Today in DCC Workstation

3D Graphics Cards for DCC

Intro, Why Accelerate?, What to Look For, PCI vs. AGP

Entry-Level, Low-Cost, High-Speed 3D Acceleration: Sub $300 Cards

nVidia RIVA TNT2 Ultra, Matrox Millenium G200 and G400, 3Dlabs Oxygen VX1, 3Dlabs Permedia3 Create!

Mid-Range, High-Speed 3D Acceleration: Sub $1000 Cards

High-End, Maximum 3D Acceleration: Cards Over $1,000

nVidia RIVA TNT2 Ultra

The nVidia RIVA TNT2 Ultra 32MB 3D processor is the current fast favorite for entry-level 3D graphics accelerators for the game and DCC market. Its 128-bit TwiN Texel (TNT) AGP 4X architecture delivers 2 texture-mapped, lit pixels-per-clock cycle and single-pass multi-texturing. It has a 32MB frame buffer, integrated texture memory, a 32-bit color pipeline, 32bpp ARGB rendering with destination alpha, anisotropic filtering, a 32-bit Z/stencil buffer and multi-buffering (up to quad buffering) for smooth animation and video playback. It also provides Digital Flat Panel support and 30fps DVD playback.

In addition to DirectX 6.0 support, the RIVA TNT2 Ultra provides complete high-performance professional-grade OpenGL acceleration, Pentium III and K6-2/K6-3 3DNow! optimization, fast Direct 3D, and top-of-the-line VGA, DirectDraw and video performance. It is WHQL (Microsoft Windows Hardware Quality Labs) certified for Windows NT 4.0, Windows NT 3.5, Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows 95, OS2, and Windows 3.x display drivers, has hardware acceleration for all Windows GDI operations, and has a maximum 3D/2D resolution of 2048 x 1536.

Besides multi-texturing, texture blend support includes bump map, texture modulation, light, reflection and environment maps, detail and procedural textures, per-pixel perspective correct texture mapping, fog, light, and bilinear/trilinear MIP-map filtering.

For video, the TNT2 has not only 30fps DVD but also: DVD sub-picture alpha-blended compositing; video acceleration for DirectShow, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and Indeo; back-end hardware video scaling for video conferencing and playback; hardware color space conversion (YUV 4:2:2 and 4:2:0); multi-tap X and Y filtering; per-pixel color keying; a bi-directional Media Port; a CCIR-656 video capture port; and NTSC and PAL TV digital output.

The nVidia RIVA TNT2 chip is being offered in a host of consumer and OEM graphics cards. The most common implementations found in DCC workstations (offered by the likes of Dell, HP, Compaq, Gateway, and Quantex) are in the form of the Diamond Viper 770D, ELSA ERAZOR III, and ELSA GLoria Synergy II graphics cards. The cost for a TNT2 based card runs from about $200 to $300.

Lead on to the Matrox Millenium G200 and G400

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