3D --- Media Creation --- Shared Space
Published by 4th WAVE, Inc.
Issue #710 5/8/97
CONTENTS
Virtus Announces ConceptCAD [May 7]
At Intel's launch of the Pentium(r) II ConceptCAD was shown as a rapid 3D prototyping and presentation tool for architects. The product provides high quality, full-screen, real-time "walk throughs" to support rapid 3D prototyping and output for architects and design professionals.
3Dlabs Unveils Next Generation High End Chip - GLINT MX [May 7]
3Dlabs raised the bar in the professional 3D accelerator market with GLINT MX. Building on hardware and software compatibility with the 500TX it has also moved to fully support AGP. The chip is scalable and will support up to eight GLINT MX processors. A dual GLINT MX board can display up to 2 million visible polygons per second and provides a texturing rate of up to 55 million pixels per second. Up to 70Mbytes of texture and frame buffer memory may be used of either VRAM or EDO RAM. Resolutions of 1600x1200 can be supported when 16Mbytes of frame buffer memory are used. This enables 32 bit true-color, double-buffered displays with true per-pixel mip-mapping and full tri-linear filtering. In addition, the chip supports HDTV at 1920 pixels horizontal resolution. GLINT MX supports OpenGL 1.1 in hardware, including the new texturing modes. Viewperf results using a single GLINT MX when measured on a 266MHz Pentium II with 32Mbytes of system memory were 29.21 for CDRS-03, 7.65 for Advanced Visualizer and 6.39 for Data Explorer. Driver support includes: an OpenGL Installable Client Driver and Heidi for Windows NT 3.51, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 95 and Direct 3D for Windows 95. Drivers for Windows NT 5.0 and Memphis drivers are under development. Used with GLINT Gamma 3Dlabs sees that GLINT MX will be high performance solution for AGP systems. 3Dlabs has improved the 2D engine with faster blits, 2D fill rates and advanced blit functionality. Boards and systems using GLINT MX will ship in volume H2 1997.
Design wins were simultaneously announced with AccelGraphics, Canopus Corporation, Diamond Multimedia, ELSA, Omnicomp Graphics Corporation, Radius and Symmetric (an STB Company) and system vendors such as Dell, Digital Equipment Corporation, NeTpower and TriStar.
Intergraph - Attacking the SGI Octane Market
Using its CDRS and DRV-04 benchmark results, which it claimed showed near parity with SGI's Octane/SI system, Intergraph claimed that it could ship 4 systems for the price of SGI's one. Its new TDZ(TM) 3D Graphics Workstation models powered by Intel's 266 MHz Pentium II processors are able to achieve a CDRS composite score of 34.68 with an overall performance increase of 25% to 50% over previous generation TDZs. The entry level pricing is $6,995.
Intergraph also announced a new line of personal workstations. The TDZ- 320 with a 200 MHz Pentium Pro processor starts at $6,995; the TDZ-325 with a 266 MHz Pentium II processor starts at $8,395; the TDZ-425 with dual 266 MHz Pentium II processors starts at $9,995; and the TDZ-610 with quad 200 MHz Pentium Pro processors starts at $21,600. All systems include RealiZm 3D graphics, 32-512 MB of memory (128 MB-1 GB in TDZ- 610), and a 2, 4, or 9 GB disk, monitors optional. All configurations come with Windows NT preloaded.
Xing Technology Releases new MPEG Encoder Software [May 6]
Xing Technology Corporation released XingMPEG•Encoder2 which has been optimized for Intel's MMX. The company claims that it is 2X as fast as non-MMX implementations. The software will also support low-bit rate stream encoding. Rates of 45 seconds to encode 1 minute of video are claimed in this application.
XingMPEG•Encoder2 is available for a limited time for $89.
