Kyro 2 the killer of nvidia ???

Page 14 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
<<<I am not slamming the Kyro here I like it but even with what you say this is not fast enough.>>>

But you don't know what it will be though, I gave you a rough time scale but I didn't actually tell you the specs.

Also Nvidia won't have a Geforce 4 out in 6 months, they'll have a Geforce 3 Ultra with 300mhz DDR but thats it IMO, its going to take more then 6 months for them to start using a QDR card.
 
Well good that sheds a little needed light onthat situation. Still, most companies nowadays do take a look at indvidual departments and make adjustments as such. I guess along as the powers that be give the graphics department free reign without showing a profit we are insured future kyro technology.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!
 
nVidia have a integrated graphics solution (nv17) with great potential coming out soon. Any integrated kyro will compete against that. Should be interesting.


<font color=red>"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and dispair!"</font color=red>
 
"Also Nvidia won't have a Geforce 4 out in 6 months, they'll have a Geforce 3 Ultra with 300mhz DDR but thats it IMO, its going to take more then 6 months for them to start using a QDR card."

sorry, just used the term gforce 4 in reference to the fact they are on a 6 month cycle.

And you have to admit, as much as you love the kyro, if they were 6 months ahead of there present schedule, things would be different indeed

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!
 
Read my very short explanation of the company in one of my posts above, I already explained that its not a case of they have to make money on PowerVR or there bust, thats never going to happen, they make too much money from other avenues, as I said IMGTEC are no 3DFX, there not a single minded company and there allot bigger then 3DFX in that they have several different companies that make the whole and they all do different things, one makes sound technology, MP3 systems, Digital radio's, soundcard technology, speakers system technology, then there's PowerVR who make the graphics card architectures like PowerVR series 3 (Kyro 1 and II) and also there recent mobile chip PowerVRMBX which includes HW T&L and FSAA for free, there's also Videologic who actually showcase there tech in the U.K (there the board making part of IMGTEC), and there are other parts too, and there's no way ST Micro could go bust over back PowerVR sales, ST are huge, they make Nvidia look like a small time outfit in total revenue.

EDIT: Ncogneto I wrote this before I realised you'd replied to my post about financial problems, still I'll leave it here as it has some new info that many people won't know (namely there mobile chip)<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Teasy on 04/20/01 05:24 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
Yes, I read the links you supplied earlier. Thanks. Still alot up in the air on the integrated video part though, for instance it may or may not have its own dedicated memory. The controller looks great and shows great promise for the likes of AMD and DDR. Still hard to tell what increases in bandwith it would achieve and if this would be enough to offset the additional bandwith requirements of a shared memory integrated solution. LOL, maybe they should use the nvidia controller with the Kyro video chip?

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!
 
So then you suggest that there parent company will allow them as much time as they need to catch up ( for lack of better term). Well, I sincerly hope that they do. I hope that you do not take my post as being anti Kyro.....

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!
 
Yep pretty much, while the PowerVR part of IMGTEC hasn't seen any success in the PC graphics market its still made them a whole lot of profit, remember that there's PowerVR chips in a massive majority of arcades out there because sega use 2 PowerVR chips and a PowerVR HW T&L unit called Elan in there Naomi 2 arcade boards, and Sega also used 2 PowerVR chips without a HW T&L unit in there Naomi 1 boards, also every single Dreamcast sold (around 10 million I beleive) had a PowerVR chip in it, so IMGTEC get royalties for every one of those 10 million chips and all the chips and HW T&L units in the Naomi 1 and 2 boards, now the same PowerVR chips are going to be put in set top boxes (that deals already been made), and these are all the same chip which is PowerVR series 2 (the one before Kyro) so any R&D spent on designing PowerVR 2 (Neon 250) has been made back ten fold already, Kyro II will sell well and Kyro sold reasonably especially in europe and they now have contracts to put there mobile chips in mobile phones, so they really spread there designs around a veriety of platforms making sure that they make as large a profit as possible from there tech, and you don't shut down a part of your company thats racking it in after all, but with them starting to really focus more on the PC market then usuall it will still be very important for them to have success with the next chip, but if they don't have the success, then its back to the drawing boardl, but please just because of what I've said nobody take them for granted, the more popular there cards are the more likely ST are to go for the highend.
 
