rec.autos.simulators

Hi,
 Glide is 3Dfx's native support library. It's a driver (library) that
comunicates with 3Dfx cards only. I doubt you could get any use of it.

regards,

Tadej Krevh

I was happy with my Rage Pro but now that they've got OpenGL hardware
drivers for it I'm *really* happy with it.

Colin

On Mon, 25 May 1998 01:55:41 -0700, Laurence Lindstrom

If he wants to run games, 3DFX is STILL his best bet. Just show him
all the 3DFX-ONLY games and let him drool. ;-)

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

PDOXWIN, Star Trek, Computer Games, Science Fiction, Writing, && more
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Commercial use of this e-mail address implies your consent to pay me
amounts of up to US$100.00 per e-mail message from you received by me.

On 26 May 1998 16:01:23 GMT, "Colin Constant"

RichC
*-------------To Reply via E-Mail-------------*
    Remove SPAMTRAP from the return address
*---------------------------------------------*

Anyone that gives you bullshit advice about  being "certifiably insane" for
by a direct 3D
card has obviously  failed to take into any consideration the future when
3Dfx Ltd. no longer has
 the fastest chip.
 i.e. when S3, or oak (shit that already exited the graphics business)
 have a chip which is nine times faster than the Voodoo2 you'll be pissed
(this is a joke okay).

The long-term compatibility issues which are associated with having a
nonstandard
API which only one graphics card manufacturer uses.  (I.e. an orphan the
sooner glide dies
 the better as far as I'm concerned.)

When I can play any game on any 3D card I will be happy, and  hopefully I
will not be sorry
 because I failed to purchase a particular companies chip.

Game developers are mostly to blame, but of course they are getting a kick
back from 3Dfx
in their developer program.  So you can hardly criticized them for not
taking advantage
of this obviously lucrative financial arrangement.  3Dfx gets 3Dfx only
games,
game developers get monetary assistance for their development costs for a
glide version.

Anyhow I'm sure that if 3Dfx were to continue and managed to establish a
market ***
similar to Microsoft and Intel.
(Which they won't, as every other graphics player in the market will be
competitive)

At any case 3Dfx is only a high-end neesh market, I wonder what sort of
percentage they have
of the overall graphics business.  It is going to be difficult times ahead
for them as they
emerge into the mainstream 2d /3D  business and are competing for the same
market
as the  current mainstream players. I believe hard core gamers only account
for about
one percent of the overall game market.  (I read the somewhere it's probably
wrong)

You know  what the great thing is about standards (i.e. Direct 3D and
OpenGL)

It is  that in three or four years you will still be able to fire up that
old version of "Quake 3" and it will work.
However if quake (or some other bastard game  of your choice) happens to be
a 3Dfx only (i.e. glide),
you'd be fairly pissed that your new graphics card only supported "direct
3D" or "OpenGL".

So is you as a consumer who directly influence what is acceptable.
For me glide games only persist in continuing to fragment the games market.
It is for this reason alone I will NOT by a 3Dfx card. -- to do so is
"certifiably insane" :-)
When 3Dfx no longer supports glide I will possibly consider buying a card
with their chips,
(btw what was rendition's native API, I wonder and is it still continuing?)

If you want great games now go and by a 3Dfx card, in five years will it
really matter anyway?
We know will happen, and won't be based just one companies API.

Just some thoughts from a "direct 3D OpenGL certifiably insane  loser"
 :-)

 Geoff

On Thu, 28 May 1998 12:29:53 +1200, "Geoff Smith"

[snip]

Couldn't have said it better myself, and the rest of your argument
really just sorta vaporises itself in the face of this one statement.

Nope. Nor will OpenGL or Direct3D or any chipset now available.

If you want to make your choices based on some high-minded philosophy
of supporting open standards, go right ahead.  Me, I'm just lookin'
for a good time.

RichC
*-------------To Reply via E-Mail-------------*
    Remove SPAMTRAP from the return address
*---------------------------------------------*

That's fine, I don't mind people who just want to play games
and have a good time.  that is computers primary role unless you are
unlucky enough to have to use them for some business purpose :-)

The Riva128  and most other cards provide completely satisfactory direct 3D
performance
 right now, for the best possible experience in games yes the Voodoo2 is
presently the best
 card on the market.  Is it worth the money?  It depends on how much frame
rates and your game
experience means to you, and whether that $300 could have been spent on
getting pissed
 15 times ...etc..going out AND buying a decent to 2D/3D   comb card.
I guess that is a personal decision on how balanced your life is, and how
important games are to you.

