This needs to be watched....

Lonemagi · Apr 11, 2003

Thu April 10, 2003 06:28 AM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Graphics microchip maker Nvidia Corp. NVDA.O and video game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. ERTS.O said on Thursday they would collaborate to market and develop new games.
Under the terms of the deal, Nvidia hardware will become the "preferred" graphics platform for Electronic Arts's video game studios, and video games developed by Electronic Arts may offer features designed to work on Nvidia hardware.

Nvidia also said it will have exclusive rights to bundle Electronic Arts's games for personal computers with its products.

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... And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free, and I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.

dhlucke · Apr 11, 2003

I don't like this. Why would a game developer burn a bridge like ATI?

GOD BLESS AMERICA

Lonemagi · Apr 11, 2003

I dunno, but im hoping that it is just in the form of advertising, like at the beginning of UT2003 (which is amusing that it looks so well on my 9700 pro).

I really think its a shame, but lets just hope it is just words and logos, not restrictive code.

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... And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free, and I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.

Unit01 · Apr 11, 2003

money money money
And PR

MegaCharger · Apr 11, 2003

EA games blow most of the time anyways. Who care about them... So nVidia now have exclusive support from EA on Earth & Beyond and Motor City Online(dead)? Who gives a damn.

Lonemagi · Apr 11, 2003

EA has been getting a few good games out, MOH:AA, Need For Speed HP2 (which was strangely better on PS2), SimCity 4, ect...

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... And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free, and I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.

jiffy · Apr 11, 2003

I signed up for Earthviewer and Nvidia has there name all over it as well <A HREF="http://www.earthviewer.com/index.html" target="_new"> earthviewer</A>

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When you feel that reality does not suit you, live a fantasy life.

GeneticWeapon · Apr 12, 2003

This news is all over other forums as well. It seems that Nvidia not only is supplying EA with GeForce FX video cards for their programmers, but there was a large sum of money that changed hands. The games ARE going to be coded using Nvidia's shader language, and we all know what that means...what a bunch of A Holes. This is what the gaming industry doesnt need...games that render on one type of technology better then the other. I would be just as pissed if it were ATI doing this. Nvidia continues to do damaging things to the community every chance they get, first they set the gaming world back one full year by releasing Direct X 7 cards posing as new technology, now they are trying to split the cross refrence programming community into two groups, forcing gamers to choose sides. When average Joe gamer goes into an electronics store and see's that all of the games are displaying an Nvidia logo, claiming that this is "The Way it's Meant to be Played"....what kind of video card do you think he's going to purchase when it's time for him to upgrade?...The blatant truth of the matter in my eyes is this...If the graphics card your making doesnt beat the competitors...simply buy out the games houses to coded specifically for your product. 3Dfx did the same thing back in the day. Most of the games back then had a 3Dfx symbol on the box, and it made them millions. The first board I ever bought was a VooDoo. I cant waite to see how far this is gonna go. If all of the games that I love to play, render faster and better on GeForce cards...I wont have a choice but to buy one.

My Score..<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6258104" target="_new">http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6258104</A>

Crashman · Apr 12, 2003

EA has been neglecting their ATI users for a long time, I've had many games that took weeks or months for a patch to be issued curing a driver incompatabity.

Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!

Crashman · Apr 12, 2003

I should also mention something else from EA's history: Need for Speed didn't properly support nVidia cards either, being configured primarily for VooDoo graphics! So the company has a long history of only supporting one player in the industry.

Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!

sargeduck · Apr 12, 2003

I can see it now:
R450 gets 400000 marks in 3d mark 2003. Nv 40 gets 58.
R450 gets 45fps in Madden '04. NV 40 gets 400000.
If Nvidia is going to go down this route, then maby ATI should partner with John Carmack (Doom 3), blizzard (do I have to name 'em?), and valve (if there ever is a Half-Life 2). These games are way more popular than what EA could ever make.
This sort of thing I think is very bad for the gaming community as a whole.