<A HREF="http://www.fastgraphics.com/reviews.php?id=37&page=1" target="_new">Another Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 preview</A> "Typical CPU. Lack of HW T&L. Kill the KyroII??" Very interesting results on the <A HREF="http://www.fastgraphics.com/reviews.php?id=37&page=4" target="_new">Treemark</A> bench. But then again, they used a 1Ghz Athlon. So much for SW T&L on that bench.

=
<font color=green>Are you just lazy or incredibly stupid? -<i>King of the Earth</i></font color=green><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Negaverse23 on 04/20/01 08:22 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
I would put as much weight behind Treemark as I would behind Villagemark, there both made by Nvidia and PowerVR to show each others architectures off and they do that, but thats all they do, after all in Treemark the Radeon 64mb gets beaten by a Geforce MX, clearly Treemark is more then optimised for HW T&L, its optimised specifically for Nvidia cards with HW T&L.
 
I just had a more thorough look at that review, he must have a problem in his system, maybe driver conflicts or something because the results are all over the place, the Kyro 1 beats the Kyro II quite a few times and thats not something I saw in the Beyond3d review which included a Kyro II vs Kyro 1, the review was ok though in that the reviewer seemed very fair (even though he should have realised his tests were a bit strange), this was a strange comment too "This shows that nVidia has done a good job with the Hidden Surface Removal support in their new drivers."???, what hidden surface removal support?, the Voodoo5 had support for software hidden surface removal in the later drivers but Nvidia have never put anything like that in there drivers, unless there are some new Nvidia drivers that I haven't heard about, either way the Kyro II Q3 demo was wrong and again shows the problem he has with his system, the Kyro II should outperform the Kyro 1 by 50-60% at high res and at least 30-40% at lower res (thats what the beyond3d preview showed)
 
This is the top headline at planet tribes (http://www.planettribes.com).

Kyro II & Tribes II - A Perfect Match?

Being the resident tech guy here @ PlanetTribes, I pride myself with having the latest hardware in my hands. I recently received a review sample of the new Kyro II video card. What was the first thing I did? I popped it in the Win98SE testbed (1.1ghz Athlon TBird) and fired up Tribes 2. The results are phenominal! Out outperforms my GeForce 2 Pro by far. I managed to crank up T2 to 1280x1024x32 with EVERYTHING at full and did not see a dip below 45fps - in a nice 50-60 player game. My GF2 Pro can't hardly do that at 1024x768. I plan to write up something more detailed on it in a short while, I just wanted to inform you of what preliminary results I've pushed out of it. So far, it looks like a GREAT card.
 
Thats good news to hear. I also question some of his benchmarks, particulary the Radeon which on VilliageMark indicates that HierarchicalZ(HZ) was turned off. I get a much higher score with a slower cpu 40FPS with HZ off 51FPS HZ on(866mhz t-bird). Swithching T&L off and trilinear filtering off meaning Bilinear filtering my Radeon gets in the 80s. Which means if HZ was off it would affect most of the other benchmarks. Still that isn't important because this was a Kyro2 review. Looking at the benchmarks I would almost want to buy the 32meg Kyro vice the 64meg Kyro2. The best part of the review is the cpu scaling which the Kyro2 looked good (the faster the cpu the faster the Kyro2). Plus the FSAA test where very good on the Kyro2. Interesting card which would play 1000s if not 10,000 different game titles without problems while maybe a few future games could be better on another card. I think we know the weaknesses of the Kyro2 now, also the strengths are pretty compelling to overcome any weakness. I hope the price drops fast. When the Kyro2 board goes for less than $115 then it would be an outstanding performer/price ratio.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by noko on 04/21/01 00:05 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
17 April - Next generation PowerVR solutions

(taken from reactor critical)


Unofficial, but reliable sources sent us some information concerning future products by PowerVR/ST Microelectronics. Please note that since information is unofficial, take it as is.

