How does the Emotion Engine compare to a PC chip?

Originally posted by Nplayer-2
He is talking about gaming...and i NEVER said gaming on a Mac is better...but running photoshop maya or all those other 3d applications artist\'s use the Mac is better..far better.

The Mac is better for many reasons, which has nothing to do with the G4 being \'superior\'. Apple are in full control of BOTH the hardware and software, for which the result is a VERY stable, easy to use, but expensive platform. This has ALWAYS been true of Macs.

Also, the Macs were ahead of the typical PC in terms of resolution and colour depth for MANY years. This resulted in the Mac becoming the perfect machine for DTP and graphics/imaging software such as Photoshop, hence it established itself as THE machine for such areas, and it still holds true today.

This is the Mac\'s niche, this is where it\'s strengths lie, but again, this represents a mere fraction of the software out there. If you want to find an application where the latest G4 Mac out performs the latest PCs, then it will fall into the category above AND will be optimised for the Altivec instructions. Again, such applications can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

3D applictions on the Mac is far better than on a wintel system..[/B]

See above.

The thing is...i do not see a single corporation trying to sell the PC based on the merit of it being "new" "revolutionary" "innovative" technology...which the xbox is doing....[/B]

Provide a quote where MS have claimed this!

From reading many interviews, MS (at best) say that the XBox offers the kind of power and features which game developers can use to create revolutionary and/or innovative games, but they don\'t claim the hardware itself is revolutionary!

If i was a 3d artist\'s i would run down to my local apple computer dealer ship and buy one..but i am not.[/B]

Exactly. The Mac satisfies a niche market, and it does so very VERY well. They are superb machines, but wouldn\'t satify all my computing needs either.

4 year old Pyramid3d technology:
Programmable per-pixel shaders/vertex shaders
Hardware T&L

Geforce3 most hyped features:

Programmable per-pixel shaders/vertex shaders
Hardware T&L[/B]

The demos they showed, if I remember, demonstrated bump mapping (in a scene running at something like 20fps?), and another demo in a church/cathedral showed some nice lighting effects as sunlight streamed through the windows (radiosity I believe)?

Yes the Pyramid3D promised much, and their bump mapping technology was licenced by MS for DirectX(6?), but with no product on the market, who can say good or bad the actual product would have been. Regardless of the features it boasted, the Pyramid3D didn\'t deliver.

However, if the Pyramid3D made it to the market, it most certainly would have blown away the Voodoo and PVR graphics cards, but against the Voodoo2 and TNT...who knows!

Anyway, all of this is from memory so my facts may not be accurate. However, I\'m sure I have an old magazine article about the Pyramid3D somewhere, therefore I\'ll check it out tomorrow.

Also, the Macs were ahead of the typical PC in terms of resolution and colour depth for MANY years. This resulted in the Mac becoming the perfect machine for DTP and graphics/imaging software such as Photoshop, hence it established itself as THE machine for such areas, and it still holds true today.

This what i have been trying to say all along....thank you:D

This is the Mac\'s niche, this is where it\'s strengths lie, but again, this represents a mere fraction of the software out there. If you want to find an application where the latest G4 Mac out performs the latest PCs, then it will fall into the category above AND will be optimised for the Altivec instructions. Again, such applications can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

exactly...the Mac smacks any wintel system when it comes to high-end computer 3d graphics...which is what I HAVE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG.

Provide a quote where MS have claimed this!

From reading many interviews, MS (at best) say that the XBox offers the kind of power and features which game developers can use to create revolutionary and/or innovative games, but they don\'t claim the hardware itself is revolutionary!

They said it is innovative which it is NOT...this is a fact and a well known fact..i do not need to prove a proven fact;)

Exactly. The Mac satisfies a niche market, and it does so very VERY well. They are superb machines, but wouldn\'t satify all my computing needs either.

Who said it would?...all I ever said was that the Mac beats any wintel system when it comes to high-end computer 3d graphics...which YOU agree it does..

The demos they showed, if I remember, demonstrated bump mapping (in a scene running at something like 20fps?), and another demo in a church/cathedral showed some nice lighting effects as sunlight streamed through the windows (radiosity I believe)?

You are talking about Enviromental bumb-mapping which the bitboys created and microsoft and matrox later aquired for their software/hardware....20fps? i don\'t think so...more than that.

Yes the Pyramid3D promised much, and their bump mapping technology was licenced by MS for DirectX(6?), but with no product on the market, who can say good or bad the actual product would have been. Regardless of the features it boasted, the Pyramid3D didn\'t deliver.

Their technology 4 years ago would have smacked anything and everything around(yes even the godly voodoo2)....it was just bad luck that kept it from coming out...Tritech lost a lawsuit(nothing to do with graphics) it was about sound and they went bankrupt...which of course kept the revolutionary pyramid3d from every coming out...

Originally posted by Nplayer-2
exactly...the Mac smacks any wintel system when it comes to high-end computer 3d graphics...which is what I HAVE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG.

No Nplayer, this is for DTP and STATIC 2D/3D graphics! For realtime 3D graphics (as seen in games), the PC has been more powerful than the Mac for many MANY years, both in terms of processor AND 3D graphics card.

The G3/G4 Macs were crippled by Apple\'s choice of ATI graphics cards for these machines (VERY poor cards compared with those available on the PC). It is ONLY today, with the introduction of the GF3 option for the G4 Macs, that the Mac is now comparible to a PC for realtime 3D graphics. However, this doesn\'t change the fact that the best G4s are weaker than the best P4s and Athlons and that Apple\'s machines are still very expensive compared to similar spec PCs.

They said it is innovative which it is NOT...this is a fact and a well known fact..i do not need to prove a proven fact;)[/B]

It\'s not proven until you provide a link to back your claims.

Who said it would?...all I ever said was that the Mac beats any wintel system when it comes to high-end computer 3d graphics...which YOU agree it does..[/B]

No I didn\'t, see above.

Their technology 4 years ago would have smacked anything and everything around(yes even the godly voodoo2)....it was just bad luck that kept it from coming out...[/B]

Bad luck, possibly, but given that we\'re STILL waiting for their next product (Glade3D), I doubt bad luck is the reason! Whatever the reasons, the product never came out (like 3DO\'s Bulldog/M2 processor), therefore you can only speculate on what it might have been but never was.

The following article is quite interesting;

http://www.penstarsys.com/editor/SO3D/SO3D.htm

"The only thing this Finnish company was known for was designing the very late and failed Tri-Tech Pyramid chip, whose only exciting feature was environmental bump mapping.  This chip was never released because it was still slow for its day."