2CPU.com » News » March 2002 » Creative Labs to Buy 3DLabs?

This link was dropped in my inbox this morning, and it details Creative's plans to buy out 3DLabs.

10/29/2000 03:37 PM: Creative GeForce2 MX and Ultra Reviews by Hooz
Hot on the heels of yesterday's post about Creative's new GeForce2 MX (with DDR), t-break has slapped up their review (They also threw in a CL GeForce2 Ultra for giggles). I can honestly say that I ha...

09/22/2000 03:10 PM: Creative to purchase Aureal... by J0rdan
It appears to be official. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California entered the order approving the sale of substantially all the assets of Aureal to Creative Technology Ltd. ...

02/15/2000 01:07 PM: Creative Labs and Win2k by Micah
Allot of you have been eagerly awaiting the release of Win2k drivers for your SBLive! cards and, well... According to their new Win2k FAQ, it's coming! Here's the juice... Q3. How does Windows 2000 ...

Cory <font color="#E22000">Do you like my hat? It's made of MONEY!</font> Posts: 412 Joined: 2000-05-19

#14509 Posted on: 03/11/2002 08:42 PM Originally posted by Hooz Will we lose a high-end 3D graphics card company? Will we get high-end cards with poor driver support? I don't know. What do you think? They'd best buy themselves a competent driver team while they're at it :rolleyes: [url="http://www.2cpu.com"]www.2cpu.com[/url] [url="http://www.cory-grimster.org/boxen.html"]Boxen[/url]

punchcard Triple Duallies Posts: 25 Joined: 2000-03-07

#14510 Posted on: 03/11/2002 09:49 PM Tiger MP, 2x Athlon MP 1900+ | VP6, 2x P3-700 @ 933 | BP6, 2x Celeron 500

nipster NOT a WarMonger Posts: 1841 Joined: 2001-09-12

#14511 Posted on: 03/11/2002 09:53 PM didnt creative labs learn by 3dFX's mistakes??? I see this as a BAD move for them

rumar SMP Newbie Posts: 0 Joined: 2003-07-07

#14512 Posted on: 03/11/2002 10:33 PM Wasn't 3DLabs a major force in reworking OpenGL 2.0?

Jemmott Unregistered

#14513 Posted on: 03/11/2002 10:40 PM Creative buying 3dlabs .... hell no! 3dlabs are one of the pioneers in the opengl scene. Creative is going to screw everything up ...

Cory <font color="#E22000">Do you like my hat? It's made of MONEY!</font> Posts: 412 Joined: 2000-05-19

#14514 Posted on: 03/11/2002 10:47 PM You mean like how Ensoniq pioneered consumer PCI soundcards, and then Creative bought them since they couldn't get their own PCI soundcards to work? Or how Aureal pioneered consumer 3D sound, and Creative bought them because they couldn't get theirs to work (very well)? [url="http://www.2cpu.com"]www.2cpu.com[/url] [url="http://www.cory-grimster.org/boxen.html"]Boxen[/url]

Occupant Registered User Posts: 2421 Joined: 2002-03-04

#14515 Posted on: 03/11/2002 11:00 PM I wonder if Nvidia is going to let them keep building geforce video cards? I wonder if Nvidia will sue to keep OEM data from being used in another product (and perhaps stop the merger)?

DPF No one of Consequence Posts: 730 Joined: 2000-10-15

#14516 Posted on: 03/11/2002 11:07 PM I'm just looking forward to having the same driver devlopment team as the sound so that I can have a display that flickers and pops like the sound does. Maybe they can sync it and it'll be like a fireworks show all day, every day!!! Awesome. -DPF [color=blue][size=1]"The little BX that could"[/color][/size] P2BDS, S370-DL's|2x1GHz@1.12GHz SL5QV|1GB Mosel Vitelic PC133|Herc GF2GTS Quadro Mod|UltraPlex 40TSi|Plexwriter 8/20|Audigy2|Sony DRU510A "If you give a man fire he will be warm for a day -but- If you set that man on fire, he will be warm for the rest of his life"

Bluce Ree SMP Qualified Posts: 130 Joined: 2001-12-11

#14517 Posted on: 03/11/2002 11:27 PM that's the funniest and most accurate reply i've ever seen on here. hahahahha --Bluce

