NVIDIA - Hardware Team

[DR]

What would you ask these guys?

[CrazyGlue]

Definitely I would ask what they have planned to counter the X800, which is better (however slightly is up to you) than the 6800, or or is the reason it's not performing as well a driver issue?

And what about the more mainstream (and much cheaper) stuff, what can we expect in this area?

[LayZeh]

SoundStorm

I realise it may require a lot of resources for writing drivers and such that during the nForce2's life-time it was obvious those resources weren't available, but with some restructuring surely you could add it back in a future revision of the nForce2 and if not definitely the nForce3?

I just read a preview of the nForce2 Ultra 400GB i stopped at the first paragraph when i found out it uses the south-bridge from the nForce3 250GB, a great south-bridge but no SoundStorm and you'd be surprised at how much of an incentive that is for enthusiasts to buy an NVIDIA platform over a VIA one.

My advice to NVIDIA would be to take notice of the recent signature list of those who want SoundStorm back in the product line-up and by keeping the specs the same you will not need to write any new drivers and lets face it when it comes to writing audio drivers you haven't exactly got the best team out there, with the v4.31s being released yesterday and finally addressing the majority of issues. Having said that nForce is a great product line just without SoundStorm there's nothing stopping me from going to VIA's alternative.

[Agent]

I would also like to know why soundstorm was dropped.
Without it, i will seriously consider not buying a nforce 3 based board. The quality of SS on my NF2 using digital out ment i didnt need to buy a new soundcard (and basicly got an upgrade for free).
Being pretty much the only hardware that fully supports dolby digital encoding in real time, why are you letting this market go ?

[malfunction]

I can't remember where I read it but I did read a while ago that soundstorm was dropped from the nForce3 chipest as nVidia were considering releasing stand alone sound cards and didn't want to compete with themselves. Is this true?

[LayZeh]

It was dropped because various OEMs didn't want to pay the little bit extra for it, that's almost direct from the horses mouth but not quite.

[Bindibadgi]

When is the next IGP out with direct X 9 support? Something to rival ATi's P4/9200 solution.

[aspect102]

When is the next IGP out with direct X 9 support? Something to rival ATi's P4/9200 solution.

I would love to know the answer to this, as the IGP is a big attraction for me as makes for cost effective systems.

[directhex]

have nvidia considered using the 3dfx brand for anything, considering they own it? it's not a new idea, just look at infogrames & the atari brand...

[DR]

have nvidia considered using the 3dfx brand for anything, considering they own it? it's not a new idea, just look at infogrames & the atari brand...

Yes but they let Voodoo PC use Voodoo.

[directhex]

Yes but they let Voodoo PC use Voodoo.

there's the old banshee trademarks, i assume?

[DR]

there's the old banshee trademarks, i assume?

But banshee sucked as a brand

[Lee H]

I'd ask them where do they vision themselves in 10 years time ?

[Lexeus]

lol, is it just me or does everyone of these posts go against the 'only ask questions about currently available products' rule ?

[ikonia]

I'd ask why when these guys are promoting linux support do they not have any formal support procedures/processes for linux

[nVIDIA_Master]

id ask them what their next year / 2 year plans are going to me, maybe a time sheet where they show aproximately their new hardware releases so we can schedule new computer builds and upgrades