PRESS RELEASE
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
Sharon Jordan (205) 730-1162
sljordan@ingr.com
Aggie Frizzell (205) 730-6139
alfrizze@ingr.com
Tami Bhaumik (415) 335-5900, ext. 177
tami@rendition.com
HUNTSVILLE, AL, Sept. 16, 1996 - Intergraph Computer Systems' newly formed Consumer Products Division today announced Reactor, a new 3D game card aimed at the exploding market for interactive 3D games. The announcement marks the first foray into the 3D games market for Intergraph who is the recognized leader in high-end 3D graphics technology for professional content creators on the Windows NT platform. The Reactor game card incorporates the Vérité™ V1000 chip from Rendition®, which enjoys broad support throughout the 3D games industry and serves as a platform for the most popular 3D games titles on the market. Reactor's Vérité V1000 chip is also compatible with Direct3D, Microsoft's set of API services for real-time 3D graphics on the PC, ensuring compatibility with over 100 3D game titles developed using Direct3D.
"Reactor provides not only the high quality 3D graphics that customers expect from Intergraph, but also 2D performance for DOS games, 3D in a window, and compatibility with a huge selection of popular 3D game titles," said Wade Patterson, president of Intergraph Computer Systems. "We're also excited to have Ingram Micro, as the first distributor for Reactor. Our agreement with Ingram Micro, the premiere distributor of consumer computing products, ensures that Reactor will be available to the widest possible audience at the lowest possible price."
Michael Boich, president and CEO at Rendition, said, "We at Rendition are proud to have our Vérité V1000 technology adopted by Intergraph, a name synonymous with high-quality 3D graphics. The Reactor game card offers games enthusiasts an affordable way to get the most out of their 3D game titles."
High-Performance 3D Technology Specifically Designed for 3D Games
Reactor offers some of the most impressive capabilities ever offered on a consumer game card, with application throughput of up to 600,000 25-pixel Gouraud-shaded, mono-source lit, bilinear-filtered texture-mapped triangles per second, rendered in true color with sub-pixel and sub-texel accurate positioning. This high performance allows games developers to reach new levels of quality in games development. "Intergraph has given our developers the most flexible and responsive creative environment possible," said John Carmack, chief technical officer at id Software, Inc., the creators of the popular game, Quake. "Reactor is an excellent consumer-level board, and demonstrates the completeness of Intergraph's 3D graphics solution from game creation to recreation."
The ultimate result for 3D games users is striking visual imagery, real-time interactivity and heightened realism, at an extraordinary price for the level of performance that Reactor delivers. Reactor also provides the following features that are essential for a top-quality 3D games experience:
While other game cards on the market offer some of these features, many rely on the PC's host processor to perform these CPU-intensive rendering functions. The result is reduced frame rates and lower levels of realism and interactivity. Reactor's Vérité V1000 chip has a powerful RISC core that offloads 3D graphics functions from the host CPU, allowing the CPU to carry out other game functions. What this means for game users is a more interactive, real-time 3D game experience at the a great price/performance point.
Compatible with Hundreds of 3D Game Titles
More than 20 3D titles have already been ported & demonstrated with Reactor technology, including some of the most popular 3D games on the market, such as Quake, Descent II, Fatal Racing, IndyCar II, Zone Raiders, Actua Soccer and Microsoft's Hellbender. "Intergraph's new Reactor board will be a top Quake performer," says id's Carmack, "and will be fully exploited with custom microcode for the onboard RISC processor."
Reactor is also compatible with over 100 Direct3D titles on the market, and supports a wide variety of developer APIs, including RealityLab, Speedy3D™, and Intel 3DR. The highly flexible design of Reactor's Vérité V1000 chip also ensures maximum adaptability to future changes in the rapidly evolving entertainment market.
Outstanding 2D Performance for Mainstream PC Applications
Reactor is an exceptionally versatile card that offers not only dedicated 3D games performance but also full 2D performance for standard PC applications. This is an important feature for game users, most of whom use their PC for other tasks such as word-processing and home finance. Reactor's Vérité V1000 processor incorporates a VGA core that enables backwards compatibility with DOS-based games, which are still popular with games users. Drivers are available for optimized operation with Windows 3.11, Windows 95, DirectDraw, and Direct3D.
Accelerated Digital Video Playback
Reactor offers YUV-to-RGB color space conversion, accommodating the growing popularity of digital video for personal computers. The Reactor's Vérité V1000 processor provides image scaling with bilinear interpolation for smooth playback of full-screen, full-motion video. This capability also enhances 3D games that use digital video texture maps for photorealistic surfaces.
Pricing and Availability
Reactor 3D game cards will be distributed exclusively by Ingram Micro and will ship to Ingram on October 1. Reactor should be available in retail outlets shortly thereafter. The Reactor with 4MB of on-board memory, will be bundled with at least two premiere 3D game titles and will be value-priced at $199.
Intergraph Background Information
Intergraph Computer Systems is the world leader in 3D graphics technology, products, and services for Windows NT. Intergraph develops, manufactures, sells, and supports computer systems for the creative and technical desktop as well as servers, networking, and interoperability products for IT solutions. Hardware products include Pentium Pro processor/Windows NT-based graphics workstations and servers. A member of the Fortune 1000, Intergraph is the world's largest company dedicated to supplying interactive computer graphics systems.
Intergraph® is a registered trademark of Intergraph Corporation. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners. Rendition is a registered trademark and Vérité and Speedy3D are trademarks of Rendition, Inc.
Rendition can be reached at http://www.rendition.com.