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http://www.macnn.com/articles/01/07/23/villagetronic.to/

VillageTronic to offer Trident chips on Mac

updated 11:40 am EDT, Mon July 23, 2001

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MacNN has learned that Village Tronic will be the only graphics card manufacturer to offer Trident chips on the Mac platform, and that the company hopes to have "GeForce 3 level performance by early next year, at a significantly lower price." At last week's expo, Village Tronic unveiled the MPDD+, a Mac OS X-compatible card specially designed for use with multiple displays.

by MacNN Staff

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07/23, 11:39am | report spam | close Reply | delete
fb

first bark !

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07/23, 11:41am | report spam | close Reply | delete
it has to be cheaper

its got a suggested retail of $99. Since the ATi LE has DUAL monitor support it seems like it would be the obvious choice. Even considering that ATi's drivers are sometimes a little suspect and aren't updated regularly they at least have the experience that villagetronic doesn't. Besides, I'd bet that the ATi card will have decent 3D anyway, even if it isn't the full radeon part- and that could be helpful for 3d modelers. And- the ATi card makes a better upgrade part for older macs- designing a card to be a secondary card means VT is sacrificing performance for price- will that make it about the same as a rage128 card?- again I'd rather go with ATi.

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07/23, 12:01pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
wild crazy

These guys used to make Amiga stuff! I had no idea they were still around!

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07/23, 12:05pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
what?

VT waited almost a year to supply decent drivers for their banshee card! I wouldn't buy another product from this company!

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07/23, 12:25pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
VT is a joke.

Cheaper? Not bloody likely from this company. At one pont they were charging almost 3x the cost of a Voodoo3 card for a product that barely reached Voodoo2 performance.

Date of last VT driver update?

Early 2000.

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07/23, 12:47pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Cant get them anyhow...

The only place they list as a distributer is Smalldog.com, anf they dont have any of thier products listed...

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07/23, 01:18pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Empty promises again

I wouldn't believe them, if history was an indicator.
I bought their first and second cards, and each time,
they couldn't supply drivers that worked worth a damn,
and by the time they DID, better boards for less money
were available. This company really shouldn't be in
business. Never again....

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07/23, 01:20pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Cheaper?

Every GF3 will be cheaper by next year, everyone will be using GF4s by then.

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07/23, 01:32pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
First Bark

I'm tired of never getting first bark. Oh well, guess I'll go back and see what this thread is about.

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07/23, 01:45pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Re: First Bark

Never get the first bark? That's rrrrrrrruff!

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07/23, 01:49pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
lame lame lame

Trident video sucks. Just what the Mac world needs, another manufacturer of crummy clone hardware. Trident is a joke in the PC world. They hope to achieve GeForce3 level performance in 6 months? They can't even achieve TNT2 performance now. What a joke.

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07/23, 02:09pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Re: Re: first bark

You can shout that from the wooof tops brother.

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07/23, 02:16pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Early next year?

next year a GeForce3 will be slow.

it's interesting to note that everyone claims Apple is a hardware company...their hardware is consistently 6 months to a year behind the PC world.

Guess they better get out of the hardware business.

Maybe they could simply rely on selling that OSX beta for $130 plus the $20 'patch' to enable SOME of the hardware on your machine.

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07/23, 02:23pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Trident sucks!

Trident's chips suck. I used to use them on no-name brand video cards way back in 1990. They're alright for generic and trusty but for performance, they suck. But competition is good on the Mac platform. We need more than ATI and NVIDIA, so welcome!

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07/23, 02:30pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Re: Apple hardware co.

No one thinks Apple is a hardware company but them. Do people buy Macs for the hardware? None that I know of, they all are interested in the OS. The hardware is an unfortunate necessity... because of Apple.

$500 OSX for PCs, as well as $130 one for Macs? Please?

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07/23, 02:32pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Trident?

Trident? Oh, yea - THAT'S who I think of first when I think of great 3D processors............... This will be their first one, methinks. Tirdent is a real low end OEM for mostly VGA cards. The last one I even saw was a VESA model (they might have make a PCI version, never an AGP version that anybody would buy retail). For the past few years Trident chips went mostly to eMachines type boxes as a 2d chip on a super-cheapo motherboard).

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07/23, 04:28pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Beat me to it

I was going to hop on and pan Trident chips too, but luckily some other cross-platform folks have already taken up the chant.

This is the LAST thing the mac platform needs.

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07/23, 04:45pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
All your hot chicks

... are belong to us?

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07/23, 07:12pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Who wants a Trident card?

Trident is soooo far behind, it ain't even funny. If you think ATI is lagging, take a good look at Trident!

...Hopes to have "GeForce 3 level performance by early next year, at a significantly lower price."...

Yeah, and I hope to have $10B in my bank account next year, too. Now I'm news!

