Diamond Multimedia Releases Faster Drivers and Achieves Mass Market Price Point for the Monster 3D Gaming Accelerator; Leading 3D Performance Breaks the $200 Retail Price Barrier

Business Wire, April 29, 1997

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 29, 1997--Diamond Multimedia Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: DIMD), a leading supplier of Internet multimedia products, today announced software that increases the performance of its award-winning Monster 3D, a 3D-only gaming accelerator that brings the same level of technology used in today's state-of-the-art video game arcades to personal computers. The new software driver is up to 20 percent faster, making games more interactive and realistic. Additionally, the Company unveiled a new mass market price point for the retail channel.

Designed for PC game enthusiasts, the Diamond Monster 3D is a 4MB pass-through 3D graphics subsystem that works seamlessly with most VGA and 2D Windows accelerators already installed in PCs. Diamond Multimedia has now set a new estimated retail price of $199.95 (reduced from $249.95) for the retail version of Monster 3D, which includes more than ten popular 3D games.

"Diamond's commitment to providing the ultimate in PC gaming to the consumer continues with the improved performance and mass-market price point of the Monster 3D," said David Watkins, vice president and general manager of Diamond Multimedia's Audio-Visual Systems Division. "The heart-pounding action provided by the Monster 3D has just gotten even better!"

Utilizing Ziff-Davis Labs' new 3D Winbench 97 test program, the Diamond Monster 3D demonstrated outstanding 3D graphics acceleration with a score of 131 (in-house testing was conducted on an Asus MMX Pentium 200MHz CPU-based systems board with 256K pipeline cache, 64MB EDO DRAM and a 2.1 GB Seagate Medalist hard disk, model ST32132A, operating under Windows 95).

Monster 3D customers can download at no charge the latest drivers, version 1.07, from the Diamond Multimedia website at www.diamondmm.com. Driver disks are available by mail for a nominal shipping and handling fee by calling customer service at 1-800-4-MULTIMEDIA.

Monster 3D -- Cutting-Edge Animation

Diamond Multimedia's Monster 3D is among the most popular 3D gaming accelerators on the market. In the March '97 issue of Family PC it was awarded the "Top Rated", "Recommended" and "Best Buy" awards, ranking 97 out of 100 possible points.

Based on the 3Dfx Interactive Voodoo Graphics chipset and populated with 2MB of dedicated texture memory architecture and 2MB of frame buffer memory, the Monster 3D delivers advanced 3D rendering without sacrificing system performance. High-end 3D features include full-speed Z-buffering; perspective corrected texture mapping; bi-linear and tri-linear filtering; MIP-mapping; double-buffered Gouraud shading; texture compositing, morphing and animation; and per-pixel special effects for transparent and translucent objects. Additionally, the Monster 3D features a Diamond-designed utility to change refresh rates and power levels. This unique utility gives users the ability to select different performance levels when running their 3D games and applications.

Monster 3D supports Microsoft's Windows 95 and MS-DOS operating systems and accelerates games utilizing Microsoft's Direct3D API (Application Programming Interface), the de facto development standard for creating 3D titles for Windows 95. In addition, Monster 3D supports Glide, a popular API used for the development of DOS, Windows and coin-op/arcade titles. Support by Monster 3D of these two mainstream APIs, as well as other popular 3D gaming APIs, ensures compatibility with the predominant share of new 3D games coming to the market today.

The award-winning Monster 3D gaming accelerator is an ideal companion product to Diamond's new Monster Sound true 3D audio accelerator. Featuring immersive positional 3D audio and quad-speaker output, Diamond's Monster Sound takes PC gaming to a new level of interactivity. Now, users can enjoy the ultimate in game play with Diamond's Monster brand of 3D graphics and 3D audio accelerators, for a combined price of less than $400. Audio samples simulating Monster Sound's 3D audio acceleration can be heard at www.diamondmm.com/audio/ .

Diamond Multimedia

Diamond Multimedia is driving the Internet multimedia market by providing interactivity and connectivity solutions for home, business and professional desktop computer users, enabling them to create, access and experience compelling new media content from their desktops and through the Internet. Diamond accelerates multimedia from the Internet to the hard drive with products that include the Stealth series of media accelerators, the Monster series of entertainment 3D and sound accelerators, the Fire series of professional 3D and SCSI accelerators, and the Supra series of modems and ISDN adapters. Diamond also markets multimedia and video phone upgrade kits. Diamond's common stock is traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol DIMD, and its web site address is www.diamondmm.com .

How to Contact Diamond Multimedia

There are many ways to reach Diamond for sales support, technical assistance, driver updates and general information: