And what a product it should be: 3dfx’s first truly new rendering core since the original Voodoo, the chip code-named “Napalm,” will be revealed to 3dfx’s favorites in the media first thing Monday morning at Comdex. Here’s a bit from the press release:
At COMDEX ’99, 3dfx Interactive® Inc. (Nasdaq: TDFX – news) will hold a press conference at 8:00 a.m. on Monday, November 15, to announce some of the features behind their next generation graphics technology, codenamed “Napalm,” to select members of the media.
Chief among these features will be a focus on fill-rate and the ability to achieve over one billion pixels per second. With fill-rate come benefits such as higher resolution, faster speeds, greater application complexity and the ability to display high quality 32bpp rendering at 60+ frames per second (FPS) at ultra high resolutions. All of these attributes equate to better image quality and highly realistic environments.
In addition to technology demonstrations, the company will announce plans for board-level configurations of the “Napalm” line. “Napalm” is the company’s long-awaited follow-up to the successful Voodoo3(TM) line announced at COMDEX ’98. According to PC Data, the Voodoo3 line of products have held the #1 retail position since they began shipping last April.
Note that 3dfx is big on their product’s fill rate, claiming “over one billion pixels per second” from their new tech. These numbers are just marketing hype, and they generally represent peak performance, not sustained, real-world performance. With that caveat in mind, remember that NVIDIA claims under 500 million pixels (“megapixels”) per second for their GeForce 256 cards. If 3dfx truly has double the fill rate, it’s going to be a very interesting Christmas in the graphics market.
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