you touched on a sore subject. nVidia didn't do shit for the BeOS drivers.
I think the guys at Be who created the drivers for nvidia cards (mostly Leo Schwab, I think) had to rely on what little information was publically available, and "a little bird" (as Leo put it) to get the unified driver done. Even so, it never had any 3D capabilities, nor even DVI support (which I constantly pestered Leo about).
I'm hoping OpenBeOS can get to a point where it has enough clout to warrant better support from nVidia!
Re: Why Nvidia's on top (Score:2)
Anyways, nVidia offers awesome support for Linux.
Re: Why Nvidia's on top (Score:2)
So I guess it's pure luck that my Radeon 7200 was supported by the BeOS OpenGL beta?
Learn the facts before you post, otherwise you just look like an idiot.
Dinivin
Re:Why Nvidia's on top (Score:2, Insightful)
In the area of Drivers, I'm amazed by the fact that they have one set for all of their video cards (Detonator), and how they have managed to supplement the power of each card purely on the software side. Because of that, the life of my TNT 1 video card was extended by another year, due to a 40% speed increase after upgrading from Detonator 2 to 3. It blew me away at the time (after all, there are no drivers for my other computer hardware that upgrade their performance so dramatically), and made me an Nvidia fanboy.
It is a little worrying that Nvidia are becoming so large though. Ever since the assimilation of 3DFX, the price of the top end Nvidia cards has blown out a lot. One can only hope they don't become a lumbering behemoth in future.
Don't Underestimate nVidia's [Alleged] "Cheating". (Score:5, Interesting)
Or even better, the not-so-obvious.
> They are the most successful GPU company because they make the best, highest-quality, fastest GPU's
They're the most successful for two reasons. First, unlike 3Dfx, they focused on quick turnaround of incrementally faster processors rather than spending a long dev cycle working on very advanced technology that was too complicated to fit into a 6-month product cycle. The 3D graphics world was *starved* for more horsepower, and quick to jump on the bandwagon of whoever could deliver more faster, rather than the long-term strategy 3Dfx got mired in when their tech missed a whole dev cycle. This was an excellent strategy on nVidia's part, since 3Dfx's Rampage technology was taking far too long to pan out and forced them to release a "stopgap" line of cards that was short on features and performance, in order to try to struggle on until their mythic Rampage chipset could produce working silicon. 3Dfx poured all their investment into a product which would have been groundbreaking, but was so long to market that nVidia was running rings around them with their incremental strategies.
Second, much like Enron, nVidia (allegedly) inflated their financial statements in a very unethical manner in order to draw in more investment due to steadily rising stock prices during the investment bubble. Honesty is punished by investors if it isn't all wine and roses; inflated financial statements draw more investment. In the case of Enron, the house of cards collapsed. In the case of nVidia, the tail wagged the dog--inflated financials drew more and more investment, which funded more and faster product cycles, which allowed nVidia to really pull ahead of 3Dfx, just as 3Dfx fell further and further behind thanks to their Rampage sinkhole. The high investment due to questionable financial statements is what allowed nVidia to fund its whirlwind snowjob, culminating in the purchase of its beaten and devalued old rival. There's been an SEC probe into these purported financial improprieties, and from everything I've seen, it looks like nVidia's creative accounting was their source of power, funding their product cycles--kind of like winning by cheating. No, *exactly* like winning by cheating...
This demonstrates a few principles we already know from much practical experience. In computers, short-term strategies which produce small gains *now* are much more likely to be successful than long-term strategies which would pay off big, but not in the near future. IA-64 is a prime example of this--Intel's roadmaps when Itanium first shipped showed it being adopted in droves by this point in time, yet it hasn't been; if an when it succeeds, it will be because of Intel's unusually deep pockets, but meanwhile x86-64 Yamhill has been developed "just in case" AMD's Hammer architecture captures the low-end-server and mainstream desktop markets, markets which Intel had *insisted* would eventually have IA-64 trickle down to without any interim architectures. This same principle was seen in the software world, with for example every single version of Windows that was built atop DOS rather than NT.
The second principle of success which nVidia's strategy illustrates is a financial one, illustrated well by Enron. People invest more money with companies which are already financially successful than with ones who really need the money, so that inflating the bottom line is rewarded immensely--and punishes companies which are honest, by giving fu7nding to their competitors. With Enron the bubble burst. With nVidia, the bubble carried them to the top, and funded dev cycles which neither 3Dfx nor Matrox nor for most of that period ATI could compete with. It's a gamble, and the dice rolled in nVidia's favor. That doesn't make their alleged financial improprieties right, but it makes them (if true) a *major* factor in nVidia's success.
> models designed for gamers, for graphics designers, for businesses.
3Dfx did the same, so nVidia is in no way unique there. In fact, high-end graphics maven Quantum3D was a 3Dfx spin-off intended by 3Dfx to be a major user of 3Dfx's highly scalable chip architectures (8-way Voodoo 2's and 16-way VSA-100's, for example, which *killed* everything else at the time for the high-end). For mainstream businesses, 3Dfx had their line of STB boards (following their STB buyout, which many see as a huge mistake, since they got into the board business instead of concentrating on just chips). And for gamers, obviously, the famous Voodoo lines. Low-end-professional 3D graphics wworkstations were the only market not really targeted, since Quantum3D boards compete in a higher-end space than Quadros did.
> Not to mention, they support a broad range of OS' very well: Windows, Linux, MacOSX
As did 3dfx, but 3dfx bettered nVidia in this respect by releasing a large chunk of code. nVidia has on the other hand been excruciatingly secretive with almost all code.
> This isn't like MS where they're on top because of dirty business practices.
Then why did there need to be an SEC probe into their financial (mis)statements? Again, if not for the funding attracted by reputedly "too optimistic" financials, nVidia could never have pulled off the quick incremental development cycles which kicked 3Dfx's ass.
