Does anyone know of a laptop with hardware
T&L? It would be awesome to plug in one of
those 128 kbps Ricochet modems and play net
games on the train (when I’m not coding),
but all the new games in the next two years
will “need” HT&L.
Getting something sucky like a NeoMagic 256
then wouldn’t really allow me to write nor
run the software I’m interested in.
Dunno.
ATI might do a mobile Radeon version. They did the ATI Rage ‘mobility’ didn’t they? Does anyone know how they perform by the way?
Paul.
There was a rumor about the GeForce2 MX being adapted for laptops… As there has not been any official statement for nVidia, I suppose even the nVidia guys posting here won’t be of any help at the moment…
Sebastien, Cass, Matt, any comment ?
I must say I am looking for this as well; that’s all great to develop nice applications on my desktop PC but when it comes to showing it off to our clients on a laptop equipped with an ATI Rage Pro, it just sucks…
Hope nVidia does something about it (I would not bet on ATI to make the move, though…).
Regards.
Eric
I have seen a test with the ATI Rage mobility chip… It ended up in the trashcan. The chip I mean.
They compared three laptops with mobility, and one non-portable computer with MS’s software driver (all four computers ran at the same clock speed - 300 MHz). The software driver performed as well as the mobility chip.
[This message has been edited by Bob (edited 10-18-2000).]
heh I wish laptops did come (or are coming) with a GeForce2 chip in them! I’d be the first one to get it…
mmmm…Sony Vaio with a Transmetia Corusoe chip and a GeForce2 chipset <drool> <drool>
I have an ibook with a Rage Mobility. Not only was the performance bad … but geez, it didn’t even have alpha blending support. =b
/ec
Just to add on the ATI crap:
We bought a DELL Inspiron 7500 lately (Pentium III 750Mhz + ATI Rage Mobility 8Mb RAM) and it is holly crap…
Our old Toshiba laptop (450Mhz) performs better in software rendering mode…
Not to mention I managed to have acceleration only with 16-bit color buffer and 16-bit zbuffer (whatever the resolution !).
That’s a thing everybody should know: there is no such thing than hw acceleration on laptops…
Eric
P.S. : and I’m sad that it is like that !
Hardware T&L is overrated. I’ve done a comparison of with/without and there is only a small increase in performance.
I’m fairly certain that none of the games in the next few years will require hardware T&L. Definitely not while 3Dfx are still making cards without it.
I tend to rate HW T&L higher than FSAA…
That’s just to talk about 3DFX ! 
Regards.
Eric
I’m sad its like that too!
We’ve been trying to find a small single board computer with 3d acceleration and an LCD out for an embedded application.
I thought we’d struck gold with this one board that had everything we needed on board and was under 4.5 x 5.0 inches square. It has the Rage Mobility chipset though 
Actually I knida disagree here.Games in the future will require H&W.The only reason why they didn’t do it before is becasue most games use DX7 which has T&L capabilities (but not that good) BUT…once DX8 comes out,that will all change.You could still be playing those games but it won’t look or perform as well as it would on T&L.
And what kind of benchmarks are you running? EVERY single benchmark tests made out there (between a GeForce2 card and a Voodoo 5500) shows that the GeForce wins everytime! Logically speaking,if hardware T&L is there and it takes a big load off of the processor,then why not use it? There are no downsides,and as I see it,it’s the only logical way to go
Just my 2 cents.
[This message has been edited by TheGecko (edited 10-19-2000).]
How can you compare t&l using a geforce2 and a voodoo5, i think the geforce2 would be better even if you turned of t&l.
Isn’t 3dfx falling way behind i see the geforce2 ultra running 2x as fast the voodoo5 5500, when the voodoo5 6000 comes they wont even be able to keep up with a geforce2 ultra.
So 3dfx will need 4 x Memory and Processors to just keep up with nvidia.
Or 3dfx will just get an injunction against
nVidia that puts them out of business. There
seems to be Actual patent infringement.
(Whether it was intentional or not is besides
the point, as far as I understand the law).
Anyway, I would walk through fire for a
VAIO with a mobile Radeon. Well, close. Too
bad there isn’t such a thing.
I don’t know how better 3D apps and games are going to be with hardware T/L
but if you are looking for the best 3D acceleration on laptops (sorry to the Windows guys ) the only choice is a 500 Mhz PowerBook G3 with the ATI 128 mobility chip.
The performance in OpenGL on this little machines is just amazing altough
Opengl on the Mac is still a baby (current version 1.1).
I am however sure that Laptops in the future WILL have built in 3D chipsets on them.It’s all just a matter of time.(and money :P)
I gave up on MacOS in 1995.
Thanks for all the input; I’ll just have to
wait until a HT&L laptop comes out. And I
hope it’s as sleek as the VAIO SR7K 
I currently have a PictureBook, which doesn’t
have hardware 3D at all (an old version of
NeoMagic 256).
ATi is actually gonna do a mobile Radeon chip. But it could be months before it appears …
Thought I would drop another data point.
A guy at work had just bought a new Dell, 800MHZ with a 16MB ATI mobility video card. It was definitely faster than software support. We tried it on one of the applications we work on. Software rendering limits one to about a 50x50 window (if that), we were able to run full screen and got okay performance. Granted the application isn’t doing anything supper exciting, just rendering tris with textures, transparency etc. It certainly wasn’t as fast as the Nvidia cards but it wasn’t bad. An earlier post mentioned software support was the same as using the card. I think he must have had old drivers… I’m still holding out for a Geforce on a laptop though
Originally posted by Don’t Disturb:
Hardware T&L is overrated. I’ve done a comparison of with/without and there is only a small increase in performance.
I’m fairly certain that none of the games in the next few years will require hardware T&L. Definitely not while 3Dfx are still making cards without it.
But the difference is that with hardware T&L you get loads more processor time so you can do loads of other cool things like good physics (IK cloth simultion and other dynamics) and much better AI. Also theres a big benefit from having the CPU and GFX-card working in paralell instead of sequentially
Joakim Hårsman
I have had occasions where hardware T&L did not make a difference in my benchmarks. Then I figured out that my Leadtek Winfast GeForce 2 didn’t work very well with the nVidia reference drivers. I installed the Leadtek drivers and more than tripled my framerate! I have seen numerous interviews with leading game developers (Video Game News, Reviews, and Walkthroughs - IGN for example) and they ALL seem to want hardware T&L. The time has passed when 3dfx could define the future of 3D graphics. The developers should ultimately be the ones saying what they want and don’t want and I really respect nVidia for realizing that and working closely with the developers. I’m not a 3dfx basher- I love my Voodoo3. It added years to my ancient computer and my first TNT gave me many nightmares and headaches (I sold it when I realized software mode in Half-Life ran faster than OpenGL or Direct3D). I just think that 3dfx has lost site of the big picture.
[This message has been edited by DrakanFyr (edited 10-23-2000).]