Dynamic Pictures Products to be Distributed in Japan by Nissho Electronics
Dynamic Pictures, Inc. announced that Nissho Electronics will be the exclusive distributor for Oxygen(TM) 3D graphics acceleration technology in Japan. In addition, Nissho Electronics has made an undisclosed equity investment in Dynamic Pictures.
http://www.dynamicpictures.com
Kinetix Unveils 3D Studio VIZ [May 5]
Kintex has introduced 3D Studio VIZ, a new design visualization product. Designed to be an easy-to-use all-inclusive package, 3D Studio VIZ is targeted at the professional design market, including architecture and automotive. Based on the 3D Studio MAX modeling and animation program, 3D Studio VIZ has replaced most of the animation and special effects features with capabilities developed for design visualization. It still uses the 3D Studio plug-in architecture and delivers a host of new features, as well as offering full compatibility with the AutoCAD r14 file format. 3D Studio VIZ is priced at $1,995 ($1,495 for users that purchase AutoCAD r14) and will be available in May.
MetaTools and Fractal - Shareholder Meeting on Merger [April 28]
MetaTools Inc. and Fractal Design Corp. have announced that a shareholder meeting will be held on May 29. The meeting will focus on the proposed merger between the two companies, after which the combined corporation will be known as MetaCreations Corp.
Computer Associates Gains Stake in 3NAME3D [April 30]
CA has announced that they have gained an equity stake in the model production company 3NAME3D. 3NAME3D's capabilities, which have been utilized by major film and television studios, will be used for CA's development efforts in their Unicenter TNG (The Next Generation) project. Unicenter TNG is an enterprise management tool for TCP/IP, SNA, IPX/SPX and DECnet networks as well as 40 different computing platforms. The agreement brings 3NAME3D to the forefront of 3D business-oriented applications. Sandeep Divekar, the President and CEO of 3DNAME3D, told WAVE that he feels the marriage of 3D and business applications is important for several reasons. "The use of 3D in business applications is endless - it can be used to help visualize the interrelations of the complex international economies, for example." He also feels that the market for 3D business applications is potentially much larger than the entertainment and military markets.
$5000 Benchmark Contest from SPEC
The Standard Performance Evaluation Committee (SPEC) has announced the SPEC CPU98 Benchmark Search Program, which is designed to encourage and recognize achievements of the academic and industrial community in providing and developing application code and datasets that could be used as components of the next revision of the SPEC CPU benchmark suites. They are taking submissions from the public, and for each step of the SPEC process that a submission passes, SPEC will compensate the program submitter. A submission that passes all of the steps and is included in the next SPEC CPU benchmark suite will, overall, receive $5000 and a license for the released benchmark suite. For more details see:
http://www.specbench.org/osg/cpu98/search.html
Electric Café Announces ModelShop VR
Electric Café, Inc., a multimedia startup, announced ModelShop VR for Power Macintosh to create 3D content for the Internet. Features included: modeling which includes nine shape tools, lathes, cross-sections, and Boolean subtraction, TrueType and PostScript 3D text; 3D shape libraries; VRML 1.0 and VRML 2.0 support; WWW bookmark management, so that shapes can be linked to other resources on the WWW and that URL links can be dragged directly onto 3D shapes from Netscape Navigator and Adobe PageMill; QuickDraw 3D plug-in renderers and hardware acceleration.
Public betas of ModelShop VR will be available on Electric Café's WWW site.
Users who need advanced modeling, rendering, and animation power can upgrade to ModelShop 3.0, which will also be released this summer. Since ModelShop 3.0 and MODELSHOP VR share a common file format, both programs can open the same 3D model. The upgrade price from ModelShop VR to ModelShop 3.0 will be $199.00.
The release of ModelShop VR follows the January, 1997 release of ModelShop 2.5, Electric Café's first upgrade to the product since acquiring it from Macromedia.
Superscape & Britek Bundling Deal [April 21]
Superscape VR has announced an $850,000 bundling deal with Taiwan-based Britek Electronics Co. Ltd. Under the terms of the deal, Britek will bundle Superscape's Viscape 3D Web browser and Visualizer VR viewer with their graphics boards.
http://www.superscape.com http://vwww.com
Cirrus Logic And Microsoft To Host Internet Game Tournament [April 28]
Cirrus Logic has announced plans to co-host with Microsoft the "Laguna3D Monster Truck Madness Challenge," a tournament held on the Internet and based on Microsoft's Monster Truck Madness game. To enter the game, participants will need to own both a copy of Microsoft's game and a graphics board based on Cirrus' Laguna3D accelerators (including Creative Labs' Graphics Blaster 3D and VideoLogic's GrafixStar 550. The tournament will run from May 15 - August 24, with a grand prize of a new Ford Explorer.
http://www.microsoft.com/games/monster
Intervista - WorldView 2.0 Released [April 5]
Intervista Software, Inc., has released WorldView 2.0 and claims that it is the only complete VRML browser for the PC which includes full Java support, adherence to the VRML standard, extended font support and native interfaces for both Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer. In addition, there is support for the Microsoft DirectX platform, including Direct3D hardware acceleration, DirectInput and DirectSound. WorldView has an External Authoring Interface (EAI) and support for Java in Script Node (JIS).
3Dize Brings out 3Dfotos [March 2]
3Dfotos are claimed to be 3D models that look indistinguishable from photos of real objects. 3DFotos models are seamless, uniformly lit, 100% closed, 24-bit photo textured on all surfaces, and realistically smoothed. The photo texture is taken from the exact real subject modeled. Near pixel level perspective correct photo texture is claimed which further reduces any texture warping and seams, especially during animation. Multiple texture resolutions are provided to support efficient rendering for each specific use. 3DFotos Collection 1 is available now and can be previewed and downloaded at the web site. Pricing for the collection is $30.
http://www.3dize.com/~shelbymoore3
Cirrus Logic Announces Loss and Lays off 400+ [April 24]
Cirrus Logic announced that it had losses of $51.6m while the revenue fell over the corresponding quarter a year ago by 8.6% to $212.9m. One factor cited for the losses was Intel's delay (described as an industry delay) in ramping AGP based systems. The company simultaneously restructured into four product divisions (PC, Communications, Mass Storage and Crystal Semiconductor).
In WAVE #709, we erroneously reported that Edmark, Creative Multimedia, and Proxim had previously invested in RTIME. These companies have not invested in RTIME and are not in any way related to or involved with RTIME.
3Dlabs Reports Q1 Results [April 30]
3Dlabs has reported the financial results from the first quarter ending March 31, 1997:
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VRML Adventure Game Featured at SGI VRML Site
The current feature story on SGI's vrml.sig.com VRML site/online-magazine is Bill McClosky's article in which he takes a look at how VRML is evolving the game development industry and relates bringing to fruition "The Cave of Madness," a VRML adventure game. SGI's VRML site features up-to-date VRML news and stories and can be found at:
The Image Society has announced the 1997 IMAGE SIG SYMPOSIA for 13-18 July 1997 in Scottsdale, Arizona entitled "20th Anniversary of the 1st IMAGE Conference." This will be a gathering the Society's ten Special Interest Groups (SIGs) to address the latest issues in Visual Simulation, related technologies, and their applications.
Areas to be covered in the program include:
There will also be professional development short courses in the following topics:
There will also be a display area.
http://www.public.asu.edu/~image/Image.html
Macromedia International User Conference and Exhibition, will be held at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center, October 8-10, 1997
710.3 Review: ZD-BOP's 3D WinBench 97 by David Lohse
3D Winbench 97 was released by Ziff-Davis Benchmarking Operations (ZD- BOP) on April 25, 1997 to coincide with the opening of the Computer Game Developers Conference. As the successor to MonaLisa, their unreleased preliminary effort to which it bears little resemblance [see WAVE #704, 2/28/97], 3D WinBench 97 brings 3D benchmarking to a new level. Previously, 3D benchmarks available to the industry have tackled only one or a few aspects of 3D accelerator performance, and none of them have adequately addressed the important issues of visual quality. 3D WinBench 97 leapfrogs all other available 3D benchmarking software currently available to the industry by providing detailed and comprehensive testing of many of the issues important to 3D accelerator performance.