> Personally, I think it's rather idiotic of them not to support Glide in their GeForce drivers
This is the one thing I agree with you about. Glide is rightfully dead--its limitations are well-known, and today DX and OGL are the clear choices. However, a "legacy Glide module" would have been *very* nice, as almost all older games with Glide support work much better in Glide, and some older games *only* work in Glide. This is precisely why I bought an old Quantum3D Voodoo2 X-24 dual-Voodoo2-on-a-single-card board as a secondary adapter for my gaming rig--it's the only way to have full compatibility with many older games. If nVidia were unwilling to spend their time writing it, the Open Source community would likely be glad to do it for them since many are avid gamers and fans of old classics--but nVidia refuses to release any code, even the obsolete Glide code.
Now, let me go play a round of Turok in asskicking Glide mode, courtesy of my dual Voodoo2 card, in honor of the dead.
Re:Don't Underestimate nVidia's [Alleged] "Cheatin (Score:2)
Stock-inflating or not, they make the best graphics cards. Not to mention, their shareholders in this case can be happy, because if they did use creative booking, it ultimately benefitted them: i.e., now they're reaping the benefits.
As for the financial mis-statements, until we get something solid, its all conjecture and speculation. In that regard, we know Enron acted illegally, and we know that so did Global Crossings. However, the punishment is affected by the outcome: in the case of Enron and Global Crossings, thousands of employees were laid off and investers were screwed over. In the case of nVidia, investors are almost assured continually rising stock prices and the consumers are very happy.
Not that I'm saying it would be OK if nVidia were to become a monopoly; should that happen, they're products will become inferior (like MS') due to lack of competition, and they'll undoubtely use black-ball tactics, as is a trademark of all monopolies.
nVidia does have serious competition from ATI. But ATI would do well to start supporting Linux better. Also, ATI probably should switch to a shorter development cycle -- he who takes many small steps rather than one big step is less likely to fall on his ass. Furthermore, ATI is consistently plagued by performance problems -- ATI chips released to-date often don't perform as well as nVidia chips released 6 months ago.
But ATI is very smart to Open-source their drivers. nVidia would do well to do that too: graphics companies don't make any money off of the "drivers" they make; just the GPU's. Also, if nVidia open-sourced their drivers, many people would offer improvements, which would make nVidia chips more stable and "faster".
Re:Don't Underestimate nVidia's [Alleged] "Cheatin (Score:2)
> just because their stock prices inflated.
You seem to miss the point: did their incredible product cycles happen because of incredible funding gotten by cheating on financials? If so, then they created those products by cheating, and did not succeed on their merits at all. Read on below for why this is important.
> However, the punishment is affected by the outcome: in the case of Enron and Global Crossings,
> thousands of employees were laid off and investers were screwed over. In the case of nVidia,
> investors are almost assured continually rising stock prices and the consumers are very happy.
Yes, nVidia investors are ultimately happy with the outcome even if their money was invested under false pretenses, since nVidia succeeded. *However*, for every winner there are losers in the market. The best example is 3dfx shareholders, who lost the proverbial king's ransom when 3dfx collapsed--and of course Matrox and ATI investors, since Matrox in no way could keep up with nVidia's product cycles, and ATI's cards could never keep up until recently. Now, if nVidia's alleged financial cheating is true, those 3dfx investors, Matrox investors, and ATI investors, *were cheated*, since nVidia's bottom line and their financial capability to pull ahead with phenomenal development times were all based on Enron-like financial impropriety.
We'll have a good idea whether or not this is the case when the SEC probe issues final results. But if nVidia did win through financial cheating, then they essentially "stole" money from the investors of competing companies by deflating the value of rival investments as theirs went up on false pretenses, and killed one competitor off entirely.
That isn't to say that the financial impropriety definitely occurred--we don't know for sure until the SEC finishes its investigations. It does not, however, look like nVidia acted properly, from what I've seen so far. And that isn't to say that companies like 3dfx didn't make severe errors which nVidia rightly exploited--they did. But it is to say that, yes, if nVidia is guilty of its alleged financial improprieties, they played a key role in securing the investments which made it possible for them to carry out Herculean product development cycles--and in doing so cost the investors of rival companies hundreds of millions in losses which are unfair and due to illegal financial cheating. We'll know when the SEC has concluded its dealings. Success and crushing the competition through the fruits of illegal practices is unacceptable.
As for whether consumers are happy--I am not. Not if a venerable, though prodigal, company was destroyed by unethical business practices as much as or more than its own mistakes. Not if, were it not for "creative accounting," nVidia were unable to keep up its incremental product cycles and its rival were finally able to release Rampage, a product in development since the days of the Voodoo 2 which reputedly may have revolutionized the experience for all of us. When companies get ahead by cheating, and kill their rivals through unethical financial manipulations, consumers lose out. nVidia has been feeding us incremental change ever since the original GeForce. 3dfx's Rampage was supposed to provide a paradigm shift, and if not for nVidia's financial manipulations (if they are true--they may not be), it was to be brought to market before now. We know they had working alpha silicon when they closed their doors--the question is, did they close their doors because they couldn't keep up due to nVidia's alleged financial cheating? If so, consumers benefitted in the short run, and lost out in the long run.
There are many questions which remain. Is nVidia innocent of the charges the SEC is investigating? We'll find the likely answer as soon as the SEC is ready to announce findings. Would 3dfx have failed, if not for nVidia's incredible (illegally funded???) product cycles? We'll never know, but my money's on "no". Would Matrox have (temporarily?)abandoned their foray into the world of 3D gaming so readily if not for those well-funded nVidia product cycles? It's debatable--they couldn't keep up with 3dfx and nVidia in speed, but they had the 3D visual quality crown. Would ATI be more profitable in the 3D performance market? Who knows. Could 3dfx have revolutionized 3D gaming with its long-in-development Rampage? Very possibly--it was about a year from final silicon, so if nVidia did raise money for product cycles (and thereby put pressure on 3dfx and other competitors) through illegal means, 3dfx would definitely have been in much better financial shape.