Bluce Ree SMP Qualified Posts: 130 Joined: 2001-12-11

#14518 Posted on: 03/11/2002 11:31 PM I have an idea! why doesn't IBM buy out CL and Nvidia, that way, we could have a video card that has a Time limit in the upper right, where as the hours of usage pass 333 a month, the sound card could crackle: "you are exccceeeeding the maximum RECOMMENDED usage time, While we at IBM feel this is inappropriate, we will not admint a design failure on our part" But since the video card will have awful driver support, the resulting constant rebooting will result in only 166 actual monthly available hours. --Bluce I.B.M.(p.) Incompetent Bonehead Manufacturing Processes.

puppet Got Little Feat Posts: 1100 Joined: 2001-08-15

#14519 Posted on: 03/12/2002 03:33 AM Well arighty then.....who does that leave for professional graphics cards? Tyan i840|2x1000|1GB PC800 RDRAM|4xQuantum 10kII|VisionTek X-6964|TBSC|Plextor 40max|S&F Mach 12|iiyama VM pro 501 & VM pro 502|mod'ed Toshiba Magnia 3010 chassis|600W PSU

valis Registered User Posts: 1437 Joined: 2001-10-14

#14520 Posted on: 03/12/2002 03:56 AM since noone has said it, The only OBVIOUS reason behind purchasing 3dlabs can be the follow in the footsteps of their lovely SBLive! & Audigy drivers, and render the best performing 3d cards for the PC market INCOMPATIBLE with all of our 2 cpu machines (or at least working as well as DPF put it). heatware >> SM X7DWA-N, 2xE5462, 16GB/1600mhz FB-DIMM, 2x500GB ES.2, 2x 1TB & 1x 2TB WD Caviar Black, PC P&C PSU, Evga GTX285 SC, Lian Li PC-G70 (modified), RME Hdsp Multiface (pro audio) >> 2008 2.8GHz Mac Pro w/ 16GB ram & 2007 17" Macbook Pro 2.4Ghz, 6GB ram >> 3.2Ghz Phenom II 955, 785G based AMD boxes w/ 8GB Ram & 2x 1TB Drives >> older: SM P4DC6+ (w/ 2x2.4Ghz, 1GB RDRam, Quadro FX4000, & 2xScope dsp cards), 1x SM P6DBS, 1x Super S2DGU, 2x Asus P2B-DS & 1x SM P6DNH w/ ppro 166's

nnunn Registered User Posts: 22 Joined: 2000-11-04

#14521 Posted on: 03/12/2002 04:07 AM nVidia shift SGI-tech to masses, many camp happy. Creative takes 3DLabs same place, campers camp happier?

MassiveCool ".....sweet!!....." Posts: 585 Joined: 2001-08-08

#14522 Posted on: 03/12/2002 04:41 AM poor 3dlabs... another good company down the drain.. [SIZE=1][url=www.jlcp.demon.co.uk/]My Kit[/url] | [url=http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=4653005]3DMark2k1SE[/url] | [url=http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/fcgi-bin/fcgi?email=MassiveCool@jlcp.demon.co.uk&cmd=user_stats_new]My SETI[/url] | [/SIZE]

mattsteg Senior Member Posts: 990 Joined: 2000-05-07

#14523 Posted on: 03/12/2002 04:51 AM I hope they can write a driver that launches thousands of copies of a helper program like my sblive did with devldr32.exe. Hello.

Jazper SMP Wizzard Posts: 468 Joined: 2001-09-10

#14524 Posted on: 03/12/2002 05:25 AM 1. bye bye driver support for 3dlabs cards 2. bye bye competition in the ULTRA high end 3. Creative gets bigger (by about 4x) 4. Creative begins creating both sound and graphics chips with flaws/incompatibilities in them 5. Ultra high end market disappears and uses gaming cards because there's nothing else on the market 6. Consumers end up with graphics cards that are wayyyy beyond what they need. 7. ATI and nVidia start putting pressure on Creative 8. Microsoft has to comply with Creative's driver madness, because of earlier signed deals 9. Creative and nVidia both decide that it's time to start putting sound chips on graphics cards and "all in one" solutions start appearing on the market, abeit at no less than 550$USD at release 10. ATI slowly fades into oblivion as Matrox acquires it 11. Matrox acquires c-media(the sound guys) also to compete with nVidia and Creative, offering a better value card all in all (not to mention better driver support)

