3D video accelerates games

Discount Store News, Feb 9, 1998

Video gaming is taking on new dimensions and becoming a more visceral pastime. In fact, there is likely to be no bigger hardware segment with personal computer gamers in 1998 than 3D video acceleration and 3D sound.

What was an arcane hardware accessory sideshow three years ago is now on the lips and shopping lists of every computer game player.

What is 3D computer video?

It is a specialized chipset dedicated to delivering sharp, highly detailed, smooth, non-pixilated high-end graphics. Such accelerators can be an add-on accessory board that works in concert with existing SVGA video cards or can be built directly onto a SVGA card.

It is now commonplace for gainers, young and old to play against their friends over the Internet. But the perception is that a player can't compete in Internet gaming if his computer system is too slow and the graphics are not drop-dead gorgeous. This perception is creating a huge demand for 3D products, a demand not lost on hardware manufacturers.

Sales of personal computer accessories, which includes 3D accelerators, will grow 26% in 1998, according to Walter Miao, vp at market research firm Access Media International.

By comparison, systems sales will grow by 14% and software by 12%.

In terms of 3D-specific sales, industry darling 3Dfx Interactive said its original third quarter projection of 40% growth would nearly double.

At retail, there are five big names in 3D video that are driving the segment: 3Dfx, nVIDIA, PowerVR, Rendition and Microsoft Corp. The first four have developed their own 3D video chipsets, which are used in a dizzying number of video card makers in their products.

Microsoft has gone the software route, creating a 3D protocol called Direct31) that has become a standard that most new games and game hardware support.

To bring 3D acceleration to games, designers can either support a particular chipset directly, which delivers the best quality and speed, or they can support D3D, which delivers very good quality and speed.

The drawback of the former is that fewer potential consumers will own accelerators with the exact same chipset. The benefit of the latter is that many more potential consumers will be able to appreciate the 3D enhancements. For this reason, most accelerators support both D3D and one or two specific chipsets.

The big winner in the chipset wars has been 3Dfx, which has very good technology and supports D3D games very well.

Most new games, if they are going to support a chipset directly, support 3Dfx's Voodoo. Less successful but making substantial inroads in acceptance are Rendition's Verite and PowerVR's Extreme chipsets. Rather than drum up direct support of its RIVA 128 chipset, nVIDIA jumped into the D3D camp, delivering exceptional performance gains that have drawn a number of companies to build video card products around the RIVA 128.

In product terms, the Voodoo side is best represented by Diamond Multimedia's Monster 3D and Canopus Corp.'s Pure 3D. The most prominent RIVA 128 boards are STB Systems' Velocity and Diamond's Viper.

As far as the other chipsets go, success is on a product-by-product basis. Diamond is already making a splash with its entry-level, under $120 Verite 2100based Stealth II. And Matrox Graphics has gone the same route but better with its $99 PowerVR-based m3D.

By the end of the first quarter, 3Dfx will shake up the market with its Voodoo II chipset.

Early indications are that Voodoo II will come close to doubling the graphics performance of the original. Expect Diamond and Creative Labs and a host of other card makers to sign on with Voodoo II.

Although it hasn't yet caught on with most gainers, a new 3D audio technology, called A31), from Aureal Semiconductor is starting to catch on with game developers and sound card makers. In computer industry years, Creative's Sound Blaster standard has been on top for an eternity.

But Sound Blaster never delivered true audio source separation, so Aureal stepped in with A31), and a number of Creative's competitors see 3D audio as a way of getting back in the business.

Led by Lucas Arts' Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II and Epic Megagames' Unreal, a growing number of new titles are being written with A31) support from the get-go, adding new gameplay dimensions in the process.

Diamond's Monster Sound product is the most widely available and successful A31) card. Aureal has also introduced a new A3D chipset called Vortex, which includes legacy support for earlier sound formats in addition to 3D audio.

Recognizing the shift to 3D audio, Creative has developed a new Sound Blaster format it calls Environmental Audio.

The first Sound Blasters to use the new 3D audio format will be available later this year. The first will be the AWE64 Gold CMS2, followed by the Sound Blaster Live! card.

VideoLogic Inc., best known for its video cards, including the PowerVR-based Apocalypse 3Dx, is jumping into the 3D audio market with its Sonic Storm product line, based on chipsets developed by Q-Sound.

So what's a 3D joystick?

It's an input device product that shakes, moves or rumbles in the player's hands in concert with actions happening in a game.