Wave Issue 9713 6/6/97 Article 6-01

***Game and PC Crossover Analysis
by Jonathan Sunberg and John Latta

Competition to capture $ being spent on in-home entertainment electronics
is especially fierce between the PC platform and home video games. Game
developers have told us that until the PC reaches an installed base of 1m
units of 3D acceleration with at least competitive performance they will
not focus on the PC as a 3D platform. We believe that the issue is more
complex than an installed based number, it is about performance and the
PC reaching parity with all the installed base of all video consoles
which use 3D.

At 4th Wave, parent to the WAVE Report, we sought an answer to this
question using recent tools and market estimates which we have developed.
We are currently working on a 3D Market report which examines all 3D real
time applications and in that process have developed a profile of 3D chip
sales by year, by price, by market segment and by performance (fill
rate). With these tools answering the question posed above became a
straight forward "what if" exercise.

Our first step in this exercise is to answer the question - what is
performance parity between the PC and the video consoles? Here we used
our 3D Performance Characterization results, which is posted on our home
page, to determine the 3D accelerator performance levels.

The Sony Playstation specifications state that it is capable of 180,000
texture mapped Gouraud shaded polygons/sec. According to a game developer
who has worked extensively with the platform this number is accurate if
the Playstation does just polygons without state changes and other
functions. The Nintendo 64, according to Next Generation, is capable of
160,000 polygons/sec with features turned on which include trilinear MIP-
Mapping. According to our tests at 4th Wave only the 3Dfx Voodoo based
Obsidian card will sustain 200,000 triangles/sec across a range of
triangle sizes to 200 pixels with Bilinear filtering (we did not run
trilinear tests because D3Dbench does not support trilinear MIP-Mapping
testing). Thus, we conclude 3Dfx Voodoo level performance is a minimum to
be a competitive against the home video consoles. This implies a fill
rate on the PC of at least 45mp/sec with all filtering features turned
on.

Our analysis is now focused on the question - what is the ramp of 3D
acceleration on the PC in terms of units sold and installed base against
both home video consoles? All of this analysis is for the US market but
it can be extended to a worldwide basis.

Another component in our analysis is an assessment of the future sales of
the Playstation and Nintendo64. Here we looked at ship rates from many
sources and reached what is a probable sales level to the year 2000. By
1997 we estimate that the Playstation will sell 6.7m units and the
Nintendo64 6.5m units in the US and the installed base will reach 10m and
8.25m units respectively.

Our PC analysis considers chip sales and installed base at 30,40,50 and
60mp/sec. We estimate that the units sold and the installed base at the
50mp/sec will only reach approximately 1/2m units by the end of 1997.
Note that these estimates are for units into the home and with the actual
performance levels stated.

In 1998 the installed base of combined Playstations and Nintendo 64s
reaches 29m units and the PCs with 30mp/s performance exceeds the home
video consoles with 32m units installed. It is not until 1999 that the PC
installed base exceeds the combined Playstation and Nintendo64 numbers at
the 40 and 50mp/sec level (home video 37m units vs. 48m units on the PC).
By 2000 the PC swamps the home video games with 106m installed base at
50mp/sec fill rate threshold compared to 43m with the combined home video
console numbers. Looking to 2000 one has to be cautious as it is expected
that both Nintendo and Sony will have new generation systems shipping by
then.

The PC is a juggernaut whose unit shipments will eventually swamp the
home video game sales, in spite of the lower price of the dedicated
units. Only until recently has the PC been able to approach performance
parity with the home video consoles. Our analysis shows this is very
realistic and once the PC begins shipping at these performance levels the
ramp to overcome the home video game market is quite rapid.

The charts showing our analysis will be on our homepage at:

www.fourthwave.com.