Brad 30105 in 3dmark 03 Posts: 3646 Joined: 2000-12-06

#14525 Posted on: 03/12/2002 07:27 AM creative all in one drivers, we used to have to install graphics cards and sound cards in a system to destroy it, now it is just one unified screw up Clevo D870P Notebook, P4 3.4ghz NW, 1gb DDR400, Intel 865PE, ATI 9700 Pro 256mb, 60gb, 80gb, DVDRW, 17" LCD, TV Tuner, 1 hour battery life Athlon 64 3700 Sandy @ 9x315 with XP-120, Asus A8N32-SLI, 2x 512mb PC3200 @ 315mhz 2.5/3/4/8, 2x 7800GTX @ 490/1325, 1x 74gb Raptor, 3x 160gb SATA, Audigy 2 ZS, Silverstone TJ-03, Zippy 700w. P4 3.46 Gallatin EE at 12x300, Supermicro PDSGE, 2gb DDR2 @ 600, 6x 250gb, 6x 200gb, Promise SX6000, Adaptec 2610SA, Acbel 550w 7800GTX 512mb's on their way

rmn oh my, it's huge! Posts: 6013 Joined: 2002-01-26

#14526 Posted on: 03/12/2002 10:26 AM Actually, 3Dlabs has been losing steam since the Permedia 2. It virtually vanished from the consumer market (the Permedia 3 was delayed by over 1 year and was obsolete by the time it was released) and the only way it managed to remain competitive in the professional market was to buy Intense3D (makers of Wildcat). And the new Quadro4 (from nVidia) offers performance pretty close to the fastest Wildcats (faster, in some operations) at a fraction of the price. So the future doesn't look very bright for 3Dlabs. But I really don't see why Creative would want to buy 3Dlabs... unless... unless 3Dlabs has some killer chip in their hands but no money to actually mass-produce it. A chip they were aiming at the "high-end" market but which Creative plans to use to compete in the "consumer" market. Could decent antialiasing be on its way? Look at it this way: there's no way Creative's drivers are going to get any worse and there's no way 3Dlabs is going to take any longer to release new chips. Ultimately, we'll get drivers that are so bad they can't even install themselves and that are so late they're never actually be released. And have you noticed how Sim Wong Hoo's name can be rearranged to spell "Oho, Win Smog"? I don't know what that means, but it sounds suspicious. RMN ~~~

Murdock Captain Posts: 1398 Joined: 2001-07-02

#14527 Posted on: 03/12/2002 09:29 PM Some interesting speculation there, but how do you figure that ATI will fade into oblivion and Matrox will acquire it, since Matrox has already faded into oblivion? (at least in the consumer graphics market) The pathetic state of our government will never change unless we stop electing politicians and start electing public servants. Remember: There was once a time when the term "politician" had a very negative connotation.

fig_wright SMP Fresher Posts: 736 Joined: 2002-02-05

#14528 Posted on: 03/12/2002 11:04 PM Originally posted by valis since noone has said it, The only OBVIOUS reason behind purchasing 3dlabs can be the follow in the footsteps of their lovely SBLive! & Audigy drivers, and render the best performing 3d cards for the PC market INCOMPATIBLE with all of our 2 cpu machines (or at least working as well as DPF put it). Does the SBLive! card not work with dual CPUs? Does that include the MPX? That would suck, because I have a SBLive and am about to buy and MPX dual CPU setup... :-S MSI K7D-L|XP1700x2 @1584MHz|TaiSol CGK760092x2|Crucial 1792MB PC2100 ECC CAS-2.5 @140MHz|Enermax EG465P-VE 431W|Abit Siluro GF3 Ti-200 128MB DVi/TV-out|SBLive! 5.1|NEC USB 2.0|Seagate 7200RPM Barracuda 30GB|Win XP & Ubuntu Hardy

