Turn Your Pentium Class System into a True Arcade Gaming Machine
Hercules Thriller ConspiracyTM
Rendition V2200TM, Fujitsu FGX-1TM Geometry Processor, 230MHz DAC, 8MB plus
1MB Cache produces up to two times the 3D frame rate on low cost PCs
FREMONT, CA, -- May 28th, 1998 -- Hercules Computer Technology, Inc., a
leader in high performance 3D graphics accelerators, today announced the
Hercules Thriller CONSPIRACYTM, the first mainstream 2D/3D graphics board to
accelerate the complete 3D pipeline in hardware, including geometry and
lighting.
The Hercules Thriller CONSPIRACYTM is a complete 3D graphics pipeline
processor system capable of performing significantly more of the work
involved in rendering 3D graphic images than conventional graphic
accelerators. Based on the high performance Rendition Verite V2200 2D/3D
graphics and multimedia processor and the powerful Fujitsu FGX-1 geometry
and lighting processor, the Hercules Thriller CONSPIRACYTM is expected to
set new price/performance standards for 3D rendering. This is especially
important for low-cost "socket 7 PCs" with less powerful CPUs. The Hercules
Thriller CONSPIRACYTM is targeted for mainstream consumer applications in
the 3D gaming and 3D business markets.
The Hercules Thriller CONSPIRACYTM is a 2D/3D add-on graphics card for the
PCI bus, with a 230 MHz DAC, 8MB high-performance SGRAM display memory, and
an additional 1MB of on-board cache (9MB in total). The Hercules Thriller
CONSPIRACYTM supports 2D graphics resolutions up to 1600x1200 at 90 Hz
refresh rate and 3D graphics resolutions up to 1024x768/16bit double
buffered and Z-buffered. The Hercules Thriller CONSPIRACYTM will start
shipping at end of June '98 at an estimated retail price of $149.
Accelerating the Complete 3D Pipeline
The performance bottleneck of today's 3D applications can be attributed to
the limited 3D support in the main system processor. In a typical
application, the creation of a 3D image consists of 4 steps: (1) geometry
set-up (calculation of objects/triangles in the view port); (2) lighting;
(3) triangle set-up (break down of triangles into pixels) and; (4)
rasterization (effects such as filtering, fog, transparency, specular
highlights and perspective correction). First generation 3D accelerators
implemented the rasterization directly in hardware. Second generation 3D
technology, such as Rendition's V2200, added triangle set-up, still leaving
the geometry and lighting to be executed by the computer's main processor.
Moving these functions to a second, specialized geometry and lighting
processor, such as Fujitsu's FGX-1TM, will result in significant 3D
performance improvements without requiring the use of faster main
processors.
The Fujitsu FGX-1 is a 32-bit floating-point/integer arithmetic front-end
processor, which integrates a PCI interface and a PCI bridge to communicate
with Rendition's V2200. It features a highly optimized "parallel processing"
and "8 stage (4 operation stages) pipeline" architecture to execute geometry
and lighting at an impressive internal data transfer rate of up to 800
MB/sec (400 MOPS/750k polygons/sec.).
Both the input data stream and the output data stream are double buffered
while the Fujitsu FGX-1's overall data transfer time is virtually zero. To
further enhance the overall 3D performance, Hercules uses an additional 1MB
of SGRAM as a cache between
Fujitsu's FGX-1 and Rendition's V2200. In 2D operation, the Fujitsu FGX-1
works in "transparent mode" without any performance degradation.
Hercules believes that the Hercules Thriller CONSPIRACYTM can produce up to
two times the 3D frame rate of conventional second generation 3D
accelerators. This is true in virtually all 3D games and 3D Windows
applications supporting either OpenGL (e.g. games taking advantage of the
Quake engine) or Rendition Rredline, running on socket 7 computers.
The Hercules Thriller CONSPIRACYTM allows owners of AMD, Cyrix, IBM and
Intel based Socket 7 computers to take full advantage of its performance
improvements without the expense of purchasing a complete new system. The
Hercules Rendition V2200/Fujitsu FGX-1 solution is a mechanism that offloads
the bulk of the work from the host CPU, which results in a dramatic increase
in overall performance. "This new technology will represent a major shift
for consumers of PC graphics," said Jay Eisenlohr, Vice President of
Business Development for Rendition. "In the 3D market, performance continues
to increase up to 3X with each generation of technology, requiring users to
purchase expensive new computers to keep up with the industry's
developments. This new technology will provide an inexpensive way to obtain
the best performance, by allowing gamers to buy a simple add-in card that
brings them up to speed instantaneously."