We'll just never know what might have been. All we can know is that the 3D graphics card world changed dramatically across the span of a couple of years. *If* the SEC concludes that nVidia raised investment funds by inflating their financials, then it's a foregone conclusion that that played a *huge* role. It (if true) definitely provided short-twerm benefits to gamers, and likely robbed them of the long-term gains of Rampage technology, and definitely cost every investor in one of its rivals money.
Re:Don't Underestimate nVidia's [Alleged] "Cheatin (Score:2)
Not only that, but nVidia continues to maintain their fast update cycles, even though competition is not very sturdy.
Should nVidia be found guilty of foul business practices, I would hope that nothing would be done which would hinder nVidia's great fast update process and superior products.
Also, I think your view that nVidia's success was the reason why other GPU companies failed is rather 19th century (i.e., zero sum game) economics. The stockholdes who invested in nVidia because of "colorful accounting", if they hadn't invested in nVidia, would they have invested in dead-end prospects like 3dfx, which was continually delaying the release of new products?
The truth is, 3dfx died because they made the gamer wait to long for their newest products. Telling consumers, "our latest greatest revolutionary GPU will be delayed another 6 months," again and again is a great way to piss of consumers, and not a good business model.
You read the article. 3dfx made a series of abysmally poor business choices.
The only thing to mourn in 3dfx's passing is that the company acquiring it, nVidia, doesn't see the wisdom in catering to current GeForce-owners and making GeForce drivers so that it works with older Glide-only games.
This is surely a weak-point in nVidia, and may be a key point for competitors. Many gamers are not much impressed by the latest and greatest graphics, but poor gameplay. I haven't bought a new game in over a year precisely because nothing on the market now is more fun to play than the games I already own (which include Janes USAF, the Descent series, the Tomb Raider series, Prince of Persia, Thief, the Descent Freespace series, and Magic Carpet). Most of these games are old, but quite frankly, there's nothing that matches them in gameplay on the market. The only doom-like game I ever liked was Wolfenstein, and everything else has been a clone of that. Sorry, but this whole Quake/Unreal/Halflife thing just doesn't impress me much: lots of blood being spilled and typical macho-voices from fake-looking aliens isn't my idea of a good time.
Games like Prince of Persia and Magic Carpet are still fun, despite vastly inferior (and even -- gasp -- 2D graphics) are still fun. Nothing on the market today comes close to the mystique of the Tomb Raider series (despite many a crack at this series, I think its popular because people like exploring ancient stuff and the scenery, not b/c of LC's "assets"). Tomb Raider is to the gaming world as Indiana Jones is to the moview world. Also, having a woman as the center of focus is a refreshing change from the typical macho-ism in the doom-like games.
Finally, I have yet to encounter a game that's anywhere near Descent 1, 2, or 3 in terms of the freedom it offers you, and the great multiplayer fun. Nor would I likely be receptive to anything (unless it comes from Interplay/Outrage) trying to mimic that. Because Descent was so unique, anything like it seems like a cheap rip off (sorry games like Terracide and Forsaken [which only sold because of the near-naked chick on the cover] come to mind).
I own all of these games, and I think its only fair to ask that graphics companies releasing new GPU's at least ensure their GPU's perform as well on these older games as older GPU's. Its freakin' outrageous that a Voodoo 2 or 3 outperforms a GeForce 2 in Descent 3 and Descent 2.
Re:Don't Underestimate nVidia's [Alleged] "Cheatin (Score:2)
After the IPO, any increase in the stock price had no direct benefit to Nvidia the corporate entity - other than as leverage for possible acquisitions. Shareholders of course benefited - some of whom are employees of the company. Which brings us onto the SEC investigation.
Then why did there need to be an SEC probe into their financial (mis)statements? Again, if not for the funding attracted by reputedly "too optimistic" financials, nVidia could never have pulled off the quick incremental development cycles which kicked 3Dfx's ass.
The SEC investigation was triggered by material discovered during an investigation into some insider trading by a couple of engineers. As it turned out, this resulted in a restatement of earnings upwards. Here's my source [yahoo.com].
As for 3dfx' failure, that was as much their own doing as nvidia's. But then you'd know that if you'd read the salon article, with particular attention to Brian Hook's comments.
Re:Don't Underestimate nVidia's [Alleged] "Cheatin (Score:2)
A standard line, but not at all true. Ignoring the issuance of outstanding shares (I don't know offhand if nVidia ever issued significant numbers of outstanding shares in that period), there are several factors to consider. Inflated financials can get a corporate entity much greater lines of credit, much better relations with and leverage with third-party entities (important when you make chips which card companies decide whether to buy), attract many of the best employees, and I could go on for a while. Were it not for benefits, no companies would ever misrepresent their finances.
> The SEC investigation was triggered by material discovered during an investigation into some insider trading
Yes, it was. And as the article linked in this story, and many others, note, the SEC probe isn't limited to insider trading by a few, but questions whether the company intentionally misstated its financial position. Your Yahoo link is a quickie which only details one of the purported problems. You ought to watch "Your World with Neil Cavuto" each day to keep up with the haps in the securities world.
> As for 3dfx' failure, that was as much their own doing as nvidia's.
I never said it wasn't--3dfx missed a whole development cycle, and that was their own fault. They focused too many reasources on their long-term Rampage solution, to adequately keep up with real-world pressures from competitors--which is their own fault entirely, *unless* nVidia really did engage in financial improprieties which affected the outcome of the "3D wars."
> But then you'd know that if you'd read the salon article
I read it, and it didn't tell me anything people interested in the subject haven't known for months in the case of the nVidia allegations, or years in the case of the video card history. Personally, I found the article unremarkable. There are many much better and more in-depth articles on video card history scattered about the enthusiast sites, since the Salon article is meant for a fairly general audience.
