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Technology Stocks : 3DFX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patrick Grinsell who wrote (12344)	5/7/1999 11:12:00 PM
From: Chip Anderson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

From bluesnews.com ============================= id Software's Brian Hook updated his .plan with a response to the rumor circulating that this weekend's Q3Test for Win32 release would not be supporting 3DFX: There was an internal miscommunication here that resulted in the unintentional propagation of incorrect information (gee, how is THAT for convoluted?!). So I'm here to clarify. In a nutshell, Q3TEST/Win32 WILL support 3Dfx! There was some internal confusion about the matter as we've been wrestling with driver stability and distribution issues (across all chipsets, not just 3Dfx). 3Dfx, especially Marty Franz and Rob Wheeler, have been highly responsive to our needs when it comes to driver robustness, performance, and availability. So to reiterate: there will be support for 3Dfx, and I believe 3Dfx will be posting Q3TEST compliant drivers on their Web site over the weekend in anticipation of Q3TEST's release. ================================== Chip "3dfx Porsche owner" Anderson stockcharts.com

To: Patrick Grinsell who wrote (12344)	5/7/1999 11:20:00 PM
From: Obewon	Respond to of 16960

Interesting write-up at Gamespot concerning what features software developers want on upcoming 3D accelerator cards: gamespot.com It mentions a card code named "Napalm" that 3dfx has been working on. BTW, it does not go into which is the best present card as its conclusion is that they are all pretty similar at this stage. Several interesting comments from the article which caught my eye: <<Pumping more features into a product is a challenge. One graphics-chip marketing VP once noted that the biggest problem was getting people to use nifty new features. "By the time a game programmer really starts using a feature, all my competitors have it, too." >> <<Stencil buffers have been a feature of DirectX 6 and OpenGL, but not many games have taken advantage of them. Part of the problem is that Nvidia's TNT was the only consumer-level accelerator for nearly a year that had hardware stencil buffers. Now, with most of the current and next-generation parts supporting stencil buffers, we'll see heavier use of them in the future. >> And of course, the reason why Glide will continue to survive: <<Currently, OpenGL already exposes any transform and lighting acceleration. By this fall, DirectX 7 will be out and will also enable hardware acceleration of T&L. The real question is: Who will use it? Game programmers can be very resistant to change if they perceive that their creative options are being limited. One 3DO developer wrote, "Acceleration in hardware is a good thing as long as we are able to control the transforms. There are many effects that need control over the matrices. A popular technique for bones is the use of quaternions, complex numbers with one real part and two imaginary parts. The programmer is able to create vectors that allow points to be distributed along a curved surface that intersects the vector endpoints. The math actually is different in the way matrices are multiplied. Really, the best thing is complete control over a really fast DSP to allow the programmer to implement any sort of vector tricks - or at least a way to get extensions added to the API.">> Obewon