Peter Wayner
The computer industry is preparing to bring 3-D graphics capabilities that are usually associated with high-end workstations to desktop PCs by standardizing on new 3-D-enhanced video hardware, software APIs, and operating-system enhancements. PC games may never be the same.
The 3-D market demands superior numerical performance and blazing pixel manipulation. The processor must constantly compute how a full 3-D object will look from the viewer's perspective.
PCs based on CPUs like the Pentium or the PowerPC can handle the floating-point arithmetic necessary for calculating the sine and cosine that make up the equations that govern the lighting and movement of objects in 3-D. Game console vendors like Sony are introducing new game platforms like the PlayStation that feature 3-D-
capable CPUs.
However, PCs will also need to change. An important addition will be a 3-D graphics acceleration card. Companies like 3Dlabs (San Jose, CA), Matrox (Quebec, Canada), ATI Technologies (Thornhill, Ontario), and Cirrus Logic (Fremont, CA) will release chip sets this year that will give low-end PCs substantial 3-D rendering capability.
The more expensive boards using full-featured chips, such as the Glint chip from 3Dlabs, are able to replicate much of the power of the flashy high-end Silicon Graphics workstations with a video board costing about $2000. Newer boards will probably achieve the lower-price point by reducing the number of bits used per pixel, which reduces the number of transistors in the chip and the amount of expensive VRAM that holds the image. 3Dlabs is working with Creative Labs, the SoundBlaster company, to develop a new, lower-cost game enhancement standard.
Software vendors are exploring many APIs that will let developers create programs for a variety of ch
ip sets. For a time, the OpenGL API appeared to be an early default standard. Microsoft has incorporated OpenGL into Windows NT and the unreleased Windows 95.
But many companies prefer other APIs over OpenGL. Autodesk, for instance, uses the HOOPS graphics language in AutoCAD. And game software companies discovered that OpenGL was too large and took up too much memory.
A number of smaller APIs are available, including BRender from Argonaut (Menlo Park, CA), Reality Lab from RenderMorphics (London, U.K.), and Renderware from Criterion (Sunnyvale, CA). Each lets the programmer define objects as collections of polygons and choose the lighting and positioning needed to set the scene. They also include features like collision detection and interpolated motion that make game development easier. The more advanced features incorporated in OpenGL (e.g., those that render smoothly curved surfaces and other complex objects) are avoided.
Companies realize that the game market is huge and that people
will pay top dollar for entertaining software with flashy effects. The games market, says Jeff Camp, product marketing manager for Windows multimedia at Microsoft, is potentially ``illions with a
B
in front of it.''
3-D DDI
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-- Developers write Windows applications using the API of their choice.
-- The API translates higher level applications calls into lower level primitives (e.g., triangles and quadrilaterals).
-- The 3-D DDI (and the device driver) takes the primitives and other information and accesses the hardware to perform the required drawing.
Developers Catch the 3-D Wave
