help me document Evans & Sutherland-Namco partnership

[Megadrive1988]

I'd like to get as much official info/documentation or even just press releases on Evans & Sutherland's partnership with Namco in the 1990s.

(some would argue, 'so what! it's old and doesnt matter anymore', or such, but it is a point of interest for me)

E&S provided technology to Namco for Namco's highend arcade boards, starting with System 22 Ridge Racer.

it was not unlike GE, Martin Marietta and Lockheed Martin partnerships with SEGA, but the Namco<>E&S partnership is much lesser known, and not very well documented.

here's what I've managed to find:



http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.games.video/msg/9dca536bcacec449?dmode=source

03/26 1657 JAPANESE FIRM NAMCO TO DEVELOP COMPUTERS GAMES ...

TOKYO (MARCH 26) UPI - Namco Ltd., a Japanese leading game maker, will jointly develop state-of-the-art computer games with Evans and Sutherland Computer Corp., a U.S. firm specializing in computer simulation systems, a Namco official said Friday.
Evans and Sutherland, a Utah-based company, has supplied more than 600 flight simulation systems to the U.S. military, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, defense industry and private airlines, the official said.
Namco plans to develop new computer games featuring three-demensional computer graphics by the U.S. maker, the official said.
Sega Enterprises Ltd., Japan's No. 2 game maker and Namco's rival,
announced last August a joint effort for new high-tech games with the General Electric Co. of the United States.
Industry analysts said Japanese game makers are likely to expand their
tie-ups with U.S. high-tech firms which have been hit by the country's defense budget cut.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.games.video.misc/msg/b0859705ad46a211?dmode=source

One big ally in Sony's forthcoming battle is Namco. Thw two giant
Japanese companies announced a tie-up on November 15, in which
Namco is to develope and supply games for the Playstation X, for
release at the end of '94 when the PS-X is due to go onsale. They
will also be working with Sony to apply Sony's technology to new
coin-op machines, in order to produce high-spec, low-cost units, to
further their share of the industry. However, this does not affect
their collaboration with graphics specialists Evans & Sutherland for
developing more ambitious 3Darcade-based projects.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/sci.virtual-worlds/msg/ef3a84cdadae1767?dmode=source

The WASHINGTON POST, July 13, 1993, carries a story highlighting the
collaboration of high-tech military simulator manufacturers Martin
Marietta and Evans & Sutherland with Japanese game manufacturers, Sega
and Namco, respectively. Lots of tanks and shoot em up's. Your
former tax dollars at work...

Bob Jacobson
CoModerator

and the preview of that Washington Post article:
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washing...Utah+Firm+License+Tank+Simulators+to+Japanese

From the War Room to the Game Room; Martin Marietta, Utah Firm License Tank Simulators to Japanese; [FINAL Edition]
John Mintz. The Washington Post (pre-1997 Fulltext). Washington, D.C.: Jul 13, 1993. pg. A.01



Abstract (Document Summary)

"We're not aware of anything this sophisticated out there," said Charles "Chip" Manor, Martin Marietta's spokesman. "The scenes will appear much more realistic than anything seen before this." Not so, said Marietta's main competitor in the Pentagon's combat simulator market, Salt Lake City-based Evans & Sutherland Computer. In March it announced a similar deal with Namco Ltd., another top Japanese maker of electronic amusement games, ...

does anyone have the entire article? I don't feel like subscribing to Washington Post just for one article, but if nobody has the whole thing, I'll concider it, just to satisfy my curiousity.


http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.games.video.sega-dreamcast/msg/780e4d66964a2fe4?dmode=source

Namco hasn't
done their own arcade system since their Evans and Sutherland-designed
System 22 (Ridge Racer, Cyber Cycles).

http://www.classicgaming.com/features/articles/arcadefantastic/index2.shtml

Namco had acquired a controlling interest in Atari Games by 1986 (following a roller coaster of corporate intrigue and acquisitions following the 80’s boom years) and in this relationship shared R&D information, so in the same year as Hard Drivin’ in Japan Namco was able to release Winning Run (http://www.system16.com/namco/cabinets/WinningRun.gif), though using a fully dedicated polygon engine (later known as hardware platform). This head start, courtesy of Atari R&D, would allow Namco to decisively compete in a battle that would become an escalating ‘arms race’ to provide the best and the fastest hardware platform.

