Criterion and Yamaha partner on real-time 3D for PC virtual reality market

Business Wire, Jan 6, 1995

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 6, 1995--Criterion Software Friday announced an alliance with Yamaha to provide low-cost real-time 3D graphics for the PC virtual reality market.

Criterion will optimize its RenderWare 3D software rendering library for Yamaha's new 3D graphics chip Rendering Polygon Processor (RPA - called the YGV611) and the companies will collaborate on future hardware and software architecture to provide outstanding price/performance real-time 3D for virtual reality on PCs in 1995.

"Yamaha, famous in the PC market for their sound chips, has a wealth of experience in low cost silicon design and manufacture and this shows in the price/performance of the RPA," said Mike King, executive vice president at Criterion. "Yamaha is the only company today shipping a low cost chip with full texture mapping support in hardware. Texture mapping is an extremely important feature for software applications. It's exciting to be able to offer PC software developers the powerful combination of RenderWare and the RPA chip."

"RenderWare provides the API we need to ensure mass market acceptance of our chip by hardware and software developers. RenderWare has been adopted by hundreds of applications developers and is well positioned to bring 3D software and hardware to the PC market," said Henry Choy, Yamaha's graphics product manager.

The RPA, first shown at Comdex Fall 94, gives high quality 3D performance at unmatched low cost. Yamaha's YGV611 provides 550Kpolygons/sec. with Gouraud shading, 210K polygons/sec with texture mapping (13.5 million pixel/sec fill rate). Up to 32-bit color support, 16-bit Z buffer support with no performance penalties and support for screen resolutions from 320 x 200 to 1280x1024. With prices starting at $80, the YGV611 is the lowest cost and highest performance 3D graphics chip on the market today. A lower system cost version will be available soon. The next version is fully software compatible with the RPA and will result in 3D graphics PC add on boards with texturing support at a street price significantly below $300!

RenderWare, launched in December 1993, was the first interactive 3D graphics API for Windows/DOS. RenderWare's strength lies in its ability to provide real-time 3D graphics on PCs without the need for a 3D graphics accelerator, thus opening up a substantial installed base of PCs as a target market for 3D applications. Furthermore, when RenderWare detects the presence of a 3D accelerator it transparently accelerates the application to even higher levels of performance, at greater resolution and color depth. RenderWare provides an excellent development environment for incorporating real-time 3D graphics into virtual reality, CAD and business applications.

Yamaha Corp. of America, Systems Technology Division was founded to manufacture and market integrated circuits, board level products and complete systems to OEMs and VARs. The division's product line includes custom and semicustom ASICs, standard circuits for graphics, communications and audio applications and CD recorder products.

Criterion Software Ltd., a subsidiary of Canon Inc. (Tokyo), is the leader in interactive 3D graphics software tools for personal computers. Criterion develops, markets and supports computer software products and technologies that expand the interactive 3D graphics frontiers on the desktop. The company licenses its products and technology to major developers world-wide through its offices in Sunnyvale, Guildford, United Kingdom and Tokyo.

CONTACT: Criterion Software, Sunnyvale

              Steve Mosher, 408/489-5103
              Email: stevem@csl.com
              Yamaha Corp. of America, San Jose
              Henry Choy, 408/467-2355
              Email: Henry@yamaha.mhs.compuserve.com