The most notable shortcoming of 3D WinBench 97 is that it is focused on consumer-level accelerators. It is based on Direct3D and is not supported on the Windows NT platform; without support for OpenGL or WinNT, most accelerators intended for the professional market are excluded, although this is beginning to change as Win95 and WinNT converge and as D3D moves onto an increasingly number of accelerators. However, with OpenGL already available on the Windows 95 platform and with growing interest in using it for consumer applications (re: games), it would be very beneficial to include OpenGL support in the benchmark.
3D WinBench 97 has been designed to present the same easy-to-use interface as the other benchmarking software developed by ZD-BOP such as WinStone. The standard function window presents the same layout as their other benchmarks, with buttons that let the user run a selected test, save results, or compare results, as well as the usual "help" and "about" functions. The help feature follows the standard Windows help format and is fairly comprehensive.
3D WinBench 97 is split into three different types of testing functionality:
Each of these categories is comprised of many individual tests. The user can run either individual tests for specific features, an entire category of tests (one of the three categories), or all of the tests consecutively.
The addition of this test suite to the benchmark elevates it to the next level above other existing benchmarking software. The 12 tests included in this suite are used to test the effects of specific rendering options on visual quality, including:
Each test runs a short 3D scene utilizing the specific feature being tested. When the short animation is over, it presents the user with a snapshot of the scene for reference and compares it to snapshots of the same scene as it should look ideally rendered and as it would look if the feature is poorly implemented. The user is prompted to choose whether or not the scene has been rendered mostly correctly or not; if the user chooses "no" than that feature is turned off during subsequent WinMark tests run.
Although this test suite provides an excellent mechanism for testing the visual quality objectively, it could use several improvements. Most notably, the user must choose a "yes" or "no" answer as to whether the scene was properly rendered. In most cases, the feature being tested was obviously "working" but looked better on some boards than on others, and this could not be directly addressed. Instead, a ratings scale would be much more useful in comparing different accelerators since side-by-side implementations of testing are not usually practical.
In addition, the quality tests did not address quality issues outside of the score of the individual tests. That is, each test asks the user to determine whether the specific quality being tested is working properly, but is not concerned with other problems. For example, in several of the tests we ran, the specific feature being tested was fine, but other unrelated visual artifacts would significantly reduce the quality of the animation. These issues could also not be directly addressed within the benchmark.
Also conspicuously absent from the options was trilinear texture filtering, which ZD-BOP plans to add to future releases.
19 tests make up this suite, which tests the triangle throughput for various rendering techniques:
The tests may be run either individually or the entire suite may be run. The results are given in triangles/sec for triangles of size 5 and 50 (pixels) and pixels/sec for triangles of size 50 and 1000.
Although this suite succinctly tests the most important configurations and features for consumer 3D applications, it lacks flexibility. It is limited by the 19 test configurations in the suite, and does not allow the user to define their own testing parameters. In addition, it would be useful to be able to run tests over ranges of triangle sizes, although by running tests on triangles sized 5 and 50 the benchmark does demonstrate results for the important "small" and "moderate" sized triangles most commonly used. It is also limited by 640x480 screen resolution; although this is the most commonly used resolution for consumer applications, testing for higher resolutions would be beneficial.
Again, trilinear texture filtering was conspicuously absent.
This suite tests the accelerator's performance at the scene level. The results are given in frames/sec, and it also allows the user to observe the visual quality of the scene - if side-by-side tests are feasible for a user, this suite would allow them to make accurate visual comparisons. It consists of five different 3D scenes, on which 10 different tests are configured. Each test is configured with various "important" rendering options enabled. In addition a user can define their own scenes based on one of ten available databases along with the rendering options they specify. The options available for user configuration are:
The most evident shortcoming of this suite is the 3D scenes available. Unfortunately, they are in the proprietary ".sdl" format, so users cannot import their own databases from other formats, and are therefore limited by the 10 databases included with the benchmark. The .sdl file format, which is only partially documented, is reportedly similar to Microsoft's .X DirectX file format. It would be much more beneficial if a more "standard" file format were used.
