Real3d R3D/100, has anyone ever seen it?

[[EOCF] Tim]

I know it's absolutely ages ago (1995/6), but I can remember it not being marketed to consumers, but just to professional workstations.

You can find a reasonable amount of information on it, but I have never ever seen a picture of a board. It featured an integrated geometry engine, graphics processor and real-time texture processor, and apparently it was screaming fast. It was made by Lockeed Martin, and it came as the R3D/100 and R3D/Pro-1000, both in PCI format.


I'm not quite sure at what level the Intel i740 is based on this chipset, I've heard that it was a severely cut down version of that original chipset, then again I've read that it was just a joint effort between Real3D and Intel to produce a consumer board, building on the experience Real3D had gathered on the R3D/100.


This is one of the cards I'm really hoping to add to my collection once, but after looking for one for years everyday on eBay and other sites, I've got the funny feeling I will never see one. Of course, that's what I thought of the Pyramid3D, but I still managed to find a board.

Anyway, does anyone have a picture of this board, or perhaps even have one?

- Tim

 

[Davros]

your chances have doubled, someones repeated your post on a dating site
wasnt you was it
http://www.lovechandigarh.com/forum/testing/33088-real3d-r3d-100-has-anyone-ever-seen.html

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

Peter? Moi? naaah

 

[Rys]

I'll have a look later, I've got some Lockheed graphics hardware in my collection but I don't remember them being R3D/100s. I might get lucky though in the box of stuff I've not properly catalogued. Here's hoping

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

I'll have a look later, I've got some Lockheed graphics hardware in my collection but I don't remember them being R3D/100s. I might get lucky though in the box of stuff I've not properly catalogued. Here's hoping

Thanks Rys, here's hoping as well!

 

[tripleagent]

The PCI add in boards are rare but dual Real Pro-1000 chips were used in the Sega Model 3 hardware. Sega model 1, model 2, & model 3 arcade boards used Lockheed graphics. Evans and Sutherland technology was used with Namco system 22. There were thousands of Model 3 arcade boards produced but the high cost of the hardware somewhat limited its market.

Model 3 info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Model_3#Sega_Model_3
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=717

 

[Simon F]

The PCI add in boards are rare but dual Real Pro-1000 chips were used in the Sega Model 3 hardware. Sega model 1, model 2, & model 3 arcade boards used Lockheed graphics. Evans and Sutherland technology was used with Namco system 22. There were thousands of Model 3 arcade boards produced but the high cost of the hardware somewhat limited its market.

Model 3 info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Model_3#Sega_Model_3
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=717

I remember seeing those boards on a visit to Japan and thinking they were enormous!

 

[swaaye]

Seems kinda funny that they married that GPU hardware to the sad little PowerPC 603. Especially for something released in '96, when 200 MHz PPros and even faster Alphas were around.

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

The PCI add in boards are rare but dual Real Pro-1000 chips were used in the Sega Model 3 hardware. Sega model 1, model 2, & model 3 arcade boards used Lockheed graphics. Evans and Sutherland technology was used with Namco system 22. There were thousands of Model 3 arcade boards produced but the high cost of the hardware somewhat limited its market.

Model 3 info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Model_3#Sega_Model_3
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=717

That looks great, I assume the chips were under the memory board?

http://www.system16.com/boards/model3_cpu1.jpg
http://www.system16.com/boards/model3_cpu2.jpg

Looks like they put the Sega logo on the chips.

 

[Megadrive1988]

I know it's absolutely ages ago (1995/6), but I can remember it not being marketed to consumers, but just to professional workstations.

Yup. There was a Next Generation article, press releases, indicating that R3D/100 would be targeted towards the consumer desktop market, for $180 ~ $200, but that turned out not to be the case. It was ultimately the i740 of years later that was targeted at consumers.

You can find a reasonable amount of information on it, but I have never ever seen a picture of a board. It featured an integrated geometry engine, graphics processor and real-time texture processor, and apparently it was screaming fast. It was made by Lockeed Martin, and it came as the R3D/100 and R3D/Pro-1000, both in PCI format.

I've never seen a board either.

R3D/100 was a midrange-to-highend card for PCs and workstations. R3D/Pro-1000 was very highend, and I think for workstations, image generators and was used in parallel in Sega Model 3 arcade boards. Not sure if there was a PCI version of Pro-1000.

I'm not quite sure at what level the Intel i740 is based on this chipset, I've heard that it was a severely cut down version of that original chipset, then again I've read that it was just a joint effort between Real3D and Intel to produce a consumer board, building on the experience Real3D had gathered on the R3D/100.

Intel i740 wasn't based on R3D/100, other than it was made by the same company. It was a single chip, no geometry engine. I suppose it was based on what Real3D gained from building R3D/100, but they're not the same architecture. i740 was the chip used in Lockheed Martin's consumer/gamer StarFighter cards.

This is one of the cards I'm really hoping to add to my collection once, but after looking for one for years everyday on eBay and other sites, I've got the funny feeling I will never see one. Of course, that's what I thought of the Pyramid3D, but I still managed to find a board.

I'd be happy just to see some video with the R3D/100 in action.

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

Thanks for that, funny, when I was researching this card, quite a few posts of you came up on google.

( I was kind of hoping you would reply! )

Well here's hoping I will ever find a PCI card, /100 or /Pro-1000.

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

Spending the last hour or so googling makes me detail my initial statement about there being enough information a bit more.