Even before the end of this year the world will see the next generation of Imagination Technologies computer graphics chip known as STG5000. It is reported that it will finally have hardware T&L engine and 4 rendering pipelines/1 TMU per each. STG5000 will be manufactured using 0.18 micron STM process. Core clock frequence is expected to be about 150 Mhz.

The next year we will probably see STG5500 - using 0.12 micron process it can achieve core frequences of up to 250-300 Mhz. Actually it is going to be overclocked STG5000 version, so we shouldn`t expect any architectural changes in this one, however, the perfomance is going to be very high - in addition to dramatically increased fillrate, T&L unit will work a bit faster as well.

At the end of 2002 or even the beginning of 2003 ImgTec will announce 2 solutions based on brand new core architecture.

STG6000 - 4 pipelines / 2 TMU per each pipeline. 0.12 micron process, core frequency about 250-300 Mhz.

STG6500 - about 300+ Mhz core clock frequency, at the same time there are only two of STG6000 four pipelines with 2 TMU. There is no sense to tell that 6000 series supports hardware T&L engine - by that time this will become standard.

The roadmap seems to be rather possible and most of the time I believe architecture details appear to be correct. If the timeframes are right and these products will be sucessful, Imagination Technologies can become a strong rival for NVidia.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!
 
There'll be 32mb Kyro II boards in the U.S for $80-$90 within a month from now, powercolor are still going to make a Kyro II board, they've just been forced to not call it by the Powercolor name by Nvidia. Nvidia have a deal with them that no competitor card can bare the Powercolor name if they think the competitor is a threat, apparently they didn't think so of the Kyro 1 based Powercolor Evil Kyro but there not happy for Powercolor to make a Kyro II with the same name, I think the Kyro II boards going to be called color power Evil Kyro II or something stupid like that but I am pretty sure it'll be announced an released soon, INNO3D are also making a Kyro II, some rumours say that Creative are also going Kyro II and also a number of Taiwanese companies met with ST behind closed doors at cebit to agree contracts to produce Kyro II boards too, the reason they did it behind closed doors at cebit was that Nvidia actually had people warning off any companies that tried to show a public interest in Kyro II at cebit buy saying they'd limit there Nvidia chip supplies, at the start Hercules had a 1-2 month exclusive of the Kyro II, so that meant they could announce there Kyro II board and send out review boards 1-2 months before anyone else could announce there boards (Videologic Vivid!XS Kyro II 32mb was the exception because obviously that board is made by IMGTEC themselves), so very very soon I expect more announcments and some quick releases of some cheap 32mb boards througout Europe, the U.S and Asia, but with the [-peep-] Nvidia are pulling its not 100% certain, we'll see what happens soon, but I'd be extremely suprised if there wasn't a 32mb Kyro II board available for under $90 online in the U.S within a month.
 
Yeah I've seen that raodmap at reactorcritical, its not far off but it has innacuracies, firstly it doesn't mention DX8 pixel, vertex shaders and programable HW T&L on any of the products, also the raodmap is old and doesn't show what there current tech will be.
 
Now we are talking and maybe that is what nVidia as well as ATI is scared of. I am sure Kyro boards will be cheaper to make then the other boards. Meaning an edge on the competition. Thats all that is needed is an edge. If a company can make a few extra bucks on a Kyro board bye-bye mx. If a reseller can make a few bucks more on a Kyro board bye-bye mx and Radeon SDR. OEM .......
I wonder if OEMs will pick up on the Kyro bandwagon as well. Price is the key. Maybe we will start seeing Kyro2s in PentIV machines vice the feeble TNT2s that are sold on prebuilt systems. nVidia came out of nowhere well another company can do the same. Maybe this will push up the release date for the Radeon2 (I hope).
 
pvrrev,
<font color=blue> So Tom's statement at the end of the GeForce 3 article is nothing more than an uncalled for crack at the KYRO II board. Based solely on personal feelings and not fact. </font color=blue>
Click to expand...
Interesting. Tell me, how is it that you can read Tom's mind? I bet you could make a lot of money if you could market this mind-reading technology of yours.

