3DLabs: Dumb Question

[Twitch]

If I felt like I just had too much money (yeah right), and bought a 3DLabs Wildcat, what problems would I run into? Does this card work for the same applications as, say, a 9700 PRO? Would it be faster on a PC with XP? Would it even work? Is it only for developers on graphics workstations?
WTF?

I noticed that 3DLabs has a Wildcat version that costs aroun $600.00 U.S., and it made me curious.

Just curious.


<-----Insert witty sig line here.


<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Twitch on 03/04/03 00:10 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Crashman]

I doubt the thing even has full Direct X capability, this card is soley aimed at Open GL performance.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[Twitch]

Well, that;s what made me curious. The description says it has full Direct3D compatibility. Doesn't say anything about Dirext X support though. Nor on their web-site.

I've always wondered why someone in the workstation segment didn't come out with an ultra high-end solution for desktop PC's. Seems like there would be a market, even if you did have to charge $600-$800 per unit to make a profit. Then again, maybe I'm simplifying things too much.

Here's the description of the Wild Cat from newegg.com.

"3D Labs Wildcat VP 870 128Mb 256-bit DDR SDRAM - RETAIL Wildcat VP's Visual Processing Architecture delivers industry-leading OpenGL, Direct3D and shading language acceleration. Designed and Optimized for Professional Aplications: AutoCAD Maya"

Now, obviously it's a professional graphics card, but the reference to Direct3D piqued my curiosity. I had always been under the impression that high-end cards were just for OpenGL.


<-----Insert witty sig line here.

 

[davepermen]

its not a gaming card. if you are developer, its cute, you can get opengl2.0 drivers for it, thats fun.. playing with the future of opengl is always funny (the future is bright)

"take a look around" - limp bizkit

www.google.com

 

[Ganache]

Those card sucks at gaming because thay are mostly use to display an insane number of polygons, but really lack the texturing power needed for realtime apps like games.

Because When you work with 3dsmax, you mostly see wireframe of your model, then you put the texture later to be rendered.

if you got money to burn, buy a radeon 9700 pro, and a good monitor. I bought a sony g410 and good did it make a difference on image quality compared to el chepo monitor my frien have..