These are pretty much only announcements, and the specs of the card, no where, literally no where, can you find anything about anyone running the card or working with the card. I found one snippet with a quote from somebody who used to work for Real3D at the time, commenting on the Riva128 and how bad it's texturing was compared to the R3D/100 he used to work with at the time.

It looks like a very very old website, but the main page is still up and is from a software company, I emailed them, to see if I can get in contact with this person. Any tiny lead should be pursued.

That's pretty much it, some txt files of them planning to show it at Comdex, and Wescon and some random news items. An interesting one :

Real 3D - Applications Running on the R3D/100 are Shown Aside from a number of games in the booth, Real 3D was able to show a number of applications which took advantage of its R3D/100. This included: Sense8's WorldUp, Newtek's Lightwave; Autodesk 3D Studio MAX, Lightscape with the Lightscape Visualization system and RealiMation from Datapath.

Wave magazine, issue 614 11/25/96, Comdex report.

Now that's interesting I thought. Games running on it? Very interesting. Also read apart of the R3D/100 running a demo by the name 'Global' or something, lost the link now.

Something else, again of the announcement type :

The prototype R3D/100 chipset from Real 3D will be first
shown at COMDEX Fall '96. Real 3D is currently tuning its
OpenGL installable client driver for Windows NT. To support
the R3D/100, Real 3D and Chips and Technologies have reached
an agreement were Chips and Technologies will sell and distribute the
chipset. Chips and Technologies will be responsible for
sales and first tier customer support, through its 120
person worldwide sales network, and Real 3D will be
responsible for sales promotion activities and second tier
technical support. Real 3D will retain responsibility for
sales of the R3D/100 to other markets, such as traditional
workstation OEMS, while Chips will focus on sales in the PC
marketplace including PC manufacturers, PC graphics card
vendors, and PC OEM's.

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

Vendor & Model : Lockheed Martin R3D-PRO-1000

Performance
[SIZE=-1](textured polys/sec)[/SIZE] : 750,000

Price
[SIZE=-1](Approx) : [/SIZE]$37,500

Available : 1996

Phew, expensive it sure was.

 

[Davros]

Dont let nvidia see that price it'll give them idea's

 

[swaaye]

Although it is a useless benchmark, I believe a Voodoo1 card + Pentium II can push more polys than R3D 1000. No geometry engine though.
http://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/3dfx/prodotti/voodoo1graphics/ (according to this, it can do more with just a P166)

I wonder what the fillrate was. That's more useful.

Model 3 arcade games and Voodoo arcade games weren't that far apart, visually. Sega had more style in some of their games I think, which makes a difference.

Model 3
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=717
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=718
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=719

Atari 3Dfx boards
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=782
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=781

 

[KyoDash]

Model 3 arcade games and Voodoo arcade games weren't that far apart, visually. Sega had more style in some of their games I think, which makes a difference.

Perhaps, though the level of geometry and effects are noticeably higher in Model 3 games. In addition the Model 3 Step 1.5 and higher, were able to draw 1 million pps at 60fps with full visual effects on screen. Also, in an AM2 interview for Sega Saturn Magazine (UK), it was mentioned that Step 1 didn't have enough fill rate or processing power to do this.

I've never seen a even a dual Voodoo 2 set up achieve anywhere near this in real world situations, certainly it couldn't with similar image quality. Then again nobody pushed 3D hardware for gaming more than Sega back then.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Model 3 arcade games looked visually much better than 3Dfx Voodoo/Banshee/Voodoo2/Voodoo3 based arcade games.

Real3D/Pro-1000 image quality was much superior, as was its real-world polygon counts with textures, lighting, AA and other effects on.

Model 3 games always ran at 60fps, whereas some 3Dfx-based arcade games ran at ~30fps and some at 60fps, but never with the level of geometry and image quality of Model 3 games.

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

Man, 1995 onwards were very exciting times I must say, with all the new and exciting hardware released, really the birth of 3D.

I'm collecting all the high end cards from 1994 to 2003, from the birth of 3D to round about the time of Farcry/Doom3, I think that was when the classic/golden age stopped, that's basically my collection, only need about a handful to complete it, but they are very rare. For instance the Creative 3D Blaster VL-Bus (VESA Local bus) CT6200 from 1995, it wasn't good, didn't sell properly, so they are almost completely non existent today.

I made a detour in 3DFX and Quantum3D, which I almost all own (except vendor specific V1 and V2's), still need some 3dFx prototypes, like the 6000, and one or two Quantum3D cards, but those are mainly due to the lack of funds.

atm, I'm still looking for the following

PowerVR Neon 250
SiS Xabre 600
XGI Volari V8 Duo Ultra
Real3D R3D/100

And one or two other rare cards :

Quantum3D Obsidian 100SB
Videologic Apocalypse 5D
Intel i752 (NFR)
Intel i754 (NFR)
Hercules Thriller Conspiracy
Jazz Multimedia Outlaw
Hercules 3D Prophet 4800 (NFR)
Kyro II SE (NFR)

(NFR, not for resale ie. either prototypes or never made it to retail.)

 

[zsouthboy]

Tim, are you going to put up a website somewhere so you can show off your collection? I'm sure we'd love to see it.

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

Tim, are you going to put up a website somewhere so you can show off your collection? I'm sure we'd love to see it.

Yes, I am actually in the progress of making one, but sadly my website skills are zero, so I need to find some proper software that doesn't make it look like a 1995 website. :smile:

I've got high res pictures of all of my cards already tho, and a detailed database with the specs. They are about 125 different cards, and some old school platforms to go a long with it, ranging from 486 to Athlon XP-M.