rec.autos.simulators

: Sierra's Screamin'3D.

Well Eric, you have become r.a.s.' resident 3d expert.  I've been
following the posts here and in the c.s.i.p.h.video newsgroup.  However,
I seem to have missed one thing.  With the rendition chip, who is going
to be responsible for maintaining and updating the Windows drivers?
Will we have to rely on Creative Labs, Sierra, and Intergraph?  Or will
these be provided by the chip designer?

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

It's a thankless job, but someone got to keep you guys from wasting your
money =)

To be honest, I'm not sure about the drivers.  Obviously you will get
DirectX updates (Version 3 was just released a week or so ago) from
Microsoft, but I don't know about more intermediate driver tune-ups.  I
seem to remember seeing that 3Dfx is doing the drivers for all the Voodoo
cards, so perhaps Rendition will be doing the same.  With all of the cards
being pretty much identical hardware-wise, I don't see why this wouldn't be
the case.  Again, I really don't know though.

I'll try and found out for sure and keep everyone informed of what I find.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

Intergraph has started selling their board (Reactor) by 800 number
(800) 692-8069 for overnight delivery.

Creative and Intergraph are doing their own driver support.  Don't
know about Sierra. Their board comes from Canopus (sp?) a
Japanese board builder.

I recently was in contact with Peter Karnazes of Intergraph (Executive
Director, Consumer Products Division) about this.  Intergraph apparently
will be producing its own driver support starting around December.  He said
that there is currently a project underway to improve the Winmark
performance to a minimum of 30M on a P166.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

Eric,

Since all of the boards are identical, I would suspect that we could use ANY
driver from the three vendors.

l8r,

Todd

You might think so, but the S3 Virge cards don't work this way.  I've heard
that Diamond made it so it's drivers only worked on Diamond boards.  It
remains to be seen if any of the companies using the Verite chips will do
the same.  Perhaps Creative Labs will do so to ensure compatibility with
CGL.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

Eric,

According to Intergraph the boards are physically identical, so why would the
drivers not work?

This is from an e-mail I received from Peter A. Karnazes of Intergraph:

"To the best of our knowledge, all three cards are exactly Rendition's
reference design with identical performance.  Rendition has, at times, been
mysterious about their dealings with Creative, so until we actually
purchase a 3DB and look it over we won't know.  The 3DB card that was at a
Microsoft compatibility gathering looked identical to ours.  During our
certification process we have had to add decoupling capacitors and do some
other minor tweaks for the rendering quality to meet our standards.

As far as drivers are concerned, the drivers for the first versions of the
boards should work on all three.  After that, I expect everyone to put an
ID mechanism on their board to prevent unauthorized use.  3DB's CGL works
only on their board which they control through the BIOS."

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

Dave (davids) Sparks
Late Night League
http://www.sequoia-dev.com/Hawaii/latenite.html

All of the Rendition based cards will retail for under $200US.  The PowerVR
looks to be an impressive chip, but it has one major flaw: it lacks support
for bilinear filtering.  This is a huge setback, as it will do nothing to
reduce pixelization of texture maps.  To see an example of the benefits of
bilinear filtering look at: http://www.rendition.com/techdef2.html
Interestingly enough, NEC is using a 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics card in its new
PowerPlayer PCs, not the PowerVR.

As for the Rendition cards, they are all basically identical.  Each
manufacturer will, however, be producing it's own driver updates.  Based on
Intergraph's reputation in the high-end 3D workstation environment, I find
it hard to go with any other card.  A bundled full-version of ICR2 doesn't
hurt either.  Additionally it is the first available card (direct orders
will arrive tomorrow).  Realistically though, I don't think any of the
cards will stand out from its 'brothers'.  

Make your choice on what company you feel will give you the best support
and has bundled software you actually want (for me that's Intergraph).

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

:You might think so, but the S3 Virge cards don't work this way.  I've heard
:that Diamond made it so it's drivers only worked on Diamond boards.  It
:remains to be seen if any of the companies using the Verite chips will do
:the same.  Perhaps Creative Labs will do so to ensure compatibility with
:CGL.
:
All the drivers for the ET6000 based cards are compatiable..

take care

Julian Data
IVGA Member #0004
Director of Information Technology
ACE Beta Tester and Driver of IVGA
Channel Operator of #ivga on IRC (Undernet)
Powered by IVGA Pro Gamer System P6-200 oc 233, 96MB EDO

Eric,

That is why I went with Intergraph, same board, good support, first to market,
and ICR2 Rendition Ready.

l8r,

Todd