The TNT2-Article ... Is Computer Hardware Some Kind Of Religion?

I guess I stirred up quite a bit when I posted the TNT2-review last week. I can see that most readers agree with my conclusions, some don't and I am glad about that. The history of my website has always been filled with controversy and you can be sure that I will keep it that way. I'd still like to address a few things that I've seen posted though, to become even more controversial. There is still a very strong followership of 3Dfx out there and I appreciate it. However, what does this brand-addiction get you? Nothing in the best case, a lot of disappointment and anger in the worst case. Hardware as well as Software developers are no kind of religion. It's not about believing what's good, but only about hard facts. 3Dfx has supplied us with excellent 3D-hardware in the past, but that doesn't mean that you have to buy 3Dfx hardware for the rest of your life. Ask Intel how hard it is to stay at the top, or look at Microsoft and the trouble it's in right now, as a tribute for being successful and using practices that were morally questionable at times. What does 3Dfx do for all you people who don't want to believe that NVIDIA has finally provided a better product? In the best case they just take your money, in the worst case they take your money and give you an unsatisfying product in return. Each of you who stands up for any hardware company should ask himself why he does that. You are certainly not getting into heaven any more likely than anyone else and I tell you that it makes more sense to stand up for people who are being robbed or beaten in front of your eyes. If you want to be heroes then please don't rant and rave on the Internet, but step outside of your house and try to help some people out there who are in need. You may be surprised to find a lot of them. Go inside big hospitals and you may be surprised and possibly even shocked to see what's going on in the ER, but don't stand up and shout "I don't want to believe that water flows downhill". This is true for any other company just as well. If NVIDIA's next product is not living up to their marketing, I will kick their butt just as much. Who knows, maybe Voodoo4 will be a lot better than NV10. My message is the following: Believing is something that is there for your conscience and your religion. Computer hardware is simply about facts and nothing else. Shouting around in anger is nothing for news groups, is something that is pretty useful to fight problems in your society and make yourself heard in a democracy. Target your excessive energy to things in society that need to be improved and if you want to do something meaningful, then help some people in need, you are surrounded by them.

Another opinion I've seen a few times was that my judgement over TNT2 and Voodoo3 was premature. I guess we'll see about that. Wait a couple of months and Voodoo3 as well as TNT2 will be plugged into many systems worldwide. Whoever calls my conclusions premature and claims the opposite is contradicting himself. If we wouldn't know if TNT2 is better than Voodoo2, how would we know that it's the other way around? Trust me, you will see that TNT2 will beat the Voodoo3 and start ranting about me once both are available to yourself. Before that, you have hardly any ground to stand on. NVIDIA deserves the respect for providing an excellent product, 3Dfx has already provided a big range of excellent products and so we expected another one. It's a tough thing for 3Dfx and who can blame them if the task was too hard for them this time? That doesn't mean that they mightn't get back into the saddle a few months later.

What Do We Expect Of CeBIT 99?

Well, I guess one of the most interesting products should be AMD's upcoming K7 processor. I am pretty sure that AMD will present it at CeBIT. Rise Technology will show their new x86-CPU, which could be very exciting too. Matrox will hopefully show the G400, maybe they'll only give specs though. I hope that S3 will be there, since I am honestly keen on getting more info about Savage4. Maybe we'll even see Videologic! I can remember when they succeeded to impress Alex Ross and me in their booth with PVRSG last year. Alas the product is still unavailable, although John Romero does not work for NEC. I am sure that there is a lot more to see and I'll try to get all the info across to you, maybe through the 150 kbit/s connection of megaCar.