You couldn't be more wrong. (Score:3, Interesting)
They're the most successful for two reasons. First, unlike 3Dfx, they focused on quick turnaround of incrementally faster processors rather than spending a long dev cycle working on very advanced technology that was too complicated to fit into a 6-month product cycle
Actually, it was the exact opposite of this. nVidia never produced a video card that was faster than one of 3dfx's top model while they were still in business. In matter of fact, it was the technology in the early nVidia video cards that were driving their sales. Check out tom's hardware archive and read through the articles of the past and you will see that the benchmarks show 3dfx clearly winning the frame-rate race, but it was nVidia's 3D image quality that was coming on top each time. It was only when 3dfx went for an entire year without ever coming out with a new chipset, did nVidia finally catched up in speed.
The second principle of success which nVidia's strategy illustrates is a financial one, illustrated well by Enron. People invest more money with companies which are already financially successful than with ones who really need the money, so that inflating the bottom line is rewarded immensely--and punishes companies which are honest, by giving fu7nding to their competitors.
If you are talking about the whole SEC thing, that was a recent occurance that began at the start of last year. There was inside trading going on and that was what the investigation was about. However, in the beginning nVdida was a privately funded company. They went public AFTER 3dfx went bankrupt. Shadey handling of money had hardly anything to do with their triumph over 3dfx.
As did 3dfx, but 3dfx bettered nVidia in this respect by releasing a large chunk of code. nVidia has on the other hand been excruciatingly secretive with almost all code.
Quiet the opposite, nvidia has created a site to drive development of 3D software http://developer.nvidia.com/ They encourage open source and try to get the entire community in helping establish and designing standards. Which brings us to the last point...
Glide support work much better in Glide
Glide is the farthest thing you can get from programming standards. I cringe everytime someone spews the statement "Glide is better." Do you honestly have an understanding of what a proprietary API is? Glide works fast on a 3dfx card, because it's the "language" that voodoo "speaks". It's like running a windows application through an emulator on a Mac and whining that the G4 architecture isn't as good as x86 because it doesn't run as fast as on a native machine.
nVidia is a good company. They come this far through the work and sweat of a very talented group of designers and programmers. Don't try to smear that with the shadey business practices of certain individuals that unfortounetly worked at the company.
Re:You couldn't be more wrong. (Score:2)
> one of 3dfx's top model while they were still in business.
That's not exactly what I said--I said that nVidia released incrementally faster graphics processors with quicker turnarounds. Incrementally faster than their last releases, not 3dfx's. However, yes, nVidia did release one product line which was faster than the equivalent 3dfx product while 3dfx was still alive--the GeForce series. But before that the TNT2 Ultra was a real contender for the people willing to spend that kind of cash, beating out the Voodoo 3 except of course in Glide games.
> If you are talking about the whole SEC thing, that was a recent occurance that began at the start of last year.
They are investigating earlier occurrences than the insider trading which precipitated the investigation. The probe, as far as I can tell, goes back to 1999.
> There was inside trading going on and that was what the investigation was about.
Information found during that investigation has started an SEC probe into other financial matters. I can find no mention either on the SEC site or anywhere else that that investigation has closed, although the insider trading issue has already been dealt with.
> However, in the beginning nVdida was a privately funded company.
Yes, they were, much as Matrox.
> They went public AFTER 3dfx went bankrupt.
No, they went public long before that, which is where they got the money to buy 3dfx--though they had enough money to buy 3dfx several times over, since 3dfx's finances were so poor by then. You're probably thinking of the big spike in nVidia stock after the Xbox contract was won.
> Quiet the opposite, nvidia has created a site to drive development of 3D software
I was talking about *source code*. 3dfx released huge chunks of their driver source code to the public. nVidia has never done so--their drivers are very closed.
>> Glide support work much better in Glide
>
> Glide is the farthest thing you can get from programming standards. I cringe everytime someone
> spews the statement "Glide is better."
Sorry, but do you have problems with literacy? Where did I say anything about Glide being better than anything else? Nowhere. Quoting that whole statement, instead of that contorted snippet, and here's what I said: "almost all older games with Glide support work much better in Glide, and some older games *only* work in Glide." I am *clearly* talking about legacy support for Glide games, which nVidia will not provide--nor will they release the Glide code they now own so that open-source folks could write Glide support modules for their drivers. At any rate, yes, there are *many* older games that run best in Glide mode, or that *only* run under Glide, or only under either Glide or a really ugly un-accelerated software renderer. This is why I said a Glide support module would be good.
Re:Don't Underestimate nVidia's [Alleged] "Cheatin (Score:2)
Not as far as I can tell; the probe seems to be ongoing even at this point. A Google search presents no articles about any official SEC findings as of yet--moreover, the SEC itself has a nice website at http://www.sec.gov/ which includes news of its business. On that website I can't find any mention of the SEC having closed its investigation or released any findings.
> the re-statements for the last 3 years leads to $1.3 mln INCREASE in net incomes
What you and another poster point to is based entirely on nVidia's own press releases up to this point. If you were a company under investigation for financial misstatements, and the SEC found some minor accounting errors in your favor, wouldn't you too release that information? I think so. It doesn't mean that there aren't other financial issues being investigated by the SEC--ones with negative implications--particularly since I can find no mention anywhere of the SEC having closed the books on the nVidia investigation.
Furthermore, I watch the financial news and have as recently I believe as last week heard mention of nVidia's SEC probe. I may be mistaken, but I believe I have. However, the analyst did state, to be fair, that he thought nothing important would come of the investigation, and still has a "buy recommendation" on nVidia.
There's no denying that nVidia is a powerful, financially stable company, which is currently *the* 3D powerhouse. The question is, how did that come to pass? Were there any financial impropriteies which played a role in the company's ascension? The SEC investigation should tell us fairly conclusively, when it concludes.
Re:Don't Underestimate nVidia's [Alleged] "Cheatin (Score:2)
>What you and another poster point to is based entirely on nVidia's own press releases up to this point. If you were a company under investigation for financial misstatements, and the SEC found some minor accounting errors in your favor, wouldn't you too release that information? I think so.
I think not. As you can see, people find out the truth whether you like it or not. Releasing false information or misleading investors gets you into MORE trouble not LESS. Yeah yeah yeah, accounting is shading but again, that's why so many companies have restated their earnings and reported losses, not gains.
