Egham, Surrey-based 3Dlabs Ltd says Microsoft Corp’s purchase of London-based RenderMorphics Ltd (CI No 2,610) will push its Glint chip technology further into the fun-and-games market. 3Dlabs is clearly attempting to establish its technology as the de facto standard for personal computer-based graphics accelerators in much the same way that Singapore-based Creative Technology Ltd, which has a minority stake in 3Dlabs, has come to dominate the sound board market with its SoundBlaster. It believes that Microsoft’s decision to embed RenderMorphics’ Reality Lab software into Windows (CI No 2,611) will accelerate the uptake of the Glint chip outside the computer-aided design market and in the vast games market. RenderMorphics and 3Dlabs have been working together to integrate the Reality Lab application programming interface with the Glint processor. The idea is that graphics boards using the Glint chip will be optimised in their support for Reality Lab, which will combine the software geometry pr ocessing of the application programming interface with the pixel processing silicon. 3Dlabs says it is without real competition in the personal computer-based computer-aided design market, saying it hears that an equivalent device from Cirrus Logic Inc is virtually dead, but it says the games market is, and will be, altogether more competitive, and it fully intends to be there first to set the standard. It is also working with Creative Technology, which has a good relationship with many games makers, and 3Dlabs says it’s prepared to be quite aggressive about establishing the Glint chip as the standard. 3Dlabs, which managed to ship its much fanfared Glint chip in time for CeBit in Hannover, was present at one of the US stands at CeBit trying to pu t on an American appearance to potential customers.

US face

Chris Harris, the company’s product marketing manager, said that despite its stand among the Americans, the 3Dlabs research and development was definitely staying in Egham, but that with most of its business being with Japanese and US companies, its US office in San Jose and its US face were important to its success. And that success is considerable, based as it is on providing workstation-class three-dimensional graphical acceleration for personal computers: at CeBit, four companies demonstrated Glint-based Peripheral Component Interconnect-bus graphics accelerators. Elsa GmbH announced the Gloria, which uses the Glint 300SX and S3 Inc’s Vision968, and is aimed at the computer-aided design market. Houston, Texas-based Omnicomp Graphics Corp announced the 3Demon, which has actually been shipping since January, based on the Glint300TX. Spea Software AG expanded its line of plug-in three-dimensional acceleration boards with the FireGL that uses the 300SX and S3’s Vision968. And Richardson, Texas-based STB Systems Inc unveiled the Power3D, which has been in development since last summer (CI No 2,483). 3Dlabs says it plans to go public, but has not strict schedule.