***Conferences
COMDEX - Las Vegas
COMDEX is as bad as ever. Here are some statistics:
215,000 attendees
10,000 new products
100 countries represented
3,600 press
There were the minor inconveniences of which a new one is the isolation
of the Hilton from the convention center. There is a major construction
project at the LVCC that has blocked easy access to the Hilton. As a
result we believe that the crowds to the Hilton had substantially fallen
off.
3Dlabs
The company continues on a roll with its Permedia 2 chip. This chip
continues to displace Matrox Millennium II parts. At the show they
announced a design win with DEC for AGP down. This is claimed to be the
first of a number of uses that DEC will make with the Permedia chip.
For the first time 3Dlabs disclosed the nature of the problems with
Gamma. They revealed that Gamma has taped out the week of COMDEX. Being
some 4+ months behind schedule this has become a source of great
frustration at 3Dlabs. The issue is one of the immaturity of the design
tools. IBM, the fab partner, has had difficulty in doing the route and
place for the chip. With 6 million logic gates this has to be one of the
most complex chips yet. Samples are now out.
The company has also found that there is much confusion in the market
between Delta, Gamma and the Glint product line. To create a more focused
product message they announced the Glint DMX and Glint GMX products.
These products are no more than the paring of Glint MX chips with the
respective Delta and Gamma geometry processors. There are two offerings
in each called the 1000 and 2000. The numbers imply the number of Glint
MX chips. With this shift the reference card how supports scan line
interleaving in a manner very similar to what 3Dfx has done. However,
they are not supporting gen lock, at least as of yet. There is a
significant advantage of this approach - it sells more chips and provides
a scalable solution. 3Dfx has been very effective here and with the
adoption of the approach by 3Dlabs we expect this technique to be more
widespread.
Neil Trevett, as President of the VRML Consortium, also disclosed that
there was a recent summit of 20 leaders in VRML on a recent weekend. Out
of that meeting there was an agreement that nothing need to be done in
the near term on the VRML specification. One major area that needs to be
addressed is the interoperability of content so that the same content
plays back on all VRML complaint viewers. The VRML Consortium sees three
classes of applications for VRML. One is based on banner ads which
enhance 2D Web pages, the next is in data visualization and some
announcements from Oracle are expected shortly and the multi-use
immersive experience. This latter one is the most difficult to accomplish
and we should not expect that this is where products and applications
should be seen in the near term.
3Dfx
Voodoo 2 came back from metal changes just before COMDEX. Announcements
by card companies with Voodoo products include: Creative, Diamond, Jazz,
and shown on the floor is Orchid. Of course there is Quantum 3D.
3Dfx sees this chip set and implementation being narrowly focused on the
avid gamer and vis-sim market. They expect no OEM wins other than to meet
this niche market. They expect to get the cards using this product to
market using retail, system integrators and companies focusing on BTO.
The ISV response has been very positive with 24 indicating they will do
something special to leverage the chip. It is also interesting that the
card companies are thinking about raising the bar and implementing 8MB
systems and not the minimum 6MB designs. One of the reasons is that this
would allow for 16 bit systems with double buffer and z on a 800 X 600
display. It is 3Dfx's view that the best target for the gaming experience
is 800 X 600 at 60f/s. They see little advantage to go to 1024 X 768.
Thus, with this as a target the game designer can focus on 15,000 to
30,000 triangles per frame to maintain the 60 f/s rate. At this rate they
can support two textures per triangle and alpha blending, filtering and
fog with no penalty. They see the point that 3Dfx is delivering raw
performance that no other company can. "You can't get it anywhere else."
3Dfx has again done a very effective job of delivering on the promise of
setting the bar in game performance. If you want raw power which game
developers have avidly supported 3Dfx is where the action continues to
be.
It is also interesting that Voodoo 2 is the Sega chip solution that got
displaced by NEC and PowerVR. What 3Dfx has done is to take its loss with
Sega and used it as a lever to raise the bar in the PC space. Although
Voodoo 2 will not be a long term product and it, in its most effective
implementation, is a multiple card solution, 3Dfx has reinforced the
brand name identity it has created. That is, come to us for the fastest
and most capable game 3D engine. Good marketing and execution in the face
of adversity. It may also be good financially if they win in the lawsuit
against Sega, NEC and VideoLogic.
VRML Symposium
(November 17)
VRML98 Symposium will be held from February 16-19, 1998 at the Doubletree
Hotel in Monterey California USA. The conference be a 4-day technical
forum including working groups and workshops on the first day; full-day
and half-day courses on the second day; followed by paper presentations,
panels, exhibits showcase, and demonstrations on the following two days.
VRML98 is sponsored by ACM SIGGRAPH and ACM SIGCOMM, in cooperation with
the VRML Consortium.
Wave Issue 9734 1/22/98 Article 8-01