Stop slinging the FUD. Like someone else said, you can't compare them to Enron. Wake up. Also they do develop a superior product, had a good strategy and I'm sure there is a lot of room to read behind the lines but I'm sure you would piss on 3dfx if they were still king as well so your comments don't surprise me.
Call it for what it is.
Re:Don't Underestimate nVidia's [Alleged] "Cheatin (Score:2)
*Everyone* mentions Enron now when there are allegations of corporate financial impropriety, much the same as any political scandal is a {something}gate (like "Travelgate" or such), even if it's minor in comparison. In fact, the second of the Salon articles linked in the story mentions Enron as well.
I did nothing in making my comments that financial analysts everywhere haven't already done. *Every* time I hear nVidia mentioned on the financial news, I hear phrases like "allegations of Enron-like financial misstatements" or "the SEC probe into possible problems brings up shades of the Enron scandal and recent financial readjustments by Big Blue," etc. No one ever claimed that nVidia's *alleged* wrongdoing was near the same magnitude as that of Enron--however, Enron always gets mentioned because they're the extreme case of what the SEC is trying to determine about nVidia--and several other companies, to be fair.
Rereading my original post, there should probably be a few more "allegedly's" and "if true's" even though there are a few in there, but other than that it reads exactly as it should. If financial analysts are going to use the term Enron regarding the SEC probe of nVidia, then I see no problem with my using it. Go do a quick Google search for "nvidia" "enron" "sec" and you'll find a lot of articles which do the *same* thing.
Now, as I said, to be fair the analysts are predicting that the SEC investigation will end with no major sanctions, and many analysts still have a "buy recommendation" on nVidia. But there are questions, there is an investigation, and there is plenty of room to ask whether part of nVidia's success may have been due to the "Enron-like financial statements" which I hear business news commentators say the allegations involve. I hear them use such terms, so I will too.
Re:Don't Underestimate nVidia's [Alleged] "Cheatin (Score:2)
Heehee, no. I'm just disappointed that the graphics card industry seems to have stagnated a bit in the wake of "The Age of nVidia." When I look back at all the choices and competing architectures there used to be, and then I look at what exists at the moment, I have to say--hmmm, what might have been?
I mean, remember the days when the Rage 128, Voodoo 3, TNT2, and G400MAX, were all vying for the right compromises between speed and visual quality, and together with a few smaller players like the original Kyro, were providing a broad spectrum of choices? Wow, those were the days.
Today, however, the only real choices are which GeForce or which Radeon to buy. Sure, there are still small fish like Kyro II, but let's be realistic--there are only 2 primary choices right now if you want high-performance 3D graphics, half as many as there once were. I used to read the card reviews excitedly--today, why bother? Just buy the latest GeForce or the latest Rdeon and you're set. How *boring*.
I guess I lament the days when heated debates went on about whether Matrox's visual quality and EMBM were worth a framerate hit, or whether Voodoo's blazing speed was worth running in 16-bit ("24-bit postfiltered"), or whether ATI's great 32-bit quality was worth their buggy drivers, or whether nVidia's "jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none approach really gave the best of everything. People could be passionate about their choices, and deliberate carefully before investing in a new card. Today, well, I don't see that same passion on the hardware sites.
Me, I miss that raucous world of a few years back. I really think the pace of innovation in the business has slowed because of 3dfx's death and Matrox's pullback from performance 3D. I also deeply dislike some of nVidia's tactics following the 3dfx buyout, such as not only immediately dropping all support for 3dfx cards, but not releasing any more of 3dfx's driver code so that the community could support their own cards, and especially for refusing Microsoft's offer to write WindowsXP drivers for 3dfx cards since tyhere was a huge installed base of Voodoo 3, 4, and 5. That shows a real lack of respect for customers, who would have said "Wow, nVidia is so great, when my 3dfx card becomes obsolete I'll buy nVidia all the way!" if nV had taken any of those 3 courses. Instead, nVidia said, "not only are we not supporting legacy 3dfx products [which is understandable], we're also not letting any more of the 3dfx driver code go public, nor will we let Microsoft use it to let 3dfx card owners have XP-certified drivers." Bah. What a shitty corporate attitude. So, there are a lot of unhappy 3dfx card owners out there who feel nVidia was very unsportsmanlike and deliberately shafted them by not even letting 3rd parties who'd write drivers for free have any more 3dfx code.
Now, just so no one gets the wrong idea, I went from a crappy Diamond SiS-based video card to ATI cards, and never owned a new 3dfx card at all, so I was never a 3dfx partisan. Earlier this year I bought a used Quantum3D Obsidian2 X-24 dual Voodoo 2 (on a single card) card, strictly to be able to play older Glide games. That's my first and only 3Dfx card, and I bought it already knowing about nVidia's stupid choices. So, I'm in no way biased toward 3dfx.
I just hope Matrox's Parhelia really turns out to be competitive with offerings out at the time by nVidia and ATI, to bring some of that real competition back to an industry which seems to be lagging. And whether lagging or not, it's definitely boring compared to what it used to be in the good-old-days of 4-way competition.
Re:Why Nvidia's on top (Score:2)
But this begs the question, doesn't it? What is it about Nvidia, their engineers, their corporate culture, and their corporate machine, that allows them to repeatedly execute so well?
Personally, I think its rather idiotic of them not to
Yeah, but you've never paid a programmer's salary before, either.
C//
Re:Why Nvidia's on top (Score:2)
No, I think that's a rather idiotic suggestion. The only reason glide was faster in 3dfx cards is because it exposed 3dfx hardware. It was, by nature, tied to particular hardware. It would not be the best interface for nVidia's own hardware (or any other company's for that matter). In contrast, OpenGL and Direct3D are generic interfaces that are not hardware-specific. Some (limited) performance loss is a small price to pay for that.
Re:Why Nvidia's on top (Score:2)
Re:Why Nvidia's on top (Score:2, Funny)
What? Microsoft help nVidia?
