Wave Issue 9610 10/11/96 Article 4-01

***Quake: Bringing 3D to the Masses
by David Lohse

Traditionally, 3D has been the domain of professional animators and CAD
designers, but with the widespread availability of Pentium PCs, 3D has
been enabled for the consumer. The encroaching consumer 3D storm began by
most accounts last year, but it was in 1996 that the movement has
gathered most of its momentum. Although typical consumer PCs now have the
processing power and display capabilities to handle 3D, the question
remains: what will consumer use it for? What will entice the typical
consumer to invest in 3D accelerator hardware? The answer is obviously
not CAD or modeling/animation capabilities, but two possibilities (not
necessarily exclusive) are mostly pointed to by industry-watchers: VRML
and entertainment applications/games. Although VRML may play a role in
the consumer adoption of 3D, it lies further on the horizon than the wave
of 3D-enabled games already entering the marketplace.

Of all the 3D games already on or soon entering the market, id Software's
Quake is the only one with the status of blockbuster-to-be, following in
the footsteps of its widely successful predecessor, the ubiquitous DOOM.
As Quake finds its way into millions of homes, it brings with it the need
for 3D; although Quake alone certainly can't be credited with ushering in
the era of 3D, it will play an important role as one of the seminal
products for consumer 3D.

An important indicator of the industry movement was shown recently when
id Software announced that a Direct3D version of Quake was under
development and would be available by the end of the year, adding further
support to the push for Direct3D as an industry standard. Two other
important announcements were made recently: 3Dfx has announced that the
Direct3D version of Quake would be optimized for their Voodoo Graphics
chipset, and Rendition has also announced that Quake would be optimized
for their Verite chip; clearly, hardware companies have seen the
importance of important games like Quake as well as Direct3D in enabling
3D for the masses.

id Software: http://206.86.0.31/
3Dfx: http://www.3dfx.com
Rendition: http://www.rendition.com