What to look for in graphics for 2004

ATI isn't the only manufacturer seeking alliances with game publishers, though. Nvidia has id Software's Doom 3 to push its products. Doom 3 is based on the OpenGL API, and Nvidia's cards have traditionally performed well in this area. However, unfortunately for Nvidia, id Software guru John Carmack had this to say about the GeForce FX and the published Valve benchmarks: “Unfortunately, it will probably be representative of most DX9 games. Doom has a custom backend that uses the lower precisions on the GF-FX, but when you run it with standard fragment programs just like ATI, it is a lot slower. The precision doesn't really matter to Doom, but that won't be a reasonable option in future games designed around DX9 level hardware as a minimum spec”.

So does that mean we can write off Nvidia? Probably not, as there are still the manufacturer's NV4x cores to come this year. The NV40 is also expected to be launched early this quarter. ATI, meanwhile, is not resting on its laurels. ATI's R4xx and RV3xx cores can similarly be expected to keep Nvidia on its toes.

Besides the battle at the top of the heap, former market leader S3 will make a comeback from a long hiatus. It will produce mainstream solutions established on its Delta Chrome chipsets. Also joining in the fray is new kid on the block XGI, which has three cards that we'll be seeing this year. They are the Volari V5, V8 and V8 Duo. The latter is an interesting card founded on an old idea. It's built with two Volari V8 cores -- similar to how the now-defunct 3DFx ran the Voodoo2 SLI and ATI with its Radeon 256 Maxx card. This means the V8 Duo could compete near the high end of the market, although it remains to be seen whether XGI's driver development team can make full use of the hardware's capability.

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