3D chips - the future?

regi

This is a column from today's TheRegister

Could 3D chips threaten Intel?

Recently the memory market has started to go a little soft and most in the industry point the finger of blame at a flat PC market and a jump in output from Micron. Bad news.

But in another corner of the computer world business is booming. The world of 3D graphics is going gangbusters as every four months another generation of 3D chips comes out offering better resolutions and faster speeds.

Unlike processors, which have effectively topped out in terms of what we need them for (let's face it - who needs a Pentium PIII 600MHz to open an Excel spreadsheet?), 3D engines have miles and miles of room to develop. Not until we can play Quake at a photo realistic level can we even be said to be close to the end of the line for 3D graphics.

Even then, trying to render sunlight across dappled water or through a forest canopy will test the technology to its limit. That level of graphics is at least six to eight years away.

Over the next few years we will also see 3D Office applications emerge along with 3D Web browsers that actually get used. This - and games - will drive the need for faster and faster 3D graphics chips and larger and larger frame buffers.

The average amount of RAM per graphics card is now 16Mb and 32Mb cards are now becoming more popular. This Christmas there will be plenty of 64Mb graphics cards out too.

So how could this threaten Intel?

By Q4 of this year there could be a new generation of 3D engines that have more transistors than the Pentium. These processors used to be known by their generic brand i.e. S3, ATI, Matrox or 3Dfx.

But now NVIDIA and 3Dfx rate their products by speed. Thus 3Dfx and NVIDIA have parts marketed and rated at between 125MHz and 183MHz, and faster parts are on the horizon.

Ask any gamer what's more important - a fast processor or fast 3D and they'll tell you it's the 3D that counts. What gamers want today we will all be using tomorrow. For proof just take a look at the PC in your office - it was gamers that pushed the need for the sound, the video playback and the 3D acceleration that you have today.

It's gamers that push the boundaries in PC's today from networking to monitors.

The fact is that a PC assembler could quite feasibly start building PC's with just one processor, say an AMD K6 or Pentium PII at one MHz and then sell them based on the speed rating of the 3D chip.

One price for a PC with an NVIDIA TNT 2 at 150MHz and another for an NVIDIA TNT 2 at 183MHz and so on. After all, it's an open secret in this business that once you get beyond a certain point, it's impossible to tell - just from using it - whether your PC has a faster or slower processor.

But any user could tell from the frame rate in a game whether he was using a faster or slower graphics engine. Based on the textures, shadows and special effects he could also spot which features the chip had.

Being able to differentiate between products means being able to charge more for what's better. Right now Intel only has the speed rating to differentiate its products, the machines themselves are not noticeably different from the users point of view.

We face a future in which the 3D chips are going to become increasingly important. You heard it here first. ®

www.theregister.co.uk

What do you think?

Dan

ButcherOfNog

you would hope that to go along with the pretty pictures the AI would improve to the same degree, which would require more cpu processing power. theres more to games than pretty pictures

Maximilian

Oh No, Noel. Now you've done it.
All those Q1 muppets are gonna start...sssshh

DeVore

I'll avoid the obvious taunt at q2eers
Except to say that Regi and Bunny made certain top-Q2-clan members take it last friday night apparently. You'd better hope we DONT get to like pretty pictures

As for processor speeds... its true we are seeing a slowdown in the absolute need for speed, buuuut...

There are two (related) things to bear in mind.
Firstly I used to have a 33-486. It opened word and a document in 10 secs or there abouts... Now I have a 350PII and it still opens word and doc in about 10 secs. Different versions of word and different documents (more graphics etc in the latter) but you can see my point..


Secondly there is a a large hungry troll that lives between the wonderland that Intel inhabits and the dark place in the woods where the end users lurk. That Trolls name is Microsoft and they eat most of the poor,old power upgrades that come from Intel.
This wont change because neither Intel nor MS would want it to.
Intel release a new chip, MS release a new OS to gobble up the new chip and the end users keep running to stay in the same place.

DeVore.

Koopa

the processor is the core part of your computer.. it can be used for anything, even to simulate 3d engines.
there will always be room for faster processors.. whatever company can produce the fastest processors for the longest time will always dominate the PC market, because everything (even the refresh rate in your GL-accelerated pretty picture 3d game) depends a lot on what processor you have.
This limit is more apparent at lower res. right now, because most 3d cards cannot keep up with the CPU at high res., but there will be a time when they will be able to keep up with the CPU, even at high res... so the CPU makers will stand to make a lot more money when they release a faster CPU, because it will effectively help framerates in games etc.

Coyote

computer power will need more power with new software
like voise recognition the more power the better it is, with photo rendering and 3D computer will never have to much power sure
dos ran well on a 486/33 but who still wants to
be working on a 486 dos, there is so much that can be added to computers to inprove them so computer power will never be enough