It's just the fostering of support for one company that I'm against.
However if it wasn't for 3Dfx the uptake of the third dimension would have
much, much slower,
and they were practically the only company to deliver on promises of
performance.
let's face it if everyone thought the S3-Virge had 3D, there wouldn't be any
hope :-)

I don't have a beef against 3Dfx, they should rightfully be doing what they
are doing
-- which is trying to lock in their user base.
When your 3Dfx user wants to upgrade, what will be their primary
consideration ?
probably backward compatibility with their old games which they will still
want to play
What choice will you have...None -no choice,
The only way to retain compatibility with your glide only games, will be to
buy another 3Dfx card.
But given 3Dfx's  track record  it's probably safe choice to continue buying
their products,
unless they lose the plot completely.

It probably won't be five years, it will probably be this year, When they
lose their performance
lead -- I suspect interesting times are ahead.
Direct 3D will win the Borg, err I mean Microsoft have seen to this with
the features included within DirectX 6.
Hopefully should go on long way to resolving the need for glide only games.

be cool
Geoff

On Thu, 28 May 1998 12:29:53 +1200, "Geoff Smith"

If its 3 or 4 years down the track, those gamers who did support Glide
and 3Dfx will have brand new computers (probably Pentium IV - 1200MHz)
And whatever new 3D (4D?) chips are out there. No gamer buys hardware
thats going to last 4 years. And even if you do, its outdated in 2
years, at the LATEST.
Hands up all those who try and run GPL or F1RS or TOCA on a 4 year old
machine, with a 4 years old graphics card?

Take a look at Grand Prix Legends, a great example of the Rendition
chipsets ability. It outperforms the 3Dfx version.

From what I can tell here, you want a card to do D3D and Open GL, the
"certified standards", thats fine, a 3Dfx card will do that AS WELL as
do Glide. So whats your beef?

All future chipsets willsupport D3D, the forthcoming DirectX6.0,and in
most cases, Open GL (either via ICD or MCD or whatever)

--
Nathan Wong          http://www.nectar.com.au/~alfacors
                       - Super Touring - Alfa Romeo -

                            - V8Supercars - CART -

Tell him to compromise...get both. That's what I did. Switching from live
NASCAR to NASCAR2, what a dream.

Brad Spaulding

Do Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Gateway 2000, Compaq ship with 3Dfx based
chips --  no they all use combination 2d/3D cards.

What will be 3Dfx's market share be  in the future?  less I would predict
and obviously the majority of people share my opinion or at least the people
who invest in the stock market -- look at 3Dfx's stock.
( I also suggest you look at Brian Hook's plan file from about two days ago
 on his theories as to 3Dfx's  troubles.)

Game companies are trying to sell their games, it is a business of course,
what percentage of game companies make money?  about 60 %

Why waste development effort on two versions unless there is some benefit.
developing a native 3Dfx  version  is necessary to cater to  current market.

Nathan you have completely missed the point,

How about running old games on new hardware?

If the game uses and industry standard API you can,
My beef is against glide and other proprietary APIs.

I'd really like to play  screamer rally,  it's a great game on 3Dfx.

However if they had used DirectX  or OpenGL as the rendering engine
I and  many more people  would have been able to play it.
Also owners of some newer chips i.e. Matrox (200), S3  (Savage), NVidia
(TNT),
Intel (i740)  would also have been able to enjoy this game  this year.
when they buy their nice shiny new non-3Dfx card,
unfortunately they will have to use the pathetic software render.
( that's my beef -- game companies and proprietary APIs)

The combined market share  of equally capable video cards will be
significantly greater than 3Dfx's  this year.
The time for 3Dfx only or the software render are about to end.
 Otherwise the games will not sell to the greater market.

