Penstar Systems heeft haar State of 3D artikel aangevuld met wat nieuwe interessante informatie over de aankomende 3D accelerators van 3dfx.
Binnenkort zal het bedrijf de weinig imponerende VSA-200 gaan releasen, da's een goedkope versie van de VSA-100 puur gericht op de OEM markt. Hij zal een 64-bits brede memory bus krijgen en DDR RAM ondersteunen:
Many have heard about the other "tapeout" that occurred this summer, but it is nothing to get really excited about. The VSA-200 should be released shortly, but again it is not the performance part many were expecting. Instead this is simply a shrunk version of the VSA-100, but it has the 64 bit memory bus for the value market. It is unknown how this performs, or what speeds it will run at. Currently it is simply a low-power, budget graphics chip that may be able to utilize DDR SDRAM. Do not expect to see this product in retail, as it is squarely aimed at the OEM market. I was also disappointed with this, as I wanted the VSA-200 to be a high performance part with DDR support at a full 128 bits (eg. 200 Mhz V5 5500's with 200 Mhz SDR SDRAM and no external power connector nor active cooling). [break]Interessanter wordt de Rampage die al zo'n 2 jaar in ontwikkeling is en voor het eerst eens niet gebruik zal maken van de 3dfx Voodoo architectuur. De chip zal gabfriceerd worden via een 0.18micron process en kloksnelheden moeten halen van 200 tot 250MHz. Voor geheugen zal uitsluitend gebruik worden gemaakt van DDR SDRAM. De Rampage zal verder een hele emmer nieuwe effecten gaan ondersteunen zoals bijvoorbeeld Pixel Shaders, higher order surfaces en wederom de Thee Buffer:[/break] What we can expect is a new breed of graphics chip. 3dfx has abandoned the classic Voodoo architecture and are trying something new. According to sources the Rampage will display new texture and blending modes (Pixel Shading), support for higher order surface modes, the 3dfx T-buffer, and of course transform and lighting. Due to the radical redesign, this chip will feature fewer transistors for each feature than previous chips, therefore we can expect the Rampage chip to weigh in at around 25 million transistors (a bit higher than they expected).
[...] Rampage will be a complete redesign, and a much more efficient and fast design. Other suggestions place each Rampage chip to have 4 pixel pipelines, as well as the ability to perform pixel shading operations in conjunction with DX8. This will also give the ability to process 1 quad textured pixel per clock. Speed was always a goal with this chip, and here is where the 2+ years and half the R&D money have gone. While the VSA-100 will run at 166 on a .25E process, the Rampage will be able to run significantly faster (200 to 250 Mhz range) due to speed optimizations in the design and a likely die process shrink to .18 micron.
[...] The texturing features of Rampage are nothing less than impressive. 3dfx calls the texture unit the "Texture Computer" which will actually have a good deal of programmability to it. Rampage can do 8 layer texturing (in 2 clocks thanks to "loopback"), but due to the multi-sample nature of the chip, it possibly can do a four textured pixel with four subsamples in one clock, or an eight layered pixel with four subsamples in two clocks. This "Texture Computer" is quite flexible and will be able to do a lot of interesting tricks. [break] Verder zal Rampage ook een of meerdere T&L units meekrijgen in de vorm van de 'Sage' wat staat voor Scalable Architecture Geometry Engine:[/break] Sage looks to be more powerful than initially thought. It will be the first programmable geometry engine for the consumer market, and looks to have phenomenal performance for a T&L unit. Each chip can process up to and possibly above 25 lights and something around 30 million triangles/sec. Remember, these chips are scalable, but we will not see a board with more than two on board (otherwise the bandwidth limitations of AGP would become too great as these chips would require incredible amounts of data to work effectively).[break]Fear wordt de opvolger van de Rampage en zal als eerste de bandbreedte besparende techniek van Gigapixel gebruiken. Voor de geometry engine zal waarschijnlijk nog steeds gebruik worden gemaakt van de Sage:[/break] Fear is the codename for the product after Rampage. This will be the first product from 3dfx that is a fusion of Rampage and GigaPixel technology. Here we will get the pixel shading operations, as well as the T-buffer effects, with the bandwidth saving technologies brought by GigaPixel. This will help to lower transistor count as well as be able to use cheaper memory due to lower bandwidth needs. This again will be scalable and will probably still use the programmable Sage geometry processor as a separate unit.
Verder wordt in het artikel ook nog eens bevestigd dat de NV20 van nVidia pas in de lente van 2001 op de markt zal komen...
Wij danken QuiXilver voor de tip!