High-Performance 3-D Coming to PCs

Dave Andrews and Dom Pancucci

Applications like 3-D model animation, stock-market visualization, and other high-end programs usually found only on expensive workstations should start appearing this year on less expensive 80x86-based PCs. Thanks to board-level OpenGL graphics accelerators coming soon from companies like Austek Microsystems and DuPont Pixel, system vendors will be able to build relatively inexpensive PCs capable of delivering workstation-like performance on applications running atop OpenGL.

Silicon Graphics' OpenGL API makes it easier for developers to program such applications and creates the hooks for hardware accelerators. These inexpensive graphics accelerators, when working side by side with CISC or RISC processors and OpenGL-based applications, will make it possible to deliver a 3-D processing platform at an affordable price.

At Comdex, Austek Microsystems (Fremont, CA) introduced its A1060 graphics accelerator, which the company expects to begin production on in the first quarter and sell for about $100 each to OEMs in "moderate" volume. The goal of the company, according to Chris Russell, marketing manager of graphics products at Austek, is to provide a low-cost platform that allows the easy porting of high-end applications to higher-volume platforms. Such graphics accelerators can off-load the central CPU from having to write pixels to a frame buffer and shade them and let the main CPU and FPU concentrate on true math operations (e.g., matrix transformations).

DuPont Pixel's Glint chip will accelerate OpenGL 3-D graphics running under Windows NT and Unix. Osman Kent, executive vice president of R&D at DuPont Pixel (San Jose, CA, and Egham, U.K.) says the Glint chip will deliver advanced graphics performance on machines ranging in price from $ 3500 up to $35,000. Glint is not expected to start sampling until the middle of the year.

Austek's Russell cautions that these new 3-D platforms are not restricted to the technical market. "Developers of entertainment and education applications may also see this platform as a very attractive one to write 3-D programs," he says. "As board-level products begin to emerge based on our technology and Silicon Graphics' OpenGL, then the entertainment developers would see this as a very attractive combination to write high-performance, low-cost 3-D games."