Nvidia's behind the scenes fights with Microsoft

NVIDIA HELD A CONFERENCE IN LONDON over the last few days and a friend of ours who was doing some work at the venue happened to overhear a few interesting conversations. We caught up with him at a pub in London and fed him beer until there were no more beans to spill.

One of the most fascinating things he managed to listen in on was the story of Microsoft's attempt to flex its muscles with DirectX 9. It seems that a story we published a fair while ago uncovered a goodly amount of the truth.

When Microsoft was first putting together the specifications for DirectX 9 they gathered various companies together to help build the API. After a very short while, Intel and Nvidia both walked away from the whole thing and now we know why.

It seems that Microsoft wanted both companies to agree to reveal any patents they had relating to the technology the Vole was building. Once revealed, the Vole expected the companies to hand the patents over for good. Intel and Nvidia walked away. Only recently has it signed an altered agreement. That is why the GeForce FX does not follow the DirectX 9 specifications to the letter.

Another revelation that our friend managed to overhear was about the recent arbitration between Microsoft and Nvidia. We all know that the Vole was trying to get Nvidia to cut its prices but now we may know why. It was nothing to do with patents or Nvidia's ability to supply chips in volume. It was all to do with missed milestones and the chipset not performing as fast as Nvidia had promised. Microsoft is losing money at an incredible rate on Xbox and has been trying every trick in the book to get Nvidia to cut its prices.

The last thing our friend managed to eavesdrop on as he was packing up his kit was that Nvidia staff knew nothing about the GeForce FX being dropped. Nvidia is obviously doing its best to keep its people in the dark. There were plenty of complaints from the gathered developers when there were not enough cards to go around. They had been promised one each. µ

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