<font color=blue> ... So if you are going to believe statements such as the one Tom made at the end of the GeForce 3 article without any basis in fact you must be wearing a bib as Tom is spoon-feeding you info that you are goobling up without question. </font color=blue>
Click to expand...
What reason would I have to disbelieve Tom's Hardware? If I see a good review that contradicts his statement then I will obviously reconsider, but so far there have been many reviews which make very similar statements about the need for T&L. Until contrary evidence comes to light, I have every reason to take Tom at his word.
<font color=blue> BTW, this KYRO II comment at the end of the article was uncalled for and is just a blatant attack on the KYRO II board. The KYRO II was not used as a reference in the review at all yet the reviewer had the gull to make such a statement. I have to wonder how much influence NVIDIA is making on this site and with such statements without proof of any kind leads me to believe that reviews done here may be a bit biased towards NVIDIA. </font color=blue>
Click to expand...
So is there a rule that a reviewer can't comment on anything that was not specifically analyzed and benchmarked in the same article? Many reviewers are in trouble then! Quite to the contrary, one of the most important things that reviewers give to us is their "expert" opinions--opinions that they form not only from their hands on experience with reviewed hardware, but also from their broad knowledge of the PC industry in general. This is, after all, why we read their articles in the first place. The fact that you disagree with a statement does not suddenly turn Tom's into a "biased" site making "blatant, uncalled for attacks" against a technology you like. <i> You </i> are the one that seems to be showing bias, especially considering that Tom listed the Radeon right along with the GeForce, yet you never accused him of being biased toward ATI.


<font color=blue> Can Tom predict how much T&L will be a factor in games over the next year? </font color=blue>
Click to expand...
Yes--not perfectly, but almost certainly better than you or me or likely anybody else on this forum. Estimating the future of technology is a major part of his job.

Cheers,
Warden
 
I hate trying to reply to 5 pages of posts all at one time. Why can't you all be on in the early morning hours like I am? 😡

Anyway, Teasy you made some good points:
<font color=blue> I'm not going to reply to everything you said point by point because I feel we've both made our points clear to each other... I suppose we'll have to see how this unfolds in future games though. One thing though, did you have a look at those DroneZ numbers?, that game is one of the first true DX8 games with vertex and pixel shaders and won't even be out for quite sometime so its not fully optimised for speed and yet the Kyro II runs it easily... do you think a MX or even a GTS would get 35fps at 1024x768x32 with 4xFSAA?, I don't, the MX certainly wouldn't even come close. </font color=blue>
Click to expand...
Yes I believe we each know where the other stands, and we will have to wait and see how things develop. It should be a very interesting time in the graphics industry. Also, just for the record, I have never said that an MX card would be better than a Kyro II, nor have I said that the Kyro II would be bad for this year's games. My statements have always been that non-T&L cards, <i> and </i> the MX cards due to their poor bandwidth, will be hurting starting next year.

I agree that a tile-rendering card with a good T&L unit could make for a killer combo and I hope that IMGTEC and their manufacturers get one to market in a timely manner. Of course we can't assume that NVIDIA's and ATI's technology won't progress just as much or more. Like I said, it should be a very interesting time in the graphics industry! 😎

As for the DroneZ benchmarks I can't really say. All these DX8 games are still being worked on and I think it is hard to predict how they will finally run, especially since only just now has a fully DX8 compliant board become available for testing. Something that seems obvious from the Fastgraphics.com <A HREF="http://www.fastgraphics.com/reviews.php?id=37&page=1" target="_new">preview</A> of the Kyro II is that framerates can change TREMENDOUSLY depending on what hardware the engine is optimized for–-look for the benchmarks made by each company. (As a related side note, consider the work on the Xbox, which shares its graphics core with the GF3. Many of the screenshots on the Xbox website, like <A HREF="http://www.xbox.com/games/assets/malice-image-5.jpg" target="_new">this</A> one and <A HREF="http://www.xbox.com/games/assets/oddworld-image-4.jpg" target="_new"> this</A> one, were actually produced on a PC with a GeForce card--I would assume a GF2 Ultra. We don't yet know how these games will look once optimized for the Xbox hardware.) Note that I am <i> not </i> saying the Kyro will look worse on DX8 games in the future--just that a lot could change <i> either </i> way before these games are actually released.

