CS04 ARTIST Graphics 3GA Graphics Processor
Description
This item is from the PC 3D Graphics Accelerators FAQ, by Blair MacIntyre with numerous contributions by others. (v1.2).
CS04 ARTIST Graphics 3GA Graphics Processor
The 3GA is a 2D and 3D graphics coprocessor with a fast VGA core which means that boards designed around the 3GA will not only run the next generation of software, but will run the software programs of today faster than ever before. Bus support for PCI, ISA, and MicroChannel means that the 3GA is one of the most flexible graphics chips available, as well as the most powerful.
The 3GA's features include built-in Windows acceleration, 2D and 3D lines, flat-shading, Gouraud-shading, and texture-mapping. Initial benchmarks show that the 3GA is significantly faster than the S3 968 Windows accelerator.
Technical information about the chip design is also available, and if you have Acrobat, you can view the full 24 page datasheet.
Information on the 3GA can be obtained from the ARTIST Graphics home page at http://artgraphics.com/
The technical specs below were copied directly from that page.
Features
High performance 3D graphics processor
* 16 bit Z-buffer for automatic hidden surface removal
* Secondary 16 bit Z-buffer for arbitrary frontal Z clipping
* Gouraud shading for realistic 3D rendering
* Dithering for superior shading at 8 and 16 bits per pixel
* Texture mapping to map 2D textures onto 3D surfaces
* Six arithmetic raster operations (Add, Add with Saturation, Sub, Sub
with Saturation, Min, Max)
Powerful 2D GUI accelerator
* Accelerated drawing at 8, 16, 24 and 32 bits per pixel * 256 Microsoft Windows raster operations in hardware * Color expanding BitBLTs provide extremely fast text * On-chip 8 x 8 color expanding pattern * Variable sized color pattern up to 64 x 64 pixels * Rectangular and arbitrary region clipping * Multicolored "styled" lines and polylines * Eight stencil modes
Display controller
* VRAM based display controller for maximum performance * Supports displays up to 2048 x 2048 pixels * Refresh rates up to 90Hz at 1600 x 1200 resolution * VESA DPMS support for green applications
Video interface
* Shared frame buffer interface for multimedia * Supports S3 Vision/VA full video with a shared frame buffer
Flexible local memory
* 64 bit wide memory bus * VRAM block write support * Supports 1 to 4 megabytes VRAM display memory * Supports 0 to 8 megabytes of off screen DRAM for Z-buffers, fonts, etc.
Single chip accelerator
* On-chip 32 bit VGA for fast DOS performance * Support for Microsoft Plug & Play ISA specification * Interfaces directly to VESA VL-Bus and PCI with no glue logic * Interfaces to ISA bus with two 74F245 buffers * 128 byte host FIFO for passing data and commands * 240 pin plastic quad flat pack * 50 MHz clock frequency
Software drivers
* Windows 3.1, Windows NT, Windows '95, OS/2 2.1 and OS/2 Warp
* AutoCAD
* Hoops
* OpenGL
* 3D APIs: Argonaut BRender, Criterion Software RenderWare, Rendermorphic
Reality Lab, Inter 3DR
System Overview
A graphics system designed around the 3GA graphics accelerator requires only VRAM, a video DAC, clock generator, and a small number of external buffers. The 3GA graphics accelerator supports a 64 bit wide data path to its local memory array and contains interfaces to an external clock generator, DAC, and ROM BIOS.
Performance
Estimated performance, based on 8 bits per pixel, 10 pixel lines, 50 pixel triangles, 90 MHz Pentium CPU, PCI bus.
2D lines........................................1,600,000 lines/second 3D lines (shades, Z-buffered).....................280,000 lines/second 2D texture mapped triangles........................75,000 triangles/second 3D texture mapped triangles (Z-buffered)...........65,000 triangles/second 3D Gouraud shaded triangles (Z-buffered)..........110,000 triangles/second Screen-to-screen BitBLTs.......................80,000,000 pixels/second Memory-to-screen BitBLTs (color expanding)....245,000,000 pixels/second Fill rate...................................1,100,000,000 pixels/second
CONTACT INFORMATION:
You can contact the ARTIST Sales Team on the Web, or by phone at:
Tel: (800) 627 8478
(612) 631 7800
Fax: (612) 631 7802
or by sending email to sales@artgraphics.com
COMMENTS: There is OpenGL support under NT.
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