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07/23, 07:18pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
I see now..

They're pushing it, not as a performance card, but just as a way to cheaply drive a second monitor, even if it's an old 12" Apple Color Display. Kind of like what the Griffin things do, I guess. I know I have a few fixed-frequency monitors I'd love to use with OS X. I'd definately buy it - for the right price. And that price is less than $99USD...

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07/23, 07:57pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Right price???

19.95 USD.

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07/23, 08:54pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
We have a $hitty

So basically they're saying that they'll sell you a crummy card to drive a analog monitor. how g**.

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07/24, 01:24am | report spam | close Reply | delete
FU Village Tronic

I think $4.95 would be more like it. "cheaper" in their minds probably means $249, instead of the inflated $300 we are already paying for GF3.

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07/24, 04:29am | report spam | close Reply | delete
(Most of) You guys sucks!

Having owned a MacPicasso 540 card, I can safely say, that
it was/is one of the most expandable/configurable/affordable/durable etc. graphiccards I have ever used.

Oh yeah let's just junk this company for making anything for the mac :-(

Idiots!

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07/24, 09:13am | report spam | close Reply | delete
What I'd like to see..

Our biggest problem isn't what video hardware is currently available for Macs...it's that the hardware is only available when buying a Mac, so Apple, controlling distribution, also controls really high prices. The only other player, ATI, sells Mac boards separately, but knows they're about the only direct-channel choice, so they don't lower prices either.
I'd like to see someone like Hercules adapt their Kyro2 based 3D Prophet 4500 to Mac. All it takes is one successful manufacturer who can significantly undercut the field while providing respectable performance and driver stability, and it'll bring prices down quickly. If they sell direct, it should cause Apple to lower graphics card prices too, because otherwise, people will buy the cheapest option available and buy their card aftermarket (Well, I hope so at least...after all, some folks are still dumb enough to pay triple the market cost of RAM and hard disk space by buying big at the Apple Store). I hope most people are smart enough to configure a Mac model as low as they can go, and then buy the extras elsewhere. Someone mentioned "It's all about the OS". They're right.

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07/24, 11:28am | report spam | close Reply | delete
No, you're all wrong.

The "all about the OS" comment is perhaps the most ignorant one on this entire thread -- where the h*** do you think Apple's 2.3 billion dollars in cash came from, sales of OS 9? Without Apple's hardware sales (and frankly, their amazing per-unit markup) there would be NO MAC OS or OS X. You can't seperate the two. The dollars from hardware sales go back into R&D and become the OS development.

Or are you idiots so powerfully dimwitted that you have ALREADY forgotten the clone fiasco?

Morons.

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07/24, 11:48am | report spam | close Reply | delete
clones

The clone 'fiasco'? The era of the clones was a great time to be a Macintosh user! For once, you could buy a Macintosh at a price equivalent to a PC. I'd give anything to go back to those days. The success of the clones is undeniable proof that users only want the OS, not expensive, overpriced hardware to run it on. Viva Power Computing!

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07/24, 03:22pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Viva Power Comp nah

power computing was great but there was a lack of quality ihn thier machines from case to graphics etc. owning one i can easily tell the difference between mine and my 8500. apple really needs to knock down dam hardware prices id say everything kncked down at least 500 on the pro line would be a little better but man they need to drop prices

berserkintosh@yahoo.com

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07/24, 09:34pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
VT? Never again!!

I've been screwed by VillageTronic once, never again!! I own a VT850 card(with a Banshee chip). On the box they promise OpenGL drivers to be released in couple of months, that's the reason I ever bought the card. Guess what....after more than 2 years I still don't have working OpenGL drivers! I'm very surprised they're still in business, with all the crippled VT cards out there.

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07/25, 06:56pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Come on you guys

Village Tronics MPDD+ works on the OS X virtual display area. Look at the software MP. It allows you to adjust the smallest pixel, refresh rates and so on. And you say this company sucks? Who do you works for ? NVidea ?

This is a fine and reputable company and I just bought one and am so so so happy. You just havent seen it yet.

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VillageTronic to offer Trident chips on Mac

updated 11:40 am EDT, Mon July 23, 2001

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Recent Articles

fb

it has to be cheaper

wild crazy

what?

VT is a joke.

Cant get them anyhow...

Empty promises again

Cheaper?

First Bark

Re: First Bark

lame lame lame

Re: Re: first bark

Early next year?

Trident sucks!

Re: Apple hardware co.

Trident?

Beat me to it

All your hot chicks

Who wants a Trident card?

I see now..

Right price???

We have a $hitty

FU Village Tronic

(Most of) You guys sucks!

What I'd like to see..

No, you're all wrong.

clones

Viva Power Comp nah

VT? Never again!!

Come on you guys

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