TheGreatGrapeApe · Apr 12, 2003

Actually EA makes the most popular game in the PC world, and perhaps NVIDIA realizes this, and EA realizes that the NVIDIA cards are really only useful for this 'game';

The SIMS the PERFECT graphics load match for NVIDIA technology .

Seiously I only know of 1 EA game thatrequires SERIOUS 3D power that would cause me concern and that's Medal of Honour, whereas I don't think that NHL 2003 and others would make THAT big a difference. Now things like F1 and Nascar MAY be affected but I'm not sure if the optimizations will make much difference, and seriously if they SUCK on one card over the others, then people WILL migrate to the other publishers like 989 and Sega.

As I've said, we would be better served by a 3 (or more) way race for Graphics supremacy.

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) ! RED GREEN :tongue: GA to SK

Twitch · Apr 12, 2003

Don't forget Battlefield 1942.

I hate EA because their games are usually really slick-looking, have good game-play, but are buggy as hell.

As far as the deal with nVidia goes, I wonder what's in it for EA. I can see why nVidia would want game developers optimizing for nVidia hardware, but how does it benefit EA to show preference to one hardware manufacturer? I mean, you would think EA would stand to lose far more money by pi$$ing off the ATI users than nVidia could shell out to line their pockets.

Why do I smell a back-room deal where EA's Directors of marketing and R&D are now driving new Ferraris?

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

Edited by Twitch on 04/12/03 03:35 PM.

GeneticWeapon · Apr 12, 2003

Twitch...did you jump into the end of this post without reading the beginning?(laughing)..EA got lots of moola and FX boards for their programming.

My Score..<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6258104" target="_new">http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6258104</A>

Twitch · Apr 12, 2003

I edited it...I KNEW someone was gonna say that.

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

hineigger · Apr 13, 2003

Why are you guys so mad? How can you call them "A holes". Its BUSINESS. They arent your brother who promised he'd do the most to help you over everyone else. This is a company trying to do business. If you dont like it, get an Nvidia card (which is the whole point of the whole thing.).

Dont get mad at people for doing WHAT YOU AS WELL AS EVERYONE WANTS TO DO IN REAL LIFE, and thats make as much money as possible.

TheGreatGrapeApe · Apr 13, 2003

You miss the whole point people who have supported EA for a long time (I have most EA NHL'XX) and helped build THEIR company get pissed like any loyal customer when they take it up the hoop, or basket.

Yeah it's business, and we shall see how much they loose if they screw their fans. Rememeber EA isn't the ONLY player in gaming and 989 and Sega would be more than happy to take all their disgruntled consumers. And we will see what the overall impact is, if people boycott EA, NOT buy Nvidia (you don't get it do you?) then you may see this deal crumble.

 I have Cup Fever and have been Quarantined for the duration. GO Bruins !!!! 

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) ! RED GREEN :tongue: GA to SK

Crashman · Apr 13, 2003

what are you talking about? And why should I buy an inferior card just to play inferior games from a company with an inferior attitude? Obviously you were one of those guys who screamed VooDoo 4 is better when the Geforce 256 DDR came out? Because that was what EA decided for it's customers. And we saw what happened to 3DFX.

Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!

speeduk · Apr 13, 2003

This is extremely worrying. Surely most ppl cant afford 2 state of the art pc's for gaming purposes. You may think that just swapping the card will do but you will need the software on a diff hard drive/partition because we all know what a pain it can be going from ati to nvidea and vise versa. Besides if this nonsense does go through i would not buy any software optimised for the other card that i have at the time because im not spending another 300 quid on a top rate card to play the thing! Anyways if this does go through i think it will slowly kill off pc gaming. Ive been playin pc games for years, still play counter-strike but it seems i wont be gettin many new games from now on 0_o

Crashman · Apr 13, 2003

nah, they'll probably still be 100% direct X compliant. But I suggest everyone try warez copies of their favorite new EA game before buying it, just to be sure it will work with their hardware. And if the temptation NOT to BUY the game when they already own a warez copy is too great, well, that's the price EA pays for their decision.

Wait, isn't EA a French company anyway?

Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!