Microsoft bad! Thag hate Microsoft! Thag hate nVidia! Drivers not opensource? Thag hate drivers!
But I digress.
Re:Why Nvidia's on top (Score:2)
They are the most successful GPU company because they make the best, highest-quality, fastest GPU's,
Damn right!
All you ever need to succeed is to have the best product - and that's it. Nothing else matters in comparison.
By the way, I don't suppose you know any good video rental stores? for some reason, I can't find anywhere to rent Beta format videos - buggered if I know why, after all they are a superior format....
Re:Why Nvidia's on top (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, I'm a Geforce addict. I bought the GF2 before the shop monkeys even had time to pull it out of the truck. I've been drooling over a GF4 for a couple of months now, waiting for the Ti4600's to get stocked up here. I'd eat Kraft Dinner for a month just to afford another pair of programmable pixel shaders.
That's why they're on top: they wooed the polygon-heads with performance, now they're sucking us dry by selling us even more performance. And we're loving every minute of it. NVidiCrack!
Universal Drivers. Re:Why Nvidia's on top (Score:2)
What this transelates to is much lower overhead for them. I.e. Other chip vendors must write whole new drivers for each chipset/OS combination and for OSs that havn't got vendor support (hardware vendors) the OS vendor must do all that work.
This means that NVIDIA spends less money to achive adequet performance on all the diferent OS/chip combinations.
I.e. All the Linux drivers for NVIDIA are on a single page at the NVidia site.
Re:FreeBSD drivers (Score:2)
Re:FreeBSD drivers (Score:2)
http://nvidia.netexplorer.org [netexplorer.org]
They are working on nvidia drivers, and there is also a petition there that goes to Nvidia, to get them to hurry up and help with the project!
FreeBSD is getting there......
Re:FreeBSD drivers (Score:1)
Aren't you supposed to follow up with something about a "charnel house"? Stick to the script, already.
The Business Model (Score:2)
The fall of 3DFX (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The fall of 3DFX (Score:1)
Re:The fall of 3DFX (Score:2, Interesting)
SEC Investigations... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:SEC Investigations... (Score:1)
3dfx 3500 TV card... (Score:2, Interesting)
3dfx vs Nvidia (Score:5, Interesting)
The 3d market was 3DFX's to lose.
What killed 3DFX was that their good cards rewuired a 2d card to run. They were 3d only. The Banshee, which did incorporate a 2d core was late and always seemed buggy.
By the time they got their act together with the 3000 series it was too late.
At least ATI is starting to provide some competition or the damn graphic cards will cost more than all the other components combined.
Re:3dfx vs Nvidia (Score:2)
What killed 3DFX was that their good cards rewuired a 2d card to run. They were 3d only. The Banshee, which did incorporate a 2d core was late and always seemed buggy.
By the time they got their act together with the 3000 series it was too late.
On the contrary, I think their death was post-3000.
The Voodoo 3 went toe to toe with all of the other offerings of its time, at least when it was rolled out. nVidia had a card that could match it, but not beat it.
3dfx dropped the ball when designing a successor to the Voodoo 3. The V4 sank with nary a ripple and the V5 was rushed into release while immature (great idea, immature execution that was made huge and power-hungry to compensate).
It's quite likely that the problems that caused the V5 to tank started even before the V3 days, but the V3 itself was a solid product.
Nah, it was the 16 bit color (Score:2)
John Carmack warned them (not directly) when he wrote about wanting 32bits through the entire pipe, and 64 soon after. He explained about cumulative round off errors, use of the alpha channel, and other ways in which lots of data makes sense.
Woe be to any who do not heed the word of someone who Knows His Shit.
Why I Love Nvidia (Score:2, Interesting)
Nvidia is one of those companies that has a stock (NVDA) that always seems to go up. I can't count how many times I've day-traded on NVDA and had good returns. Hell, I just played them yesterday and got a nice coin for my trouble.
I was lucky enough to not have any positions on 9/11. But when the market reopened (9/17?), I put all my cash into NVDA. Did they go up? Not right away -- I had to calm my wife when we were down ~25% -- but we ended up making money a few short weeks later.
I don't know as there is a point to my post, other than to say "me, too!". Perhaps some of the reasons Nvidia is successful are the same reasons that investors are drawn to the stock -- it performs, and it shows.
Re:Why I Love Nvidia (Score:3, Interesting)
Uneven article (Score:4, Informative)
Read the article for the point that 3dfx had the market and then went about losing a number of gambles. While that was going on nVidia got lucky and proceeded to execute a _deliverable_ plan like clockwork.
Re:Uneven article (Score:1)
Re:Uneven article (Score:2)
I was one of the owner of these cards... had a tons of problems with it..
Re:Uneven article (Score:2)
Re:Uneven article (Score:2)
Re:Uneven article (Score:1)
GeForce with on board tuner? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:GeForce with on board tuner? (Score:4, Interesting)
Nvidia's TV Tuner option is the Personal Cinema [nvidia.com]. Its not quite "on-board" (it requires a separate breakout box), but it does include a wireless remote. I don't know if it ever really took off though because it doesn't seem to be very "mainstream" at this point... at least I never really hear anybody talking about it.
Re:GeForce with on board tuner? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:GeForce with on board tuner? (Score:1)
"Execute like Germans" (Score:2, Insightful)
The Age of Nvidia (Score:2, Funny)
Is this from Exile [myst3.com]? I haven't played that one yet.
SGI's engineering team had nothing to do with it? (Score:5, Informative)
NVIDIA was able to make the fastest GPUs on the planet because of the engineers they have.
SGI was really not a very good place to be if you were interested in pushing the envelope w/regard to 3D hardware, so a new company was formed, and many extremely talented people from SGI went to work for it. That company was NVidia.
Its sad to see SGI in it's current state, but it is also good to see that SGI's technology, with the proper focus, marketing and pricing, is capable of breaking into almost every segment of the computing market.
Obviously, kudos to the NVidia management team, but lets not forget either the engineers and the company that built the foundatation of 3D graphics on the desktop.
