From: Brent Fulgham <bfulgham@xpsystems.com>
  To  : David Waite" <mass@ufl.edu>, <mass@ufl.edu>
  Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 16:04:38 -0700

Re: STOP IT! (was: Re: NVidia is a horseshit company)

David -- I'm forwarding this to the list, since it seemed to have some
general comments in it:

>> For example, I have found S3 to be very helpful in getting register-level
>> programming info -- at least for their S3 sound chip.  I suspect their
>> behavior
>> regarding their other chips would be comparable.
>
Yes.. S3 actually got me a little mad, I wrote their sales department asking
if there was any way I could get technical specs on the 964/968 chips.. they
didn't even bother writing back, I was angry until I recieved the books in
the mail =)

S3, Cyrix, Matrox, TI, IBM,.. they all belong on the cool manufacturers
list, no?

I propose we just have a list of companies that help or even officially
support us, and a list of companies who we haven't been able to get
information from. Also if there is currently a driver for that chipset. It
will at very least help people watch out what cards they purchase, buy
seeing "Hey, I can get a Millenium II now and have it supported, or get a
G200 and hope that they get a driver working for it.. or get a NVidia and
not have a snowball's chance until they change internal policy.."

> So, I say Kudos to S3, and phooey on Nvidia!  (Too bad, I just picked up a
> Diamond G330 dirt cheap -- I'd like it to run under ggi)

I would have gotten one of these cards last spring if I was able to get
accelerated support for it. As soon as I can get drivers for my current card
up to a good, working state, I'm planning to start shopping.

It is looking like 3dfx just may be releasing the specifications to all the
2d parts of their card (3d I believe they want to keep secret, mostly to
prevent developers from programming to-the-metal and making games only work
for the current generation of accelerators). I'm definately thinking Matrox
G200, since it sounds like they will be releasing the specs for it, enabling
really fast X and MesaGL performance (and good KGI drivers, no? =))

-David Waite