MegaCharger · Apr 13, 2003

The most popular game in the PC world..... What is that? There are only about 30 games in the history of man kind that ever sold more than a million copies, all of Blizzard's PC games(BroodWar, StarCraft, WarCraft 1, 2, 3, Diablo 1, 2) Final Fantasy 7, Lineage, just to name a few. EA is definitly NOT one of the best out there. Their only saving grace is The Sims(not counting the expansions, those didn't sell as good as the original). And after chunking out 504985043253840523 bajillion expansions even that title has gone straight down the toilet.

Yes I HATE EA. They bought out WestWood, one of the finest pioneer in the RTS industry. They bought them, forced them to speed up their games. The result? Every WW game after Red Alert sucked major balls. Maybe Generals is a little bit better but it was no longer but then again it's still not that good. And you know what a few months ago they destroyed WestWood. Now that name is gone forever.

reever2 · Apr 14, 2003

EA stinks, ever since they controlled OSI the company which handles Ultima Online the game has become complete crap to how it was when the original creator called the shots

TheGreatGrapeApe · Apr 14, 2003

The most popular game in the PC world..... What is that?

Uhhh, The Sims. Duh!!! Yeah I hate the damn game, but I know the reality of it's power. Yeah you may want to qualify their achievement, however they're still number 1 by a LONG shot on PCs.
Sure GTA-III beats it on the console and MAYBE overall, but for the PC platform, which is what we are talking about, Sims is still the all time champ, and that's not even including SimCity, etc..
You may Hate EA, but try to at least stick with reality.

I liked EA, only because NHL'XX was/is AWESOME, however their recent activities have ticked me off!

The reality is they have POWER, the thing is it will only affect me a BIT, since I don't play 1942, or MEdal of Honour or C&C, but I will be pissed if I lose NHL2004 to this deal.

But Hey, I've never really tried 989 or Sega's hockey; or even Microsoft's new Hockey game. Man ya' really gotta tick me off to force me to turn to MicroSnot!

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) ! RED GREEN :tongue: GA to SK

TheGreatGrapeApe · Apr 14, 2003

I was going to suggest that fix.

'Borrow' it until you're sure it works flawlessly on your machine. If there are even the slightest compatibility issues. You may want to play your 'borrowed' version until they make it work on your machine, even if that takes forever.
I Buy all my current games, however this may change my attitude towards 'hard-drive-playable' versions that don't require the original 'retail' CD to play. But just MAYBE of course, nothing definitie for legal purposes.

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) ! RED GREEN :tongue: GA to SK

alpha_03 · Apr 14, 2003

lol business? what is business? business is giving your customers what they want and giving your investors returns for their investments, period. however, customers MUST be happy or your investment goes south, as well, the company. on the other hand i agree in that i dont see why ea, esp. with the recent sucess of bf-1942 would want to align themselves with nvidia exclusively. one could say bribe, payoff ect. but that still wouldnt make sence, as we now see ati is getting a great deal more customers. as for code specific games, i will have to admitt most times they look and play much better (remember 3dfx). but it is ironic that in retrospect nvidia chooses to tout their unified driver platform as a base for sales and customer satisfaction, which has been a great sucess. i personally use nvida for my graphics choice at present but if i had to choose based on whats best at present i'd own a ati 9700 pro ONLY if ati would go to a unified driver platform as nvidia has. i also think you'd see a reverse attitude in the gaming world if ati did this. one can not get around the fact that ati cards have always been buggy with certain games because of their driver platform not being unified. i personally feel that from a consumer stand point a unified driver aspect needs to be adapted that supports all games not ones the graphics card companies determine for us (ie. reason for direct-x). in truth we the consumer pay for this "choice" of which video card we will use. now your prob saying wtf is this idiot talking about, well we pay for the games that that we play, we also are forced to pay more for said games because game companies have to do the best they can to insure that the games we buy will work cross platform and that cost money to do, ie who pays for it in the end, you and i. do you smell a 3dfx attitude here.

(old person by trait)Edited by alpha_03 on 04/13/03 08:48 PM.

This needs to be watched....

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