B13 Arcobel Imagine
Description
This item is from the PC 3D Graphics Accelerators FAQ, by Blair MacIntyre with numerous contributions by others. (v1.2).
B13 Arcobel Imagine
The following information was provided by Peter Van Ackeren, Technical Support Engineer at Arcobel (ossfs1!pva@relay.NL.net).
Features
* Based on the 60 Mhz Imagine VLIW (Very Long Instruction Word) ultra high speed graphics and image processor
* 8000 MIPS pixel processing speed
* Equipped with 8 MB of VRAM, allowing display sizes up to 1600x1280 in true colour (32-bit)
* Image size up to 8 Mpixels (e.g. 4K x 2K x 8-bit)
* 24, 16,or 8 bit images can be combined with an 8 or 16 bit overlay plane
* Supports Microsoft Windows '95 and Windows/NT 3.5 operating systems
* Provides Windows acceleration using optimized downloaded software
* Simultaneous support for Windows acceleration and Imagine native mode graphics applications
* Multiple boards in one system can be synchronised with one common signal up to 140 MHz
* Industry standard 32-bit PCI interface Rev.2.1 supports up to 132 MB/s (master DMA burst transfers)
* Direct memory access capabilities
* Memory & I/O expansion bus (up to 240 Mpixel/s bandwidth)
* Optional broadcast standard video frame grabber (Imagine Capture Board)
Major Application Areas
* 3D-Graphics
* Multi Media Applications
* Broadcast Video Editing and Special Effects
* True Colour Desktop Publishing (DTP)
* Professional Photo Retouching
* Raster Image Processing (RIP)
Board Architecture
* The Imagine PCI-Board uses the 32-bit PCI local bus providing compatibility with current Intel `486 & Pentium based PC's and PowerPC MacIntosh systems. Configuration conforms to Plug & Play specifications.
* The AMCC S5933 PCI Local Bus interface handles all accesses to on-board locations and provides DMA support between the host memory and the Imagine FIFO.
* The board has 3 separate memory spaces : up to 8 MB of image memory (VRAM), 2 or 4 MB of data/texture memory and 256kB of instruction memory (synchronous SRAM)
* The Texas Instruments TVP3026 Video Interface Palette chip provides RAMDAC and color key functions plus a hardware cursor
* SVGA pass-through for alternated SVGA and native mode graphics
* On-board Video-In connector supports optional true colour real-time Imagine Capture Board
Supported Operating Systems & Graphics Standards
* Software drivers for Windows '95 and Windows/NT 3.5
* Windows `95 GDI, 3D-DDI, Intel 3DR, as well as the forthcoming OpenGL for Windows and directX
* Imagine native development environment available for Windows '95, Windows/NT 3.5, Solaris 1.0 and Linux
Imagine SDE - The Software Development Environment
* The SDE bundles all software tools to develop Imagine native code applications and customer specific graphics libraries:
o `GCC' ..... GNU ANSI-C Compiler
o `IMAS' .... Hierarchical Instruction Set Assembler
o `IMLIB' ... Library tool
o `IMLINK' .. Linker / loader
o `IMCOMM' .. Communication tools
o `IMSIM' ... Visual Simulator / Debugger
o `Winbug' .. Console based debugger
* Imagine Native Software Libraries
o `IMCORE' .. Memory management, arithmetic, C initialization, text
display, graphic core and timer functions
o `I1D' ..... Line drawing, bitblits and fonts
o `I2D' ..... 2D graphics image manipulation functions, e.g.
arithmetic, copy, raster, relational, blending, affine
transformation and convolution functions
o `I3D' ..... 3D texture mapped graphics, e.g. vertex based and
rendering functions
o `IMCC' .... Image compression / decompression and conversion
functions
o `IIL/SIV' . Intermediate library providing C-macros for vector
processing and fixed point arithmetic
For more information please: Call: (+31) 73 6444.144 Fax: (+31) 73 6444.150 E-mail: sales-ag@arcobel.nl
or write to:
Arcobel Graphics B.V. P.O. Box 3523 DM `s Hertogenbosch The Netherlands
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