rec.autos.simulators

by **zo..** » Sun, 07 Jul 1996 04:00:00

Hello,

Can anyone tell me who manufactures 3D cards based on the rendition chipset?

Thanks

Todd

by **Eric T. Busc** » Sun, 07 Jul 1996 04:00:00

> Can anyone tell me who manufactures 3D cards based on the rendition chipset?

Right now, there are no Renditon cards out. However, both the Creative
Labs 3D Blaster PCI and the Number 9 9FX Reality 532 will be using the
chip. But, even though the Rendition chip will be used as the Direct3d
reference chipset by Microsoft, it looks as though the 3Dfx
Interactive's Voodoo Graphics chip will have better performance and
support more features.

See: http://www.3dfx.com/ for more info. Most noteably, look at the 3D
Feature Comparison located at: http://www.3dfx.com/tech/bench.html

--

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

by **Mark Ridgewa** » Mon, 08 Jul 1996 04:00:00

The articles in Computer *** World stated that the only card
currently in production using the Rendition 3D chipset was the 3D
Blaster PCI by Creative Labs. It is due out in August or so and should
run under $300. I'm already saving my money to snatch one of these up
as soon as it hits the shelf. Its supposed to make NASCAR 2 really fly.

Hope that gives you some info.

by **Chris Drak** » Mon, 08 Jul 1996 04:00:00

> > Can anyone tell me who manufactures 3D cards based on the rendition chipset?

> Right now, there are no Renditon cards out. However, both the Creative
> Labs 3D Blaster PCI and the Number 9 9FX Reality 532 will be using the
> chip. But, even though the Rendition chip will be used as the Direct3d
> reference chipset by Microsoft, it looks as though the 3Dfx
> Interactive's Voodoo Graphics chip will have better performance and
> support more features.

> See: http://www.3dfx.com/ for more info. Most noteably, look at the 3D
> Feature Comparison located at: http://www.3dfx.com/tech/bench.html

> --

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

I'll take a look at the above website, however, according to the review
in the July CGW it appears as though the Rendition has mor features.
The 3Dfx doesn't support trilinear filtering or hardware lighting. The
Rendition supports both. The article does state that the 3Dfx may be the
highest performing 3D graphics solution available though.

If anyone is interested, the Orchid Righteous 3D will be based on this
chipset and should be priced about the same as the Creative board.

Personally, after reading the article and looking at the head to head
features comparison I will probably opt for the Rendition based Creative
board.

Chris

by **Eric T. Busc** » Mon, 08 Jul 1996 04:00:00

> I'll take a look at the above website, however, according to the review
> in the July CGW it appears as though the Rendition has mor features.
> The 3Dfx doesn't support trilinear filtering or hardware lighting. The
> Rendition supports both. The article does state that the 3Dfx may be the
> highest performing 3D graphics solution available though.

Well this information is just plain wrong. The 3Dfx does indeed support
trilinear filtering and lit polygons while it is the Rendition that does
not do either of these two features. It looks like CGW got the two
mixed up. This has been quite a hot topic over in the
comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action newsgroup. The facts were set clear by a
former employee of 3Dfx. If your news server keeps posts around for a
while, check out the '3d Cards rated by speed, & MW2' thread.

On the CGW inaccuracies:

Subject: Re: 3D cards rated by speed, & MW2
Date: Wed, 03 Jul 1996 19:10:56 -0700
Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA

Just to back up the other poster, the Voodoo graphics chipset does, in
fact, support
trilinear filtering and does lit polygons (although it doesn't do the
actual lighting
equation in hardware, since it's only a 2D rasterizer).

I wrote the hardware interface library for the Voodoo, so I'm pretty
confident I know
what I'm talking about.

Verite does NOT have t-li filtering, since this implies per-pixel
mapping which the
Verite does not have and Voodoo most assuredly does. You could also
check
www.3dfx.com and www.rendition.com.

Brian

On TRILINEAR Filtering:

Subject: Re: 3D cards rated by speed, & MW2
Date: Fri, 05 Jul 1996 17:28:55 -0700
Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA

I don't think that the term "trilinear" filtering can be used by anybody
because of potential trademark and/or patent issues, so often when you
see "LOD blending" or "advanced filtering", it's another name for
trilinear filtering.

Trilinear == interpolating between two groups of 4 texels based on a
weight derived from the fractional LOD between two mip map levels. In
essence it's a combination of bilinear blending and MIP map
interpolation, and it's sole purpose is to reduce MIP map "banding"
artifacts.

3Dfx supports this, although they don't call it such.

Brian

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://www.racesimcentral.net/~ebusch/
Hawaii Network UserName: Buschwick

by **Kevin Hua** » Tue, 09 Jul 1996 04:00:00

>> Can anyone tell me who manufactures 3D cards based on the rendition chipset?
>Right now, there are no Renditon cards out. However, both the Creative
>Labs 3D Blaster PCI and the Number 9 9FX Reality 532 will be using the
>chip. But, even though the Rendition chip will be used as the Direct3d
>reference chipset by Microsoft, it looks as though the 3Dfx
>Interactive's Voodoo Graphics chip will have better performance and
>support more features.
>See: http://www.3dfx.com/ for more info. Most noteably, look at the 3D
>Feature Comparison located at: http://www.3dfx.com/tech/bench.html

I think Papyrus will support the Rendition chip more though. I read
somewhere that the 3D accelerated version of ICR 2 will be bundled
with the Creative Labs 3D Blaster. Rendition demonstrated their chip
at E3 with ICR 2. I also read that NASCAR 2 will support the
Rendition chip out of the box.

Kevin

>--

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

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