3Dlabs Inc., Ltd., a leading innovator in professional visual processing, today announced a compelling combination of features and value with the Wildcat® Realizm™ 100 and 200 professional graphics accelerators. The AGP 8x-based Wildcat Realizm 100 and 200 pair the new, cutting-edge Wildcat Realizm Visual Processing Unit (VPU) with up to 512 MB of onboard GDDR3 memory, more than any competitive offering to date. Like the powerful Wildcat Realizm 800 PCI Express-based solution announced today in a separate release, the Wildcat 100 and 200 deliver industry-leading programmability to OpenGL® Shading Language and Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 HLSL shader programs. The Wildcat Realizm 100, with an MSRP of US$1,249, and the Wildcat Realizm 200, with twice the memory yet priced more than 25 percent lower than the closest competitor, at only US$1,599, are slated for availability this August. 3Dlabs is a wholly owned subsidiary of Creative Technology Ltd. (NASDAQ: CREAF).
“Today we announced the industry“s best value in AGP 8x professional graphics, providing more features and onboard memory than any competitive offering,“ said Hock Leow, president of 3Dlabs. “The 3Dlabs Wildcat Realizm 100 and 200 now represent the best choice for AGP 8x workstation graphics, and with the Wildcat Realizm 800 for PCI Express that we announced today, we will lead the workstation graphics industry in performance as well.“
“With the launch of Wildcat Realizm, 3Dlabs is bringing great value and performance once again to the workstation graphics industry and offering a compelling top-to-bottom family of solutions,“ said Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research. “Now every professional in CAD or DCC can look at 3Dlabs for a level of productivity to suit their budget and needs.“
Wildcat Realizm 200
The Wildcat Realizm 200 boasts a VPU and 512 MB of onboard memory, the largest graphics memory available on an AGP 8x-based graphics accelerator to effortlessly handle large models and textures. Wildcat Realizm 200 is equipped with two, dual-link DVI-I connectors, which are ideal for driving multiple high-resolution professional displays from a single graphics accelerator, including the dual high-end 9.2 Megapixel displays.
Wildcat Realizm 100
The AGP 8x-based Wildcat Realizm 100 integrates a VPU and 256 MB of 256-bit high-speed GDDR3 memory for over 32 GB/second of bandwidth. Wildcat Realizm 100 is equipped with two, single-link DVI-I connectors, two DVI to VGA display adaptors and a stereo connector. Wildcat Realizm 100 delivers a solid 50 frames per second score on the Viewperf 7.1.1 UGS-03 benchmark.
Field Upgradeable Framelock and Genlock Support
The Wildcat Realizm Multiview Option Kit integrates 3Dlabs“ fifth-generation Genlock and Framelock capabilities for seamless synchronization between displays and systems for visual simulation, virtual reality and broadcast applications. To add Framelock and Genlock capabilities to the Wildcat Realizm 200, the kit offers an interface card, which occupies the space of an additional slot, and includes both a jumper cable to connect to the graphics accelerator and a six-foot Framelock cable. Available in August, the kit has an MSRP of US$650.
Professional Functionality
Wildcat Realizm consistently delivers professional-level features across the entire family.
Advanced Floating-Point Processing: Wildcat Realizm graphics accelerators process up to 128-bit pixels with full 32-bit floating point per component accuracy for the highest color fidelity. 128-bit pixels can be seamlessly converted to and from 64-bit pixels with 16-bit floating point per component accuracy to provide a full floating-point computing environment with optimized storage requirements. 64-bit pixels can be directly displayed without the need for conversion.
Extended Virtual Memory:
Wildcat Realizm technology supports an extended virtual memory space up to 256 GB for leveraging the capabilities of 64-bit systems. With full graphics memory demand paging, designers can effortlessly manipulate larger models faster than ever before.
Industry“s- Largest Shader Program Storage: Fragment shaders of up to 256 K instructions with full flow-control, can be effortlessly executed from virtual memory.
Sophisticated Texture Access: Shader programs can access up to 32 textures simultaneously to efficiently process a large number of inputs in a single pass.
Reliable and Quiet Thermal Operation: An innovative self-contained thermal solution provides quiet and reliable operation in any system chassis by enclosing the air space of a second slot to create a highly efficient air flow.
Texture Compression: Wildcat Realizm graphics accelerators will also ship with support for S3's texture compession technology, S3TC, which Creative Technology licensed from S3.
Acuity Driver Suite
3Dlabs Acuity™ drivers deliver professional-level OpenGL 1.5 support, including an optimized OpenGL Shading Language compiler on both Windows and Linux®, together with full DirectX 9.0 HLSL (Vertex Shader 2.0 and Pixel Shader 3.0) support on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Acuity drivers will also be available with full 64-bit drivers for Windows XP and Linux in the third quarter of 2004