High-end 3D comes down to earth

Article Abstract:

Among the nine 3D graphics accelerator boards reviewed, Diamond Media Systems' $1,995 Fire GL board was one of the two that received the awesome rating. Fire GL merits this rating because of its low price and first class overall performance. Dynamic Pictures's $4,000 V192 board is among the three boards that received a positive rating and the most expensive of the nine boards tested. It scores nearly as well as the Fire GL in 2D performance, but lacks a driver for any operating system other than Windows NT. Omnicomp's $2,295 3Demon SX88, which receives an adequate performance rating, also runs only under Windows NT. The SX88 gives solid performance under 3D Studio and OpenGL with its 8MB/8MB frame and local buffer memory. Fujitsu's $1,595 Sapphire 3D Designer is the least expensive of the nine boards tested, but is comparable to the other Glint-based boards only at low resolutions such as 800-by-800 in 24-bit color or 1,024-by-768 in 16-bit color.

Multimedia systems, Multimedia Technology, Full-motion video board, Full motion video boards, Dynamic Pictures Inc., Fujitsu Microelectronics Inc., Diamond Multimedia Systems FireGL (Graphics accelerator/display board), Dynamic Pictures V192 Graphics Accelerator Module (Graphics accelerator/display board), Omnicomp Graphics 3Demon SX88 (Graphics accelerator/display board), Fujitsu Sapphire 3D Designer (Graphics accelerator/display board)

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Bits, boards, action! AVI video accelerators

Article Abstract:

Nine video accelerator cards are reviewed for their multimedia capabilities. Diamond Multimedia System's $649 Viper Pro Video tested fastest of all the reviewed cards. The card did not skip any frames during testing, and is the only one that can interpolate scaled video in both dimensions to reduce pixelation. Hercules Computer Technology's $559 Graphite Terminator Pro was a more modest performer. It does include a copy of the Xing MPEG player, but has a difficult installation and mediocre utilities. It includes a utility that is meant to allow the user to change the existing refresh rate, but it is largely ineffective. The lowest-priced offering was Genoa Systems' $399 VideoBlitz III IV, a moderate performer with a Windows 95-like tabbed interface. It includes Xing's MPEG Player, and a configuration utility that presents a small amount of common rates instead of monitor profiles.

Hercules Computer Technology Inc., Graphics Accelerator Display Board, Genoa Systems Corp., Diamond Multimedia Systems Viper Pro Video (Full-motion video board), Genoa Systems VideoBlitz III AV (Full-motion video board), Hercules Computer Technology Graphite Terminator Professional (Full-motion video board)

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Big league 3D accelerators

Article Abstract:

3DLabs' $2,299 Oxygen GMX and its fellow dual-GMX boards scores the highest rating of 13 Windows NT OpenGL cards for animation and modeling, based on maximum value. Oxygen trails HP's $4,500 Visualize F6 and Intergraph's two-card $4,590 Intense3D in 3D Studio Max and in many tests but performs respectably while costing significantly less. Oxygen divides its 80MB of texture memory and can share workloads evenly between two MX chips. The company's first board release also can support as much as 1,600 by 1,200 or wide-screen 1,920 by 1,080 in true-color resolutions. Elsa's $149 Gloria Synergy represents the most surprising result, as the inexpensive card surpasses all top offerings tested in 1997. Tests using various benchmarks and application tests have taken place on a dual-400MHz PII system operating Windows NT.

United States, CPUs (Central processing units), Hewlett-Packard Co., HWP, Intergraph Computer Systems, 3Dlabs Inc., AccelGraphics Inc., ELSA Inc., MaxVision Corp., STB Systems Inc., 3Dlabs Oxygen GMX (Graphics accelerator/display board), AccelGraphics AccelECLIPSE II (Graphics accelerator/display board), AccelGraphics AccelGalaxy (Graphics accelerator/display board), Diamond Multimedia Fire GL 1000 Pro (Graphics accelerator/display board), Diamond Multimedia Fire GL 5000 (Graphics accelerator/display board), ELSA GLoria Synergy (Graphics accelerator/display board), ELSA GLoria-XXL (Graphics accelerator/display board), HP Visualize FX6 (Graphics accelerator/display board), Intergraph Intense 3D Pro V3400 (Graphics accelerator/display board), Intergraph Intense 3D Pro V3400GT (Graphics accelerator/display board), MaxVision Titan II (Graphics accelerator/display board), Omnicomp Graphics 8/20-PCI (Graphics accelerator/display board), STB Systems Glyder GMX-2000 (Graphics accelerator/display board)

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