Re:SGI's engineering team had nothing to do with i (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:SGI's engineering team had nothing to do with i (Score:3, Interesting)
Try looking at the histroy of NVidia and SGI before you post silly flames which make you look like an ass.
SGI were once the pioneers and undisputed leader of the 3D graphics field. They invented lots of stuff, including, as you say, the popular OpenGL API.
What I am saying is at the time of NVidia's formation, SGI was an extremely suckful place to work if you were a hardware engineer - Knowing exactly how to build 3D hardware that would rock the world, but being unable to do it because of, among many factors, SGIs management strategy.
These guys' talents were being wasted, and they saw that with NVidia they could put them to good use.
I'm certainly not trying to belittle SGI's accomplishments in the field of 3D graphics, however i do feel it is unfortunate that SGI-as-we-know-it wasn't able to capitalize on its engineering assets as well as NVidia has to realise some of the vision of Jim Clark etc. w/regard to bringing the benefits of 3D graphics technology to the public.
you have to like the link (Score:1)
3dfx screwed themselves (Score:4, Interesting)
And who stepped into their place to fill the void left by them? nVidia.
Now the problem is that STB boards, by my many years experience in building systems, were incredibly low quality. I loved Diamonds, and had never had a problem with them. 3Dfx was gone from the Diamond line now, and I sure as hell wasn't going to start throwing money at STB boards, so I stuck with Diamond and bought a Viper v770...By then many games were supporting OpenGL and DirectX, so compatibility wasn't really an issue, unless I wanted to play Tomb Raider or something, but my old Voodoo would still work with the Viper. As an added bonus, and as you all know, nVidia's chips blew away anything 3Dfx had. nVidia's hardest battle, market acceptance, had been handed to them by 3dfx complete with bow and ribbon.
And then it was with complete irony that nVidia purchased 3Dfx. I love the tech industry.
Re:3dfx screwed themselves (Score:1)
and yet... (Score:1)
back in the days (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder if anyone else is in the same (poor) boat here?
Its simple! They have cool office buildings (Score:1)
And those buildings are hella cool.
Rock Solid Drivers! (Score:3, Insightful)
However, rock solid drivers are nvidia's underrated asset. You don't know how much you miss stability until it's gone. Love to see them get more props on this.
Re:Rock Solid Drivers! (Score:2)
So while it seems to work okay (I can't confirm whether it's contributed to a crash or three), it's not true that nVidia are unassailable when it comes to driver bugs.
They are on top, but they may fall (Score:2)
Nvidia has many things going for it, great reputation , great drivers, and the best speed so far. However, the market is very fickle and whomever gets the highest frame rates will become the market leader within the next cycle. It wasn't until nvidia beat 3dfx card in more then one or two games that they started to even get close to them in sales. If you go back to the days of Quake 2 and Unreal, then you see that many people would spend insane amounts of money on their dual VooDoo2 setups, just for the sake of some FPS.
Nvidia has gotten to the top through technical ability, and may stay there. We may some day all be running nvidia chips in most desktops like x86es.
All matrox, ATI, etc. have to do is produce a card that will beat them in FPS even if it crashes more, it will win. Of course, right now we are at a plateau of graphics. We need another generation of tools to help the artists generate art and programmers code to get the most out of even the current generation of cards. Maybe we'll see some real uses of technology after this year's E3.
Re:They are on top, but they may fall (Score:2)
Re:They are on top, but they may fall (Score:2)
On that day I'll be abandoning the x86.
Re:They are on top, but they may fall (Score:2)
After the new games come out that only run at like 30 frames with a GF4, then we will have an opertunity for someone to take their place.
BTW, I realize that my argument is weak, that's cause it really doesn't seem that they will be taken down anytime soon. It will take a huge blunder at Nvidia to cause them to be dethroned.
Nary a Mention of... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the author overstates the influence of DirectX (nee Direct 3D) on early 3D gaming. Glide was certainly influential -- not to mention the fact that it actually worked -- but worthy of at least as much credit was OpenGL.
The reason OpenGL was (and is) important is because that's what you had to have if you wanted to run 3D-accelerated Quake. And Quake was the undisputed king of first-person shooters. OpenGL support for Quake required downloading a new executable, but Quake2 shipped with it.
OpenGL's API, designed over the course of more than a decade by SGI engineers, beat the crap out of Micros~1's Hacked-Up Losing Kluge. Only now is DirectX starting to approach OpenGL's usability.
Things are a bit more flexible these days, but back then, if you wanted any hope of selling your 3D card, you had to run Quake. And to do that, you had to support OpenGL. Period.
Oh, and NVidia has always had the best OpenGL implementation out there. Funny how that worked out :-). (Permedia's might technically be better, but have you seen what those cards cost?)
Schwab
Re:Nary a Mention of... (Score:2)
And then Quake 3 required it. When the Quake 3 demotest was released (many months before the game would see store shelves), neither I nor most of my friends had a card capable of doing OpenGL. A few days later I bought a TNT2, and I know dozens of people that did the exact same thing. Many games have been released since then using the Quake 3 engine, making OpenGL just as important, if not moreso than DirectX.
Re:Nary a Mention of... (Score:2)
Not exactly.. My Canopus Pure3d (3Dfx Voodoo 1) ran both Quake, Quake 2 and a lot of other games perfectly (and my Voodoo Banshee with Quake 3), and it was by no means OpenGL compatible. A heck of a lot of games (like the Quakes, for example) had 'GL miniport drivers', IIRC containing a subset of the full OpenGL api, specific to that game in question. I would have loved to have full OpenGL support on those cards for 3d modelling work etc, but I couldn't.
(note: It's possible to get full OpenGL support on the Banshee now, but only in a much more recent driver version, and a with bit of fiddling around. It certainly wasn't there when it was released.)
