3Dfx Interactive is heading for the mainstream 3D graphics
market with the impending release of Voodoo Banshee, its combination
2D/3D accelerator chip, the company said Monday.
With 128-bit VGA architecture to boost the performance of old DOS
games, Banshee-based 3D cards can also double as graphics adapters. This
means that, given the right OEM support, PCs could ship with
Voodoo-quality graphics capability as standard.
Cards with Banshee will cost $129-$200, Saul Altabet, director of
product marketing at 3Dfx, told our sister publication Multimedia Week.
This is considerably less than the $300 range occupied by current
Voodoo2-based cards. Banshee-based cards will show up in PCs at the end
of Q3, Altabet said.
"3Dfx has carved out an enviable position in [the high-end 3D games
market]," says Andy Fischer, VP of market research firm Jon Peddie
Associates. "But the number of people that would be motivated to spend
two to three hundred dollars to enhance the 3D performance of their
machines is certainly not more than 10m worldwide in 1998. However,
the entire market of PCs is closer to 100m. That's a big challenge to
3Dfx."
But 3Dfx is not alone in targeting the mainstream market. "3Dfx is one of
half a dozen companies that are pushing the envelope," Fischer says. "All
the mainstream players are doing incredible 3D. ATI, Matrox, Nvidia,
S3 [SIII] and 3Dlabs are doing high-profile business."
Guillemot International yesterday became the first manufacturer to
announce a card based on the Banshee chipset. The Maxi Gamer Phoenix,
scheduled to launch in September in the $129-$200 range, will be
compatible with all games designed for Voodoo2 and Voodoo Graphics
chipsets. Guillemot claims to be the largest manufacturer of Voodoo
products in Europe.
Interestingly, publisher Ubi Soft, partly-owned by the Guillemot
brothers, who own Guillemot International, inked a deal this week with
card maker Matrox to bundle action-adventure title Tonic Trouble
worldwide with the Matrox Mystique G200 3D card. The Tonic Trouble
bundle launches this summer, ahead of the game's fall retail launch.
(3Dfx, Greg Ballard, CEO, 408/935-4462; Guillemot International, Parth
Shukla, 514/490-2075; Jon Peddie Associates, Andy Fischer,
415/387-7460)
Jim |