cRock FreeBSD SMP Daemon Posts: 122 Joined: 2001-11-02

#14529 Posted on: 03/13/2002 04:09 AM Alrighy then. Creative has really sucky drivers, but 3D Labs has outstanding, mind blowingly excellent drivers. Who is to say that creative won't be smart enough to leave the driver developers at 3D Labs well enough alone. Okay, it's not bloody likely, but it's possible. I don't like Creative any more than the rest of you, but let's face it, 3D Labs was already dead. Creative just came along and caught the carcass before it hit the floor. Now there is a slim chance that they will bring some fantastic professional level 3D to the desktop. That would be a Good Thing (TM) coming from anyone. Looking at the industry on the whole: nVidia will go after the sound card market with nForce tech. They will continue to clean up in the graphics market. ATI will continue to make crappy drivers and may survive despite themselves because stupid consumers still buy their crap (kinda like creative!). Matrox will continue to do just fine IF they can get a new core to market this year. I suspect they have more cash on hand than anyone imagines. The G4XX and G5xx are ludicrously inexpensive to produce and Matrox has been milking that cash cow for a couple of years now. Of course, if Matrox can't ever get it together and bring out a better card, they will fade away. Tiger MP + 2 x Athlon 1.2 Ghz: FreeBSD; BP6 + 2 x Celeron 433@488: W2K; 60 Mhz Apple Performa 6116 CD: MkLinux

Jazper SMP Wizzard Posts: 468 Joined: 2001-09-10

#14530 Posted on: 03/13/2002 06:38 AM Originally posted by Murdock Some interesting speculation there, but how do you figure that ATI will fade into oblivion and Matrox will acquire it, since Matrox has already faded into oblivion? (at least in the consumer graphics market) facts: 1. Matrox and ATI have been arch rivals since the 286 era 2. Matrox makes SH*TELOADS of cash through their video products and their corporate sales (Big companies buy box, box contains matrox card.. this is a very very common senario) 3. Matrox have excellent 2d quality and their 3d quality equals it, the only thing they're lacking is speed 4. ATI have a reasonable product, but if Creative gets in the game with 3dlabs(who took over dynamic pictures!) then my guess is that they're going to lose out because of driver/hardware quirks. To me, ATI is the VIA of the graphics world. 5. ATI have recently lost the battle for the Mac Graphic world 6. Matrox need a quick 3d engine soon, and they'll have one, but it'll be well polished by the time it comes to market, that said their effort that got put into said 3d engine will strain the company a bit. By the time this happens, Creative will be a big player in the graphics card industry and subsequently it will have pushed ATI from second to third place. Speculation: Matrox will capitalise on this and obtain intellectual property (or everything they can) that is ATI to maintain Market placement.

Jazper SMP Wizzard Posts: 468 Joined: 2001-09-10

#14531 Posted on: 03/13/2002 06:43 AM Originally posted by cRock Alrighy then. Creative has really sucky drivers, but 3D Labs has outstanding, mind blowingly excellent drivers. Who is to say that creative won't be smart enough to leave the driver developers at 3D Labs well enough alone. Okay, it's not bloody likely, but it's possible. I don't like Creative any more than the rest of you, but let's face it, 3D Labs was already dead. Creative just came along and caught the carcass before it hit the floor. Now there is a slim chance that they will bring some fantastic professional level 3D to the desktop. That would be a Good Thing (TM) coming from anyone. 3dlabs have outstanding excellent drivers? since when? ever play with the permedia 2? ever _TRY_ to get stuff that would run flawlessly on the nVidia cards even running on a permedia 2? I think you better check your facts..

mieses Unregistered

#14532 Posted on: 03/13/2002 07:52 AM sorry, but i agree with cRock. 3dlabs does have solid drivers for content creation apps. i don't know much about games, and i don't think 3dlabs ever really cared about that market. Their drivers are great for opengl, cad, animation, engineering, etc while game cards tend to be kind of sucky for that type of thing. It's a shame that they are being bought by Creative.

Jazper SMP Wizzard Posts: 468 Joined: 2001-09-10

#14533 Posted on: 03/13/2002 08:18 AM *shrugs* was just a personal experience

2CPU.com » News » March 2002 » Creative Labs to Buy 3DLabs?