CONFIDENTIAL R300 SPECIFICATIONS, ROADMAP, etc..

<b>Buying Frames per Second</b>
An opinionated article by Devin Ebert

In December of 1998, I got my first real computer. I had been using my brother's over the hill Pentium 133 for almost 6 months, in order to quench my need for Doom and Wolf3D. The 486 downstairs just didn't cut it. Playing Wolf in 320x200 on a 13-inch display, and experiencing visual glitches the size of Jay Leno's nose just wasn't my cup of tea.

Boy, was I excited about getting my own computer. Quake II, Half-Life, Diablo… drool rolled down my chin like a homeless man begging for money to buy liquor. So my parents said I could have $2,000 to build the system with. Well, ordered me up a nice PC from a catalogue, got a nice 19-inch monitor, and bought me a nice high performance video card at Fry's. Electronics Superstore. That’s right: Fry’s Electronics Superstore. Your best buy’s are always at Fry’s J.

(Devin Ebert does not endorse any companies or corporations. That is only done by sellouts and degenerates.)

AMD K6-2 400mhz
64MB of PC-100
6GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
6X DVD
2x2x24x CD-RW
3dfx Voodoo Banshee
I was like a kid in a candy store, gobbling up components just at the mere sound of their titles; hell, if anything had a sexual overtone, I was checking it out. I mean c'mon, I was 14. The BJ 6900? Don't know what it is, what it does, don't care. I'll take 4.

Games ran like a dream in comparison to what Command & Conquer was like on the P133. I was one happy mofo, and that was the exact terminology I used to describe myself at school; at least until the teacher reported me and I was beaten by the principle.

Summer of '99, I read about new advances; the Pentium III, the Athlon, TNT2, Voodoo3, the Double BJ 69-I mean…ummm…and other advances as well.

So I got a new motherboard, an Athlon 550, a Voodoo 3000, and 64MB more of PC-100. I didn't exactly have a job, so I began to run out of money very fast. Later on I got a Geforce DDR, but display problems made me return it.

This last November of 2000, I wanted to get one PC to last me for a while. At least until college, so 1.5 years.

For about $1500 -

Thunderbird 750 oced to 900
Abit KT-7 RAID
128MB of PC-133
ATX Case w/300 watt Power Supply
Diamond Monster MX400
ATI Radeon DDR
52x CD-ROM
8x4x32x CD-RW
Intellimouse Explorer
Altec Lansing ACS-54
(2)Maxtor 20.4GB 7,200 RPM ATA-100 Hard Drives
By December I had already bought a Geforce 2, and a retail 950 wich I overclocked.

Over the course of 2 years, I spent probably $4000 on computers. That's a shitload of money for someone who only works part-time for $8 an hour.

What is it with technology pushing games, not plots?

I remember great games on older systems. Stonekeep, Duke Nukem, etc. You didn't need a NASA computer to run them, and they were fun. And now with companies getting in monopolies over their respective industries, it becomes more controlling.

Nvidia owns the hardcore 3D market. Sure there is ATI, but Nvidia is king. They own 3dfx and all their technology. So from now on, the NV20 and other future releases can be priced as high as Nvidia thinks the consumer will pay.

Competition can advance the market, but also cost more. Look at AMD vs. Intel. Over the past year, we've gone from 600 mhz clocks to 1.5GHZ. That's a pretty big increase. And for the top, the P4 1.5 GHZ, it's was originally almost 1K. That's right, the cost of an entire computer clocked 33% less. And it's a processor.

And for us gamers, that's what it comes down to. Having powerful systems so game performance can be top notch. No one wants to run Quake III at 12 FPS with no details on. We want full detail with over 60 at all times.

It's come down to where we aren't even buying computers, we're buying Frames Per Second. We want every last bit of performance.

Look at GeForce Ultras: $500 USD for a bloody video card??? 2 years ago a TNT-2 was the best and it was $150-200. Now we have a card that squeezes 40 more frames out of a game then it's previous model, the Geforce2. That's a $300 increase for less then 30% performance game.

And of course it's like rising gas prices; the only way to stop it is to ban it, and not even 1/4th of gamers could be convinced to do that. So profits for these companies will keep growing. Meanwhile, us true gamers take it in the ass.

So I want to say, let's make better games that aren't driven by new technologies. Hell, if the original games weren't so shitty, we wouldn't need new technology. Half-Life is over 2 years old, and it is alive and well in the form of mods running on the Quake II engine.

The best thing we can do is support games for their plot, concept, style, and design. Not for their technology. If all we praise is technology, then that's all it appears we want. Meaningless shooters that push graphics. Hell, you might as well rent a 'van Damme movie' (He pushes the graphics of horrible acting).

Gaming pushes the envelope for the 3D hardware needed for it. So if we support games for their quality, and they acknowledge that quality sells, we won't need to keep upgrading our systems.

The drugs are wearing off, so this rant is over. For now….actually, no, it's definitely over.