Oh, and I am looking for geometry assist information and will let you know what I find.

Cheers,
Warden

===========
The sum of the IQs on this planet is a constant--only the population is increasing...
 
No one believe on the power of kyro 2:


"Update: I'm starting to wonder if this card was forced by the drivers on 16 bit all the time, so I'm going to do a clean format of that machine and get back to you. "
--TySoft


16 vs 32 bits on kyro has the same performance he doesn't know that !!!
the guy at planettribes don't believe on Kyro power !!!

like tomshardware, like tim sweeney, etc...
LOL

these game is a T&L game !!!
so T&L means that kyro will rocks on the future (more complexity more overdraw).
and HERE ARE THE FACTS not some stupid opinion !
(I am talking about Tim sweeney and toms opinion)
😉

Remember what I already said earlier (many posts before),
that with kyro the minimum fps will be allways better than the minimum fps on a traditional card


" 50 fps in 1024, not that much faster....
Max of about 100, lower than GF2 numbers but the min is ALOT higher than gf2 gts/pros "
-- TySoft after a question about kyro performance on tribes 2


A LOT HIGHER !!!
what is the use to get 200 average fps if in some parts it gets 15 fps ??

Do you prefer higher minimum fps rate or higher average rate ?

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by powervr2 on 04/21/01 11:59 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
Very good point on the minimum FPS a card produces in a game. That is where someone will notice jerkiness especially if it falls below 30FPS in a game. When the FPS varies in a game from 100 to 30 FPS I don't think to many people will notice but when it dips below 30 particulary 20 FPS then I think most people will notice that the smoothness went away.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by noko on 04/21/01 12:13 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
that guy on planettribes have more juicy on kyro:

"Okie I formatted and everything on that machine, I found out why i had a dongle decrease in 32 bit - my own stoopidity... I ran the 32 bit with EAX on 😀 - and didnt figure it out, heh so I just formatted for nothing. at 1600x1200 the Kyro2 REALLY CRAPS OUT... 10-20fps... unplayable - seen it dip to like 5 too. But since I updated from DX7 to DX8 on that machine (during the format) it dropped from 45 FPS average outside in fights to like ~37-40... ugh...mmm... its about matching my GF2 Pro now... I paid $300 for my pro, I wish this little $150 Kyro 2 was around then... all in all its VERY playable @ 1280x1024x32. I'm looping it in Q3 for an hour or two just to make sure its stable. I'll post more exact numbers (I WISH T2 HAD A TIMEDEMO OPTION) later.
"
this was taken from their's forum..
go there..
<A HREF="http://forums.planettribes.com/ " target="_new">http://forums.planettribes.com/ </A>

he must not know the microsoft issue on directx8
😉 (it's a microsoft issue not a kyro issue)

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by powervr2 on 04/21/01 05:56 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
<b>Teasy</b>

Looks like the DX8 DXTC issue with the Kyro2 has been fixed by Microsoft.
DirectX 8.1 Dev Release (Beta)
Posted Saturday, April 21, 2001 by goldfield2
DirectX 8.1 Dev Release has been released. This release also fixes certain DXTC issues with Kyro.

Download it for Win9x/ME and Windows NT/2000 here:
<A HREF="http://www.ammoburners.com/3dxtreme/dx81.php" target="_new">http://www.ammoburners.com/3dxtreme/dx81.php</A>
Click to expand...
Latter I will pick up the issue with DX8 T&L with DX7 T&L hardware, that is if you want to know more info. The answer is that DX7 T&L hardware can support DX8 T&L. Will explain latter if interested.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom