Introduction
My preview of Banshee, Savage3D and RIVA TNT was causing quite a stir, just the way I love it. I would like to let you know what happened since I published this article 3 days ago.
3Dfx
I’m still waiting impatiently for the promised 16 MB Voodoo Banshee reference card to arrive. As soon as it’s here I will test it and publish the new results. Please consider that Banshee’s results will improve with newer drivers and particularly with Glide 3.0. It’s not only the other chips that will show better results in the future.
Matrox
The 16 MB Millennium G200 is on its way over here. Matrox didn’t want to send me a 8 MB card, they prefer supplying me with the best they have. That’s why the G200 results were missing in the preview article, I will include them once the Millennium is here.
NVIDIA
Well, the rumors about only one texture pipeline in the upcoming RIVA TNT are thank God untrue. NVIDIA is still convinced that TNT once it comes out will run at more than 100 MHz, it will have two texture pipelines and it will perform better than anything else.
S3
S3 was almost going bananas over my preview article, because the Savage3D is of course that much better. We’ll see about that, but S3 is not shying away from flying the latest Savage3D over here, together with some people from their technical and marketing department. I would like to mention that my results are neither wrong nor out of line or anything pathetic like that. The board I have is a board that is supposed to convince an OEM into buying the Savage3D chip, so I guess it shouldn’t suck in the first place. If S3 can’t live with the results I’ve seen, if it requires technical S3 staff for getting good results or academically benchmarks, then they’ve obviously done something wrong in the first place. I’ve got email addresses, 3 different phones, a fax and a mail box in front off my house. I am sure that the dispute between S3 and me can be sorted out once the S3 representatives (and the killer commando, hehe) have arrived here.
Videologic
The guys at Videologic’s PC graphics division aren’t happy about the delay of PVRSG themselves. Videologic was the first company that reacted to my article and opposite to others they did it in a particularly professional and decent way. Videologic apologizes for the delay of PVRSG, the team is currently focussing on the console version of PVRSG, obviously for the SEGA deal. They couldn’t give me a date for the release of PVRSG yet, not even a month, but they could assure me that the UK office won’t close down whatsoever, it’s after all their head quarter.
3D Image Quality Comparison Missing?
The preview did not include 3D image quality comparisons, because this is what chip manufacturers usually concentrate on when the drivers are getting mature. Thus the early drivers won’t give a good picture of the 3D quality situation and you will have to wait a bit until I will compare the cards regarding their 3D quality.