GPU! (Score:3, Informative)
If any of you remember, the purchase of STB befuddled everyone, and for good reason; STB's products were a mix of Nvidia and 3dfx chips, and OEM's had the freedom to pick and choose what they wanted to buy. Furthermore, 3dfx had great co-branding with companies such as STB, Creative Labs and Diamond (I still get all twittery when I remember waiting to get my hands on a Diamond Monster Voodoo II). In one fell swoop, 3dfx destroyed what was best about STB, and it's co-branding with other manufacturers.
The smart money left shortly thereafter.
The ensuing fiscal mayhem following the purchase of Gigapixel was a financial blow (coupled with late product releases) that they simply would be unable to recover from.
Had the Voodoo 4 and 5 been released on time, they simply would have crushed the TNT 2 Ultra and put them in a much better position to pay off all that enormous debt. But, the card was late, and it had to compete against a far superior offering from Nvidia, which was the Geforce.
And the smart money that left a long time ago was not wondering if, but when.
So, not any single decision led to the downfall of the once dominant player, but many. Not listening to the market (we don't have 32-bit support for color in games since people don't really need it...take 16-bit or else!). Excess execute hubris such as the purchase of STB and Gigapixel and the foundering on product release dates. Trusting on name brand and uncompetitive products all eroded the company to nothing.
In terms of Nvidia, their executive staff has always been able to seize on opportunities, and possess a remarkably clear vision of where they want their company to go in the marketplace. Their purchase of 3dfx's IP (which also included Gigapixel's IP) for only 70 million was absolutely brilliant, as was the absorption of 100 of 3dfx's top engineers ensures that Nvidia will be able to utilize all the fantastic goodies 3dfx had sitting in the R & D lab.
It's also really great that ATI is able to mount such a good force of competition in this arena; along with maybe-will-runs such as Matrox and 3D Labs...all this competition keeps em on their toes.
Have the Bit Boys ever gone into tape-out? Or did they soak up the former executive staff from 3dfx?
2 Questions (Score:2)
2.)Do they have free samples?
Gamers not loyal to companies, but (Score:2, Insightful)
However, gamers ARE very loyal to games they love. As I said in an earlier post, I'm loyal to some of my beloved games like Descent 1 - 3 and Tombraider 1 - 5. So loyal, in fact, that I won't buy graphicsc cards which don't work well with these games.
Graphics card companies would be wise to recognize that gamers are more than simply graphics-freaks always hopping on the latest eye-candy game. This is partly because you fall in love with games just like with cars, and partly because of gameplay. It seems like most games that come out just plain suck. So diamonds in the rough like Descent or Tomb Raider (or to some people with poor taste, Doom-like games) are highly revered.
3dfx lost it by itself... (Score:2, Interesting)
Creative and Diamond both had (and have) very large distribution networks etc, and when they were told they were getting no more 3dfx chips they both turned to Nvidia in a big hurry. And the rest is history...
I'd never heard of nvidia until that all happened!
Acceleration (Score:2)
Second, there is no real NVidia "high end"; the Quadro and GEForce lines are the same silicon. GEForce boards are crippled by a jumper on the board, which is read by the driver and turns off some features.
Third, the NForce isn't a spinoff of the XBox. The NForce is a GeForce 2 plus an Ethernet controller, sound generator, etc. The XBox GPU is comparable to the GEForce 3, with the pixel shaders and such that the GEForce 2 doesn't have.
Not a bad article - only one bugaboo (typo) (Score:2)
Not sure why the author used the adjective "full-time" because it doesn't mean aything. Maybe he meant single-pass to distinguish from multi-pass techniques.
You can read more about multitexturing here at http://www.web3d.org/TaskGroups/x3d/quadramix/mul
nVidia succeeded because of what they DIDNT do.... (Score:2)
Its not that nVidia is doing anything special -- They're simply doing what a good company SHOULD do. Support their products, make them accessable to developers and end-users alike, and dont insult the intelligence of your buyers by charging an arm and a leg for what basically amounts to gingerbread.
Anyone who buys an ATI card these days is insane. Youre giving money to a company that has systematically ignored the Linux community, even to the point of threatening their own employees should they choose to cooperate with open-source developers in their free time.
Its not what nVidia is doing right..its what everyone else is doing wrong. Alienating their customer base, failing to provide comprehensive support for end-users and developers alike, and artificially inflating prices on useless, infrequently used features. Every single card manufacturer is guilty of at LEAST one of those things.....except nVidia.
Re:in my humble opinion (Score:4, Insightful)
I also dislike the fact that NVidia's Linux drivers are closed-source, though of course most people do not care about this.
Re:in my humble opinion (Score:2, Funny)
Re:in my humble opinion (Score:4, Interesting)
I've often heard Nvidia boards compared to Corvettes and ATI boards compared to Porsche's. Sure, the Nvidia board will render faster, but let's face it, quite a number of people seem to agree that the Radeon's just look better. I'll take accuracy every time over speed. It's not like the Radeon is a slouch, it's just not the fastest thing out there...
Re:in my humble opinion (Score:2)
Re:in my humble opinion (Score:2)
Re:in my humble opinion (Score:2)
As to the drivers, I don't see drivers that actually get support from the manufacturer as a problem in the slightest. As long as the Linux drivers are being updated and enhanced like the Windows ones would be, I'm perfectly happy. Now, if nVidia were to discontinue driver support when they retire the current line of chipsets, and keep them closed... Then I'd be rather upset.
Re:in my humble opinion (Score:2)
Re:in my humble opinion (Score:2)
Moving from my Geforce 2MX to my Radeon 7200, I could see the white line of pixels right next to the black line of pixels on a button, at 1280 x 1024 or higher. With the nvidia card, it blurred together. Just slightly, not in any way that I noticed while I was using the NVidia card, but switching to the Radeon did make a difference.
If I just used my computer for games, I'd almost certainly look only at the NVidia cards, at least at the moment. But I also use it for programming and the like and so 2D image quality is also important.
Matrox Rules 2D (Score:2)
If 3d is not important, and you stare at the monitor a lot, like at work, investing in a Matrox card is very worthwhile.
Re:UHhhhh? ATI? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:UHhhhh? ATI? (Score:2)