Conflict On Graphic Standards Hurting PC Gaming? 39
Thanks to GameSpot for their editorial discussing graphics card manufacturers, and how their race for revenue could harm PC gaming. The piece discusses the days when "3dfx's Glide standard was the only thing going", and "3dfx even secured deals with retailers to create separate sections for 3dfx-compatible games." However, the author laments: "I thought hardware-specific games were a thing of the past. Then I booted up the demo for Bridge It", an Nvidia-sponsored title which "will not run unless you have an Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti or GeForce FX graphics card installed." The article ends with a hope that "clearer heads will prevail and PC gaming can take new steps toward improving ease-of-use, not balkanizing the platform for business reasons."
DirectX (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:That's obsurd (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean like developers that won't produce games for the Mac?
Ummm... (Score:3, Insightful)
NVidia can (and obviously will) do this. ATI can do this. But, really, will any game manufacturer who is not taking money from either ATI or NVidia do this? No. And even if they [valve.com] are taking money from one side, they still won't chop themselves off at the knees in terms of units sold if they've got a marketable game.
Re:The game was developed as an NVIDIA demo. (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that nVidia has tweaked its drivers [hwextreme.com] specifically to make the drivers aware of when the computer was running 3DMark 2003, in order to use specially-optimized code specific to the 3DMark tests to boost its cards' benchmark scores, I'm not surprised that nVidia decided to bankroll development of software to show off its cards... certainly the benchmarks don't show them in a particularly good light...
How is this any different (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's let gamers decide which game runs for what system...as they did with 3dfx. No need to whine about it here.
Re:ATI Wrapper (Score:2, Insightful)