The question will be can they  (game software developers) afford to still
have
both APIs supported in their game.
(And when I say afford this is a time/financial affordability, considering
most companies are profit driven)

If you're still unclear what my point is here is another example:

what happens if you have a system running some new super fast
3D video card -- if it uses standards i.e. NT5 has DirectX6 and OpenGL
No problems.

Unfortunately if you have a DOS or Win95 game using a proprietary API
it will not work on your new video card in a few years, and will not take
any
advantage of other advancements  that has been made in hardware.

 Geoff

Not even important :-)

And to be honest I'm not even interested in re-hashing old religious
debates. I just wanted to correct the first two turds I spotted.

Hey no charge for the free public service.

--
Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

a) most computers are not owned by people who buy a lot of games, so
the presence of a 3D-capable chipset in those machines is meaningless;

b) every 3Dfx chipset sold is being sold to someone who buys a lot of
games.  This is the core of the market, a goldmine for publishers, and
is growing rapidly, not shrinking.

Meaningless.  See above.

Market share is meaningless.  The size of the market, and its nature,
are what's important.  Every single 3Dfx chipset sold represents
somebody willing to pay significant money to enhance their computer
for games.  That's a market that cannot be ignored, and which
obviously can be prifitably served.

[snip]

I'll keep my latest Voodoo card as long as there's a Glide-only game I
still want to play.  Where's the problem?  It will coexist with any
other video card current or projected.  By the time the PCI bus is
obsoleted, these arguments will be ancient history.

RichC
Remove SPAMTRAP from return address when replying.

That's just a start.  Of course, in the OEM/addon card market, Voodoo
merely has 13-15 different companies making boards using their chips.

As for the 2D/3D card argument, that's what Banshee will be for.  Target
price of $149 should be icing on the cake.  Predict STB will OEM Banshee
to all the Dells and Gateways.  Only real competition is TNT.

Brian Hook is not a stock analyst.  He merely copied a lot of theories
that have been share elsewhere on 'Net stock forums.  The major reason
for 3Dfx drop was a dramatic increase in the number of shares available,
caused by the 2ndary offering and the expiration of lockup on a lot of
shares held by venture capitalists.

Gee, who can run hardware-accelerated Unreal right now?  Wonder why Epic
would bother to port to Glide?

On Sun, 31 May 1998 17:52:32 +1200, "Geoff Smith"

I've seen Dell, and Gateway offer Voodoo 2 cards in their computers.

See above.
They use a combo card because the majority of people who buy their
computers are not "gameheads" but mostly ordinary users. I think their
share of *** gamers who would want Voodoo2s would be extremely
small.

Is Brian Hook a stock market analyst?
So obviously the other 40% continue to make games so they can lose
money.

And the game would be worse. The game would not be as good as it is
now with 3dfx.

How many games are 3Dfx only? Most games are now coming out as D3D.
But if they can make a 3Dfx version also, then fantastic, we can
benefit from spending the extra money on our cards.

If they make a game which supports more than one API, they will sell
more copies, more copies, more money for them, offsetting any extra
costs incurred in coding it for the extra API.

NO game will take advantage of the advancements in hardware. Why would
it? Its been coded years before.

How many people want to run F1RS or TOCA or GPL 4 years later?
There will be so many better games, more realistic, and so on to play.

Keep your old machine for your old games. Simple innit?

--
Nathan Wong          http://www.racesimcentral.net/~alfacors
                       - Super Touring - Alfa Romeo -

                            - V8Supercars - CART -

This argument is starting to bore me! I did a study before buying my Voodoo
2, I read all the benchmarks all the reviews by the so called experts, who
hype every new rumored 3D card as posibly being a Voodoo2 killer. Only to
see these cards as being disapointment in actual game play. The reason i
bought a Diamond Monster II was because it not only plays Glide games which
all my favorite flight sims support with excellent graphics, but 3DFX also
runs OpenGL, and Direct 3D realy fast. I run all this on my new Pentium II
400, and I must say it's the dream machine i've always wanted, I use to have
a P133 the difference is huge. What i'm try to say i guess is that a faster
than Voodoo2 no longer means a better card, it's better visual quality were
looking for now, and until somebody does that i'm sticking with my 3DFX 2
card for now, it runs very fast and beautiful.

Oh by the way - Flight sim 98 at 1024x768 in 3D on my system is something to
brag about :)