Sega Enterprises was sitting on their own polygon system aspirations in 1989, seeing the success of Hard Drivin’ (easily the better game, even after Namco tried for a second time copying Atari inroads with a three screen game Drivers Eye. Sega however felt they needed support to their own 3D R&D development, and so started the constant one-up-man ship of finding CGI partners to support amusement endeavors. Sega in their first round would select General Electrics (later to become Martin Marietta and finally Lockheed Martin) to help devise the Model 1 hardware that would power the successes that were the first Virtua series of releases Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing.

Namco themselves would go on to partner with Silicon Graphics, Evans & Sutherland and Texas Instruments – striving to create their own faster hardware. Sega would strive themselves to hold the lead attempting to be the first to build-in first texture, then anti-aliasing and finally a richness of 3D graphical environment that were once the preserve of the military flight simulator – draining the experience of partners that had originated the commercial simulator industry.

The chipset that is in question here, not the entire System 22 which has many boards, but the rendering portion of it, it was called TR3 or TR`3 which meant something like:
realtime rendering`realtime texture-mapping` realtime graphics.

you can see the name of System22's rendering engine, TR3, written on Ridge Racer arcade cabs, and even plastered on a billboard in Rave Racer


You can find some of the specs of System 22 in Next Generation number 1, in the Ridge Racer preview (and in EDGE around the same time)

Edit, here:

some of them were posted on usenet in another language

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/fido.ger.konsolen/msg/d4798f0e802ebab5?dmode=source

GK> Noe, warum denn. Im ridge racer ist bestimmt nur ein lahmer 8bit chip GK> drinn als CPU. Schau dir mal beim Ridge Race an, wenn die Nacht langsam

Also eine 32Bit CG board, 32Bit 68s020 25MHz mit einem 320TI DSP, TR^3 polygon-generator, welche zusammen 400 MFLOPS

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.games.video.sony/msg/d2ea50f089fe1293?dmode=source

Jim Totaro


Date: 1995/05/20
Subject: RR PSX vs RR Arcade


in NG#1 on page 71, in blue on the right side of the
page it generally says:

The Coin OP (refering to ridge racer)

Ridge Racer uses Namco's System 22 realtime visual
rencering system. This hardware relies on the 32bit
Motorola CPU running at 25Mhz (68030?) and boasts DSP.

Ridge Racer runs at 640x480 interlaced with over 30,000
colors on the screen. Then they say the board is
capable of rendering 240,000 texture-mapped and gouraud
shaded PPS.

the video board of System 22 thanks to System16.com

System 22's geometry is provided by an array of DSPs, and it has its own DSP board. I don't know if these DSPs are provided by E&S or not. perhaps not, but what I am interested in, is the rendering engine, chip or chipset, TR3, which may or may not be on this board? one of 4 or 5 boards that comprise the System 22.



graphics performance was : Texture mapping, Gouraud shading, Translucency effects, Depth-cueing, More than 240,000 polygons/sec.


this was probably realworld performance, and was several times more powerful than what Playstation could do in practice.

 

[Reznor007]

The DSP chips are Texas Instruments TMS320C25 clocked at 49.152MHz.

For some interesting information you should download the MAME source code and look at src/drivers/namcos22.c and src/vidhrdw/namcos22.c

I believe that S22 is only 4 boards, the design is somewhat similar to System21(which is 4 boards and also uses TMS320C25's). I have a real Cybersled PCB which is S21