🚀 go-pugleaf

donra...@aol.com (DonRawlins) wrote:

>3DO will be offering the entire M2 chipset as a  PC 3D accelerator.

>Check their recent 'diversification' press release.

Cool- can you point us to a specific web site for this, however (I
presmue 3DO's, but I don't have the address).  I know 3DO "liscences"
out its technology, but I haven't heard of any plans by a third party
to make a specific PC board.

As well, I think to have a sucess as such in light of the competition,
it would have to be more than just sticking a 3DO M2 inside your PC
like Creative's previous effort.  It should also work as a standard
Windows accelerator through 95's 3D DDI, it would have to have VGA
support, and I don't think the chipset can handle the high resolutions
that a typical Windows accelerator can.  As well, using the 602 for
geometry processing would require specific programming, 95's 3D
interface only handles the rasterization process. So on top of the M2
stuff, you would likely have to have a Windows accelerator chip on
board as well.  And to access memory at the same rate as in the M2,
all 6-8 megs would have to be on the card.  Sounds like a major
engineering hassle that would make the card end up costing more than a
pure M2, even if you could get it to work.

Other than lobotomizing your PC into having a M2-on-a-card and just
taking it over, I don't see how it could be done to integrate more
smoothly into a PC and become a PC graphics cards, which is what these
PC 3D accelerator cards already do.  Getting all that hardware not
meant for the PC and conforming to PC/Windows standards would be a
momumentous effort.  We'll see, but with the rate of competition in
the PC marketplace, I don't think we'll need to stick an M2 inside our
PC's to get that performance.  And hell- we want _PC_ games with great
graphics, not console games with great graphics.  I won't place any
heavy money on it happening anytime soon- or selling well.