Out in Front: April 11, 1996
Graphics board supports 3-D and video
Just months after PC and graphics-add-in card vendors made hardware-video support standard, the same group is now adding 3-D-image acceleration. Diamond Multimedia, for example, has just announced its Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 based on the ViRGE accelerator from S3 Inc. The PCI-bus-based Stealth 3D includes 2 to 4 Mbytes of extended-data-out DRAM and retails for approximately $250. The design is also available to system vendors on an OEM basis. Both shrink-wrapped-retail and OEM versions will be available in June.
The ViRGE architecture features perspective corrections for texture mapping on a pixel-per-pixel basis. Other features include bilinear filtering and Z-buffer support. The architecture also allows software developers to use a video source as a texture map.
Stealth 3D 2000 offers several options, including a $129 MPEG Video Player 1100 daughtercard and a $129 DTV 1100 TV tuner. Drivers are available for Windows 3.1, 95, and NT and for DOS applications, such as AutoCAD.
—by Maury Wright
Diamond Multimedia Systems Inc, San Jose, CA. (408) 325-7000.
S3 Inc, Santa Clara, CA. (408) 980-5400.
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