HARDWARE INTERATION AND USER CONFIGURABILITY
Like ZD-BOP's previous benchmarking software, 3D WinBench 97 extensively tests the user's hardware configuration and capabilities. In our preliminary tests it correctly identified all of the major hardware components such as host processor and memory, bus, operating system build, CD-ROM drive, sound board, and of course the display adapter. Less significant settings were not always detected, such as the display adapter's BIOS or RAM, the refresh rate, the host processor's cache or BIOS, etc. However, the user is allowed to enter this information manually, and in any case these settings do not affect the test results.
Also like their previous benchmarking software, 3D WinBench 97 examines the system to determine if it is optimally configured for testing (e.g., if other apps are running, etc.) and if it is capable of running them (e.g. if Direct3D 3a is installed, etc.).
The benchmark also tests the installed D3D accelerator and determines what features it supports (presumably by polling the card's D3D capability bits). This is described directly below under "Hardware Capability Configuration."
Important test settings are also configurable by the user, including:
Hardware Capability Configuration
In addition, this benchmark offers the unique capability to turn off features supported by the hardware or to "force" hardware acceleration of unsupported features. The benchmark determines whether the hardware supports the following features, and allows the user to either "force on" or "force off":
Results are displayed in the common ZD-BOP format, with both numeric results and colored bar charts, which can be displayed in either absolute (actual numeric score) or normalized (% fraction) mode:
The results may also be compared to other results stored in results logs on the system (including comparative bar graphs). Five sets of results are included with the benchmark for comparison purposes:
The results may be saved in a standard log format, as well as exported in table or chart form to several formats including text, MS Excel, and Windows Metafile format. Unfortunately, this does not provide much flexability; the charts must be imported into an application that supports the WMF format and cannot be easily edited.
Along with this review are the attached results of preliminary tests we ran on a Permedia-based accelerator board, along with the results for RGB software emulation and the Orchid Righteous 3D for comparison purposes. It appears that the Permedia tests did not calculate a WinMark score due to the fact that some of the required features were either not supported by the card or turned off during the 3D Quality tests. Running the complete suite of tests on the Permedia-based card on a 166 MHz Pentium PC took about 40 minutes.
3D WinBench 97 finally brings 3D benchmarking and performance characterization to a standard reference point and expands on past 3D benchmarking efforts already present in the industry. As ZD-BOP's first effort at releasing a 3D benchmark, they have presented impressive results and maintain their spot as the authority on consumer-level benchmarking. Although 3D WinBench 97 could use improvement in many areas, such as those described above, it presents an important first step towards becoming "the" definitive 3D benchmark that the industry has been waiting for.
710.4 3Dfx Prospectus - Interesting Information by John Latta
Income data (Millions)
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In 1996 revenues from Orchid, Diamond and Williams amounted to 44%, 33% and 11% of sales. In Q1 1997 Diamond was 59%, Williams 15% and Sega 14.3%. TMSC does its fab with .5 micron technology and will transition to .35 micron during H2 1997. Intel owns 7.3% of the company (before the offering).
3Dfx granted exclusive rights to its architecture for 3 years for use by Sega in home game consoles. Sega was also granted a royalty free license to 3Dfx's Arcade Tool Box including source code. Sega granted 3Dfx the license to port Sega coin-op and home video game software to Glide for bundling with 3Dfx products.
The prospectus on file at the SEC is 1.4MB.
Copyright 1997 4th WAVE Inc.
May be redistributed in full for individual readership and posted to newsgroups, Web, and FTP sites. May not be reprinted or redistributed for profit. Short quotes are permitted but must be attributed to the WAVE Report on Digital Media.